A Lesson in Love and Murder (29 page)

“I want him gone!” He spat in Ray's direction. “I want Ray out of my life. I want to manage my own family and my own affairs without his getting involved.”

“Then start taking care of your family!” Ray shouted. “Start now, and I will happily stay in Toronto. But I won't let you starve my sister and nephew.”

“You show up, and I sink lower and lower in her eyes,” Tony confessed, shifting his weight, tightening his grip on Jem's arm and twisting it behind her back the more upset he got. “I'm not you! She looks
up to you. My own little boy will look up to you. It's been this way since we were kids!”

“I don't know what you want me to say, but I would prefer not to talk about this while you have that weapon pointed at my Jemima!”

“What do you want with me, Ray?”

“Right now, all I want is her, and you can go to… go to… ” He coughed. “I want you in jail. I want you so far away from my sister that she never hears from you again! That you drift into some phantom memory.” He winced as Jem looked at him helplessly, her eyes pleading with him to do something. “Jasper might want justice, but all I want is you gone. Take the money, leave the corpse. I don't care. Just give her back, Tony! You don't need to hurt her like that. She's not squirming or anything.”

“A trade.”

“Lower your gun and take your filthy hands off Jemima, and I will let you have this entire bank if that's what you want.”

“But
I
won't.” Jasper cut through, while Tony wrung Jem's arm so tightly she cried out.

Ray swung around. “You won't?” he said fiercely. “Jasper, what do you mean you won't? He'll kill Jem.”

Jasper shook his head. “No, he won't.”

Ray inclined his head in Tony's direction. “He's not giving me any reason to believe he won't.”

Jasper calmly raised his gun at Tony again while Ray desperately tried to decipher his plan. A split second later he figured it out, as Jasper swerved the gun and fired before Tony could react, other than to falter and let go of the nearly missed Jem while he gripped his now wounded forearm.

Ray was furious and scared and then furious again. “You trusted your aim that much!” he said to Jasper, grabbing a shaking Jem and pulling her away from Tony, who was cursing at the widening stain on his shirt.

“Are you all right?” Ray asked Jem, gripping her arms and staring into her terrified eyes.

She was too scared to say anything, and her teeth were chattering so fiercely that coherent sentences wouldn't have made their way out anyway. Ray smoothed her hair back, kissed her forehead, and then held her at arm's length a moment and gave her a slight reassuring smile. Then he swerved at Tony, who had slowly risen, gripping his bleeding arm. Ray lunged at him and drove him into the column behind him, his fist gripping his collar. “What is wrong with you? What did I ever do to you?” Ray's bad ear was popping, and red spots were blurring his vision of Tony's suddenly terrified face. When he didn't respond, Ray tightened his hold. “What?”

“Ray, please,” Jem's voice entreated from behind. “It's not worth it.”

Ray saw Tony's eyes flicker toward his dropped gun. Ray kept his grip. “Jemima, pick up the gun.” Tony's eyes flashed the first true fear Ray had seen in them.

Jem made to do as instructed while Ray loosened his grip on Tony, but Tony was faster. He threw Ray behind him, lunged at Jem, wrestled the gun out of her hand, and drove the butt into the side of her head. Ray dashed in Jem's direction while Tony made for Jasper, who found himself with a blade at his neck before he could raise the gun held loosely in his hand. “Constable Forth here was so worried you might commit my murder, he let his guard down a moment.” Tony pressed harder. “And you're still determined to see me hang, Ray?”

“Shut up!” Ray yelled. “Jemima.” Ray dropped in front of her and ran his eyes over her face. He followed the movement of her hand to the back of her neck, and his fingers came away red. The blood drained from his face.

“It's okay,” she said woozily but more clearly than her bleary eyes. “He didn't hit me that hard.” She inclined her head toward Jasper. “Ray, you have to help Jasper.”

Ray picked up the gun Tony had discarded, slowly rose, and turned.

Tony's knife nicked Jasper, and Ray saw a drop of blood. “I left the gun there, Ray, because I know it's useless to you now. You'll never kill me. We're family, aren't we? You think Viola would ever speak to you
again if you did? Look at you. You want to. I hurt your wife, I am driving this weapon farther into your friend's neck, and yet… you can't do it. You hate me, and you still can't do it. For Viola you can't do it.”

Ray's heart twisted at Vi's name, even as his hand closed around the cold metal in his hand.

“We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!” Roosevelt shouted with finality, triggering an explosion of applause from the crowd.

Oh, good!
Merinda thought.
That has to be the end of his spiel
. This Roosevelt fellow had no lack of words as he expounded on every promise. This adventure buzzed through her and made the world seem brighter in kaleidoscope colors, and while she wanted the insufferable man to cease droning on, she didn't want it
all
to end. The sparks and the fireworks, the heart-clutching feeling that the world could turn in an instant and she would be pulled in its vortex. And Benny. Of course, Benny.

She looked about her, and there was David Ross, as planned, the slightest flick of a match and… But a tall figure now stood before him before Merinda could move or even think through the noise of the crowd. They clapped and clapped for Roosevelt. No one would hear the sudden pop of gunfire as the two men wrestled near the exit. And yet, from her vantage point, Merinda knew that Jonathan had pulled the trigger. Ross squirmed and she gasped—undetected by the throng and the noise around her.

Benny was watching the same commotion, his face paling at his simultaneous realization. Jonathan was swift, and they disappeared out the doorway.

Benny looked to Merinda, and they shoved their way through the ovation and in the direction of the bomb still tucked behind the podium. Benny wriggled out of his vest and wrapped it up while Merinda looked left and right. They made for the doorway.

Once outside, in a damp alleyway overrun with garbage and mice, they gingerly set the bomb on the ground.

“Well, that could have been a disaster,” Merinda panted.

“Now you're just being theatrical.” Benny's normally clipped, calm voice was rippled with fear.

“I'm pretending to be calm.”

“I'm still scared!” Benny said.

“I am too!” Merinda took a step back. “Imagine a Mountie saying he is scared.”

“I am… uneasy.” Benny ran his hand through his hair. “There's nothing wrong with saying what you feel, Merinda. You so often say what you
think
. And with such little provocation.”

Merinda stared at the bomb carcass on the ground. “What do we do with this? I know nothing about bombs.”

“Do you think if I pick it up and take it farther, that will stop it from accidentally detonating?”

“I don't know! I don't know!”

“I do!”

They heard David Ross before they saw him, one hand trying to stop the spread of blood, while the other was waving a gun at them. His pained voice was a wire wound tight and thin. “I trusted you.”

“You did so in complete error! What is
wrong
with you? Going to annihilate the entire world to exact your brand of justice?” Merinda spat.

Ross set his gun down, but as Benny made to grab it, Ross struck a match on the ground beside him and tossed it so that its sudden flame caught the end of string trailing a stick of dynamite, held to others of devastating power like firewood bound with twine. Slowly, the snaking flame ate at the string. “We're still close enough to do a lot of damage,” Ross panted.

Benny made for the gun, but Ross had reached it in the split second Benny was distracted by the bomb flickering at his shoes. Benny instinctively stepped in front of Merinda and stared Ross down. “There's enough dynamite here to cause quite a stir,” Ross continued.
“You can leave, of course, but that would mean how many casualties?” Ross cocked the pistol and backed away before tripping, still holding the gun toward them and grunting, his hand completely soaked with his blood. “Or one of you can do something noble. Pick it up and run with it. You may not get out alive, but… ”

“What statement does
that
make?” Merinda screeched. She stepped out from behind Benny. “You would die too.”

“I would take my betrayer with me.”

“Would it be worth it? With no one to see? No president with grand thoughts to extinguish?” Benny leaned into Merinda and turned her from Ross. “Merinda, you have to go! Run. Run as fast as you can and get the police.”

“And what about you?” Merinda squeaked, feet solidly on the ground.

Benny looked about him. Debris, piles of overturned crates, bricks, rubbish. “I can find a way to… to… ”

“You can't disable a bomb by yourself.” Merinda's ears made out the painful trail of the flame on the string. Inching closer and closer.

Benny glared at the shortening wick. It seemed surreal. Just a moment before they would… “I won't have you stay here with me. Merinda, I will not have your blood on my hands when I could… when I could… ”

Merinda shook her head vehemently.

“Ben!”

Merinda and Benny stopped, startled.

“Jonathan!”

“The two other bombs are cleared out,” he assured them. He threw Ross a scowl before following Benny and Merinda's terrified eyes. “Thought I'd knocked you out better than that, you… you… ” His eye caught the bomb at their feet, and he dropped to his knees and inspected the explosive. “Ben, take Merinda and run. That way!” he said through gritted teeth.

“You can do something, can't you?” Benny's attempt at a confident voice betrayed the uncertainty he felt.

Perspiration trailed down Jonathan's forehead. His fingers shook over the gadgets. His bleary eyes trailed over the interlocking wires. “Not sure, Ben.”

“There
must
be a way you can stop it!” Benny's eyes sheened. “You can do anything. You could always do anything.” He watched his cousin's tired profile.

“Ben, I've let you down for the last time,” Jonathan said flatly. He extracted the pistol from his pocket and shot Ross, turned to Benny so their eyes locked. “I'm sorry.”

Merinda looked between them, a startling, wavering realization drawn in a split second. She made to move or speak. But Jonathan had traded the gun for the sputtering bomb and was sprinting in the opposite direction before Benny's arm could stretch out, clutch on, and hold him back. Merinda, wiry but strong, kept him from bounding after the retreating shadow.

Ray stretched his arm out and centered the barrel so that it pointed directly at Tony.

And his mind screamed, “This is Tony!” For his mind was suddenly a book filled with moments, of photographs, of memories. He was just a boy again and Tony was his best friend. Putting ink in his sister's tea. Playing jacks by the river. Chasing chickens.