“What do you think?” she replied.
“I can take it from you. If you think you’re going to be smart and throw it over the balcony, then think again. Remember, I know the password. My people found it when you were wandering around the house on Magazine Street, and everything’s been downloaded and decrypted. We can make a case against your brother without it, but it would be a lot more trouble.”
“Sure,” she muttered.
He caught her chin in one hard hand. “Promise me you won’t throw it over the balcony.”
“I promise.”
To her shock he place a swift, hard kiss on her mouth, and a moment later he was gone, leaving her alone with a dead woman and the one thing that could destroy her brother.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jenny stared at the smartphone in her hand. He was right, he could have taken it from her, but he probably thought she was too shell-shocked and grateful that he’d saved her life to disobey him.
He had saved her life, she realized. If he hadn’t knocked her aside Soledad would have shot her, and at such close range it would have been fatal. Instead, he’d knocked her aside as he’d shot back, and now Soledad lay dying on the once-pristine white carpet, and Jenny couldn’t bear to look at her.
Instead, she stared at the phone. It symbolized everything—her trust in her brother, her blind hope that he really was innocent. It was still a possibility, but a weaker and weaker one.
Had Soledad lied? Was it possible her brother could really have been behind it all? She’d been wrong about Soledad. She stared at the phone like it was a snake, an evil, murderous thing that was going to crush the life out of her family. She’d promised Ryder she wouldn’t throw it over the balcony, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t destroy it some other way. And what would happen if she did? Would she be saving her innocent brother from a punishment that far outstripped the lesser crime he’d thought he was committing? Or would she be protecting a monster who deserved everything he got? Ryder said they’d already downloaded and decrypted the information—they would still have a strong case even without the actual phone itself. She turned to pick up the baseball bat and then froze.
Soledad was standing, holding on to the table for support, weaving slightly, her eyes crazed. In her hand she held the gun.
Jenny felt like a rabbit caught in the stare of a rabid coyote. Ryder had gone off somewhere and left her to die. Had he done it on purpose, knowing that Soledad was merely wounded? Had he left her gun behind just so there wouldn’t be any loose ends? Did he want her dead?
Whether he did or not, that was going to be the outcome, as Soledad swayed, trying to get her gaze properly focused. “Give me the phone,” she said in a guttural voice, and there was blood trickling out the side of her mouth.
A number of responses came to mind, such as “come and get it” or “in your dreams,” all of which would have signed her death warrant. In fact, she was so terrified she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could simply stand there waiting to be shot.
And then the sheer stupidity of that hit her, breaking the thrall. She dove for Soledad’s feet, sliding
on the bloody carpet, moving so fast the dazed woman didn’t have time to react, and she went down with a crash, firing the gun wildly. Jenny didn’t count the bullets, she simply rolled away, snatching up the baseball bat as Soledad rose to her feet again, like fucking Rasputin, and on sheer instinct and adrenaline Jenny slammed the bat against her head.
It only seemed to daze the woman. She staggered toward her, but Jenny was already at the very edge of the room, by the sliding doors, and she had nowhere to go but out on the ledge, where there’d be no escape from Soledad’s gun.
She was backing onto the decking as Soledad advanced on her, cornering her, when she heard the click click of an empty gun, and relief swamped her. Jenny’s eyes met Soledad’s crazed ones a moment before the woman heaved the gun at her head, stunning her, and then Soledad jumped her, overwhelmingly powerful in her insane rage.
It was over in an instant, so quickly Jenny wasn’t even sure how it happened. Soledad clamped her strong, bloody hands around Jenny’s neck, squeezing fiercely, and Jenny could feel the air cut off, the blackness begin to close in. The baseball bat was trapped between them, and she turned, shoving at Soledad as hard as she could in blind panic. Soledad’s hands fell away from Jenny’s throat, and in the next moment she went backward over the low edge of the railing, twisting and turning in the wind as she fell in a silent, graceful dance.
Jenny sank back in the chair, still clinging to the baseball bat, panting, shocked, wanting to scream herself. And then she saw the smartphone lying in the middle of the carpet, in the pool of Soledad’s blood.
She’d promised not to throw it. She hated that small piece of technology—it stood for her brother’s betrayal and every horrible thing that had happened, up to and including the fact that she’d just killed a woman.
She stood up dazedly, walked over to it, and slammed the baseball bat in the center of it, over and over and over again, until she felt arms come around her, strong arms, forcing her to stop, to drop the bat. “I think you killed it,” Ryder said in her ear, sounding incredibly calm. “Where’s Soledad?”
She was surprised she was even able to speak. Her voice came out in a curiously raw monotone. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knocked her over the side of the balcony. She wasn’t dead, and you’d left the gun behind. Did you do that on purpose?”
He said nothing, and since he still had his arms around her, holding her back against him, she couldn’t see his expression. “Are you hurt?” he said instead. “You have blood on you.”
Jenny shook her head, not caring whether he could see it or not. “It’s Soledad’s blood. I hit her with the baseball bat.”
Something rippled through the body behind her, and she had the horrified suspicion it was laughter. “And you dumped her over the balcony?” he said in an even voice.
“No. She still came after me, but she ran out of bullets, and then she was trying to choke me, so I shoved her, and that’s when she fell.”