Chapter 18

Gary didn’t look good. His donut of mousy hair was sticking up in back. His face was drawn. The hand with the gun was trembling. Somewhere, he’d found a long, plastic raincoat. It must have been hot because his face was red and sweaty. For the blood, a part of me thought. That’s why he was wearing the raincoat. He was already planning on the blood.

“Come on,” he said. “Get out of there.”

“You killed—”

“Yeah, yeah. I killed them. I killed Mason. I killed that—” He said a word that you definitely aren’t supposed to say anymore. “—Jodi. And I killed Cole.”

“Because—”

“Because of the money!” The hand with the gun dipped. He was breathing hard. “Because of that stupid money!”

“You—”

“She wasn’t going to give us any of it. Can you believe that? The old bag said we didn’t need it; Becky made plenty of money, and we owned everything outright. It was all going to Mason and Cole. After all these years. Everything I put up with from Becky. Being treated like a servant. Worse—being treated like a buffoon. I couldn’t do anything right. Making fun of me to her friends. Making fun of me to the boys. Making me the butt of all her stupid jokes. Because she knew I couldn’t leave.” He shook his head. “But it was all going to be worth it.”

“Until Mason said he was going to give away the money. Then you—”

“I went crazy!”

“Okay, but if I could finish one sentence—”

“I went out of my mind. They were going to get everything, and Mason was going to give half of it away. I couldn’t—I couldn’t!” The color leached from his face until he looked gray. “Jodi and Becky had gone to bed. Sharian was drinking herself silly; she was acting like it was the end of the world, you know, because the wedding was canceled. And Penny—well, Penny was out of her mind. She didn’t even notice when I followed her into town. She was too angry because Mason had knocked her up, and he still didn’t want anything to do with her.”

“Which you knew—”

“Because I found the paternity test—”

“Come on,” I said, unable to help my note of frustration.

“—back in Portland. Cole helped her, you know. Mason wouldn’t consent to a paternity test, not without a court order—and rightly so—but Cole, well, Cole was always a soft touch.”

“And because they’re twins—”

“Identical twins, exactly. That was all Penny needed—proof, if you want to call it that, that Mason was the father of her child. She wasn’t stupid enough to try to use it before the wedding, though. She was going to wait.”

“But you found it first, didn’t you? And then Mason made his announcement about giving away the money, and you had bigger things to worry about.”

Gary blinked at me as though he’d forgotten I was there. “It was an accident. It was a terrible accident. I wanted to talk to him, that’s all. I had to make him understand. I’d worked for that money. I’d earned it. If he didn’t want it, well, it ought to have been mine anyway. He’d had too much to drink. We argued. I wanted to—I wanted to shake some sense into him. I grabbed that stupid necklace, and it broke. He fell.” In an empty voice, he said, “He hit his head.”

“And Hugo was right there, unconscious, the perfect fall guy.”

Gary shuddered, and with his free hand, he dry-washed his face. “It was an accident. And I knew it wouldn’t help anybody—wouldn’t make it any better—if I stayed. I drove home. Jodi and Becky were still asleep. I thought I saw Sharian, but when I came inside, she and Penny were asleep.”

I shook my head. “She saw you. She made a mistake—one dark sedan looks like another, and she assumed it was Jodi, since Jodi—”

“She lost her mind. She went out of her head. First, with Mason. And then—and then everything. She was going to lock it all up in a trust for charity. Nobody was going to get it—nobody was going to get anything. Mason would have wanted it that way, she said. Ha! And she wouldn’t talk about it, she wouldn’t listen to reason. She was going to sign the papers as soon as we got back to the city.”

“But you weren’t going to let that happen. So, you—”

“I drugged her drink! Yes! And then I put that stupid paternity test in there. That would have been the end of it—Penny had already made a scene at the bar, and now the sheriff would see she had a motive. But my idiot son had to ruin everything. He couldn’t have the decency to get high and pass out like he did every other night of his life. And then, when we were coming home, I was in the car with Becky. We almost hit you as you and your friends were leaving. That’s when I knew you were still poking around.”

“So, you tried to—

“I tried to run you over.”

I said a few of my own not-so-polite words.

“But you got away from me,” Gary said, “and before I could try again—”

The stop was so sudden and absolute that I thought, for a moment, something had happened to him. His face was washed out, a sickly white that was almost green, and his eyes looked like paper-punch holes.

“Before you could try again,” I said, “you realized Cole suspected. Or maybe he knew. And then Cole had to go.”

Gary dry-washed his face again.

“He wasn’t soft,” I said. “And he wasn’t stupid. He was hurting. And he was lost. And he wanted to be more than what he was; he just didn’t know how.”

Rough, rasping breaths came back to me in answer. And then, voice almost unrecognizable, Gary said, “Get up.”

I started to rise. And then I threw one of the hiking shoes at his face.

Gary shouted and flinched. The movement carried him backward, out of the doorway. The hand with the gun rose into the air as he tried to catch his balance, and then the gun went off. The sound was enormous in that cramped space. Chunks of plaster rained down, and gritty dust mixed with gun smoke to cloud the air.

As Gary tried to recover his balance, I darted through the doorway. He shouted. I kept running. The door to the hallway stood open, and I sprinted toward the front of the house. Gary shouted again, and another clap of gunfire chased after me. On my next breath, I tasted gunpowder and sweat and the powdery bitterness of broken drywall.

When I reached the living room, I turned—and my momentum carried me into a careening slide as I tried to orient myself toward the front door. The gun barked again. A bullet punched through the wall ahead of me, dislodging a shelf, and decorative seashells fell to shatter against the floor. I put on the gas. Broken bits of shell crunched underfoot as I barreled down the hallway. The front door seemed to balloon ahead of me, getting bigger with every step. Somewhere behind me, Gary was screaming.

I had to get outside. I had to get outside, and then I had to get down the hill, and then Fox would be waiting with the van—

But a part of me knew I’d never make it. There was too much open ground between here and there. And Gary only had to hit me once.

I threw open the door and stumbled outside.

A voice shouted, “Down!”

A familiar voice.

Deputy Bobby’s voice.

I threw myself to the ground. Concrete scraped my cheek, pleasantly cool against the flush of adrenaline. The air smelled clean, like pine sap and wet duff and asphalt washed clean by rain. My chest heaved as my body demanded more air.

“Drop it! Drop it! Get on the floor!”

A thud came—the sound of a body hitting tile. Steps moved. A familiar snick—handcuffs locking in place.

And then a hand on the back of my neck. It felt exactly like I remembered.

“You’re okay,” Deputy Bobby said. And then, his voice rough, “You’re okay.”