What Bob really was was some sort of psychopath who successfully pulled the wool over her eyes and left her holding the bag like they were playing some stupid game of snipe hunt.
As if she somehow became a robot, she pulled the second bag closer, unzipping it quickly. Her rage doubling at sight of more money carefully bound in stacks. This one had more. There was a large envelope which she opened.
It contained fake passports, drivers’ licenses in various states, and more than two dozen credit cards in names to match the licenses. There were fake social security cards and birth certificates.
“Well, Bob, this is the first nice thing you’ve done for your family.”
Her spoken words echoed through the empty room below her. Bob had created new identities for the entire family. He must have foreseen the possible need to disappear in a hurry.
Then she chuckled. “I’ll bet it’s burning your ass sitting in jail knowing all this is just sitting here, and you can’t get to it.”
Still covering her hands with her tee shirt, she closed the door leading to the hidden room, hoping she left Bob’s prints on it. She knew about fingerprints. She didn’t miss an episode of CSI.
She had no idea money would be so heavy when she stood and picked up both bags. With the hammer tucked awkwardly under her arm, she lugged the bags upstairs to the kitchen table. She was glad she hadn’t had to use the hammer to beat out the walls, but even if she had beaten out every single wall of the house, it still wouldn’t equal the damage Bob had done to the family he’d helped her create.
As she set the bags on the kitchen table and zipped them open, a plan formed in her mind. And with it came an odd calmness.
Yes, the money was blood money. But as far as she was concerned, she’d earned every dollar of it.
She’d pick up the kids from school and tell them they were going on an adventure. She didn’t know the exact amount of money in the bags, but stacks of fifties and hundreds, enough to fill two large duffel bags, had to be enough for a new start for the three of them. And hell, if she had to, she could max out the fake credit cards. She didn’t want to, though. It would make her more like Bob. No, she’d use the money for the kids and for good.
She’d take the kids where none of them ever had to see Bob on the news ever again.
Then perhaps she’d count at least part of it, so she had an idea of how much it was.
She went upstairs to grab some clothes and personal things.
As she walked past bedrooms, feeling like a ghost in her own home, she made a mental note of things to pack. Lilly would want her doll, Adrianna. Robbie would want to finish the model he was working on. That boy loved to build and put things together, and Maggie planned to keep him that way and not let him turn out like an asshole like his father. They would both want their favorite books.
Grabbing another duffel from her closet, she filled it with everything she thought the kids would want, being careful and putting Robbie’s half-completed model and glue in a small box to keep it all together.
After she placed the filled bag and model box in her car, she remembered her own real passport upstairs in the desk in the spare room they used as an office. She had to force her legs to make the stairs again, as if her discovery had exhausted her. She stepped into the office at the top of the stairs and moved to the desk. Pulling open a drawer, she stared down at their passports. She remembered getting them, remembering Bob’s promise to someday get the stamp of somewhere exotic in them.
“Asshole.” Her single word was so loud in the still house.
Bob always said it was a good idea to keep their passports up to date. Now she understood why. That understanding was like another lit cigarette being put out in her gut. She forced in a deep breath. She took hers and the kids’ and slipped them into the back pocket of her jeans. She didn’t plan to use them, but she did hope to stay honest as much as possible. If she needed them, she wanted to have them.
She left Bob’s passport.
As she turned to leave, she caught a flash of movement out the front window as what looked to be a truck with some sort of logo on the side pulled into her drive past her car that was parked there. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine in the garage beneath her. It dawned on her that for the first time she didn’t know where Bob’s car was.
Had it been impounded?
Who the hell had the nerve to park right in her garage when she’d left the door open?
A reporter?
The truck had had no antennae or dish on top.
Without a sound, she moved to the bedroom she’d shared with Bob. The bedroom she would never again share with him, and snatched up the wooden baseball bat he always kept near his side of the bed.
For protection, he’d said, because he was afraid of guns.
Yeah, right.
Still ghostly, only now slower, she made her way down the stairs, only to find Bob standing at the bottom, looking as if he didn’t recognize his own house or where he was. He wore an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit. Broken shackles with chains hanging like icicles graced his wrists and jangled in the silence.
He held a gun in his hand.
Unafraid. Actually numb, as if Bob’s crimes had managed to wipe away all feeling, she stepped to the bottom, holding behind her right leg the bat with the words stamped on it It’s A Homer!
“Oh, honey bunny! Thank God you’re home! I missed you so! I have such plans for us! We’re going to—”
“Are you bleeding?” she asked.
He held up his arm, revealing his bleeding wrist. “It’s nothing.”
It certainly didn’t look like nothing. He dripped blood on the floor. “I thought you were afraid of guns.” Her voice sounded flat and lifeless even to her own ears.
“I am. It’s just a precaution. I don’t plan to use it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“We have to get things together. We have to get the kids. We have to get on the road. As you can see, I took the chance and escaped. I couldn’t stay in there any longer and let them continue to pin crimes on me. People were threatening to kill me. And no one cared.”
He looked around and his gaze lit on the kitchen table through the door a few yards away.
“I see you found my money. That makes things easier, and we can be out of here faster.”
“I thought it was our money. I thought we were in this together.”
He started to say something, then seemed to change his mine. “That’s right, honey bunny. We are in this together. I just need to change my clothes, and we’ll be out of here.”
Bob took a step toward her, the gun at his side, but still held in a tight grip.
She was two steps above him and focused on another drop of blood that splashed to the clean floor. She had the advantage, and she kept it. Bringing the bat out, she swung it in one smooth motion, holding it in her right hand, but then added the left mid-swing for more leverage and power.
By the time it connected with his left shoulder, she could read the words stamped on it clearly.
The shock on his face was priceless. The way he went down like a toddler learning to walk and missing a step was just as precious. The gun flew from his hand and slid across the floor out of reach.
“What the fuck!” escaped him.
“No cussing in the house, remember? Cussing is not allowed,” her mocking tone was meant to sound like him.
He managed to get out, “But honey bunny, wait. I love you,” before she wacked him across his back as he was sprawled out on the floor.
Maggie let out a hysterical laugh. The first hit of the bat to his shoulder sounded like a thunk against his muscle. But the second, which obviously hit ribs and bone closer to the skin and was less protected by muscle or fat, sounded more like a bat connecting to a pitched baseball. “Guess what, Bob? It’s a Homer!” Her words were the first to have any life.
But they were lost to his cry of pain that filled the house, which was immediately followed by, “No! Ple
ase. Stop!”
“Did any of your victims cry and beg for you to stop, Bob?”
He tried to rise up off the floor, get to his hands and knees. She hit him again and sent him sprawling, his arms and legs going out as if he slipped on ice.
“Did you actually keep someone in that room under our basement? While our children were sleeping?”
Wack!
Her swing to his right knee sent his leg outward at an odd angle. “Or did you perhaps just use that little cell-like space for a man cave when I wasn’t looking? I don’t remember seeing a TV in there. Did you use it for meditation?”
He cried out more and rolled to his side, holding his knee with both hands.
Like a man swinging a sledge hammer over his head, Maggie slammed the end of the bat right down on top of those cupped hands that worked to protect that injured knee. “I think I heard bones snap with that one,” she said. “That sounded a lot like when you pull apart a chicken wing.”
But he was still screaming in pain and obviously didn’t hear her. She swung the bat around, twirling like a dancer with the action as she smoothly brought it upward, more as if she combined tossing a discus with teeing off at her favorite golf course, neither of which she had ever done. The far end of the bat caught him under the right side of his jaw in an upward motion.
He was so busy screaming and still grasping his knee, he didn’t see it coming, didn’t attempt to duck away from the blow, a blow which snapped his head backward and brought his scream to a screeching halt. His body followed, smacking the wood floor.
“I’m not sure what made the loudest sound, Bob, your teeth clanking together with that or the back of your head hitting the floor.”
Maggie stood over him, looking down.
“Oh, and look at that. You must have bitten your tongue. Remember when Robbie bit his tongue at supper about a month ago? You told him to stop whining about it and man up. Why don’t you stop whining and man up?” When she finished the question, she used the bat to slug him in the groin.
He didn’t cry out. His gasp sounded more like a basketball if it was run over by an eighteen wheeler. It was a lot like a “Woooof.” And Maggie laughed.
He sucked in air and panted, trying to hold his groin with hands that didn’t work. “You sound like you’ve run a fucking marathon, honey bunny. Are you having trouble breathing? I’m so sorry. Let me help you with that.”
The end of the bat connected with the left side of his rib cage, catching him mid-pant and sending more air out.
She paused to watch him struggle to draw another breath in. “That didn’t help?” she asked innocently. “What about this, does this help?” She strained her shoulder on the next swing that hit him on the other flank.
He rolled slightly with the assault and coughed.
“Is that blood you spit on my clean floor?” Her voice took on a mocking tone. “You’d better make sure you clean that up, buster. You know the rules. No one makes a mess. When I see all that money, I can’t help but think I wished I’d had a dollar for every time I heard any of your dumbass rules come out of your mouth. No one makes a mess—like you ever even cleaned one, you fucking prick. Did you clean your little room downstairs between residents?”
Wack!
The bat landed on his thigh. He reached out a hand, as if he might be trying to stop her.
She used the bat to take out his elbow. He moaned and cried and spat out more blood.
“No spending any money without asking first. I suppose I should fess up. I bought the kids sodas at the gas station yesterday.”
Thwack!
The bat landed where his foot met his leg. “I spent over two dollars! Can you believe it? Oh, and I bought a coffee—absolutely heavenly coffee—this morning, and it cost more than two dollars! Please don’t punish me by withholding my fucking allowance. Oh, and yes, I did utter a cuss word in case you didn’t hear it.”
She swung the bat and hit him in the same place above his other foot.
“Are you miserable yet?” She studied him for a moment. “Are you even close to miserable yet? Do you have any idea what it feels like to have your daughter’s friend’s mother question about whether or not her little girl was safe under our roof? Was our own little girl safe under our roof, Bob? Did you ever consider hurting her?”
The bat smashed against his uninjured knee. This time he cried out, but it sounded as if it hurt just as much to let out the sound as it did to get bludgeoned with the bat.
He rolled to his other side, groaning the entire way, parts of him smearing in blood that came from his nose.
“Do you know what I want for you?”
His answer was more groaning.
“I want you to hurt for a long time. When I heard you come in, for just a second, I considered killing you. After all, I think you were going to kill me. I mean why else would you walk into our house with a gun in your hand? Hell, there haven’t even been any news vans here for several days now, no reason for you to fend anyone off. But then, I thought I’d rather you hurt. Forever might be long enough. Then again…maybe not.”
She brought the bat down on the side of his face, knocking out several of his teeth and sending him into something that resembled a seizure while more blood poured from his mouth.
“Fuck, Bob, what’s wrong with you? You’ve pissed your pants. And that’s all over my clean floor, too. You’re going to have to clean that up.”
Maggie moved to the kitchen, each step feeling as if her legs weighed a hundred pounds. “God, what a work out. How many calories do you think I just burned off? Probably that whole damned coffee, I’ll bet. I should probably have another one later. After all, now I can afford it.”
She looked back at Bob. He watched her, his breaths coming out as grunts.
“There are a few questions that are really nagging at me, although I’m not sure I’ll like the answers. But here they are. Let’s face it. The average night of sex in the Bob and Maggie Smith bedroom was maybe a three on the zero to ten excitement scale. It might hover up near five on a Saturday when we knew the kids were asleep. You also seemed timid and held back and never wanted to try anything kinky, wouldn’t let me tie your wrists to the headboard or anything. Number one, was that because you were afraid you might lose control and I’d see your true side? And number two, after you timidly had a little bout of sex with me and I fell asleep, did you sneak down to your little hidey hole and get your rocks off with whoever you might have had stashed down there?”
She picked up the hammer she’d left on the counter with the bags of cash and turned back to him. Stepping closer, she asked, “Are those real tears sliding down your cheeks? And are you crying because you’re finally in the position where you’ve put others before you buried them in a quarry? Or are you crying because you finally really feel some true pain?”
She let out a long sigh, feeling exhausted. “God, it’s like you’ve sucked out all my energy, Bob. But here’s some news for you. I’m not going to kill you. I am, however, going to make certain you never hold down another person so you can force yourself on her.”
She looked at the hammer and then set it back on the counter before opening a nearby drawer. “I probably don’t have much time. I’ll bet whatever you did to get here is probably bringing the cops as we speak—oh, wait, you aren’t doing much speaking, are you? Oh, well, I wish I had more time to make you hurt more and for longer, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” She spoke as she stepped closer, the knife Bob used to filet fish, although not very often, gripped in her fist. “You know, I’m amazed you can still focus on me. Is that fear I see in your eyes? Did your victims look at you with that same scared expression? Probably?”
When she grabbed his hand, he tried a weak, unsuccessful attempt at pulling away. Shackleford’s phone clanked to the floor. “What? You stole someone’s phone, too? I don’t think you’ll be needing it. You won’t be able to dial it, anyway. Hell, you won’t even be able to hold it.” A few secon
ds later, after she’d sliced through several of the ligaments that gave him control of his fingers, he was howling.
She looked him square in the eye as he screamed, and she sliced the knife through his tongue. She doubted he heard any of her words, but she calmly spoke them anyway. “No more telling me what to do. No more telling anyone what to do. No more holding anyone down and hurting them. Do you think the nice guys in prison will help you zip your fly?”
Chapter Forty-Six
The scene at Bob and Maggie Smith’s house was not what John expected.
He and George, Tex and Monty parked several yards down the block and approached on foot, hoping they looked casual to anyone who might be looking out on this sunny day. The truth was, he knew neighbors were watching. They had to be. The Smiths had been placed under a microscope thanks to Bob’s evil ways and the media. He was actually surprised there were no news vans around, but then the discovery of a body the day before and a college girl missing had them busy elsewhere.
John looked at George as they reached the driveway. “Get our truck out of there, but don’t go far.”
The other three entered stealthily from the garage, guns down but ready.
Seeing Bob in a bloody heap, whimpering like the wounded animal he was, should have given John some sort of elation at seeing the guy who’d shot him—not once but twice, and would have killed him had his weapon not been empty—suffering. The truth was, except for the sense of relief that this monster would not be hurting anyone else for a very long time—if ever—John felt nothing but thankful that he was still vertical and able to hug Charlie and hopefully take Abby on more dates.
He gave a slight sigh, still holding his gun down to the floor, and met Maggie Smith’s gaze.
She stood at the kitchen table, a duffel bag slung over each shoulder.
“Are you guys cops?” she asked. “I didn’t hear a siren.”
He couldn’t help but notice she glanced at the wooden baseball bat that leaned against the corner not far away. But her hands were full with the duffel bags, and she didn’t appear to be preparing to go for the bat. “We just came for our coffee truck,” John told her.
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