“Okay, okay.” He motioned to his partner, and they walked over toward Kyle.

Almost as if the scene were in slow motion, I watched as the first cop stepped into the back of the ambulance. The cuffs came up — and then I saw Kyle reach for them, with the kind of channeled strength only a psychopath like him could muster in that condition. He used the cuffs to pull the officer down to him and, in a second, had the man’s gun in his hand.

Bree stood up instinctively to help, but I rolled off the lounge chair and pulled her down with me.

There was a gunshot, and then another.

Then the first of two loud explosions. We would find out later that a bullet had pierced Kyle’s oxygen tank.

It burst into a ball of flame inside the confines of the ambulance, followed quickly by the fuel tank.

The entire vehicle imploded with a blast that stunned my eardrums. Glass and metal flew more up than out, and a shower of sand rained down over us. People were screaming again.

When I raised my head, I saw that there was no question of survivors. The ambulance was a black carcass, with flames and dark smoke still rising into the air. Both police officers and both EMTs were dead.

And so was Kyle. By the time the fire was out and we got close enough to see his body, we realized that it was charred from top to bottom.

The face he’d invested so much in was completely unrecognizable, just a featureless black mask where the man used to be. In fact, not that much of him was even there anymore.

As to whether Kyle fired into that oxygen tank on purpose, I have to wonder. Maybe going back to solitary confinement was more than he could bear. Prison might have easily killed him in the end, and maybe Kyle knew that.

Maybe he was even trying to take me out with him as he went — one last effort to finish the job that, for whatever reason, he’d turned into his life’s work.

Actually, I think I know what the answers to all those questions are, but of course I’ll never know for sure. And maybe someday I won’t care anymore either.

Epilogue

SUMMER

Chapter 116

THE MEDIA STORM WAITING for me when I got home topped what I’d left behind, if that was possible. Kyle Craig had been the most famous wanted person in the country, and everyone clamored for a piece of the story. I had to hire Rakeem Powell’s security service for several more days just to keep the gawkers at bay and give my family some semblance of privacy.

I thought Nana would blow a fuse over what happened in Nassau, but she didn’t. We all quietly settled back in as best we could.