“You ready to do this?” he asked.
Without another word, Rio entered first, but it wasn’t like she knew the layout any better than Luke did. Still, it didn’t take a genius to know that whoever was upstairs was going to do one of two things: They were either going to come down with a weapon, or they were going to call for reinforcements.
Which might, or might not, be Caldwell Police.
Probably not on that one. Assuming they were in the right place, Stephan Fontaine had plenty of street resources, in spite of all his legitimate business contacts and philanthropy.
Taking off at a run, she suddenly knew what she was looking for—and yet she didn’t understand why it mattered so much, given the alarm, given everything. But she had to find the fountain. It would confirm that which was still only speculation at the moment.
If she could find where she had been held, though, she could make the final connection, plug the background in with the foreground.
She raced through a blur of rooms, dining, sitting, a library, a study—
And there it was. The fountain was around the last turn, in that room she remembered, with the chair she’d been tied to. As she skidded to a halt on the black-and-white marble floor, it was all as it had been: The falling water, the golden clock on the mantel, the drapes.
Turning around to Luke, who had been following her, she saw past his shoulder a man coming down the formal staircase in a silken robe.
And for a moment, she froze solid. Especially as Stephan Fontaine looked right at them.
They were in the shadows, though, because he had failed to reopen the heavy curtains from when he’d brought her here.
Why, she thought. Why had he taken the risk?
And as soon as she wondered that, she knew the answer: Because he believed he could. Because he had been safe in this house, and hidden from his Mozart games for so long, that he believed he was invincible. With all his money, legally or illegally gotten, the world was his for the taking—and people like her, people like her brother and her parents, didn’t matter. He had his fortune, and his power, and his fake status, and all the lives that he ruined along the way didn’t matter.
Rio started running before she knew she was going to go at him, flashes of the past spurring her on, images of Leon Roberts’s face, of the white hair and skin of that hired killer at the apartment, of Mickie dead on that sofa . . . of Spaz shambling around the alleys of downtown, caught in a trap that he would never get out of . . . giving her the strength of a linebacker.
Just as Stephan turned to her as he heard her footfalls, she launched herself into the air.
She took him down hard, the gun in his hand flying free, the breath exploding out of him. And she didn’t stop there. Rage blinded her until she saw nothing but her vengeance as she pounded at him with her fists, hitting him, kicking him, scratching him. At some point, she grabbed him around the throat and started strangling him.
All around, the alarm continued to sound, but it wasn’t nearly as loud as the roar in her heart, in her soul.
“Luis!” She yelled her brother’s name. “Luis . . .”
And then it was over. As fast as it had begun, it was over. She was pulled off her prey, just ripped away, and she fought whoever it was—
“Rio! Rio!”
Her name. Spoken in that voice, that deep voice that made it through her fury when nothing and no one else could have.
Luke shoved his face into hers. “Do you want to kill him or not?”
“What?”
“Do you want to kill him?” When she didn’t respond, Luke put a gun in her hand. “You can shoot him if you need to, it’s your choice. But you told me you wanted him to go to jail, not a grave. I just have to make sure you know what you’re doing—and we’re also out of time. I hear the sirens.”
“How will they know what he did?” she mumbled. “How will he—”
Luke glanced up and cursed. Then refocused on her. “What do you want to do? You don’t have a lot of time unless you want to be here when your colleagues arrive. You said you didn’t know who to trust. This place is about to be filled with cops.”
Rio broke out of his hold and leaned over Stephan Fontaine. His face was bloody to the point of being unrecognizable, but he was breathing, though otherwise motionless. The silk robe he was wearing was ruined, all stained and torn.
Luke had been right to peel her off. Even a minute more, and she would have killed him.
And justice had to be served.
“There’s only one person I trust,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go.”
Hello? Hello? CPD dispatch, can you identify yourself?”
José blinked and looked at his phone like it could have been a toaster oven—and why would that be the case here outside of Stan’s house?
Next to Stan’s dead body.
It was a moment before everything came back to him.
“—hello?” the woman said over the connection.
“Ah, this is Detective José de la Cruz.” He had to clear his throat. “My badge number is oh-fiver-nine-four. I need immediate assistance at seven-niner-two Eastwood Lane. We have . . .”
José focused on the face of his old friend. Who he no longer felt he knew. Who he no longer saw as the chief of the force.
“We have a gunshot death.” The dispatcher asked some questions that ran together so he cut through things. “I shot him. In self-defense.”
There were many questions then, and he answered them as well as he could— There was a gun in Stan’s hand. Wait . . . that wasn’t right, he thought. Or was it?
As a headache threatened, he gave up on everything. And a little later he was off the phone and just leaning back against Stan’s car.
All of a sudden, the details of the night became very clear, from the cold temperature, to the smell of someone’s fire in their fireplace, to the whiff of gas like the vehicle needed a tuning up.
It was so quiet out here.
But Stan had missed the very peace he had sought. On all levels.