Chapter Nineteen
NINETEEN
Around her, people were screaming.
The street’s calm devolved into chaos. In seconds, people were running, knocking one another over as they tried to flee.
“Evans, come on!”
Vesper felt Maximilian grab her by the upper arm and drag her away.
They’d almost reached the end of Main Street.
People were darting left and right down the intersecting road.
She was all right, Maximilian was all right, but …
a bolt of white-hot panic knifed through her.
What about Tom and Nell? Rory and Ronaldo?
She dug the heels of her boots into the ground, forcing Maximilian to stop. He stared at her, bewildered.
“We need to get out of here, Evans,” he said urgently. “It’s not safe.”
“I can’t leave.” Vesper shook her head. “I came here with other people from the Globe. I can’t go without making sure none of them is still in the market. You don’t have to stay, but I’m going back.”
For a moment, Maximilian seemed to wrestle with himself. Then he inhaled sharply. “Let’s go.”
Vesper turned and headed back down Main Street. Several vendor tables had been overturned, and it looked as though several people had been knocked over or roughed up in the melee. She looked up and down the street.
“Tom! Nell! Rory! Ronaldo!”
No answer. Vesper’s panic grew more acute.
Several of the labor protesters from earlier were being cuffed by police, a few of them shouting obscenities.
She looked away. Her eyes had just caught on something at the very end of the street.
Several uniformed police officers were standing in a circle around something, someone.
She made out Chief Stettner in the midst of them.
Vesper’s pulse leapt to her throat as she drew closer.
At the sharp click of her boots on the pavement, Stettner turned around. His gaze was wary.
“Miss Evans,” he said as she ran forward. “Stand back. This is a police—”
Vesper ignored the police chief as she pushed past him, then froze.
Charles Belver was lying on the ground dead, a single bullet hole in his chest.