Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

could want at that time of the morning and staggered down the stairs to open the front door. It wasn’t Dehan.

It was Tamara. She stood looking up at me with that face that should have belonged to an angel. She looked scared and vulnerable.

“I couldn’t do it.” She said it like it should make sense to me.

I stepped aside. “Come in.”

She stepped in and placed her hands on my bare chest. “John, I am so sorry. Tell me you’ll forgive me. I was out of my mind. I was so scared of what that monster would do to me.”

“You stabbed Hugh Duffy three times in the stomach.”

“I was out of my mind. I know it was wrong. You have to believe me.”

“I don’t have to believe anything.”

I walked away from her into the kitchen and started making coffee.

She followed, but stopped in the middle of the floor. She looked like a beautiful, frightened child. “You are right to be angry.”

“Why did you kill the pilots?”

“They were flying to Bermuda. They were going to take the box to Spain. I had to come back. I had to come back to you.”

“Why?”

She smiled. “Because we are partners, remember? We are going to sell the box together. You are going to fix all this. The way you fixed it before, for Emma.”

I nodded. “Have you got the box?”

“Yes.” She reached in her pocket and pulled it out to show me. “There is nobody left now to stop us. Baxter is dead, dos Santos is dead.”

“A lot of people are dead, Tamara.”

“But they are not important people. People die. People come and go. Emma taught me that. They are not important. Important people are Emma and me, and you can be important, too, if you join us. Steve could have been important, but he was stupid.”

I poured two cups of coffee and reached in the cupboard for the whiskey. I laced both cups and pushed one across the breakfast bar for her.

“And if I don’t?”

She laughed. “Come on! Don’t tease.”

She came forward and picked up her cup. We were like two old friends having a chat. She sipped and smiled. “So what’s the plan?”

“The plan is you hand yourself over to the cops.”

She didn’t seem to register. She blinked a couple of times. “What?”

“I said, the plan is, Tamara, you hand yourself over to the cops. It’s over. You are done killing people. The box goes back to Duffy, and you go into psychiatric care. It’s over.”

She sighed. “Come on, John, cut it out. We sell the box, we go away, you and me and Emma.”

I put down my cup and walked around the bar to stand in front of her. “Tamara Gunthersen, I am putting you under arrest for multiple homicides and attempted homicides…”

The scream seemed to tear the whole night in half. The blade flashed. I stepped back and stumbled, and that probably saved my life. I fell back on the floor, and she fell on top of me, plunging the blade down toward my throat. I gripped her wrist with both my hands, but I was holding up the full weight of her body and I could feel the steel tip inching closer, until the point was pricking my skin. She leaned forward, straddling my chest, and heaved.

And then the door busted open. I heard Dehan’s voice shouting, and I have never been so happy to hear anything in my whole life. She bellowed, “Drop the knife!”

Instead, Tamara raised herself up for a lunge that I knew would skewer my neck to the floor. I heard her scream of rage a fraction of a second before I heard the crack of Dehan’s .38, and Tamara’s beautiful, tragic body sank slowly to the floor by my side.

Dehan rushed to me, checked I was okay, and then checked Tamara. I sat up with my back against the wall.

“What… Why are you here?”

She spoke into her radio instead of answering. “Dispatch, this is Detective Dehan of the 43rd precinct, requesting an ambulance at Haight Avenue. One female, seriously injured… Also any unit in the area to respond…”

And far off I heard the wail of approaching sirens.

Epilogue

The ambulance had gone, with the patrol car. It was three in morning, and Dehan was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs on rye, and more coffee. I watched her a while, feeling numb and in pain at the same time, and deeply confused also. I sat gingerly at the table and sipped my laced coffee.

“Dehan?”

“Yuh.”

“Why are you here?”

“I came to save your butt, remember?”

“No. I mean yes, but no, that’s not what I mean. I mean, why are you here saving my butt? How did you know?”

She sighed and shook her head, and spilled eggs onto the toasted rye on the plate. “Come and eat.”

I made my way around to the kitchen table and sat. She sat opposite.

“It was obvious, Stone. She was coming back for you. I waited for her outside.”

“How was that obvious?”

“She was in love with you. Don’t tell me you didn’t see that. I saw it straightaway.”

“How could she be in love with me? She was crazy!”

“What? Crazy people can’t fall in love?”

I had no answer for that, so I ate and drank my coffee. I frowned. “How could you have seen it from the start? You didn’t see her till today.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “What? Don’t give me that look. How could you have seen that?”

“Shut up and eat your eggs.”

We ate in silence for a bit. Then, I said, “If you were waiting outside, why did you take so long?”

She looked sheepish. “I fell asleep. When I woke up, her car was there.”

“You fell asleep?”