Chapter 13 #2
“Ah, these horrible little Chianti bottles with the baskets on them. Leo used to have them on every table.”
“You knew Leo?”
“Of course. I introduced him to your father when I recruited McDowell to work for Uzkapostan.” He swallowed half his wine in one sip.
“We were quite a team, your father and I. I had access to information, he had the ability to decode it. It was un-fucking-believable what we were able to accomplish.”
“Until the Dermody went down.”
He nodded. “Our greatest triumph, but we were discovered when they traced the leak to my office. Fortunately for me, everything pointed to your father.” He winked at her.
“But you were both guilty.”
“No,” he said, his eyes widening. “We were both heroes.”
He picked up the gun and twirled it around by the trigger guard.
“Your father went back to Uzkapostan and everything was fine, until he started blackmailing me. At first I figured I was helping a comrade survive on the lam. I knew your father wouldn’t turn on me.
But over the years he has gotten greedy. It is affecting my bottom line.
So I plugged the security hole in the Navy’s procurement database, knowing he’d come out of hiding to get you to fix it.”
“You’ve been trying to track him down ever since.”
He nodded. “I almost had him that night at Systex. I threw the glass against the wall to try to separate you two.”
“It was you in the elevator!”
He raised his glass. “Indeed.”
“But he got away. So you gave him my address, hoping he would come after me, and you could get to him.”
He pointed at her, a teacher to a star pupil. “Very good. Except he’s not coming to get you,” he began to laugh. “He’s coming to protect you!”
Julie didn’t understand. “He shot me.”
“Your father didn’t shoot you, Julie McDowell.” His evil eyes glittered as he spoke. “I shot you.”
She saw him reach for the gun, but she snatched it off the granite first. Her hand clutched at the metal but failed to get a grip, the weapon dropping to the floor with a heavy rattle. Julie pivoted to retrieve it and Barstow kicked her away, picking up the gun himself.
She ran, her feet hectic as they worked to push her to safety, Barstow’s footsteps thunderous behind her. She darted around one side of the barrier separating the loft from the front door and entered the darkened foyer.
Gunshots exploded just as she reached for the door handle.
A hundred and eighty pounds of weight slammed into her, propelling her into the steel entry door. Julie screamed. The body that crushed her fell to the floor, and she turned to see her father, blood streaming from his neck.
He had been hiding behind the wall, and deliberately placed himself between his daughter and her attacker.
“Daddy!”
His voice was a rasp, barely a sound. “Run!”
“Oh, that’s so precious. A father rushing to save his daughter.” The admiral clucked his tongue. “But it was all for naught, McDowell.” He laughed hysterically. “Because you’re blocking the door!”
Julie saw that he was right. Her father’s body blocked her only escape. In that moment it didn’t matter that she was trapped. All that mattered was that he had not tried to kill her, but had saved her instead.
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered. McDowell took a final racking breath, then he was gone.
Barstow’s cell phone rang and he checked the caller ID before answering it, the gun pointed at Julie. “What is it?” his smile turned to a scowl. “When?” He listened, then hung up the phone. “It seems your boyfriend’s missed his flight to Seattle. I wonder where he could be headed?”
Hank stood on the street outside the apartments, pacing. The door to the building was locked, with no way to ring the individual units. Alarm bells jangled in his brain as he phoned Gwen.
“No, it was definitely open this afternoon,” she said. “Do you think she’s all right?”
“No.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Call 911 first.”
“I will.”
He put the phone back in his pocket and strode to a bank of windows. He took off one shoe and used the heel like a hammer to break the glass, then clear away the shards. The opening was nearly three feet square, and he hoisted himself up and over the wall.
He was in a large empty room with a steel door at the far end. He jogged to it, threw back the lock, and entered a darkened hallway in search of the stairs.
A red exit sign led him to a stairwell, and he took the steps two at a time as fast as his feet would propel him.
Becky’s words tormented him as he climbed. “It was your job to protect her, and you did a shitty job of it!” Flight after flight he flew, breath coming in great gasping whooshes of air as he pushed his body to go faster, get there sooner, prevent what had happened from happening again.
Three deafening gunshots rang out on the other side of the fire door, half a flight from the seventh floor landing.
“Hank doesn’t know where I am.”
Barstow touched his finger to his chin and pursed his lips. “Now, why don’t I believe that?”
“I broke it off, just like you told me to.”
“That was excellent advice on my part. I had to extricate you from your bodyguard. Plus, I don’t think he’s ready to settle down, that one.”
Julie’s attention was drawn to the wall behind Barstow, which wasn’t visible from the rest of the apartment. Unlike the honeyed gold that graced the other walls, this one was taupe.
There would be no cavalry, no knight in shining armor come to rescue her. Gwen had given her firepower, and though that gun was in Barstow’s hands, the gift had little to do with the weapon. The universe raised its mighty sledgehammer and hit Julie Trueblood over the head with it.
Like a movie flashing in the darkness, she saw herself kneel before her father’s body in grief, surreptitiously removing the concealed pistol from the ankle holster she knew he always wore.
A warm feeling surged through her belly, and she knew her father would be happy it was his gun that would save the life he had died trying to protect.
She nodded her head slightly and allowed her lungs to fill with air.
With more faith than she knew she possessed, Julie began to mimic the moves she envisioned in her mind.
The emotions came of their own volition, first her face crumpling in grief.
Her shoulders caved in around herself as racking sobs took her breath away, true feelings overtaking her as she allowed them to come freely to the surface.
Leaning over the body, the last time she would touch this man, she reached around his legs in an awkward embrace. She stealthily slipped the gun from its hiding spot beneath his trouser leg.
Barstow ordered her to stand up, as she knew he would. She bent at the waist, hiding the gun, until she nearly reached her full height and turned on him.
His face fell when he saw what she had found, his eyes hardening as he began to raise his own weapon.
Julie fired three bullets, each of them seeming to hang in midair. Barstow’s head twisted at a horrible angle, blood splattering onto the wall behind him in a predetermined design.
He fell to the ground, dead.
The sound of his body hitting the floor was grotesque. For some moments she stared at his form, unable to comprehend what had happened. She looked up, gazing at the pattern of blood on the wall, realizing she stood in the presence of God. She fell to her knees.
Thank you for saving me.
Someone pushed the door behind her furiously into her father’s body, and for a while Julie just watched.
She heard Hank call her name, finally moving from her stupor to pull at her father’s weight and allow Hank entry.
He rushed in, his hands running up and down her body.
Julie could hear sirens. She could see his lips moving, but she wasn’t focused on the words.
For now, there was just the blood on the wall, the floor under her knees, and the awe in her exhausted spirit.