Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(44)

I glanced at Irma, my forefinger pressed against my lips—Shhhh—as my other hand reached for the now red-hot burner, the edge of the dish towel leading the way. Could he already smell the gas? He’d for sure see the flame. I had to time this just right.

The blink of a human eye takes between 300 and 400 milliseconds. A normal heartbeat is upward of 900 milliseconds. I figured my window was somewhere between two blinks and a murmur.

But not until you turn to lock that damn door. What’s taking you so long?

I lit the dish towel, my ears tuning out everything except the sliding of that dead bolt. The streets below us ceased to exist. The entire city had gone quiet. Dead.

Then. Snap!

I sprang up from behind the counter as he locked the door, launching the bottle where it would do the most damage. Not at him but at his feet. He never saw it coming.

The glass shattered as he turned back around, the flames igniting straight up his legs. He didn’t care, at least not yet. He wildly shot in my direction as I ducked behind the counter. The irony, though. He was holding a fire extinguisher while on fire.

I was about to pop up again. I wanted this guy alive if at all possible. The things he could tell us. Names. Locations. Who sent him to kill me and from where? That fire wasn’t going to put itself out, and it was only going to spread unless he did something about it. That’s when I’d have him. Score another one for more chaos.

Before I could even push up off the floor of Irma’s kitchen, however, I heard the shots from outside in the hallway. My father was taking a page from that same nonexistent handbook. He was breaking down the door with bullets, shooting out the locks. It was full-on crazy in every direction.

But I still wanted this guy alive.

I rose up from behind the counter as my father kicked his way in, the door flying open. He fired off two shots, one at each shoulder. That’s how you level a guy without killing him. My father knew I’d want this guy alive, too.

That made three of us.

My star informant was on the ground and in flames, his blood sprayed all over Irma’s living room carpet. He’d dropped his gun, along with the fire extinguisher, and he was rolling around in agony.

Still, my father was taking nothing for granted. “Watch him,” he told me, tucking away his Glock to pick up the extinguisher.

In the blink of an eye, faster than the beat of a heart. That’s all it took.

The guy now had his own window.

Literally.





CHAPTER 61


THE COPS, the two detectives, the EMTs—they all kept referring to him as the deceased since there was no ID to be had on his half burned, fully mangled body, which had literally cracked the sidewalk in half outside my apartment building thirty stories below. No surprise the guy would end up being a John Doe. I could’ve told them as much.

Then again, I was too busy having to tell them everything else.

“Wait, let me just repeat that back,” said the junior of the two detectives, who had introduced himself to my father and me as simply Miller. Not Joe or Bob Miller or even Detective Miller. Just Miller. “So after getting shot, the deceased sprang up and proceeded to run at the window glass, shatter it, and then jump to his death. Is that right?”

“It was actually more of a leap,” said my father. “A swan dive, really.”

My father was now going on twenty-four straight hours without sleep and was officially beyond punchy. Miller was barely even acknowledging him at this point, content instead to look only at me or down at his notepad. He was taking a lot of notes.

“Yes, that’s what happened,” I told him.

As for why it happened, I kept that to myself. The police didn’t need to know, at least not yet, that the guy pancaked on the sidewalk with his entrails splattered was part of a terrorist cell. Point being, his getting caught was absolutely, positively not an option.

I glanced at my watch. This was taking too long. The news vans were beginning to line up along the curb. My father and I needed to exit stage left in a hurry.

“Just a few more questions,” said Miller.

“Actually, no more questions,” he was told instead.

I turned—we all turned—to see Elizabeth flash her badge to Miller, who seemingly could not have cared less.

“You can have Dr. Reinhart when I’m done with him,” the detective told her, almost shooing Elizabeth away with the back of his hand.

The poor guy. I almost felt sorry for him as Elizabeth blinked in disbelief. She was about to give him a quick refresher about the pecking order among badges, and while she had her subtle moments from time to time, I knew immediately this wasn’t going to be one of them. Sure enough, she grabbed the notepad right out of Miller’s hand and heaved it to the other side of the street.

“Congratulations. You’re now done with Dr. Reinhart,” she said.

With that, my father and I followed her inside my apartment building, never once looking back.

“I like her already,” my father said as we walked.

He knew of Elizabeth from what I’d told him back when she and I were hunting the serial killer the Dealer, but this was the first time they were meeting face-to-face. I made the formal introduction in the lobby.

“Normally, I’d ask what brings you down to Manhattan,” she said, shaking my father’s hand.

“Normally, I’d tell you,” replied my father.