by Jaye Maiman
I took one step forward. Dean’s voice carried better than the others. Its harsh tone — so unlike any I had ever heard flow from that honied, lying tongue froze me in its tracks. The words made my flesh blister. He was ordering someone to shoot.
I scrambled toward the ballroom. Flattening myself against the door frame, I glanced inside. Moonlight crashed through the broken skylight, spilling strange, frenzied shapes of violent blue-red over the tiled floor. The colors, flickering with snowflakes, made the scene hard to decipher at first.
A second or two elapsed before I saw Maggie, a small handgun quaking in her pale palms. I leaned into the room and squinted. Dean was smart. The gun was small. Twenty-two caliber at most. The typical “woman’s” gun. She was shaking her head back and forth, slowly, numbly. A crumbling plaster column blocked my view of her target. But I knew the eyes staring down at that barrel had to be K.T.’s. There was a growl off to my left. I backed off and looked down for an instant. My hand was raised, my finger braced on the trigger. The growl repeated, low, threatening. It had to be Dean. I squatted and started to spin in the room, then stopped myself. Dammit.
Tony was right. My guilt over Carol’s death had prevented me from learning how to handle a gun. And now it was holding me back from saving K.T. Waves of nausea swept over me as I leaned against the doorjamb again.
Then Dean bellowed. “I’m losing patience, Maggie.” His voice came from the right!
Maggie’s gun was leveled at him.
I lowered myself again and entered the room slowly. Dean’s taunting rebuke buried the sound of my movement. “Shoot. Go ahead.” He paused. “See. You can’t do it, Maggie. You can’t. Know why? You still need me. For God’s sake, we’ll just end up killing each other.”
His words didn’t make sense until I found him standing close to one of the exit doors, a revolver steady in his clasped hands.
“All I want you to do is shoot her,” Dean said, bobbing his head to indicate direction. “A stranger, someone who could harm us both.”
My head snapped to the left. K.T. was braced against the wall farthest from me, her wrists tied to one of the sconces with a yellow tie. My heart collapsed. The growling had come from her. My hand tightened around the gun’s grip.
From my current position, I could no longer see Maggie. I had to sidle forward again until all three of them were in sight. With two, no, three guns in the hands of unstable players, I couldn’t take any risks.
“Maggie. Listen to me.” Dean’s tone had turned patronizing, disturbingly calm. When I finally got Maggie back in sight, I understood why. She was swaying slightly. For chrissakes, she was drunk!
I was so close to Dean now, I could see his teeth when he smirked. “I’ve done this all for you and me. I’ve arranged for us to adopt a baby, honey. A baby!”
That’s when the first bullet rang out, the report exploding like a firecracker in a garbage can. Dean had rolled toward the exit. I scrambled toward the nearest column and pressed myself against it like a lover. I wasn’t sure where Maggie had gone, but I knew that K.T. was still stranded out there, exposed and vulnerable. None of us moved for what seemed forever, then I heard Maggie simpering.
Dean snaked toward the column next to mine. I edged backward, watching the glint in his eyes. All of a sudden, there was a thump and the discordant sound of plucked piano strings echoed throughout the ballroom. For some reason, the heinous notes made my eyes brim.
Calm down. Think.
Maggie had either fallen or climbed around the collapsed piano. Dean was seeking cover so that he could exchange fire. I had a clear shot at him as he dragged himself forward, using his elbows as levers. I lifted the gun and aimed. He was wearing the same blue shirt he’d worn earlier, when we met with Caroline. I lowered the gun. There was no way I could shoot. I remembered him ladling hot cider for me, the gentle way he had ministered to me at Carly’s and Amy’s place—
The son of a bitch had broken into Amy’s lab and tainted her preparations.
Just then there was a muted spitting sound, then a fierce hiss. Dean had fired his revolver using a silencer.
“Dean!” Maggie wailed, apparently unhurt. “Just tell me why. Please. How could you kill your own sister?”
“You know why, Maggie,” he replied, almost pleasantly. “She would have ruined me. Us. Once you told her about...that incident between us and she started having nightmares about the fire, I knew it was just a matter of time before she remembered. I couldn’t afford to have people prying into my past. You know that, sweetheart. Still, I waited.”
All the time he was talking, he was positioning himself for another shot. Now he raised himself so that his back leaned against the column, then he checked the revolver, blew on the barrel like a little boy playing cowboys and Indians, and took aim again.
“But she was family. It’s not right—”
Dean lowered the gun and snapped. “Right? What’s right? You think my father and foster father were right?” He took a deep breath, rubbed the gun barrel with an index finger, then said quietly, “Noreen shouldn’t have threatened me.” He lined Maggie up in his sight. “I never did figure out if you were on the extension that night. But it’s okay, baby. I took care of her. And you helped me. You know you did. I would never have known Amy was preparing another elixir for Noreen if you hadn’t made such a big deal about picking it up for her. You were the one that planted the seed.” His grin widened.
From the opposite side of the room came a muffled sob. She was a sitting duck for him. Sooner or later, he would hit her and another death would be on my head—and then another. I mirrored Dean’s movement, slinking down the column till I was in a tight squat.
Another shot rang out. The bullet pinged a few feet above Dean’s head. Either Maggie was extremely lucky, or she was far less drunk than I assumed.
A new voice broke in. “You should run.” It was K.T. From the way she slurred, I could imagine the way her mouth must have looked, bloodied no doubt by the back of Dean’s fist.
Dean’s eyes narrowed as he shifted the gun in a new direction. Blindly, wildly, my pulse hammering in my ears, Carol’s blood-splattered howl echoing distantly, I pulled the trigger. He jerked backward, a spray of blood ripping against my face. I froze. The gun was fire in my hands, the bizarre moonlight room a dark smoky inferno swallowing everything and everyone I had ever loved. Someone was screaming out Carol’s name again and again. With a start, I recognized the voice as my own.
By then, Dean had recovered from the shock. The bullet had pierced his upper thigh. He struggled to straighten himself, the barrel of his revolver pointing at the bull’s-eye that was my head. I still couldn’t move. Not to drop the gun. Not to save my life.
Shoot, Dean, I whispered somewhere deep inside. Shoot.
When the explosion came, I didn’t flinch.
Maggie was racing across the room, squeezing the trigger in an unseeing rage. Dean whipped around to face her, training the gun on her this time. There was no time to think, to mourn, to fear. I aimed and fired, recoiling as Dean’s body lifted and smashed against the column, the left side of his chest a scarlet hole. Maggie and K.T. cried out, their strangled voices winging around my head like wild birds.
When I finally lowered the gun, I realized that Maggie had raised hers and that the still hot barrel was slipping between her lips. I bolted across the hall, hurling my arms toward her as she squeezed the trigger one last time.
The gun clanked as I barreled into Maggie and we tumbled to the floor, limbs entwined. She had run out of bullets.
Across the room K.T. slumped against the wall, her head raised toward me, her eyes finding mine despite the dark, despite the bizarrely painted, twisted shadows falling from the broken skylight. I lifted Maggie gently and steered her toward K.T., my arm cradled around her shoulders. I didn’t let go until I was just a few feet from K.T. and heard her mouth my name. A single glance at her swollen, bloody lips told me more than I wanted to know. My fingers felt like le
ad as I fumbled to untie the knot. Our bodies were pressed together, K.T.’s head burrowing into my neck like a cat’s, nuzzling me with a sound that was half purr, half moan.
Finally her wrists were free and she collapsed into my arms. I kissed the tip of her ear, her damp, tangled hair. Crying now, sobbing out loud, at last out of control, I howled, “I love you,” over and over.
When we finally parted, the snow from the skylight had already wiped its hand over the battle’s scars and Dean’s body lay still beneath a cold and lacy pink-stained veil.
The fur tickled my palm as I searched for just the right spot to press. There was no mistaking when I found it. Instantly flowing from the stuffed bear’s belly were the sweet notes of the theme song from God Bless the Beasts and the Children. I smiled and continued down the hospital corridor, grateful for a moment alone.
During the past three weeks the only time K.T. and I were separated was when Sheriff Crowell had insisted on questioning us one at a time. Other than that, we spent every minute in each other’s arms, soothing each other when the nightmares struck, making love when we were strong enough for the healing to start.
With Dean dead, a lot of questions would have to remain unanswered. But Crowell rose to the occasion. I suppose having firebrands like Jill and Tony prodding him ten times a day helped.
From what they’ve told me, Crowell arranged for the body of George Morris to be exhumed. A few days later, the coroner replacing the still-at-large Douglas Marks revised the cause of death. With Maggie filling in some of the gaps, Crowell learned that Dean had readily agreed to a second interview with the private investigator Noreen had hired to find her siblings. As Morris had quizzed Dean about his sister Melanie’s strange ravings, Dean prepared a deadly salad of mixed greens, radish, and monkshood leaves. Maggie never questioned Dean about the investigator’s death. It was only months later, after her abortion, that she finally opened up to Noreen and told her about Dean’s violent streak and her suspicions about the strange salad Dean had forbidden her to eat.
Then, just a few days before Noreen died, Maggie found Dean using a pestle to grind down something that looked like a dried radish. Terrified that her husband planned to kill her in retaliation for the abortion, Maggie contacted Noreen and asked for her help. That’s when Noreen told her the whole truth about Dean’s past. Maggie began plotting her escape right away.
On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Dean’s mood shifted drastically. He seemed suddenly euphoric, rambling on about how he wanted the two of them to adopt Caroline’s baby. Unable to decipher her husband’s sudden good humor and in increasing fear for her life, Maggie went on an alcoholic binge. In desperation, Maggie fled to Noreen’s house early Sunday morning, while Dean was still at the hospital. As soon as she saw Noreen’s body, she realized what had happened. She stole Noreen’s shoulder bag and drove directly to Atlanta, hoping that Ellen might be willing to help her prove Dean’s guilt.
I’m still hoping that they don’t press charges against her. In my opinion, the woman has suffered enough.
No one’s been able to confirm that it was Dean who ran me off the road with Noreen’s Bronco, but the facts point that way. Jill did finally track down the airline agent who sold a ticket to Atlanta to a somewhat frazzled individual who said his name was Fred DeLuca.
Crowell spent at least eight hours grilling poor Fred, who had to prove not only that he had never left Pennsylvania but that he also had a legitimate explanation for the large bank withdrawals made in the preceding months. It took a shoebox of receipts, credit card statements, and lawyer’s bills to prove that most of the money had gone to the lawyer representing the DeLucas in the lawsuit Noreen had filed. The other money went to repairing Camilla’s car, installing a new heating unit in the greenhouse, and purchasing lumber for the two-car garage they planned to build.
Jill and Tony helped Fred by unearthing the fact that Dean had rented a Cadillac with a cellular phone from the Hertz desk in the Atlanta airport. It’s Tony’s guess that Dean probably paid a homeless woman to quiz the Hotel Nikko’s front desk clerk.
Working together, Jill and I also succeeded in locating the last Finnegan child. John Junior had been adopted by a family in San Francisco, where he still lives. We’ve talked twice on the phone and, to my relief, the man seems to be a fine, caring person. Suspecting his brother’s role in the fire from the start, he had confided in his father’s best friend on the police force. The friend had convinced John to keep quiet for the sake of the surviving family members. With a quiet sigh, John had admitted to me that he’d had nightmares ever since. The second time we talked he told me he was planning to fly out to visit Melanie.
When all the facts were in, Crowell concluded that Dean had been a little too sly and a little too eager to cover his tracks. He went so far out of his way to point the investigation at other suspects that he ultimately succeeded in trapping himself in a whirlpool his own hand had stirred up.
No charges were brought against me. Even Crowell admitted it was a clear case of self-defense. The sentence I imposed on myself was a lot more ambiguous.
There was some good news. Carly and Amy have decided to renew their commitment at a spectacular anniversary celebration scheduled for May. Manny held a very small but poignant memorial service for Noreen just a few days ago. I understand Manny plans to sell the house and use the money to move her family back to Puerto Rico permanently.
The best news just came in this morning. Caroline gave birth to a healthy baby girl just two days ago, way past her due date. K.T. and I have spent quite a bit of time with her. So have Dinah and Beth. It won’t be long now before they finalize the adoption.
I nodded at the green-eyed cutie humming Christmas carols while she trimmed the tree standing near the nurse’s station. It was great having one of our own watching over Caroline. I shifted the teddy bear to my left arm and pushed open the door. K.T. was by my side instantly, cooing at me as if we’d been separated days instead of less than one hour. What scared me most was that I didn’t mind.
I did the usual kissing round. K.T. first, then Beth, Dinah, and finally Caroline. As I was bending over to plant one on her forehead I finally saw the baby. Scrubbed pink and wrinkled like a balloon that had only been half-filled, she scrunched her face at me and burped.
“Here,” Caroline said, stretching the baby toward me. “It’s time you held her.”
For what seemed the two-hundredth time, I refused.
Dinah bellowed from the other side of the bed. “For heaven’s sake, Rob. She belched in your face. What more do you want?”
I raised my eyes to hers. It was good to have my family here. Then I felt K.T.’s palm in the small of my back. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered in a voice meant only for me. “You won’t hurt her.”
My pulse racing, I reached for the limp, squiggling body that had just days ago been safely sheltered in her mother’s warm folds.
At last she was in my arms, arms that somehow knew how to cradle this tiny, talcum-scented body, knew how to circle her, soothe her. She burped again.
I let the back of a finger drift over her so-smooth chin, my eyes brimming as my lips curled up in an unbearable grin. “Hi there, Carol,” I whispered. “Welcome home.”
Publications from
Bella Books, Inc.
Women. Books. Even Better Together.
P.O. Box 10543
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CALM BEFORE THE STORM by Peggy J. Herring. Colonel Marcel Robicheaux doesn’t tell and so far no one official has asked, but the amorous pursuit by Jordan McGowen has her worried for both her career and her honor.
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