“My name is Terry Russel, I am here for my grandson, I have money. You can take all of my cards—here—”
Terry must have offered her handbag to Dakota because she followed up with a “—please take it. There’s five hundred dollars in cash in the side pocket, and all my car—What are you doing? No!”
They struggled. Juno could hear banging on the outside of the closet door—an elbow or maybe a knee. There was a crash, and the song of broken glass as it shattered on the floor. She crept farther back, her heart thumping in her throat, and closed her eyes. Winnie was repeating something to Dakota over and over again: “What are you doing, what are you doing! Dakota...!” Juno held a hand over her own mouth to suffocate any sound that might betray her. What is he doing? He’s gone mad, she thought. Afraid to make any noise that would alert them of her presence, Juno crawled over the trapdoor, pushing herself against the back wall as far as she could, the hems sweeping her face. She had to disappear from sight in case the door somehow opened. That was survival, disappearing when you needed to.
Dakota must have gotten Terry under control because she heard the older woman begging again—“Please don’t hurt me”—as he dragged her away. It sounded like he was moving toward Nigel’s den and the little apartment with its separate entrance. Juno scrambled out of her hiding place, only half-feeling the arthritis that was screaming loudly in her joints. When she opened the closet door, she saw Nigel first, lying on his back in a lake of blood. Winnie was crumpled on the floor beside him, and Juno knew that Dakota would be back for her any second. She darted around the corner and up the stairs, her fear so hot she could smell it rolling off her. This is what animals must feel like when they’re being hunted, she thought. She grinned against the pain, pumping her legs harder as she neared the bend in the stairs. She should have taken a pill today, one of those glorious pills that muted out the pain. She heard Dakota discover her. She never saw it, she was already around the corner, hauling her stubborn body up by the bannister.
“You!” he called, as the last of her disappeared around the corner. “I told Manda I wasn’t crazy, I knew there was a ghost!”
But he didn’t come after her as she had thought he would. Juno was braced to hear his boots on the stairs, but the only sound in her ears was her own rasping breath. He probably thinks he can deal with me later, Juno thought as she ran for Sam’s room, or maybe he thinks I really am a ghost. She threw open the door to find it empty. She stepped inside, half expecting to find him hiding, but he wasn’t in the room. Thank God, thank all the gods. It was then that she saw the open window. Sam had gotten out. He would get the police. Her relief was immense, but now she could hear Dakota coming up the stairs. The heavy donk, donk of his work boots sounded on the floor. Juno knew where to hide; she always knew. She slipped quickly from Sam’s room before Dakota rounded the bend in the staircase.
She heard him walking through the rooms quickly. She supposed he didn’t have much time, considering the two women downstairs; it seemed like he was hardly looking. Juno was in the cabinet under the sink, the one where Winnie kept the fresh towels. She heard him walk into the bathroom, his shoes squeaking on the marble floor. She was shaking so hard her teeth were knocking together and she swore Dakota would hear, but a second later he left, and she heard him going down the stairs.
So he had seen her once before. She hadn’t wanted to admit she’d been that careless, but he had. He’d been drunk, and Juno hadn’t exactly known what he’d seen when she’d tiptoed from the bathroom as he was coming out of the kitchen. It was dark and she’d darted away just as he’d turned around, sensing something was behind him. She’d slipped back into the closet in a panic, fearing she wouldn’t make it into the crawl space, but Dakota hadn’t pursued her to her little hidey-hole.
Now, she pushed open the cabinet door, unfolding like a stiff metal toy. She stood on the bathroom mat, her eyes darting around like she was going to find a solution somewhere in this room. It was her fault that Terry Russel had come to the house; she’d put it in the woman’s head that Josalyn’s son was living with his kidnappers, and then she’d given the woman the Crouches’ address. If Terry died here, it would be Juno’s fault.
“Oh, God...” Juno mumbled softly. She stood on the bathroom rug and covered her ears with her hands, squeezing her eyes closed and swaying back and forth. She could feel a panic attack coming on. It was regression if she’d ever seen it. In prison, she’d resorted to the same method to control anxiety attacks, finding a corner and swaying like she was having a religious experience. They’d called her Hail Mary, and she hadn’t cared because when she was crazy Hail Mary she couldn’t hear or see any of them. But Juno didn’t have women heckling her this time, just herself. She’d done it again, the thing that had rent her family right down the middle all those years ago—getting too involved in people’s lives, taking it a step too far, crossing a line. And for what? Kregger had said she’d chosen psychology because she needed to be overly involved in people’s lives. And she had, hadn’t she? She’d been that way since she was a little girl at her mother’s salon, eavesdropping on breakups and makeups, thinking about their stories as she lay in bed at night. Darla Hess, who was pregnant with her fifth and didn’t want to be; Sarah O’Neil, who’d left her husband for the high school football coach, and then... Pattie and Pastor Paul.
But no. This time, it wasn’t her fault. Winnie had stolen someone’s baby and raised him as her own. Juno had merely stumbled upon the information and acted like any normal person would, doing the right thing. The same went for Terry, who had made the choice to come to the Crouch house rather than going to the authorities. There it was.
She opened her eyes, dropping her hands to her sides. She needed to get out of the house, get away from these poisonous people. She was no longer in prison, and she didn’t have to stay here. She made it three steps when she thought of the open window in Sam’s room. Casting a cautious glance toward the stairs, Juno slipped into Sam’s room again. Her eyes scanned his desk for some sign of what had been happening in his head before he escaped. His backpack was gone. She opened his dresser drawer; she knew he kept his money rolled and secured with a rubber band. Juno had mused over it the first time she’d seen it, the way he stashed his cash.
What if he’d overheard what Terry Russel had said to Winnie? Could he have left the house before Dakota arrived? Her breath vacuumed in as she considered the possibility that Sam had run away instead of running for help. His roll of money was gone from its spot. That’s when her heart really started hammering. Gone. She didn’t care what happened to Winnie, and she didn’t much care what happened to Terry Russel, either. Juno had chosen her side long ago. Sam was who mattered. Her feet started moving, shuffling at first and then running.
31
WINNIE
Once Winnie’s ankles were tied, Dakota firmly seated her on the floor and turned toward Terry. She stared at the back of his head, wondering where her brother had gone, and if someone could just...change overnight. But it hadn’t been overnight, though, had it? Dakota knelt in front of Terry, blocking Winnie’s view of her terrified face for a moment. They’d known that Dakota had problems, and Manda had been warning them for years about how serious they’d become, but the family hadn’t listened hard enough, had figured that Dakota was Manda’s problem now. When Dakota stood up, the floral scarf was slung over his palm and Terry was licking her lips, staring up at him like a cornered animal.
“Who is your grandson?” he asked her. His voice was rough, husky, like he’d just woken up from a nap. Winnie envisioned the first night he’d come to stay with them, how she’d found him sobbing like a baby on the couch. There was no trace of that man now.
She stopped struggling to listen.
Terry’s eyes didn’t waver when she said “Samuel.”
Winnie could feel the sweat gathering between her breasts and on her forehead. Dakota gave a loud smack of his l
ips, before casting a glance over his shoulder at her. Winnie didn’t like what she saw in his eyes—or maybe it was what she didn’t see that frightened her, the absence of her brother.
“Samuel...?” he repeated. He said it with a slight sneer, like Terry might be the craziest person in the room.
“She stole another woman’s baby and passed him off as her own,” Terry said. “Go ahead, ask her.”
Winnie screamed against her gag, her rage channeling a demon-like cry. They both turned to look at her. Her brother’s face was impassive as he looked at her.
“That true, Win...? You steal someone’s kid...?”
Winnie yelled around her gag until her throat was burning, but Dakota seemed to be done looking at her for now; he was focused again on Terry with rapt attention.
“That sounds like something you’d do, Win. Remember when we were little, and you stole the puppy from the neighbor’s yard and brought it home?”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. That had happened over twenty-five years ago. The story had been told over and over by her siblings, each version painting Winnie like some sort of remorseless sociopath. She’d just been a kid, seen a puppy launching itself at the side of the fence to get to her, and had...taken it. She’d made a mistake. Dakota wasn’t being serious, he couldn’t be.
She tried to yell at him, but she couldn’t form words. “The kid’s not here,” Dakota said, still looking at Terry. “But even if he were, what would make me believe a wild story like that, even if it does sound like Winnie?” His voice had the tone of a man speaking to a misbehaving child. The hairs on the back of Winnie’s neck stood at attention. That didn’t sound like Dakota at all.
Over Dakota’s shoulder, she could see Terry’s eyes ticking back and forth like a metronome. She was working on an angle, Winnie realized, and before she could blink a second time, Terry was spinning it.
“Did you ever see her pregnant? Your...sister?”
Winnie froze. When Terry continued, she sounded breathless, winded by her lies.
“She wanted a baby very much, didn’t she? She was probably jealous when everyone else her age started having them.”
Dakota stood up suddenly, towering over Terry Russel and rolling his neck from side to side like he had the world’s largest crick. He considered her for a moment and then said, “Now that you mention it...”
Terry’s face transformed from hopeful to triumphant, while Winnie’s tears began a slow leak down her face. Her throat was raw from screaming against the gag, and there was an ache in her chest that was paralyzing in its enormity. Terry told Dakota her story in a clear, calm voice, painting herself as the distraught, concerned mother whose daughter had gotten involved with the wrong crowd, the crowd that had eventually swept her away from Akron, Ohio, toward greener grass in Washington. Her sweet Josalyn had landed pregnant and destitute in Seattle. Enter Winnie.
Winnie herself, who no longer had the energy to hold her head up, sat slouched against the wall, her face dangling above her own crotch. When Terry Russel said her name, she didn’t bother looking up. She had pieced together the story and had spun a narrative that suited her. And she’d done her research.
“She was working at Illuminations for Mental Health at the time Josalyn sought care there,” Terry said. “I spoke with the head doctor at the facility, and he confirmed that your sister was Josalyn’s counselor. In fact, after your sister left her job—” she paused “—Josalyn contacted Illuminations several times, asking for contact information for Winifred Crouch. She even once told the receptionist that Winnie stole her baby.”
Winnie watched the back of her brother’s head, wondering if he was buying this. Even six months ago, she’d have known the answer to that. She thought she knew everything about her brother, but now, she realized that she knew only what she wanted to know, what it suited her to know.
Terry Russel was asking Dakota to look at the police report in her handbag. He did, the gun still dangling from his hand, tossing aside Terry’s wallet, which he briefly opened to check her license.
“She’s who she says she is,” he said, turning to Winnie. His eyebrows were raised in mock surprise. Winnie could do nothing but blink. She was fiercely thirsty. She kept expecting Nigel to walk through the door; he’d help her get out of this. But her own brother had murdered him. Murdered. The word was foreign to Winnie. She’d never once worried that someone she loved would be murdered, never had to.
She looked at Terry, who was smiling coldly at her, a challenge. Josalyn had said that her stepfather molested her and that her mother had chosen not to see it. Looking at Terry Russel, Winnie wondered if it was true. And how had she come to find Winnie? Juno Holland, who was that? Another of her husband’s whores, she thought. As if Dulce Tucker hadn’t been enough. And it was mostly anger that filled Winnie after that: Nigel had told someone, and that someone had sent this woman to her doorstep.
“Your grandson is dead!” she screamed through her gag. But she could tell they hadn’t understood her words.
Terry licked her lips again, keeping her eyes trained on Dakota like she was trying to hypnotize him.
“I’ll take him and go. I won’t tell anyone what happened. I only want my grandson. Please.”
Dakota took a few seconds to process what she’d said before he started to laugh. The shocked look on her face indicated that Terry had thought her negotiations were going well.
“You don’t want to hurt him, he’s just a boy.”
Winnie stared between them desperately. Terry Russel was trying to save her son from whatever Dakota had planned, but only so she could kidnap him. It was like looking at the speeding car coming toward you and knowing you were going to be killed by lightning before it arrived. “The kid’s not here,” Dakota had said. Samuel had to be hiding somewhere in the house, terrified. Could he have managed to get out...? Jumped out his window...?
“Just a kid,” he repeated, nodding slowly. But his voice was flat and emotionless, like he was reading off of a script. “No one cares about my kids. No one cares that they won’t have a father.” She read the alarm in Terry’s eyes, saw her blinking rapidly.
“You can be their father. You can. Leave right now and—”
But Dakota was crying, his shoulders shaking. That felt more normal, Winnie thought, and silently, she urged her brother to come to his senses.
“Nigel,” he gasped, “took my family from me.” He spun away from Terry, walking toward Winnie with so much determination she was sure he was going to kill her right then and there. He knelt so that he was directly in front of her face. “Manda won’t take me back and Nigel turned you against me, too.” He jerked toward Winnie on the last word, and she braced herself for impact. But Dakota didn’t hit her. He was looking at her like he couldn’t decide what to do with her.
“You’re not my family,” he said. “You stopped being my family the day you took that pig’s side and kicked your own flesh and blood out of your house.” His words sounded wet and slushy, like he was talking through a mouthful of water. Winnie began to moan. She knew these stories; she’d worked with the mentally ill for years.
Dakota didn’t seem to see either of them as he stood up and turned toward the window, staring into the darkness, his head tilted. He’d snapped; it didn’t matter why or how, and now her brother was going to kill them like he’d killed Nigel. He’d needed someone to blame for the pisswork he’d made of his life, and with Manda filing the divorce papers...
“What do you have to say for yourself, sister?”
But Winnie couldn’t answer; the gag stopped her words.
Dakota tottered around for several seconds, off balance, like he didn’t know where he was, then he strode toward Terry Russel, lifting the gun as he went.
“Pow, pow,” he said. Then he shot her. Two bullets, just like Nigel. Winnie screamed. She was crying so hard now she could barely br
eathe, tears flying off her face as she shook her head in disbelief. She gagged as Dakota stared in fascination at Terry Russel’s body.
Winnie moaned again; she wasn’t going to die a victim of her brother’s anger, she was going to choke to death on her own vomit. Dakota turned, and his dead eyes found her as she keeled over on the carpet. He watched her for what felt like an eternity, and then he knelt in front of her and yanked the gag out of her mouth. Winnie rolled to her side, gasping for air. She could smell the stink of vomit and now there was another smell—blood. She could see it on the wall, sprayed like a Rorschach test, Terry slumped below.
“Come to think of it, sis, I didn’t see you pregnant.”
Chills ran across her limbs like insects.
“I—we didn’t tell anyone, remember? After the miscarriages, we kept it to ourselves until the last trimester. And you lived in Tacoma then. That’s why we didn’t see each other.”
Please God, let him accept the truth. Her voice sounded like it was grating over gravel; she didn’t know how much of it she had left to use.
He shook his head like she had it all wrong. “You didn’t even have the baby shower until after he was born. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? I remember having to drive Manda there because she was nine months pregnant and couldn’t reach the steering wheel around her belly. I walked her in and there you were, all slim and put-together like you’d never been pregnant.” He smiled dully. “Manda even leaned over and whispered in my ear about how good you looked for having just given birth.”
The Wrong Family Page 22