They Won't Be Hurt

by Kevin O'Brien

  She glanced over at Vic, still in her father’s recliner. Liam had set a TV table at his side. He’d also set up one for Joe, still seated on the sofa. Joe didn’t seem to enjoy the movie as much as his buddy. Liam had given them place mats, forks, and napkins, and then he’d retreated to the counter-bar to sit with her and James. He’d resumed recording the two uninvited houseguests every few minutes.

  “Hey, kid—Lee-ham,” Vic called, mispronouncing Liam’s name. “Come look at this. I want you to eat in here with us. Why are you in the kitchen with the women anyway? Are you a fairy or something?”

  Liam grimaced, but didn’t say anything—nor did he move.

  Their mom set two small bowls of salad on the counter in front of Liam. “Could you take these to them?” she whispered. “And go ahead and sit with them if it makes the bastard happy. This is about the only time I’d let you watch a movie like that. You might as well take advantage.”

  “I already saw it a while back at Kyle’s house,” he whispered. “It’s a sucky movie, Mom.” He shuffled into the family room with the salads.

  A few moments later, Sophie heard a crash. She and James almost jumped off their stools.

  “I don’t eat that goddamn rabbit food!” Vic growled.

  Sophie could see the broken bowl and a trail of lettuce, croutons, and cherry tomatoes on the rug in the family room.

  “Vic, please,” Joe murmured. “C’mon . . .”

  James looked frightened, on the verge of crying. Sophie stroked him on the back. “It’s okay, Jamie,” she whispered. “Never mind him. He’s just a big jerk.”

  “I’m allergic to rabbit food,” Vic announced with a laugh, “just like you’re allergic to peanuts, Lee-ham. Your mama told me about that, kid. One peanut and you’re dead, right?” He called toward the kitchen. “Are there any peanuts in the spaghetti sauce tonight, Mama? Better not be!”

  Sophie kept stroking James’s back to calm him. What Vic said didn’t even make any sense. He was just being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious.

  Liam ignored him as he picked up the mess. Joe got up to help him.

  “Leave it for one of the women!” Vic grumbled. “Sit down—both of you. You’re blocking the goddamn movie. You’re a better door than a window.”

  Sophie didn’t want her mother to have to clean up after him, so she climbed off the stool, grabbed some paper towels, and hurried into the family room. She was careful not to block his precious view of the TV as she picked up the salad, which was now just rubbish.

  Her mom came in with the dinner plates of pasta and bread. Joe muttered a polite “Thank you,” while Vic immediately started stuffing his face.

  Sophie noticed Liam recording him again.

  Her mom returned to the kitchen and then brought them each a glass of red wine. She served Joe first and then set a glass on Vic’s TV table.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, glaring at her.

  “It’s a very good cabernet,” she answered.

  “So good that maybe I’ll have another glass? And then a few more glasses, right? And maybe I’ll get so drunk, I’ll pass out. Is that what you’re trying to do?”

  “Of course not, I just thought—”

  Before she could finish, Vic swatted the wineglass off the table. It flew across the room and with a loud pop, shattered against the wall.

  At the kitchen counter-bar, James let out a startled scream.

  Liam captured it all on his camcorder.

  A splotch of red wine bled down the family room wall. Shards of glass were everywhere. On her hands and knees, Sophie could see a few pieces in the rug, catching the light. She tried not to move for fear of cutting herself.

  “Get us sodas!” Vic shouted over James’s crying. “And keep that kid quiet! I’m trying to watch a movie here!”

  Snatching up Joe’s wineglass, her mother hurried back to the kitchen.

  Sophie got to her feet and threaded around the shards of glass. She was worried about James. If he didn’t quiet down, Vic was bound to go after him—maybe even hurt him. She stood James up on the bar stool and wrapped her arms around him. She gently pushed his face into the crook of her shoulder to muffle his sobs.

  “Hey, that’s enough!” Vic yelled at Liam. “Cut that shit out!”

  Sophie turned in time to see her brother setting the camcorder in his lap.

  “Give that to me,” Vic said.

  Sophie had a feeling the minute Vic got ahold of the camera he’d smash it to pieces. She stood there frozen and held James close to her.

  Liam hesitated.

  “Gimme!” Vic bellowed. He held his hand out.

  Liam stared at him. Then he gazed down at his camcorder. He had a forlorn look on his face—as if he knew what would happen to his prized camera once he surrendered it. He took a deep breath and then hurled the camcorder toward the big wine splotch on the wall. With a loud bang, the camera smashed into pieces and left a gouge in the plaster.

  Then Liam went back to staring defiantly at Vic.

  “You little shit!” Vic sprang to his feet, tipping over the TV table. The plate—along with the pasta and meat sauce—landed on the rug. He reached back and pulled his gun out from under his shirttail.

  Joe jumped up from the sofa and stepped in front of Liam. “No, Vic, wait—”

  “God, no, please!” Sophie heard her mother scream.

  Vic yelled at his friend: “Move!”

  Joe shook his head. “Vic, you’re tired. You were driving all last night, and you practically haven’t had any sleep since yesterday morning. You don’t want to do this. Mrs. Gretchell is going to help me tomorrow. She’s doing us a favor. We promised her. No one’s going to get hurt.”

  “Get him out of my sight,” Vic hissed.

  Joe didn’t move.

  Over near the counter-bar, Sophie held onto her baby brother. She watched in horror as Vic turned the gun toward the two of them.

  “You heard me, Joe,” he said. “Get that kid out of here. Get them all out of my sight or I’ll execute the whole fucking family right now.”

  Sophie had no doubt he meant every word.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Monday—6:09 P.M.

  “C’mon, c’mon, please, hurry up,” he whispered.

  Joe herded them into Sophie’s room. Laura had taken James from Sophie and carried him upstairs. She’d gotten him to stop crying. But he looked terrified. His whole body was trembling. In Sophie’s room, like in the hallway, Laura and the kids had to step over or weave around the piles of things that had been pulled off shelves and yanked out of closets.

  Once they were inside Sophie’s bedroom, James let out a few frail cries. Laura found an uncluttered spot on one of the twin beds and sat down with him. She rocked him in her lap.

  Sophie and Liam followed her into the bedroom. “Oh, my God,” Sophie whispered to her brother. “I couldn’t believe it when you threw your camera. That took guts, it really did . . .”

  But Liam didn’t seem excited about it at all. His face had turned pale, and he was visibly shaking. He brushed past his sister, ducked into her bathroom, and shut the door. A few moments later, Laura could hear him throwing up and coughing.

  “You guys need to keep quiet,” Joe whispered. He stood in the bedroom doorway. He looked almost as sickly as Liam. “I don’t know how long you’ll have to stay in here, but please, just—just keep still. I’ve seen Vic get this way before, and you don’t want to make him any madder . . .”

  Laura couldn’t help thinking that she’d already seen Vic this way at least two other times—today.

  Sophie knocked on the bathroom door and asked her brother if he was okay.

  Laura shushed her. “Sophie, honey, leave him alone.”

  “Please, just keep it down,” Joe said. “Stay in here, and don’t come out unless I say it’s okay. I’ll be out here in the hall.” He shut the door.

  Sophie leaned against the dresser and covered her face with her hands for a fe
w moments. Then with a sigh, she started to pick up some of her clothes and put them away in her closet.

  In their silence, Laura could still hear the TV blaring downstairs.

  She kept rocking James and smoothing back his hair. “Liam, honey,” she called softly. “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yeah!” he answered, his voice a bit strained and muffled. “Just give me a few minutes, okay?”

  “I still can’t believe he broke his camera like that, his precious camera,” Sophie whispered. She put some clothes in her dresser. She glanced toward the bathroom. “I think he’s crying in there,” she said, barely even whispering.

  But Laura understood her. She understood what each one of her children was going through right now. They were terrified. And there was nothing she could say to calm them, nothing that wouldn’t be a lie.

  There was one little piece of encouragement she could hold onto. Downstairs, she’d just seen Joe stand up to his friend. When Vic had pulled out his gun, Joe had stepped between him and Liam—and he’d talked his buddy out of killing them. If Joe hadn’t done that, Liam very well might have been lying out in the vineyard beside Dane tonight.

  “Listen, honey,” Laura said quietly to her daughter. “Tomorrow, they want me to go to Lopez Island and run this errand for them . . .”

  Sophie stopped putting clothes away and stared at her.

  “I don’t want to leave you kids alone here with them, but I don’t have a choice. While I’m gone, you have to be careful not to antagonize Vic. You saw it tonight. You can’t get him mad . . .”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!” Sophie hissed.

  “I know you didn’t—”

  “He’s the one who started throwing glasses and plates around and breaking everything. Not only is he a pig, but he’s bat-shit crazy on top of it. No one was provoking him, Mom.”

  “I know, I saw, I was there,” she whispered. “I’m just saying—avoid him as much as you can tomorrow . . .”

  “You might as well tell me to avoid a snake.”

  “And be nice to Joe. Making friends with him is our best chance for survival. At this point, I’m pretty sure he won’t let anything bad happen to . . .” She pointed to James, who had his face against her shoulder. Laura could feel his drool or tears dampening her pullover.

  “Was he really a student of yours?” Sophie asked.

  Laura nodded. “Third grade. He had a pretty tough, messed-up childhood.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Laura said.

  Sophie smiled a little. “Hey, downstairs—with the wine earlier, was he right? Were you trying to get him drunk?”

  Laura shrugged. “I thought it was worth a shot. I guess he’s not as stupid as he looks.”

  Sophie put a few more things away. “So—Joe thinks there’s someone on Lopez who can help prove he’s innocent, and he wants you to find them, is that it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So after you leave here tomorrow, you’re going to the police, aren’t you?”

  Laura sighed. “Vic promised me that if he sees one policeman or police car here, he’s going to . . .” She mouthed the words kill everyone. “And I don’t think that’s an idle threat.”

  “Well, what if Joe’s wrong?” Sophie whispered. “What if he’s crazy—and he really killed those people? I mean, wasn’t he in an institution? That’s what they said on the news. Plus, just looking at him, I can tell, there’s something a little off . . .”

  Laura nodded. “I know.”

  “While you’re out there, are you at least going to call Dad? Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

  “Honey, what’s he going to do? He’s in Europe.”

  Sophie got down on her knees and collected a few things at the foot of the bed. “Yeah, but Dad always seems to know . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Laura couldn’t see her face. “Well, your dad hasn’t had the displeasure of meeting Vic, so I don’t think he’s in a position to make a terrific judgment call on . . .”

  Sophie stood up, empty-handed. Shaking her head, she put a finger to her own lips.

  “What?” Laura asked.

  She hurried to her desk and hunted around for something amid the mess on the desktop. She finally found a legal pad and a pen. Laura rocked James some more. She watched Sophie write on the legal pad. Her daughter brought the pad over to her, and Laura read it:

  THE BABY MONITOR IS ON & UNDER THE BED. HE’S LISTENING TO US NOW.

  James let out a little moan as Laura set him on the bed. She got down on the floor, and Sophie lifted the bedspread for her. She could see the baby monitor there in the darkness, amid a few dust bunnies. The green light was on. It was just her luck that this was one of the rare times the batteries worked in the damn thing. They’d last used the baby monitor months ago in Seattle, when James had had a cough and a fever. Since then, she’d kept the monitor set in the linen closet. She realized Vic must have found it, and planted the device under Sophie’s bed earlier today. He obviously had the receiver half of the set and was listening to their every word right now.

  She felt a wave of dread wash over her. What had they been talking about? What had Vic heard and how damaging was it?

  They hadn’t mentioned any brilliant escape plans. She’d merely told Sophie to avoid Vic and be friendly to Joe. Sophie had compared Vic to a snake, and she’d said something about Vic not being as stupid as he looked.

  As much as hearing that might make him fly off the handle, Laura couldn’t help laughing a little. She sat back down on the edge of the bed and giggled some more. Yet she had tears in her eyes.

  “What’s so funny?” Sophie whispered.

  Laura shook her head. “I’m just punchy.”

  “So are we just going to leave it on?” Sophie asked under her breath.

  Laura nodded. “Let’s,” she said quietly. “We might be able to use it to our advantage—somehow. For now, just be careful of what you say.”

  Sophie shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I feel like he’s in the room with us.”

  “Why’s everyone whispering?” James asked—in a loud whisper. He crawled off the bed and started picking through a pile of books on the floor.

  Laura managed a smile, “We’re whispering because it’s just about your bedtime.” She got to her feet and started to clear off the top of the bed. “C’mon, honey. Why don’t you lie down here and see if you can fall asleep?”

  She glanced over at the bathroom door and wondered about Liam. Sophie must have seen her and read her mind, because she knocked on the door. “Are you okay in there?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

  “Well, crack open the window, will you? I don’t want your barf smell wafting into my bedroom.”

  Sophie returned to the bed and picked up the legal pad. With a sigh, she tore off the top sheet and slid it under the bathroom door.

  “We’ll buy you a new camcorder, honey,” Laura called to him. “I promise.”

  Standing amid the pile of books on the floor, James pouted at her. “Is that man going to yell at us again?”

  Laura shook her head. “Not tonight, I hope.” She patted the bed. “C’mon, lie down.”

  “But I want George,” he murmured.

  George was his stuffed tiger. George was the name of every favorite stuffed animal he had. Even if the stuffed animal was a famous Disney movie character, James redubbed it George. He also gave the name to his short-lived goldfish and a turtle that lasted a month before it escaped and died behind the radiator in his bedroom in Seattle.

  “George is on vacation tonight.” Laura pulled back the bedspread and gave the pillow a pat. “C’mon, sweetie. You can rough it and sleep in your underwear tonight. I don’t think you’re going to like anything from Sophie’s books, but I can tell you a story—”

  Laura stopped talking. She realized the TV downstairs had been turned off.
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  Sophie noticed, too. She stopped putting her clothes away.

  They could hear Vic coming up the stairs.

  Laura reached for James and steered him to the bed.

  “But I don’t wanna—”

  She shushed him. “You’ve got to be real quiet, honey,” she whispered.

  She had a feeling Vic had heard enough on the baby monitor earlier to send him over the edge.

  Liam opened the bathroom door. He still looked pale. He must have heard the footsteps, too, because he didn’t say anything. The piece of paper from the legal pad was in his shaky hand.

  They stood and listened to Vic and Joe murmuring in the hallway. Laura couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t quite tell from Vic’s tone if he was angry or not. She sat down on the bed so that she could shield James in case Vic barged in and started shooting. She wanted to tell Sophie and Liam to get away from the door and take cover, but for a moment, she couldn’t talk.

  She saw the doorknob move back and forth. There was no lock on Sophie’s door.

  “No, Vic, please,” she heard Joe whisper.

  Laura glanced around the room for something she could use to defend her kids and herself. But Vic had already turned the place upside down and cleared out any possible weapons.

  The door squeaked and seemed to bend in—as if someone heavy was leaning against the other side.

  “Come on out,” Vic called.

  No one in the room moved.

  “Come on out,” he repeated, more firmly. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  Laura wondered why he didn’t just open the door. If he was going to come in and start shooting, he would have done that by now.

  She stood up and moved toward the door.

  Liam ran in front of her. “No, Mom,” he whispered.

  She gently pushed her son aside and moved around him. With her hand a bit unsteady, she reached for the doorknob and tried to turn it. But it didn’t move. She tugged and jerked at the knob, but it still didn’t budge.