Nicky calmly watched Kasabian sink to the sidewalk, then opened the revolver, emptied the spent cartridges onto the ground, and reloaded with a device he removed from his suit pocket. His movements were quick but careful. He could have been preparing to brush his teeth or replacing the battery in the television remote.

“Drop the weapon!” Duran yelled, now across the street but with a parked car between himself and the shooter. Ted scrambled behind him, desperate to see to Jackie or Lester, willing to risk his own life to save theirs but powerless to do anything but watch and keep close.

Nicky looked mildly surprised but unconcerned to see the cop so close. Expressionless, he raised the revolver and squeezed off another few rounds. Ted was directly behind Duran. Each explosion flashed straight at him, blinding and loud, a succession of high-pitched, earsplitting cracks.

Duran fired a split second later, and the deeper boom of his weapon was a coda to the whole exchange. A double tap to the chest. The giant toppled over backward, landing on the pavement like a sack of cement. His heart pumped a geyser of blood into the air. Once. Twice. And once more. And stopped. It was over.

Almost over. Ted rushed forward, dimly aware of a burning pain in his right shoulder. There was a snail’s trail of smeared blood on the steps ahead. Jackie was alive—moving—but her actions seemed spastic. As he headed toward her, Ted caught movement to his left. Lester rose from behind the big bronze sculpture.

“You’re all right. Thank God.” Ted was suddenly feeling winded, as if he’d sprinted a few hundred yards.

“You’re bleeding,” Lester said. His voice barely registered through the ringing in Ted’s ears.

The pain in Ted’s shoulder coalesced into a single burning lance. He looked at it. Blood was coursing down his sleeve. The world was pulling away and he sat down. Or fell.

-78-

-78-

“Your dad tells me they want to move you out of the ICU. They need the bed.” Ted was sitting on a metal folding chair facing Kenzie. The padded visitor chairs made it too hard to keep his arm and shoulder tucked to his side and immobile. The pain pills worked, but he could feel the staples pull every time he moved, and that set off another bout of dizziness. “That’s modern medicine. I didn’t even rate an overnight. I’m recovering at the Marriott. They advertise a free breakfast, but it’s basically a waffle machine and a Keurig.”

Kenzie didn’t crack a smile. He would have been ecstatic at any reaction.

“I’d like to see you get out of here altogether,” he said. “And the best way to do that is to open your eyes and tell them you want to go home.” He sighed. “Which, no doubt, you will get around to doing soon enough. Meanwhile, resting is good.”