Last Breath

55

Brightness at his back. White heat in a solid wall.

It singed Adam Nolan’s neck, his ears, and for a split second he thought he was on fire, actually ablaze like a corpse on a funeral pyre, and then the momentum of his leap carried him through the broken window and he landed on a concrete floor, his injured knee crying out.

While the alarm shrieked around him, he rolled over and over, trying frantically to smother any flames on his clothes or his hair, but there were no flames. The heat had reached him, seared him, but that was all.

He remembered C.J.

Up in a crouch, the gun still in his hand. He snapped off two rounds into the dark. The shots echoed above the alarm’s ululant siren.

He hadn’t hit her, but he must have convinced her to keep her distance.

Now just switch on the flashlight, hunt her down…

No flashlight. He had lost it in his dive through the window. The only light in the warehouse was the fireglow from outside, and it did not extend more than a few yards into the interior.

He would have to track her in darkness, with the alarm wailing and his knee pulsing with pain.

God damn, he hated that whore.

In the flickering firelight he saw the can she’d flung inside. The label read, “WOOD STAIN.”

Oil-based. Inflammable.

She must have poured the can’s contents over the leaves, where she had known he would stop. She had counted on him to leave his motor running, counted on the heat of the catalytic converter to ignite the fuel. She’d meant to roast him alive.

“You cunt,” he breathed, then raised his voice to be heard over the alarm. “You fucking cunt, C.J.!”

He glimpsed her white sneakers blurring into the darker recesses of the warehouse, and he fired again. Missed her, damn it, and already the light from the window was dimming as the fire died down. The inflammable liquids had vaporized, and there was nothing left to burn but dry grass and leaves.

At least the BMW’s fuel tank hadn’t ruptured; there had been no explosion. Car must be ruined, though. Undrivable. How the hell was he supposed to get home? And even if he did, how would he explain the missing car, the injuries he’d suffered?

Everything was fucked up. His perfect crime, his cover story-all shot to hell.

He forced himself to calm down. Hard to think with that alarm clanging in his skull. And he was tired, worn out. But he had to keep it together. He almost had her. And once she was dead…

He would steal a car for the drive home. Clean himself up in his shower, and with fresh clothes and a false smile, he wouldn’t look much worse for wear.

As for the BMW-why would the cops even ask to see it if he wasn’t a suspect? He was the grief-stricken ex-husband, remember? He had fooled Detective Walsh before. He could do it again.

Things would still work out. There were complications, sure. Well, when life gives you lemons…

“Make lemonade,” he said with an odd, lopsided grin that felt strange on his face. He thought he might be laughing. It seemed strange to laugh at a time like this. He might be cracking up.

If he was, it was C.J.’s fault. This whole mess, from start to finish, was her doing. She had walked out on him, ended their marriage. She had wormed her way inside his brain until he could think of no other woman. She had fought him and hurt him and cost him time and pain.

She had done her best to fuck him up.

Now it was time to return the favor.