breathing, mirroring the wheezing in Leonor’s gasps. For a second, she knew they were all in Glover’s control. Only he could decide how this was going to end.
No.
This was a child’s thinking. The fear of the unknown. The terror of knowing the bogeyman was coming to get you. But Glover wasn’t that. He wasn’t a creature that crawled out of the swamp or hid under the bed. He wasn’t a monster. He was a man. She forced herself to see him for what he truly was.
He was sick. If death hovered above him, it was because he was dying. His skin was drawn, eyes sunken. There was a bald patch on his head where someone had shaved his hair off, probably to perform a medical procedure. He was thin, almost skeletal.
This man was broken. It didn’t make him less dangerous. He had nothing left to lose.
“Glover,” she said, her voice soft and low. “If you hurt her, Agent Gray will shoot you.”
“Maybe,” he said, grinning insanely. “But I’ll get to see the look on your eyes as you see this woman die. It’ll be worth it.”
He wasn’t really afraid of Tatum’s gun. Like many psychopaths, Glover’s risk assessment was skewed. He was aware of the gun’s existence, but the threat was abstract, distant. For Glover, real fear came with pain. She recalled his attack on her and the dismay in his eyes when she’d managed to stab him. And it had happened again, when Marvin had shot him. When Glover felt actual pain, the threat became real.
And now he was in pain all the time. That was what he was really afraid of. The cancer. He had time to process the pain and forge acute terror from it. The gun, in comparison, meant almost nothing. In fact, by this point he might welcome being shot, just to escape death by cancer.
“If you put down the knife,” Zoe said, “we will make sure you get the cancer treatment you deserve.” She stressed the word deserve. In Glover’s world, he was entitled to everything he took.
“That’s a cute story you’re trying to sell me,” Glover snarled. “I’ve researched prison hospitals. I’ve seen the treatment I’d get there. I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on that generous offer.”
Of course. He’d already contemplated the possibility. Checked it. She recalled what Leonor had told her earlier. I doubt he’d get the treatment he needs in prison. She’d repeated things Glover had told her. For him, being arrested was tantamount to a death sentence. Slow and painful.
No. He wanted something else here. To either escape or die. Perhaps all he was doing right now was building enough courage to force Tatum to shoot him, suicide by federal agent. And once he was ready for it, Leonor would die.
“What if we let you leave?” Zoe asked.
“Leave? When we finally get the reunion we wanted?” Glover shifted his head again. “After all those years we have an opportunity to talk, and you want me to leave?”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“A little gratitude would be nice.”
Zoe blinked. “Gratitude?”
“I made you, Zoe. You owe everything to me. I am the reason for your stellar career. Jovan Stokes, Jeffrey Alston, Clyde Prescott. I’ve been following the stories. And meanwhile I need to hide in a shitty two-bedroom apartment, constantly making sure the cops don’t look at me funny. Had to pay thousands of dollars to get a solid fake identity, just because a snotty kid once decided her nice neighbor was a killer.”
“You were a killer.”
“No! It was that kid from the school. The police said so. In fact, I helped them in their investigation.”
She stared at him in amazement. It occurred to her that he’d said that so many times he might have started to believe it. Or maybe, in some insane corner of his mind, he thought he could still get out of this. Could somehow prove he was entirely innocent. Maybe he lied because currently he saw no better course of action.
“Say thanks,” he snapped.
“What?”
“Thank me for your career, or I slit this woman’s throat right now.”
He kept shifting his head. Why was he doing that?
He had no peripheral vision. That was why he couldn’t drive. He looked at her and Tatum as if through a tunnel. That was why he kept moving his head. He wanted to see them both.
She decided to test her theory. “Here’s my offer. The agent and I move from the doorway. You can walk through it and get out of