The Blue Zone

CHAPTER EIGHTY

Kate screamed.

She stared down at the two inert bodies on the floor, then back at her father. Behind him was the Hispanic figure in the Yankees cap whom Kate had noticed leaving the train. Her father glanced at him conspiratorially, saying, “Wait here.”

“Daddy, what the hell are you doing?”

He stepped inside the front hall, letting the door shut gently behind him, careful not to engage the lock. “Where is he, Kate? I know you’ve seen him.” There was no longer even a pretended softness to his voice.

“I saw them, Kate-the pendants. Both. Now there won’t be any more lying. You’re going to tell me where he is.”

Kate backpedaled down the hallway. She dropped the cell phone. That’s when she saw the gun at his side. “I don’t know-that’s the truth.” The FBI agents were dead. Cavetti was somewhere, but she didn’t know where. He could be dead, too. And what they did to her mother, they could do to her.

“You know where he is, Kate,” her father said, pushing her deeper inside the lab. “Don’t make me do something I don’t want to. You have to know, I’m going to kill him whether I have to harm you or not.”

She shook her head, terrified. “Why are you doing this, Daddy?”

“Why are you protecting him?”

She racked her brain for what to do. She kept moving backward. Her lab…There was a lock on the inside of the door. She could call someone if she could get inside.

“Don’t make this harder than it is,” he said.

Kate took off, sliding down the long hallway. She threw herself inside and tried to slam the door. But he reached it just before it shut. He braced his weight against the door, trying to force it open. Kate strained against it with all her might.

But he was stronger and forced it open.

“No, Daddy, no!”

She grabbed anything she could find-Beakers, vials, jars of chemicals, specimens-and threw them as hard as she could. He shielded himself with his arm as he advanced, glass shattering all over the floor. She grabbed a large Pyrex beaker, smashed the base against the counter, and held out the jagged glass neck to fend him off. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. That this was the man she had grown up with and trusted, and now all she could think of was how to protect herself, hold him off.

“I’m your daughter!” she screamed, her eyes ablaze. “How can you be doing this? How can you want to hurt me?”

He came toward her.

Kate tried to bring the jagged beaker down at him, but he caught her by the wrist, squeezing it until the blood rushed into her face and the makeshift weapon fell from her grasp, splintering on the floor.

“Why did you kill my mother? She loved you. We all loved you. You broke her heart, Daddy. Why?”

Her father didn’t answer, just backed Kate against the counter until the edge dug deep into her back. She didn’t know what he was going to do. She searched for anything she could use against him. An instrument, a phone, anything. Then she saw the gun on the counter. All the way across, on the other side.

With one hand her father held his own gun, and with the other he took Kate by the neck and pushed her back, applying pressure with his forefingers, cutting off the air to her lungs. She gagged, disbelieving.

“You’re hurting me, Daddy…”

Then, just as suddenly, he released her. In the same motion, he brushed his hand across her face. He reached inside the top of her sweatshirt and took out the pendants and smiled.

“Where is he, baby? No more lying. No more running now.”

That was when the voice came from directly behind them. “Estoy aquí, Benjamín. I’m right here.”