"You don't understand," Diana said, her voice eerily calm despite the circumstances. "He deserves this. Theyalldeserve this."
"Step away from the mayor and get on the ground," Vic repeated, her weapon steady despite the confined space and poor lighting.
Miles knew right away from the hard gleam in Diana’s eyes that she would do no such thing. But all the same, he was still surprised when Diana moved with sudden, desperate speed. She grabbed the handle of the crucible and kicked the portable burner with her foot, sending the entire apparatus tumbling toward them. Molten gold spilled across the concrete floor in a river of liquid fire. The metal hissed and popped as it hit the cold surface. For a moment, Miles was nearly hypnotized by the odd sight.
"Move!" Vic shouted, but she was already diving toward Mayor Callahan, trying to drag his unconscious form away from the spreading pool of superheated metal.
Miles saw Diana sprinting toward the doorway and he forced his eyes away from the spilled gold. He acted on pure instinct, barely thinking of what he was doing. He launched himself across the small room, his shoulder catching Diana in the midsection just before she was able to escape. He drove her backward against the wall with enough force to rattle the metal shelving units around them.
Diana grunted as the impact drove the air from her lungs, but she recovered faster than Miles expected. Her hands clawed at his face, fingernails raking across his cheek and drawing blood. She brought her knee up hard, aiming for his groin, but Miles twisted away and the blow caught him in the hip instead. He slammed his elbow down hard across her thigh as they bounced off the wall and crashed to the floor together. Miles did his best to pin her arms while Diana writhed beneath him with surprising strength. She was small but moved with the desperate fury of someone who had nothing left to lose.
"You're destroying everything!" Diana snarled, her face inches from his. "These people are parasites!”
Miles managed to grab one of her wrists, but Diana's free hand was already moving. He caught a glimpse of something dark sliding from her sleeve—a leather-wrapped blackjack that gleamed dully in the uncertain light. And it was moving forward with incredible speed.
The weighted weapon caught him across the temple with a sound like a baseball bat hitting a watermelon. Stars exploded across Miles's vision and his grip on Diana loosened as pain lanced through his skull. The room spun around him, the overhead light streaking in nauseating arcs. A lance of pain looped through his head and for a moment, he felt like he might black out from it.
Diana rolled away from him, the blackjack raised for another strike. Blood ran down Miles's face from where her fingernails had torn his skin, and he could taste copper in his mouth. His head felt like it was splitting apart, but he forced himself to focus on Diana's weapon as she brought it down toward his face. He also saw the blazing gold still spreading out in a pool behind her.
She was coming forward again, and Miles was still so dazed from the pain that he found it hard to even raise his hand to ward off the blow.
The gunshot was deafeningly loud in the confined space.
Diana's right leg suddenly buckled beneath her and she screamed, the blackjack flying from her hand and clattering to the floor as she collapsed. Blood spread across her pants leg from where Vic's bullet had found its mark.
"That's enough!" Vic shouted, her weapon still trained on Diana while she kept one reassuring hand on Mayor Callahan's shoulder. "Stay down, Diana!"
Miles's ears were ringing from the gunshot, but he forced himself to move. Diana was writhing on the floor, clutching her wounded leg, but her eyes still burned with fanatic determination. The blackjack had landed just inches from her outstretched hand.
He dove for the weapon, his fingers closing around the leather grip just as Diana made a desperate lunge for it. They struggled briefly, but Diana's leg wound had sapped her strength. Miles wrenched the blackjack away and tossed it across the room, where it clattered against the far wall.
"Miles!" Vic called out. "Hold her down!"
Miles pressed his weight across Diana's shoulders, pinning her to the concrete floor by placing a knee between her shoulder blades. She continued to struggle, screaming now, but the fight was going out of her. The bullet wound was bleeding freely, and her face had gone pale with shock and blood loss. As for Miles, he was grateful that his only job was to essentially serve as dead weight so she couldn’t move. His head was still reeling from the blackjack attack.
Heavy footsteps thundered in the corridor outside, and suddenly the doorway was filled with uniformed security personnel. Jackson appeared first, his weapon drawn, followed by Rodgers and several museum guards.
"Paramedics!" Vic shouted without looking away from Mayor Callahan. "We need paramedics now! And call for backup!"
Jackson was already speaking into his radio, coordinating emergency response while his team secured the scene. The small room filled with people, their voices creating a cacophony of urgent communication. Miles was only dimly aware of any of this. Everything looked and felt fuzzy around the edges and the pain in his head was still roaring.
Diana had stopped struggling beneath Miles, her breathing coming in short gasps. "You don't understand," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the chaos around them. "The gold... it tells the truth about people. It shows what they really are."
"Save it for your lawyer," Miles groaned, blood from his head wound dripping onto the floor beside her.
Vic appeared at his shoulder, handcuffs ready. "Can you hold her steady?"
Miles adjusted his grip, keeping Diana's arms pinned while Vic worked. The cuffs clicked into place with a sound of finality that seemed to echo in the small space.
"Diana Hartwell," Vic said formally, "you're under arrest for the murders of Rebecca Thornfield, Patricia Vance, and David Goldberg, Nelson Dewalt, and for the attempted murder of Mayor Thomas Callahan."
Miles looked around the destroyed room—the spilled gold cooling on the floor, the makeshift laboratory equipment, the unconscious mayor, the bleeding suspect in handcuffs. The acrid smell of heated metal and gunpowder hung in the air like a toxic cloud.
Diana Hartwell had turned her expertise and her pain into a weapon of vengeance, but her crusade was over. On the floor, the last remnant of her morbid quest was cooling into twisted shapes, no longer liquid fire but solid metal again. Harmless.
Just like Diana Hartwell.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
