Chapter 9 - The Balcony Revisited
The concrete pillars of the ambulance bay exploded with blinding white light.
"POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON! DROP IT NOW!"
A dozen tactical officers in full body armor surged from the service corridors, their laser sights painting a web of crimson dots across Graham’s chest and forehead. Detective Sarah Vance stepped out from behind a concrete support pillar, her service Glock leveled directly between Graham’s eyes.
The two hired men in paramedic uniforms instantly dropped to their knees, their hands locked behind their heads.
Graham did not drop the gun.
His eyes darted across the perimeter, calculating the angles, the cover, the escape routes with the speed of a trapped predator. In a split-second movement born of pure, psychotic desperation, he lunged sideways, grabbing Ava by the collar of her trench coat and hauling her against his chest as a human shield, pressing the cold barrel of the silenced pistol against her temple.
"BACK OFF!" Graham screamed, his aristocratic voice cracking into a feral screech. "BACK OFF OR I BLOW HER BRAINS ACROSS THIS CONCRETE!"
"Graham, it’s over!" Vance shouted, stepping forward, both hands locked on her weapon, the red dot steady on his cheek. "There are forty officers outside this garage! You are surrounded! Drop the gun!"
"She dies first!" Graham snarled, his breath hot and ragged against Ava’s ear. He began dragging her backward toward the service stairs leading up to the street-level terrace. "Tell them to drop their weapons, Vance! Or Nicholas’s daughter dies tonight just like he did!"
Ava felt the cold steel digging into her skin. Her heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird, but through the panic, she heard the echo of Oliver’s wet, desperate cough from the pool that afternoon. She remembered her father’s lifeless face in the funeral home.
She looked Graham’s reflection in the glass of the stairwell door.
He wasn't invincible. He was terrified.
"You dropped the car, Graham," Ava whispered.
"Shut up!" he hissed, his arm tightening around her windpipe.
"You stepped on it. You were shaking so hard when you pushed Ollie that your foot crushed the wheel. You’re not a genius. You’re just a pathetic coward who murders babies and drowns old men in the dark."
Graham’s grip tightened, his finger whitening against the trigger. "I’ll kill you—"
Ava didn't wait. She threw her head backward with every ounce of momentum she possessed, the hard back of her skull smashing directly into the bridge of Graham’s nose.
*Crack.*
The cartilage exploded. Graham roared in pain, his head snapping back, his finger reflexively twitching on the trigger.
*Pfft!*
The silenced round ricocheted harmlessly off the concrete ceiling.
Ava drove her heel down onto his polished Italian shoe—the exact same foot that had crushed Oliver’s toy—and spun out of his grip.
Before Graham could bring the barrel back down, two shots rang out from Vance’s weapon.
*Bang! Bang!*
The hollow-point rounds struck Graham in the right shoulder and the right knee. The impacts spun him completely around, his pistol clattering across the oily concrete floor as he crashed hard onto the pavement, his screams of agony echoing off the low ceiling.
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Three tactical officers descended on him, pinning his limbs to the ground, twisting his arms behind his back with brutal, unyielding force until the steel handcuffs clicked shut around his wrists.
***
