I instinctively knocked her back into her chair, but the gun wrenched free from the holster and she had it. I caught a flash of her eyes, which were glazed and crazy.

I dove at her, grabbing her wrist with one hand and the gun with the other. I continued to yell her name.

Next, the two of us fell over the chair as it went down with a loud crack.

I was vaguely aware of people scrambling all around us. My focus stayed on her.

She strained, red-faced, slamming my side with her free fist. I now had a knee on her chest and one hand still on her wrist, pinning the gun to the ground, but she was as strong as she looked.

And her finger was already wrapped around the Glock’s trigger. She squirmed hard, turning the barrel of the gun toward herself—and tilting her head to meet it. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“No! Mary!”

With a rush of adrenaline, fighting an equal surge of resistance from her, I managed to lift her gun hand toward the ceiling. Then I smashed it back down, very hard, against the floor.

The Glock fired once into the wall of the interrogation room, even as it fell out of her grasp. I snatched it up, the shot still ringing in my ears, the side of my face numb.

There was a brief, suspended moment of near silence.

Mary stopped struggling immediately, and then, in an unbelievable echo of the previous day’s events, the police descended on her like a small army. They picked her up as she flailed once again, arms and legs whipping crazily.

I could hear her unchecked sobs as they carried her away.

“My babies, my babies, my poor babies . . . Where are my children? Oh, where? Oh, where? What have you done with my children?”

Her voice receded down the hall until a heavy door slammed with great finality, and she was gone. Not surprisingly, I didn’t get the chance for another interview.

To make matters worse, if that was possible, I saw James Truscott as I left the building about an hour later. He was among the throng of reporters gathered outside waiting for any tidbit of news.

He yelled at me, “How did she get your gun, Dr. Cross? How’d that happen?” Somehow, Truscott had already gotten the story.

Chapter 98

Chapter 98

I COULD ONLY WONDER about the causes and the full extent of Mary Wagner’s mental illness and the obvious torment and stress it was putting on her. There certainly hadn’t been any time for a meaningful psych evaluation, and my part in the investigation was coming to an end now, whether I liked it or not. And, to be honest, I had mixed feelings.

By early that afternoon, Mary’s state of mind was a moot point. LAPD’s search of her house had turned up a holy trinity of evidence.