Indeed Lilly heard its approach, but it could still have been minutes away. The ribbon was biting painfully into the skin of her neck. Her fingers flexed and clenched as she struggled for breath. Her body arched as her lungs sought air.
Was this how she was doomed to die after all? Unable to breathe?
With no warning, no sound, nothing, Tierney bounded through the bedroom door. Before William Ritt had time to register his unexpected appearance, Tierney kicked him in the head.
CHAPTER
33
THE KICK LIFTED WILLIAM OFF THE FLOOR like a character in an animated cartoon. He landed three feet from Lilly, rolled onto his back, and tried to sit up. The side of his head just above his ear was bleeding. He slapped his hand to it and gaped at Tierney as though he had come back from the dead.
He did look like a survivor of the apocalypse. His right arm was hanging at an odd angle from his shoulder. His clothing on that side of his body was saturated with blood. His face was as gray as death except for a bleeding cut on his cheekbone. His eyes were sunken and darkly shadowed, and he never took them off William Ritt.
He must have found an unlocked window in the bedroom, knowing that it would be a surprise attack if he came in that way.
“Lilly?” His voice was gravelly.
“He’s Blue.”
“I figured.” Keeping his eyes trained on William, he bent down and placed his pistol in her cuffed right hand. “Got it?”
“Yes.”
“If he gets the best of me, kill him. Without a moment’s hesitation.” He pulled the ribbon from Lilly’s neck.
His gait was gawky and uneven, but he bore down on William, who had regained some of his wits and was trying to scramble away. Tierney reached down with only his left hand, grabbed a handful of William’s parka, and hauled him up, then let go just long enough to smash his fist, still holding the ribbon, into William’s face. The blow spun the pharmacist around. He stumbled and landed hard, face-first, against the wall, then practically bounced off it.
Tierney covered the back of the man’s head with his wide hand and slammed his face into the wall. Twice. He punched him once in the kidney, causing William to scream, then grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, stapling him to the wall with the fingers of his left hand around his neck. The ribbon was still entwined in Tierney’s fingers. It trailed down William’s chest.
His face was a bleeding pulp. His eyes were wild with fright. Tierney said, “I ought to wrap this ribbon around your own fucking throat and choke you very slowly.”
His voice was weak. Blood was puddling around his feet. He paused to take a breath, but his grip on William Ritt remained inescapable.
“God knows I want to kill you. I want to tear your heart out with my bare hands. But I won’t because I don’t want you to get off that lightly. You don’t deserve a quick death.
“No, I want you to live a long time. I want you to rot in a cell for decades. I want you to stay locked away in anonymity, getting raped every day by bull queers who don’t enjoy it until they see you bleed. That’s what they do to child killers in prison, you know. And Torrie was only fifteen. Fifteen!” His voice cracked. “And when you die, at what I hope is a ripe old age, you’ll go straight to hell and burn for eternity, you miserable piece of shit.”
Tierney was barely able to stand. He was swaying on his feet when he opened his hand to release William’s neck. The little man slid to the floor and slumped to one side.
Tierney stood over him for a moment longer, then turned and started walking back toward Lilly.
“Tierney!” she cried.
He spun around just as William uncapped a syringe, which he must have had secreted in a pocket of his parka. But it wasn’t intended for Tierney. He jabbed the needle into his own neck.
Tierney was on him in an instant. William was trying to depress the plunger and inject air into his vein; Tierney was fighting to keep him from doing so. With his left hand, he caught William’s wrist in what must have been a bone-snapping grip. The man cried out, not only in pain but in frustration and outrage, because somehow Tierney had managed to pin his other hand to the floor with his knee.
The cabin door burst open and crashed against the interior wall. “FBI! Don’t anybody move!” Two men dressed in full SWAT gear and black ski masks swept the room with their rifles, then trained them on Tierney and William.
“Drop the weapon!” ordered a stern-looking man who had entered behind the others. He was dressed in an ordinary overcoat, but Lilly was so impressed by his authoritative air, it took her a moment to realize that he was addressing her. She opened her hand and let go of Tierney’s pistol. It clattered onto the floor.
Another agent, who was younger and slimmer and wearing eyeglasses, had a pistol aimed at the back of Tierney’s head. “Release him, Mr. Tierney.”
“He’s got a syringe in his neck, trying to kill himself.”
The intimidating gray-haired man strode over to them, bent down, took a moment to assess the situation, then unceremoniously yanked the syringe out of William’s neck. “Cover him,” he said to the man in the glasses.
“He’s Blue,” Lilly said in a rush. “His name is William Ritt.”