"Before we proceed any further, that gun really isn't necessary," Van de Vliet said as he reached and deftly seized her wrist. He was quick, and his quickness seemed to spook her, because just as he turned the pistol away, it discharged.
The round went astray, ricocheting off a metal lighting fixture at the end of the hallway and into the wall. The hapless, unarmed guard who'd followed her downstairs yelled and dived behind a large potted corn plant near the office door. Both Ellen O'Hara and Debra Connolly just stared, momentarily too stunned to move.
Ally stepped toward the woman, wanting to help Van de Vliet disarm her. She was feeling her heart race dangerously upward.
Van de Vliet was still struggling with the woman when the Beretta discharged again. This time it was aimed downward, at the hard tile floor, and the ricochet was not so harmless. The round bounced back and caught the woman in the chest knocking her sideways. Van de Vliet unsuccessfully grabbed for her as she crumpled. Ally reached for her too, but by that time she was already on the floor. Ally pulled the hot pistol from her fingers, then turned and handed it to Ellen.
"Here. For God's sake, do something with this." She realized she had never actually held a real pistol before.
Blood was flowing across the floor as Van de Vliet and Debra Connolly began tearing open the woman's blouse. The bullet appeared to have entered her chest just below the rib cage, a jagged wound caused by the projectile's tumble and splattered shape, and then exited a few inches away, at her side. She had passed out.
"Get a gurney now," he yelled to Ellen. "We've got to get her into OR one and try to do something about the bleeding."
My God, Ally marveled what desperation drove her to threaten him with a gun when she obviously didn't know the first thing about how to use it?
The woman's open purse was lying no more than two feet from where she had fallen. With the hallway rapidly filling as nurses from upstairs poured off the elevator, no one was paying any attention to anything but the prostrate woman.
Get the letter, Ally!