Chapter 10 - ST. AGNES
Carmine didn’t move.
“Put the gun down, Louis.”
Varrick smiled.
“You’ve watched too many movies, Carmine.”
“You’re pointing a gun at a woman in a church.”
“A closed church.”
“God loves technicalities.”
Calder laughed.
Pike didn’t.
He stood near the altar, restless, eyes constantly moving toward the doors.
Nell noticed.
He was afraid too.
Varrick motioned with the gun.
“The case.”
Carmine dropped it onto a pew.
Calder opened it.
Empty.
His smile vanished.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“Where are the documents?”
“Safe.”
Varrick pressed the gun toward Nell.
“Wrong answer.”
Nell kept her eyes on him.
“You were outside the bakery.”
Varrick’s expression changed.
“Excuse me?”
“I saw you.”
“You were half-dead from smoke.”
“So you admit you were there?”
Calder turned sharply.
“Don’t answer her.”
Nell smiled.
“Still taking orders from him, Louis?”
Varrick’s face reddened.
“I don’t take orders from anybody.”
Calder muttered, “Shut up.”
There it was.
Ego.
Carmine almost smiled.
Nell understood too.
She took one step toward Varrick.
“You let him burn us out for real estate.”
“I cleaned up his mess.”
Calder snapped, “Louis.”
But Varrick was angry now.
“Nineteen property owners took fair offers. Your father wanted to be a hero.”
“He wanted to keep his bakery.”
“He was standing in the way of a seventy-million-dollar development.”
“So you tried to kill him?”
“I didn’t start that fire!”
Calder’s expression went dead.
Nell whispered, “But you covered it up.”
Varrick realized too late.
His face changed.
Somewhere in the darkness, something clicked.
Benny’s recorder.
Calder lunged toward Nell.
Carmine moved.
Everything exploded at once.
A gunshot cracked.
Nell dropped behind a pew.
Carmine slammed Calder into a column.
Pike fired toward the balcony.
Benny returned fire from above.
Varrick ran toward a side door.
Nell saw him.
“No!”
She chased him.
Outside, rain had started.
Varrick sprinted into the cemetery behind the church.
Nell followed between stone markers.
“Stop!”
He turned suddenly.
Gun raised.
Nell froze.
“You ruined your life once,” Varrick said.
“Don’t make me do it again.”
Her chest rose and fell.
“You didn’t ruin my life.”
He laughed.
“No?”
“You just burned a building.”
His face twisted.
“You’re still nobody.”
Nell stepped closer.
“That’s why you’re scared.”
Varrick’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Then another voice came from behind him.
“Drop it.”
Odette stood in the rain.
A gun shook in both her hands.
Varrick laughed.
“You?”
“Drop it.”
He turned the weapon toward her.
The shot came instantly.
Nell screamed.
Odette fell.
Varrick stumbled backward.
Not from Odette’s shot.
From Pike’s.
Darren Pike stood twenty feet away.
Varrick collapsed.
Pike looked at Odette lying in the mud.
“Mom?”
For the first time, the hard man’s face looked like a child’s.
Then Calder came out of the church behind him.
He raised a gun toward Pike.
“You idiot.”
Pike turned.
May you like
Too late.
Calder fired.
