The Ascent(93)

fate. Set all the other wheels into motion.”

“You son of—”

“Save it,” Andrew growled. “So now he’s dead—just one more person you’re responsible for killing. You’re a dangerous man, Timothy Overleigh. You need to be stopped. For good.”

Moonlight gleamed to my right. I glanced over and saw Petras’s pearl-handled hunting knife on the credenza.

Andrew took one final step toward me. I heard the click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back. “I’ve waited a long time for this. Good-bye, motherf*cker.”

“Yes,” I said. “Good-bye.”

I grabbed the knife off the credenza and, like a bull in a ring, charged Andrew. I heard a deafening, bone-quaking pop ring out, saw the fiery muzzle flash … Then, an instant later, I collided with Andrew, driving the blade of Petras’s hunting knife straight into his chest.

Andrew cried out and dropped the gun. My momentum propelled us clear across the room. Andrew scrambled to grab hold of the curtains; he pulled one from its rod as we shot out onto the balcony. My hand still wrapped around the hilt of the knife, I drove us across the balcony where we broke through the railing and fell over the edge.

The fall lasted only a second, but the blackness that followed could have been an eternity.





Chapter 19


1



—TIM. SHE SAID. OH. TIM…

2



AND THE WORLD SWAM BACK INTO TEMPORARY

focus: sodium lights … corkboard ceiling tiles … the droning beep-beep-beep of electrical heartbeats.

Above me, Marta’s face, swimming out of the black. A warm hand against my cold cheek.

“Oh, Tim,” she said, her voice like a thousand vibrations. “Where—?” I began, but my throat burst into flames and I cut myself off.

“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “You’re alive, Tim. You’re alive.” Then: blackness.

3



THE BULLET FROM ANDREW’S 9MM ENTERED MY

left leg only to ricochet out, embedding itself in the ceiling ofmy apartment. According to the doctors who spent several days fawning over me in the hospital, it was the metal plate screwed into my fibula that caused the bullet’s redirection and prevented it from bursting through the other side of my leg. There was no question—I was lucky.

Andrew Trumbauer was not as lucky. He died that night, a combination of severe trauma to the back of his head sustained in the three-story fall from my balcony and the five-inch, pearl-handled hunting knife I’d planted in his chest. Which one was listed as the actual cause of death, I did not know. I’d been apprised of too many coroner reports in my lifetime and did not feel I needed to add another notch to my walking stick.

Once my leg healed, I took to running across Eastport and along the breakwater that overlooked the bay. I timed myself, pushed myself, and checked the rate of my pulse as the miles added up. I lost what weight I’d put on while confined to the wheelchair. My left leg never felt stronger.

The police asked questions, of course. After very little consideration, I came clean about all that had happened in Nepal. The two young officers who took notes during my interrogation stared at me in disbelief. It made me look bad, coming clean a year after it had happened. Why had I lied? My reasons were poor but truthful.

And perhaps they wouldn’t have believed me had an insightful detective in Wisconsin not uncovered a curious bit of information. On the night of the mysterious fire that had killed John Petras, a man matching Andrew’s description rented a vehicle under the name Victor Rios from the airport. The clerk at the rental car agency described the person with ease, relating how he’d been spooked by Victor’s busted, scarred face and limp. The clerk said Victor Rios reminded her of Quasimodo. After that, the police accepted my story and never called on me again. Whether they actually believed all that I had told them, I had no idea …

Marta and I continued our relationship for a good eight monthsafter my recovery, although we never truly fell in love. We both knew it, but because we cared for each other, we let things drag out longer than they should, each of us not wanting to hurt the other’s feelings. But in the end, after a night of smiles and hugs and tears, Marta packed her stuff and left. We remained friends, but things were never quite the same between us again.

And it seemed all was back to normal, including my inability to sculpt. The passion had left me, the drive had gone out of me—

4



—UNTIL MIDNIGHT OF SOME RANDOM NIGHT.

I opened my eyes to the soft moonlight coming in through my bedroom windows. I felt a chill wash over my body, which was covered in a film of sweat. Panting, my heartbeat increasing, I sat up stiffly in bed. Across from me was the bedroom doorway and beyond that the deeper darkness of the hall. As I stared, I thought I saw a whitish shape drift down the hall and disappear.

I flipped the sheets off me and climbed into a pair of running shorts. The soles of my feet, tacky with sweat, peeled off the hardwood floor with each step.

Out in the foyer the door to my apartment stood open. Dull, greenish light spilled in from the communal hallway. My breath catching in my throat, I glimpsed a slight shadow easing along the wall outside.

I followed the shape into the hallway, but the hallway was empty.

I hurried down the flights of steps to the lobby in time to see the lobby door closing. Beyond the doors, a smoky mist had overtaken the parking lot. It was impossible to see anything beyond the apartment building’s black canvas awning.