The Blue Zone

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

The emptiness Kate felt in the rush of that moment was like nothing she had ever felt before.

Did she hear it right?

For an instant she just fixed on Mercado. Then she looked down, in the silent manner in which a bomb victim looks down, numbed by the shock of concussion, staring at a limb suddenly not there, trying to comprehend if what had just happened was real.

“Tell her, Benjamín.” Mercado gazed up at him. “Tell her how you can hurt someone that is family. Something you pretend to love.”

Kate’s father pulled the trigger again. The gun flashed, hitting Mercado again, this time in the shoulder.

Kate lunged to stop him. “No, Daddy, no!”

Mercado keeled backward. He steadied himself with one hand. Kate pulled off her sweatshirt and wrapped it around him like a tourniquet.

“What is he talking about?” She turned to Mercado. “What do you mean about my mother?”

“She was a beautiful woman, wasn’t she, Ben? Of course, I didn’t have the life to raise a child properly, did I? I was going to prison. I was going to be away for a very long time. And, my wife, she was sick. Isn’t that right? Diabetes, wasn’t it?”

He looked softly at Kate. And she suddenly recalled how the first time they’d talked, in the park, he had spoken about a wife who’d died of diabetes many years before.

My mother…?

“I had to make a choice, didn’t I, Ben? How could I leave my child alone, without a mother…or a family?” He put his hand over Kate’s. It was cold. “And you were always the consummate family man, weren’t you, Benjamín?”

“In all regards.”

The muzzle flashed again, and Mercado rolled backward, grasping his side.

Kate realized she was watching her real father slowly being killed.

“I thought I did the right thing for you,” Mercado said to Kate. “And you were protected, all these years…”

“Until you started betraying our family,” Raab said. “Until you forgot who you were.”

“I had to make a choice.” Mercado looked toward Kate.

Raab pulled the hammer. “And so, brother, so do I!”

“No!” Kate lunged at him, catching his arm. He took her by the wrist as if she were a piece of wood and flung her aside. Kate fell against the lab counter, a tray of tubes crashing to the floor. She reached up to the counter and pulled herself up.

“I sent Greg.” Mercado looked at her. “Not to spy, child. To watch over you. To protect you, Catarina. Now you know why.”

Kate nodded. Suddenly her gaze shifted to the counter.

“See, Benjamín, look at what you’ve lost,” Mercado said. “Everything in your heart. Look at her… Was it worth it? This oath of yours. Where can you go now?”

“I can go back,” Raab said, placing the muzzle of the gun in front of the old man’s eyes. “But you, brother, your time is up. You have nowhere to go but hell.”

“No, Daddy,” Kate said firmly.

It made him turn. Her gun was extended. Directly at him. She shook her head. “Not just yet.”