Sixty

It all happened very fast.

Andrea fired at Trent's car, shattering the windshield.

Bonnie. Please, God, don't let it have hit Bonnie.

Trent cranked the wheel hard to his left, steering toward the water. The car did a complete turnaround and zoomed off in the opposite direction, but came to a stop a few seconds later. Did that mean Trent had been shot? Had Bonnie been shot and he'd stopped to see how she was?

Gerhard's attention was on Andrea and the Lexus, which gave me an opportunity to do something I'd been wanting to do for some time:

Run.

Lanes of parking in that lot were divided with mini-boulevards adorned with tall trees, so I had intermittent cover as I ran, moving right and left, thinking, bizarrely, of that old Peter Falk–Alan Arkin movie The In-Laws, where Falk offers advice on dodging gunfire: "Serpentine!"

While my route might have looked haphazard, I was heading for Trent's car to see whether, and how badly, he and Bonnie had been hurt. I glanced back over my shoulder a couple of times to see whether the drug dealers were in pursuit.

They weren't coming after me. They were jumping into the Audi. Gerhard was getting in on the driver's side, Andrea hopping in next to him. She barely had the door closed before the car started to move.

Someone else was coming to the party.

A dark unmarked Dodge Charger police cruiser—the kind Marta drove—was wailing its way down Viscount, lights flashing.

I was still running for Trent's car, and was relieved to see Bonnie bailing from the passenger side.

"Bonnie!" I shouted.

She turned and looked my way as the Audi went screaming past me, heading for the exit.

Trent was out of the car now, too. Worried Andrea might try shooting at them again, I yelled as loud as I could, "Get down!"

Bonnie dropped. Trent ran to her side of the Lexus and threw himself over her. But Andrea wasn't worried about them and took no shots in their direction as the car continued heading for the exit.

There was a problem there.

The Charger had screeched to a stop and was positioned sideways, blocking the Audi's path. Someone was leaping out. It was, as I'd suspected, Marta. She was running toward the Lexus.

The Audi altered course and started gunning straight for her, engine roaring.

Marta had drawn her weapon, grasping it in both hands, arms raised.

She fired off three shots before she had to dive out of the car's path. She went flying off to the right, landing on one of the grassy medians, the gun slipping from her hand. The Audi kept going and smashed hard into the side of the unmarked police car with a thunderous shriek of metal on metal.

I was still running.

Trent had crawled off Bonnie and was on his feet, and by the time I got there Bonnie was upright, too. Neither of them appeared to be injured. Bonnie threw her arms around me, but there wasn't time, not yet, for any kind of joyous reunion.

The Audi passenger door swung open and a dazed Andrea staggered out, gun still in hand. She took a moment to get her bearings and fired a shot at Marta, who was scrambling across the grass, looking for something.

Her gun. She'd lost her gun. When it flew from her hand, she hadn't seen where it landed. She managed one quick look at Andrea, and there was a microsecond of recognition.

I could barely read Marta's lips. "You bitch," they seemed to say.

Andrea was running from the parking lot and toward the beach. More sirens became audible. A cruiser was speeding down Viscount.

Bonnie, Trent, and I ran to Marta. I helped her to her feet, but her eyes were on the ground, scanning it.

"My gun!" she said. "It flew out of my hand!"

She turned her head, caught a glimpse of Andrea running off into the darkness.

"Trent," Bonnie said.

"Huh?" he replied.

"Give her yours!"

Trent must have brought the gun he was known to have kept locked in his office desk. He looked hesitant about handing it over.

"Trent!" Bonnie shouted.

He dug into his jacket pocket, brought out the firearm, and held it out to Marta. She gave it a quick look, appraising it, snatched it out of his hand, and ran.

"Keep looking for the gun!" I said to Bonnie and Trent, and then I ran to the Audi. I knew there was another gun in there, and if Gerhard was still alive, he might be looking for it.

I reached the open passenger door. The airbags had deployed, and partially deflated. The windshield was a spiderwebbed mess, and there were glass shards throughout the front of the car. Gerhard's head was resting on the steering wheel. I wasn't about to touch him to get a better look, but he appeared to have taken a bullet in the right cheek.

There was no reason to worry about him. But the gun Stuart had used to shoot Herb was down in the passenger footwell, and I grabbed it.

And did something I knew even then was very stupid. I went after Marta. She didn't have any backup, not yet, and I didn't want my sister-in-law out there alone.

Marta was shouting over the sound of the waves breaking against the shore. "Stop!" she cried. "Stop!"

At the other end of the beach, flashing lights. There were more police coming from the opposite direction. If Andrea kept running that way, she'd be handing herself to them.

My eyes having adjusted to the darkness some time ago, and with the help of a half-moon and a clear sky, I could make her out, pumping her legs about fifty feet ahead of Marta. She'd reached the base of the pier and, clearly having run out of alternatives, started running toward the end of it.

What did she think she could do? Swim to freedom?

I could hear her footsteps on the wood decking, then Marta's in pursuit. I'd reached the point where the pier met the beach, but was hesitant to go any farther. Just as well.

There were more shots.

Marta went down. At first I was worried she'd been shot, but she was taking a defensive posture. She flattened herself onto the deck, arms outstretched in front of her, and aimed at the silhouetted figure that was almost to the end of the pier.

And fired.

Andrea went down.

It was over.

Or so we thought.