go, there’s no code, no rule, no law, nothing that would stop me from blowing your brains out.”
“You do that, you’ll never know where your mother is buried.”
Drex grimaced.
Jasper laughed. “Ah, I’ve presented you with a dilemma. You want to save Talia, which is romantic to the nth degree. But, if you kill me, you’ll never know your mother’s final resting place.”
“You’re right,” Drex said, lowering the pistol. “I’ll just shoot you in the leg instead.”
He pulled the trigger. Jasper’s body jerked. He cried out. When his leg buckled, he dragged Talia down with him. She used that nanosecond of weakness to lunge away from him.
He caught her by the hair and tried to jerk her backward.
Rapid gunfire erupted.
His grip on her hair was released so abruptly, she fell forward, landing hard on her knees, gasping for breath, deafened by the barrage.
Then Drex was there, kneeling beside her. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her into a sitting position. Her hearing was still muffled, but his lips were moving, asking repeatedly if she was all right.
Dumbly, she nodded.
He kissed her forehead, then eased her toward Menundez, who was at her other side, down on one knee. A number of uniformed officers had crowded into the open doorway. Locke was motioning them back, keeping them from entering the room.
She took all this in, but her gaze followed Drex as he walked over to where Jasper had collapsed. He had crumpled against his closet door, listing at a severe angle. He was bleeding from numerous wounds in his chest and abdomen.
Drex crouched in front of him.
With cold objectivity, Drex regarded the wounds he’d inflicted. The one in Jasper’s thigh was the only one that had required some shooting skill. He’d had to make it count without hitting Talia.
The others, he’d gone for center of mass. They hadn’t required careful aim to do fatal damage.
Had he felt any remorse for that, he only had to look into the black, fathomless eyes, from which not a single glimmer of a human soul had ever shone. He had only to think of the women who had suffered and died and been abandoned in ignominious graves.
He said, “You’re already dead. You’ve got minutes, if that. Weston.”
Jasper’s lips formed a rictus of smug delight. “Your mother liked my name. Liked me. So much so that she gave you up to be with me.” He gurgled a laugh. “You’ll never find her, you know.”
“Probably not. But that’s not my heart’s desire. This is.”
Drex reached out and yanked hard on the button of the blazer. With a snap of threads, it came free. Drex bounced it in his palm. “So much for your collection.”
Blood had filled Jasper’s mouth and coated his teeth, making his grin grotesque. He was wheezing for each shallow breath, blowing bubbles of blood, but he forced himself to speak.
“I suppose that you’ll open up my brain and study it, won’t you, Dr. Easton? You’ll want to know what made me tick. You could write a textbook about me.” His laugh was a blood-sputtering travesty. “Probe my brain, slice and dice it, dig into it till the day you die. It will never tell you where to look for your mother.”
Drex leaned in a little closer. “Your brain has absolutely zero value, Weston. It will cook in an incinerator and turn to ash. It will never be dissected and analyzed. You are nobody’s idea of a specimen worth writing about. Know why?” He placed his lips against Jasper’s ear. “You’re too fucking ordinary.”
Seconds later, he watched Weston Graham die an inglorious death, carrying that crushing insult into hell with him.
Talia wept with relief when she learned that Mike was alive.
Drex wanted to comfort her, but they were kept separated while being questioned by investigators from the Mount Pleasant police department. When it came his turn, Locke advised him to let him do most of the talking. Drex was happy to oblige. He was coming down off a bitch of an adrenaline surge.
Locke and Menundez explained to the investigators what had brought them rushing to the Ford residence. “We alerted your department to a possible crisis situation,” Locke told them, “but we had a good head start and arrived ahead of everyone else.”
Menundez explained how Jasper had come to be shot by a small-caliber pistol belonging to him. “I carry a spare in an ankle holster. I gave it to Easton before we entered the house.”
Those interrogating them turned as one to regard Drex