The Water Knife

Lucy is being escorted out of the Taiyang building when she hears people gasping and sees people staring upward at the hanging TV screens. On the screens, reports are coming in of the Blue Mesa dam giving way. As the dam collapses, reporters and announcers on the news speculate if the destruction of the dam is an act of terrorism. The water will likely wipe out many nearby towns. While everyone in the Taiyang is mesmerized by the reports of Blue Mesa dam, Lucy seizes the moment to slip away from the security guards. She manages to make it to the elevators and proceeds to Ratan’s apartment.

Maria is still hiding underneath Ratan’s bed, praying that the killers in his apartment don’t find her. She hears the killers talking about taking Ratan’s computer with them and trying to crack it. The men hunt for the computer’s passwords, possibly written down by Ratan. One of the men comes back to the bedroom and rifles through Ratan’s pants. Maria can see him reaching down, inches from her face. Maria hears a knock at the door. The men open the door; Maria hears a woman’s voice, a struggle in the living room, and the woman screaming. The woman’s voice goes silent, and the men exit the apartment.

Eventually, Maria makes her way out from under the bed and surveys the damage done and Ratan’s body. The two men had cut off his finger to try to get into his laptop. Maria decides she needs to run back to Toomie and get help. She suppresses the urge to vomit and gets in the shower again. As she prepares to leave, she grabs the copy of Cadillac Desert that Ratan had offered her. Maria hears someone at the door again and suddenly a man is rushing toward her as she lunges for a knife. The man picks her up and drops her, stunning her.

Lucy wakes up in the back of a truck with a sack over her head and her hands zip-cuffed behind her back. The men in the truck interrogate Lucy about Ratan, but Lucy insists she doesn’t know him. One of the men looks familiar, but Lucy can’t quite place her finger on it. Lucy recalls Jamie talking about how before he left, he was going to screw over Case and Las Vegas. Lucy asks the men in the truck if they’re working for Las Vegas, but the men tell her to stop asking questions and hit her. 

Maria wakes up to Angel asking if she’s all right. Angel gives her a quick inspection and tells her to take it easy, that she has a concussion. Angel asks Maria if there was another woman who came to the apartment and gives her Lucy’s description. He tells her that he was following the woman but “didn’t think she’d walk herself straight into a trap” (200). Maria tells Angel that the killers took the woman but didn’t find what they were looking for. Angel makes sure Maria has a place she can go to before he exits and leaves her alone in the apartment with the bodies.

Angel is troubled by the fact that “everywhere he went, killers had gone before him, wrapping up the people who might give him answers” (201). As he attempts to leave the Taiyang, Angel notices that there are several Calies patrolling the area. Angel pulls Maria back inside the apartment as she is leaving and tells her that she’s going to help him get past some bad guys coming for him. Angel dresses in Ratan’s clothes and stuffs his ballistic jacket into Maria’s purse. Together, they walk past the Calies heading up the steps toward them and make their way to a koi pond. Angel notices that the Calies have all the exits surrounded. Attempting to blend in with the crowd, Angel and Maria watch the news about the Blue Mesa dam. Angel asks Maria to look around at the Calies and see if any of them might be the men who murdered Ratan. Maria tells Angel that the men in the apartment weren’t wearing business suits, and one of them was wearing cowboy boots. Regarding Lucy, Maria says to Angel, “I thought maybe she was your girl or something. You seem awful worried about her” (207). It seems like the Calies have spotted Angel, and they begin to head toward where he is sitting with Maria. As the Calies get nearer, Angel surveys the infinity pool and waterfall in front of them that lead to a filtration system somewhere. Angel asks Maria if she can swim.