Second Shot

His gun had fallen next to him, less than half a meter away from his thigh. Another Beretta. He seemed to have lost interest in shooting us, but I nudged it farther out of his reach with the rubber tip of my crutch, just in case.

“Where is she?” I said.

The man’s face twisted. “Get me a doctor.”

“Tell me where Ella is and you’ll get one.”

“I need one now!” His voice was scared but there was more to it than that. He had the air of ex-military about him, and I guessed that he’d been around firearms enough to know how badly he was hit. He swallowed, desperate not to plead with me but prepared to do it, all the same. “I–I can’t feel my legs.”

“Where’s Ella?” I repeated, dogged, shutting down the emotion that was struggling to rise, the sharp empathy with what he was going through. Behind me I heard the quiet hiss of Matt’s indrawn breath.

The man with the glasses held out a moment longer, his breathing quick and shallow, then caved. He indicated with a sideways flick of his eyes, farther back into the stockroom. “Range,” he said.

“How many of you are there?”

“Just me and Reynolds.” He was panting now. He made a poor attempt at a smile, but there was a bitter edge to it. “She said that would be enough.”

I didn’t need to ask who “she” was. I straightened, stepping awkwardly over his legs.

“Hey,” he said, wheezy. “What about that doctor?”

I glanced back at him without pity. “When we’ve got Ella, and she’s OK, we’ll call you one,” I said. “And if she’s not OK, you’ll wish you were dead anyway.”

He tried to laugh again, but he was crying at the same time. The pain brought him up short, cut him off. “She should have finished you while she had the chance.”

I gave him a tight little smile of my own. Had everybody known but me?

“Yeah,” I murmured. “It’s a shame about that, isn’t it?”

As I hobbled away I sensed Matt hesitate next to the wounded man, torn over whether to help him or follow me. Eventually, Matt’s desire to find his daughter won out. He caught up with me within a couple of strides. I glanced at him as he reached me, just to see how he was holding up. He was staring.

“What?”

“How can you just leave him like that?” he demanded in a rough whisper, gesturing backwards. “How can you just…?” He tailed off, unsure what it was exactly that he wanted to ask.

You think this is easy?

I turned away, limped on. “You want your daughter back? This is the only way I can do it,” I said thickly. “You saw what Reynolds was like with me. What do you think he’ll do to her?”

Matt didn’t answer. We’d reached the door to the range. I paused outside it, swapped the Beretta to my other hand while I wiped my damp palm on my sweatpants. Never was a garment more aptly named. I Youched Matt’s arm. He almost flinched.

“If it all goes bad and you get the chance to grab Ella,” I said, keeping my voice low even though I knew the range was soundproofed, “take her and get out-understand? Don’t wait for me.” Because if Reynolds gets his hands on me again, I wont be getting out….

Matt nodded, eyes so wide I could see the white of them all the way round the iris. He was scared witless, but he was holding it together for the sake of his child. If she remembered nothing else about him as she grew up, I thought fiercely, she ought to remember this.

The outer door into the range was on a strong self-closer, so nobody could accidentally leave it open. The last time I was there, the day I’d matched against Vaughan, it had just been part of the scenery. I hadn’t even noticed it. Now I could barely get the door open against its mechanical opposition. Matt had to lean in close and lend a hand.

Reynolds was waiting for us inside. How could he not be? As we pushed the inner door open I took in the whole scene in an instant, like the flash of a strobe, a snapshot.

He was standing on the other side of the small room at one of the firing points — the same one, coincidentally, where Vaughan had stood. Blond, good-looking and supremely self-confident, he was dressed in the same three-quarter-length tweed coat he’d worn that day on Boston Common and he was smiling the same friendly, open smile he’d given Si-mone at the Aquarium.

He was holding Ella so she was straddling his left hip with her little hands gripped so tight onto his coat it was like she was making fists in the rough material. He had his left arm around her body, supporting her, keeping her close. The very sight of him with his hands on her threw up a burst of white noise behind my eyes.

As we’d opened the door, Reynolds began to shift his stance, drawing his right foot back to present his left side — the side with Ella-as the target. He, too, had a semiautomatic pistol in his right hand and his grip on it was firm and strong. The gun was aimed at Ella’s head, the muzzle almost Youching her downy cheek.