Eventually, he ran out of distractions and resorted to staring at his walls, even briefly flirting with the idea of calling for Joshua to keep him company. One touch to his cheek, which still stung from where Joshua had pinched it earlier, brought him back to his senses.
After an excruciating wait, and a house devoid of noise, 2:00 a.m. arrived. Liam grabbed his backpack and Mai’s portrait and turned his doorknob. The hallway loomed empty. Time to find those keys.
He slinked down the hall and glanced at his mother’s closed bedroom as he passed.
Fingernails blackened with dirt crept out from underneath her doorway and extended out to grab him. The filthy hand snapped shut an inch from his ankle. He barely kept back the bloodcurdling scream dying to rush from his lips, and he jumped backward, banging into the wall with his backpack. He blinked. The hand disappeared.
A protracted two minutes had passed before he moved again. Hopefully, he hadn’t awakened Isaac with his racket.
The next ten feet were critical. If Isaac still sat by Tasha’s doorway, he’d have to conjure up some ninja-like moves to sneak by without waking him. He crept up to the l-shaped corner that led to his sister’s room, slowly poked his head out, and peered to the left. Relief flooded his body.
His stepfather had given up his guard post.
Liam skulked down the hallway and into the living room, where moonlight filtered through the curtains. Maybe Isaac had placed the keys on the hall tree after he went to bed. His hand clamped down on an empty hook.
A light clicked on in the living room.
Keys swung from Isaac’s long fingers. He sat on the loveseat, coffee mug still close by. “Looking for these?”
Liam’s stomach sunk. Game over. Nothing but the cold truth could save him now.
“I’ve got to leave.”
Isaac shook his head. “If you leave now, you’ll break probation. Then they’ll ship you off to God knows where. And that will make your mother unhappy. Not acceptable.”
He flexed his hands over Mai’s portrait. “I can’t live here with Tasha. You know that.”
Face partially obscured by shadows, Isaac exhaled loudly through his nose. “There’s no plan with your uncle, is there?”
The clock hanging on the living room wall ticked away silent seconds before he found the courage to answer.
“No. I wanted Mom to feel safe tonight and not worry about Tasha. I dangled a carrot.”
Isaac placed his keys in his pocket. “And leaving this way won’t worry your mother?”
“It will.” He shifted his weight. “But in the long run, it’s best for us all.”
“There are other options. I appreciate your concern for Tasha. I really do. But you’ve got to think of your life here. Your future doesn’t have to be a disaster.”
Doesn’t it, though?
Isaac leaned forward and gripped his knees. “I haven’t always done right by you, Liam. But I’m trying. And I want us all to figure out the next, best step. I don’t have the answer now, but leaving like this isn’t it.”
“Since when did you become my buddy?” Liam barked out a cynical laugh. “Don’t you want me gone? Besides, I’m a danger to everybody here. Somebody’s looking for me.”
Isaac rolled his lips. “Are they looking for you because of Stuart’s death?”
The lump in his throat became too big to swallow. “Yes.”
“You’ve got to tell me now what you know about his murder. I can help only if you let me. Mistakes, even terrible ones, happen,” Isaac whispered.
A vein in Liam’s forehead popped out. “At least now we’re back in familiar territory.” He threw his backpack on the ground and tossed the portrait on top of it. “I didn’t hurt Stuart.”
Isaac rubbed his head and leaned back into the couch. “You seem to have knowledge about the crime that isn’t public. What other explanation is there?”
“Why do you always think the worst of me?” He pounded his right hand against his left fist and raised his voice. “Isn’t it possible I could be simply a witness? You’re a lawyer. Have some imagination.”
“Then tell me what your connection is.” Isaac grunted in frustration. “I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”
He gambled on the truth. “I see visions.”
A long-suffering expression crossed Isaac’s face. “We’ve known that for a while now, Liam.”
“No, they’re not like the normal hallucinations. These visions are real. They really happen,” he said in an embarrassingly pleading tone.
Isaac sucked in his cheeks and ran his fingers around the edge of his coffee mug. “So what did you see?”
He looked at the floor and focused on a long, black scuff. “Cull beating Stuart to death.”
After a drawn-out silence, Isaac asked, “Who’s Cull?”
A voice filtered out from the hallway behind him.
“I am,” it said.
iam stumbled away from Cull’s voice and clawed at the hall tree for items he could use as defense weapons. His fingers ran over his mother’s silk scarf and closed over it.
“Liam? Are you okay?” asked Isaac.
Prickles of fear stabbed every nerve in his spine. “No! Didn’t you hear him?”
Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose. “The two of us are the only ones in this room.”
A dark crimson stain blossomed on the wall behind Isaac, expanding into an uneven oval. Long trails of viscous dark red fluid dripped down the wall and pooled onto the aged linoleum. Liam blinked. The blood remained.
“Focus on what’s real. And what’s real is the two of us.” Isaac pointed at his chest and then Liam’s.
Bile rose in his throat as he backed into the corner, legs trembling. “It’s too late. He’s coming.”
“It’s never too late. You can beat this.”
But it was too late. Because in the next instant, the back door’s glass shattered. Pieces large and small sparkled to the floor as a veiny hand reached in and unlocked it.
“He’s here!” Liam yelled. He sprinted toward Tasha’s room. He wouldn’t be able to delay Cull for long, but maybe long enough to let her escape.
Isaac skidded into Tasha’s room after him. With shocking efficiency, he yanked Liam’s arms together behind his back and held them. “Don’t even think about touching her,” he growled.
Tasha sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. “Is it morning?”
“Not yet, baby girl. Go back to sleep,” Isaac said. His grip intensified.
In a desperate bid to break free, Liam stomped on his stepfather’s foot. Unmovable as a redwood tree, Isaac didn’t flinch.
They wasted precious time. Cull had arrived.
Liam howled in frustration. “How can you just stand there, Isaac? You’re gonna let Cull break in and kill us?”
Tasha’s eyes widened.
“There’s nobody here. It’s all in your head.” Isaac’s tone sounded much calmer than his body language suggested.
Liam’s knees weakened. “You’re lying. I saw him.”
“Go look.” Isaac released his arms and stepped in front of Tasha.
Not sure which alternative he feared most-finding Cull or an intact door-he crept back through the hallway and into the living room. Silence blanketed the night. The back door stood in one piece, and the wall remained blood-free.
Footsteps whispered behind him. In a small and tired voice, Allison said, “Honey? What’s going on?” She tied her pink terrycloth bathrobe and placed a hand on his back.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.” Cull had been there a second ago.
Hadn’t he?
Isaac joined his wife and placed an arm around her waist. “I think you do, Liam. But it’s hard for you to admit it.”
“Admit what?” His fingers twitched uncontrollably.
“The murder of Stuart Laughlin.”
Allison gasped. “You’re sure about this?”
Isaac nodded curtly.
Liam held a hand
to his spinning head. “I didn’t kill him!”
“Yes, you did. I know about the drugs,” Isaac said.
He sucked in his breath. “How?”
“I found some a few weeks ago in your sock drawer. You asked me earlier to use my imagination… How’s this? You bought cocaine from Stuart. Then the two of you had a falling out. Maybe you threatened to tell me about his extracurricular activities. Maybe you didn’t pay him on time. Maybe you stole from him. Whatever the case, the two of you argued, and you killed him. Am I getting warm?”
He licked his lips. “Ice cold.”
“Then what did happen?” Allison asked. Her face had turned ghostly pale.
“Cull killed him.” His words came out slow and stilted like a child uttering some profound lie he knew nobody believed.
Don’t let them confuse you. Stay focused.
Isaac crossed his arms. “You keep talking about this Cull. Cull who?”
“I don’t know his last name.” Liam walked in a tight circle and wagged his pointer finger. “But he works at your office.”
“There are no ‘Culls’ at my office. But what my office does have is a surveillance camera.” Isaac flicked on the living room light and edged closer to him. “And it caught you there the day before you checked into the clinic, pawing around Stuart’s desk. Did you steal money or drugs?”
Liam shielded his eyes against the bright light. “Neither! I just investigated Stuart. I knew he’d been killed, but I needed to know more about him.”
Isaac sniffed. “Stuart was still alive and well then.”
The room seemed to shrink and close in on him. He rolled his shoulder blades and stopped pacing. He said, “I saw the murder before it happened. Sometimes I see the future.”
Tears flowed down Allison’s face. She wiped her cheek on her robe.
He’d lost her. Again.
“Look at your surveillance footage.” His voice trembled with either rage or fear; he couldn’t distinguish between the two anymore. “You’ll find Stuart there with another man. The other man is Cull, the killer.”
A look of pity crossed Isaac’s face. “The only images our camera caught were you lurking about the office and then vomiting down the hallway. Our security team showed the footage to me out of courtesy. They didn’t seek any charges against you when I told them you’d sought professional help.”
For a few awful moments, only the sound of Allison’s sobs punctured the tense silence.
Isaac said, “It’s you, Liam. You’re the killer. I wish you weren’t. I wanted, more than anything, to believe I connected dots where I shouldn’t. But you can’t see the future, Liam. You can only see what you did.”
“It’s not true!” Liam closed the distance between his stepfather and him and poked his thick chest. “Don’t discredit me because of my illness. Open your mind.”
Please!
“Don’t make this worse than it already is,” Isaac warned.
Rage boiled in his stomach, and hatred shot through his body. His precarious grip on reality wavered enough without Isaac scrambling his brains. Liam reared his skull back to headbutt the man when a small voice caused him to stiffen.
“Liam?” Bleary eyed and bewildered, Tasha leaned against the hall doorway. She clung her stuffed bunny to her chest. “Why are you so upset?” She twisted her bunny’s ears.
He stepped away from Isaac. “We’re having a little misunderstanding,”
“‘Bout what?”
“About what I’m capable of doing.”
Her chin quivered. “Did you listen to your voices again?” she whispered.
Like she’d placed a vacuum in his body and switched it on, all oxygen in his lungs vanished in an instant. He struggled to breathe.
How could he deny the possibility when Tasha asked the question? She who’d suffered most because of his voices?
“I tried not to.” He hung his head in humiliation. Exhaustion won the contest it’d waged with his anger. He crossed the room, pulled out a dining room chair, and collapsed into it. “I tried so hard.”
Tasha brushed aside her mother’s hand and stepped forward. The moonlight hit her lilac nightgown, setting it aglow like an ethereal angel’s wings. Isaac stepped toward her, but she stalled his progress with a raised hand. “I know. You fought good, Liam. I could tell.”
His heart shattered into more pieces than his fractured mind.
She said, “I love you. So does Mommy. Daddy, too, even if he doesn’t say so.”
Smiling, she joined him at the dining room table and rubbed his unwashed red hair. If only love would fix him like Tasha imagined. It would help him, certainly, but never change what lived in his core-an unpredictable and selfish monster.
The leap from monster to killer wasn’t a great one. Dr. Jen always prompted him to analyze his hallucinations and why they scared him. Of all the threats in the world, he feared himself most; the dreadful sins he might commit, the danger he posed to his family, the risks he created for Mai.
Much as he longed to deny it, his stepfather’s theory explained the events of the past few months. He’d constructed a complex delusion that had culminated in Stuart’s death.
He was a murderer.
Tears brimmed in his eyes as he hugged Tasha. “No matter who you might become one day, remember you’re my baby sister, and I love you. Always.”
“I know, silly.” She met his eyes with maturity beyond her years. She must know he referred to Sissy and the possibility she could become like him. The thought didn’t appear to scare her. It should’ve.
He stood and gestured at Isaac. “I guess we contact the authorities now?”
Allison buried her face in her hands. Unable to take the pain he caused his mother, he turned away toward the back window where, once again, Cull watched over them.
ull’s presence didn’t scare Liam. The pit of his stomach didn’t turn cold, nor did the back of his neck crawl. Instead, a paralyzing sadness filled him. His hallucinations had finally done him in.
When the back door’s glass exploded into the family room, he simply watched, entranced as his hallucination repeated itself.
Tasha’s screams finally snapped him out of his stupor. She pointed a shaking finger to the backdoor and the lock being opened by a stranger’s hand. His pulse quickened.
It skyrocketed when Isaac yelled, “Run!”
Tasha sped toward Allison, who grabbed her by the shoulders and turned to escape down the hallway. Isaac placed his body in front of theirs and ran toward the intruder.
“One more step from anybody and I shoot,” Cull said. He swung open the door and aimed his revolver at Isaac, who stopped four feet away from him.
“Michael? What are you doing?” Isaac yelled. His arms shook with anger.
This can’t be happening. Right?
Liam stared openmouthed at Cull and blinked ten times. He remained. “Is he really here?” he asked.
Cull snorted. “Appears so.” His feet crunched over broken glass as he walked into the house. After slamming the door shut, he flicked his gun at Liam. “You have no idea what a blessing you are. When the unfortunate incident with Stuart happened, I didn’t panic. I knew it’d be easy to frame you for his murder. Everybody knows schizos are dangerous.”
Eyes widened in horror, Isaac gulped. “Are you admitting to murdering Stuart?”
Liam’s mouth went dry. “You see him?”
“Of course I see him,” Isaac snapped.
“That’s Cull,” Liam said. “He’s the man who killed Stuart.”
Cull chuckled. “You should see your face, Colonel. It’s almost worth all the trouble your boy put me through. I gather your stepson hasn’t kept his mouth shut and told you about what he found?”
Isaac gaped at Cull in disbelief. “Cull is short for Michael?”
“For a select few. My closest friends.”
“Do you kill all of your close friends?” Liam asked. Despite the circumstances, it felt liberating to know, for a f
act, Cull existed.
Cull narrowed his eyes. “You’re the reason he’s dead. You put the idea in my mind.”
“Go ahead and try to deflect your guilt,” said Liam. His lips curled down in contempt. “But you can’t blame other people for your own bad actions. Even I know that.”
Gun still aimed at Isaac, Cull stepped to the side so he had a clear view of Allison and Tasha. “Shut up. It’s your fault, and you’re the one who’s gonna pay for it.”
“What are you going to do, Michael?” Isaac asked. Not the sort to cower before a tough fight, he placed his left foot forward and inched toward him.
Cull cocked his revolver. “I’ll tell you once you’ve stopped moving. One more centimeter, Colonel, and I kill you.”
Isaac ground his teeth and held his stance.
“Good decision, Colonel. I haven’t made many of those myself since I first saw your stepson. You know, after all this trouble, I’ve decided it’s time to turn over a new leaf. But I can’t move forward without your family’s help.” He pointed his gun at Tasha. “Bring her to me.”
“No,” Isaac and Allison said in unison. The muscles in Isaac’s jaws bulged, and Allison ushered Tasha behind her.
“Did that sound like a request?” He angled his head to the side, a look of irritated incredulity plastered across his face. “In case you didn’t notice, I’ve got the gun. And it’s aimed straight at your wife and daughter. Bring the girl to me.”
Allison planted her feet shoulder width apart and splayed her fingers on her hips. “No,” she repeated.
Cull sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The report of his revolver echoed through the living room. Allison groaned in agony and grabbed her shoulder. Blood seeped through a blackened hole in her robe and trickled out of her sleeve and onto Tasha’s head, who peeked out to see what had happened.
“Mommy!” she screamed.
“No, no, no, no!” Isaac raced to his wife’s side and placed his hands on her wound to stanch the bleeding. A slick, crimson fluid covered his fingers in a disarmingly short period of time. “Hang on, baby. You’re going to be okay.”
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