Page 100 of Secrets in the Dark
“You think that she’s something. When I’m a ghost, I am going to make your life an absolute living hell!” Della promised.
And that was it; he shoved her so hard that she flew away from him, crashing back heavily on the couch.
But it gave her the opportunity to reach for the Baby Browning.
She never had to use it. She heard Mason’s voice in the darkness as he spoke to Jesse Miller.
“No ghost, Mr. Miller. Special Agent Mason Carter right behind you. And that thing protruding into your back is a special issue Glock. One move and we’ll be giving you the opportunity to haunt us as a ghost.”
She thought that Miller froze. Mason flicked on his penlight with his free hand and she saw that Jesse Miller didn’t want to die himself.
“Drop the knife,” Mason ordered.
Something in Miller changed. He had wanted immortality. Maybe he thought he still might achieve it with the murder of an FBI agent.
He didn’t drop the knife; he lifted it to hurtle it at Della.
She and Mason both fired.
Jesse Miller went down and, thankfully, the knife flew into the couch, killing nothing but the upholstery.
The would-be Ripper on the floor moaned. Della leaped to her feet to join Mason.
“I was afraid I’d hit you,” Della said. “I aimed for his knees.”
“I think it’s a through and through. Depending on whether I hit vital organs or not,” Mason said. “And Sean Johnstone’s crew will be pouring in any minute—I texted them on my way down the stairs. And...”
He stopped speaking, pulling her into his arms.
They held there together for seconds that were also timeless.
Then a floodlight filled the basement as officers came hurrying down the stairs, someone assuring Mason that the men upstairs would be all right, reaching for Jesse Miller who was so injured that he’d lost all fight.
With the light now flooding the basement, Della could see the ghost of Abigail Scott, standing just to the side.
Della inclined her ear to her. “Thank you!” she mouthed.
Abigail nodded grimly and they all watched the action now taking place.
Medics came rushing down, too. Jesse received the attention needed to save his life.
His eyes were open and he stared balefully at Della.
Mason walked over and looked down. “Hey, you should have listened to her. Not everyone likes curry!”
Epilogue
François Bisset, Jeanne Lapierre and Edmund Taylor were mortified. No matter how many times both Della and Mason tried to tell them that it might happened to anyone, they couldn’t believe that they had been taken down so easily.
Of course, they found the young woman who had delivered the food. And she was horrified and in tears when she found out that she’d been taken. Jesse Miller had charmed her, telling her that his best friends were staying in the house and he just wanted to slip a little note in with the food. He’d tried to pay her, but she’d believed him that he was just trying to reach his friends in a new, fun way, and she had thanked him when he’d held the bags for her so that she could quickly answer a phone call.
They decided not to press charges; some people were capable of punishing themselves and Mason believed that she was one of them. And it might have been a good lesson in life learned as well. She would be careful of the men she allowed to charm her in the future.
“That’s the scary thing, right?” Edmund said quietly to Della as she was escorted from headquarters. “People think that killers are monsters. That they’re going to behave or look like monsters. Some do. But...the scariest killers are those who appear to be angels on earth.”
Della nodded.
They’d been thanked for their work by their superiors in England, the United States and France, but it had been Jackson Crow who had talked to them. They needed to be briefed back at Quantico, and with their international agreement, that meant all of them.
