The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(44)

Rampling’s motive was revenge. He’d lost a fifty-million-dollar fortune by investing in Angel Pharma before it went bankrupt. He was vindictive and had proven that he’d do whatever it took to keep me away from his son. He had hurt me. But he hadn’t murdered anyone.

James was right when he said Peter was more evil than his father. Peter’s motive was financial, and he had no conscience. He had hurt people for sure, been responsible for the deaths of children, and he was desperate to eliminate the remains of his experiments, good, bad, and ugly.

Katherine had said not to be surprised if a bad phoenix arose from the ashes of Angel Pharma, and I wondered if Peter and Royal Rampling could be in a partnership to bring the company back. Reinvent it. Recover the lost millions.

And then I had my big idea.

Every time an Angel sneezed, the press assembled.

What if we gave the press the whole story? That children had been dosed with untested pills to give them superpowers. But wait—there’s more. Many subjects aged fast and died young. Yes. The pills were often lethal. I could see the media going crazy over this irresistible tale of greed, cruelty, and murder.

It might not all be provable, but the press didn’t depend on the facts. If the scandal was big enough, Peter Angel would stay far away from his family. Rampling would stay away from us, too.

Or—on the other hand…

The absolute opposite could happen. There could be a mad rush to put Angel Pharmaceuticals in business again. There would be a big demand for superpills for superkids. Going public could be the best thing that ever happened to Peter.

I was thinking about Angel Pharmaceuticals, the Next Generation, when a black car filled the window to my left, blocking out the light.

Before I could tell what was happening, the SUV scraped long and hard against the body of our Town Car. Metal screamed against metal. Sparks flew.

My God. We were being attacked.





The black Cadillac Escalade had the same license plate as the one I’d seen off and on all day. It was grinding the side of our car, maneuvering us toward a steep, rocky drop-off to the reservoir far below.

I was too scared to scream.

Anton seemed to be coping well with the attack: braking, evading, racing ahead. I looked to see who was driving the Escalade but couldn’t see through its tinted glass. Then there was another shock as the SUV slammed against our side panels, even as Anton buzzed down his window. He had his gun in his hand, a semiautomatic, and he was firing at the Escalade’s right front tire.

He yelled to me, “Miss. Get down on the floor.”

I wrestled with my seat belt, then dropped to the floor of the car and crouched there.

Shots rang out, but I could tell that the Escalade hadn’t been stopped because we were now being rammed from behind, followed by more awful scraping against the left side of our vehicle.

I popped up to get a fix on what was happening, and for sure, the Escalade was still pushing us hard toward the thin metal guardrail that stood between the Town Car and the immense void at the bottom of the cliff.

More shots pinged, and this time we were taking fire. Glass shattered, and Anton barked out a yell; then he groaned and slumped to the side.

The car veered in a gentle arc toward the guardrail, and at the same time a voice on the car radio asked Anton to respond. Which he didn’t do.

I called out to him, then leaned over the front seat. What I saw was worse than I could have imagined.

Anton had been shot through the temple. He wasn’t breathing or moving—I knew he was dead. Anton had lost his life protecting me. I couldn’t help him—and now I was alone.

If I didn’t somehow get control of this driverless car, I was living the last minutes of my life.

There was only one thing to do. I reached over the back of the front seat and grabbed the steering wheel. I wrenched it to the left and brought the vehicle back to the roadway just as the drop-off ended and was replaced by a wall of rock.

But the Escalade was coming up fast on my left again. At the same time, because I couldn’t give it any gas, the Town Car was slowing down. I desperately wanted to get to the wooded area a hundred yards ahead, somehow engineer a soft crash landing in the trees, then jump out and hide.

Meanwhile, the Town Car was grinding against the rocky outcropping. As the friction of metal against rock slowed the car to a violent stop, I looked for Anton’s gun and saw it on the floor under the gas pedal.

I was readying myself to climb over Anton’s body when I heard a loud engine roar. I glanced over my shoulder.

Another car was coming up from behind, heading toward the Town Car at high speed.

I was outnumbered. I was done.





Anton was dead. And I was next.

I scrunched down on the floor of the back compartment and covered my head.

My mind swirled with fear, and thoughts about my too-short life were broken up with bright flashes of relief that soon I could put down the despair and anguish I’d been carrying for too long.

Just then, there was a new sound, the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire, followed by the whoosh of a speeding vehicle flying past the Town Car.

I knew I should stay down, but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. I poked my head up and saw that the car that had been speeding toward my Town Car had passed by and was going after the Escalade.

Time stretched like a rubber band. The sound of each rapidly fired bullet was distinct. I saw each of the Escalade’s tires blow out, and each blowout propelled the SUV farther into a screeching wild spin, until it flew off the asphalt and into the thicket of mature trees at the edge of the parkway.