'Terri?' Paul repeated. 'Where the hell are you?' Slowly, his footsteps traveled through the kitchen. 'Christ, this place is a mess.'
Using all her strength, Lena picked up Rebecca, half carrying, half dragging the girl up the stairs. By the time she reached the top, she was out of breath, her insides feeling like they had been ripped in two.
'I'm here!' Terri called to her uncle, her shoes making clicking noises across the tile foyer as she walked back to the kitchen. Lena heard muffled voices as she pushed Rebecca and Tim into the closest room. Too late she realized they were in the nursery.
In the crib, the baby gurgled. Lena waited for him to wake up and cry. What seemed like an hour passed before the child turned his head away and settled back to sleep.
'Oh, Lord,' Rebecca whispered, praying.
Lena put her hand over the girl's mouth, carefully walking her toward the closet with Tim in tow. For the first time, Rebecca seemed to understand, and she slowly opened the door, her eyes squeezed shut as she waited for a noise that would alert Paul to their presence. Nothing came, and she slid to the floor, grabbing Tim in her arms and hiding behind a stack of winter blankets.
Softly, Lena clicked the door closed, holding her breath, waiting for Paul to come rushing in. She could barely hear him speaking over the pounding of her own heart, but suddenly his heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs.
'This place is a pigsty,' Paul said, and she could hear him knocking things over as he went through the house. Lena knew the house was spotless, just like she knew Paul was being an asshole. 'Jesus Christ, Terri, you back on coke again? Look at this mess. How can you raise your children here?'
Terri mumbled a reply, and Paul screamed, 'Don't back talk me!' He was in the tiled foyer now, his voice booming up the stairs like a roll of thunder. Carefully, Lena tiptoed to the wall opposite the nursery, flattening herself against it, listening to Paul yell at Terri. Lena waited another beat, then slid to her left, edging toward the stair landing so she could peer downstairs and see what was going on. Jeffrey had told her to wait, to hide Rebecca until he got there. She should stay back in the room, keep the kids quiet, make sure they were safe.
Lena held her breath, inching closer to the stairs, chancing a look.
Paul's back was to her. Terri stood directly in front of him.
Lena slid back behind the corner, her heart beating so hard she could feel the artery thumping in the side of her neck.
'When's he going to be back?' Paul demanded.
'I don't know.'
'Where's my medallion?'
'I don't know.'
She had given him this same answer to all of his questions, and Paul finally snapped, 'What do you know, Terri?'
She was silent, and Lena looked downstairs again to make sure she was still there.
'He'll be back soon,' Terri said, her eyes flicking up to Lena. 'You can wait for him in the garage.'
'You want me out of the house?' he asked. Lena quickly pulled back as Paul turned around. 'Why's that?'
Lena put her hand to her chest, willing her heart to slow. Men like Paul had an almost animal instinct. They could hear through walls, see everything that went on. She looked at her watch, trying to calculate how much time had passed since she had called Jeffrey. He was at least fifteen minutes away, even if he came with lights and siren blaring.
Paul said, 'What's going on, Terri? Where's Dale?'
'Out.'
'Don't get smart with me.' Lena heard a loud popping noise, flesh against flesh. Her heart stopped in her chest.
Terri said, 'Please. Just wait in the garage.'
Paul's tone was conversational. 'Why don't you want me in the house, Terri?'
Again, there was the popping noise. Lena did not have to look to know what was happening. She knew the sickening sound, knew it was an open-handed smack, just as she knew exactly what it felt like on your face.
There was a sound from the nursery, Rebecca or Tim shifting in the closet, and a floorboard creaked. Lena closed her eyes, frozen. Jeffrey had ordered her to wait, to protect Rebecca. He hadn't given her any instructions on what to do if Paul found them.
Lena opened her eyes. She knew exactly what she would do. Carefully, she slid her gun out of its holster, aiming it at the space above the open landing. Paul was a big man. All Lena had in her favor was the element of surprise, and she wasn't going to give that up for anything. She could almost taste the triumph she'd feel when Paul turned that corner, expecting to see a frightened child but finding a Glock shoved in his smug face.
'It's just Tim,' Terri insisted, downstairs.
Paul said nothing, but Lena heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. Slow, careful footsteps.
'It's Tim,' Terri repeated. The footsteps stopped. 'He's sick.'
'Your whole family's sick,' Paul taunted, pounding his shoe onto the next stair; his Gucci loafer that could pay the mortgage on this small house for a month. 'It's because of you, Terri. All those drugs you did, all that fucking around. All those blow jobs, all those ass fuckings. I bet the jism's rotting you from the inside out.'
'Stop it.'
Lena cupped the gun in her hand, holding it straight out in front of her, pointing it at the open landing as she waited for him to get to the top so she could shut him the fuck up.
'One of these days,' he began, taking another step. 'One of these days, I'm going to have to tell Dale.'
'Paul –'
'How do you think he's going to feel knowing he's put his dick in all that?' Paul asked. 'All that come just swirling around inside you.'
'I was sixteen!' she sobbed. 'What was I going to do? I didn't have a choice!'
'And now your kids are sick,' he said, obviously pleased by her distress. 'Sick with what you did. Sick with all that disease and filth inside you.' His tone made Lena's stomach tighten with hate. She felt the urge to make some kind of noise that would get him up here faster. The gun felt hot in her hand, ready to explode as soon as he passed into her line of vision.
He continued to climb the stairs, saying, 'You were nothing but a fucking whore.'
Terri did not respond.
'And you're still turning tricks?' he said, coming closer. Just another few steps and he would be there. His words were so hateful, so familiar. He could be Ethan talking to Lena. Ethan coming up the stairs to beat the shit out of her.
'You think I don't know what you needed that money for?' Paul demanded. He had stopped about two steps from the top, so close that Lena could smell his flowery cologne. 'Three hundred fifty bucks,' he said, slapping the stair railing as if he was telling some kind of joke. 'That's a lot of money, Ter. What'd you use all that money for?'
'I said I'd pay you back.'
'Pay me back when you can,' he said, as if he was her old friend instead of tormentor. 'Tell me what it was for, Genie. I was only trying to help you.'
Lena gritted her teeth, watching his shadow linger on the landing. Terri had asked Paul for the money to pay the clinic. He must have made her grovel for it, then kicked her in the teeth before she left.
'What'd you need it for?' Paul asked, his steps receding down the stairs now that he had found an easier prey. In her head, Lena was screaming for him to come back, but a few seconds later she heard his shoes hit the tile in the foyer with a loud bang as if he had jumped down the last steps in glee. 'What'd you need it for, whore?' Terri didn't respond and he slapped her again, the noise pounding in Lena's ears. 'Answer me, whore.'
Terri's voice was weak. 'I used it to pay the hospital bills.'
'You used it to carve out that baby inside you.'
Terri made a wheezing noise. Lena dropped the gun to her side, her eyes squeezing shut at the sound of the other woman's grief.
'Abby told me,' he said. 'She told me everything.'
'No.'
'She was real worried about her cousin Terri,' he continued. 'Didn't want her to go to hell for what she was going to do. I promised her I'd talk to you about it.' Terri said something
and Paul laughed. Lena pivoted around the corner, gun raised, aiming at Paul's back as he struck Terri across the cheek again, this time so hard that she fell to the floor. He grabbed her up, spinning her around just as Lena hid herself back behind the corner.
Lena closed her eyes again, her head playing back in slow motion what she had just seen. He had reached down to grab Terri, yanking her up as he spun toward the stairs. There was a bulge under his jacket. Was he carrying a gun? Did he have a weapon on him?
Paul's tone was one of disgust. 'Get up, you whore.'
'You killed her,' Terri accused. 'I know you killed Abby.'
'Watch your mouth,' he warned.
'Why?' Terri begged. 'Why would you hurt Abby?'
'She did it to herself,' he said. 'Y'all should know better by now than to piss off ol' Cole.' Lena waited for Terri to say something, to tell him that he was worse than Cole, that he had directed everything, put the idea in Cole's head that the girls needed to be punished.
Terri was silent, though, and the only thing Lena heard was the refrigerator kicking on in the kitchen. She peered around the corner just as Terri found her voice.
'I know what you did to her,' she said, and Lena cursed the woman's brazenness. Of all the times for Terri to develop a backbone, this was not it. Jeffrey would be here soon, maybe in another five minutes.
Terri said, 'I know you gave her the cyanide. Dale told you how to use it.'
'So?'
'Why?' Terri asked. 'Why would you kill Abby? She never did anything to you. All she ever did was love you.'
'She was a bad girl,' he said, as if that was reason enough. 'Cole knew that.'
'You told Cole,' Terri said. 'Don't think I don't know how that works.'
'How what works?'
'How you tell him we're bad,' she said. 'You put all these terrible ideas into his head, and he goes out and punishes us.' Her laugh was caustic. 'Funny how God never tells him to punish the boys. You ever been in that box, Paul? You ever get buried for seeing your whores in Savannah and snorting your coke?'
Paul's tone was a snarl. '"Go, see now this cursed woman and bury her – "'
'Don't you dare throw the scriptures at me.'
'"She hath rebelled against her God,"' he quoted. '"They shall fall by the sword."'
Terri obviously knew the verse. Her anger curdled the air. 'Shut up, Paul.'
'"Their infants shall be dashed in pieces . . . Their women with child shall be ripped up."'
'"Even the Devil can quote scripture for his cause."'
He laughed, as if she had scored a point off him.
She said, 'You lost your religion a million years ago.'
'You're one to talk.'
'I don't go around pretending it ain't true,' she retorted, her tone getting stronger, sharper. This was the woman who had hit Dale back. This was the woman who had dared to defend herself. 'Why did you kill her, Paul?' She waited, then asked, 'Was it because of the insurance policies?'
Paul's back stiffened. He hadn't been threatened by Terri's mention of the cyanide, but Lena guessed that the insurance policies added a whole new level to the equation.
He asked, 'What do you know about that?'
'Abby told me about them, Paul. The police know.'
'What do they know?' He grabbed her arm, twisting it. Lena felt her body tense. She raised her Glock again, waiting for the right moment. 'What did you tell them, you little idiot?'
'Let go of me.'
'I'll take your head off, you stupid bitch. Tell me what you told the police.'
Lena startled as Tim came out of nowhere, running past her, nearly tumbling down the stairs to get to his mother. Lena reached for the boy and missed, pulling herself back at the last minute so that Paul wouldn't see her.
'Mama!' the child screamed.
Terri made a surprised sound, then Lena heard her say, 'Tim, go back upstairs. Mama's talking to Uncle Paul.'
'Come here, Tim,' Paul said, and Lena's stomach lurched as his little feet tapped their way down the stairs.
'No –' Terri protested, then, 'Tim, come away from him.'
'Come on, big guy,' Paul said, and Lena chanced a quick look. Paul was holding Tim in his arms, the child's legs wrapped around his waist. Lena pulled back, knowing if Paul turned around he would see her. She mouthed, Fuck, cursing herself for not taking the shot when she could. Across the hall, she glimpsed Rebecca in the nursery, reaching out to pull the closet door shut. In Lena's mind, she cursed even harder, damning the girl for her inability to hold on to the boy.
Lena glanced into the foyer, trying to assess the situation. Paul's back was still to her, but Tim clung tight to him, his spindly little arm hooked around Paul's shoulders as he watched his mother. At this distance, there was no telling what kind of damage her nine-millimeter would do. The bullet could rip through Paul's body and go right into Tim's. She could kill the child instantly.
'Please,' Terri said, and Paul could have been holding her own life in his hands the way she was acting. 'Let him go.'
'Tell me what you told the police,' Paul said.
'Nothing. I didn't tell them anything.'
Paul didn't buy it. 'Did Abby leave those policies with you, Terri? Is that what she did?'
'Yes,' Terri said, her voice trembling. 'I'll give them to you. Please, just let him go.'
'You get them now and then we'll talk.'
'Please, Paul. Let him go.'
'Go get the policies.'
Terri was obviously not a practiced liar. When she said, 'They're in the garage,' Lena knew Paul saw right through her. Still, he said, 'Go get them. I'll watch Tim.'
Terri must have hesitated, because Paul raised his voice, saying, 'Now!' so loudly that Terri screamed. When he spoke again, his tone was back to normal, and somehow to Lena it was more frightening. 'You've got thirty seconds, Terri.'
'I don't –'
'Twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . .'
The front door slammed open and she was gone. Lena stood utterly still, her heart thumping like a drum.
Downstairs, Paul spoke as if he was talking to Tim, but made sure his voice was loud enough to carry. 'You think your aunt Rebecca's upstairs, Tim?' he asked, cheerful, almost teasing. 'Why don't we go see if your aunt Rebecca's up there, huh? See if she's hiding out like the little rat she is . . .'
Tim made a noise Lena couldn't understand.
'That's right, Tim,' Paul said, like they were playing a game. 'We'll go up and talk to her, and then we'll beat her face. You like that, Tim? We'll beat her face until her bones crack. We'll make sure Aunt Becca's pretty little face is so broken that no one ever wants to look at it again.'
Lena listened, waiting for him to climb the stairs so that she could blow his head off his shoulders. He did not. Obviously, this taunting was part of the game for him. Even knowing this, the dread that filled her at the sound of his voice could not be stopped. She wanted so badly to hurt him, to shut him up forever. No one should ever have to hear him again.
The door opened and slammed shut. Terri was out of breath, her words tumbling over one another. 'I couldn't find them,' she said. 'I looked –'
Fuck, Lena thought. Dale's gun. No.
Paul said, 'You'll forgive me if I'm not surprised.'
'What are you going to do?' Terri's voice was still shaking, but there was something underneath the fear, some hidden knowledge that gave her power. She must have gotten the revolver. She must have thought she could do something to stop him.
Tim said something and Paul laughed. 'That's right,' he agreed, then told Terri, 'Tim thinks his aunt Rebecca is up there.'
Lena heard another sound, this time a click. She recognized it instantly – a hammer being pulled back on a gun.
Paul was surprised, but hardly alarmed. 'Where'd you get that?'
'It's Dale's,' she said, and Lena felt her gut clench. 'I know how to use it.'
Paul laughed as if the gun was made of plastic. Lena peered over the top of the stairs, wa
tching him walk toward Terri. She had missed her chance. He had the kid now. She should have confronted him on the stairs. She should have taken him then. Why the fuck had she listened to Jeffrey? She should've just swung around the corner and emptied her gun into the bastard's chest.
Paul said, 'There's a big difference between knowing how to use a gun and actually using it,' and Lena felt the cut to his words, hating herself for her indecision. Goddamn Jeffrey and his orders. She knew how to handle herself. She should've listened to her gut in the first place.
Terri said, 'Just get out, Paul.'
'You gonna use that thing?' he asked. 'Maybe you'll hit Tim?' He was teasing her like it was a game. 'Come on. See what kind of shot you are.' Lena could see him clearly, closing the space between him and Terri, Tim in his arms. He was actually jostling the child, goading his niece. 'Come on, Genie, let's see you do it. Shoot your own baby. You've already killed one, right? What's another?'
Terri's hands were shaking. She had the gun up in front of her, legs spread apart, palm supporting the butt of the revolver. Her determination seemed to falter more with every step he took closer.
'You stupid whore,' he taunted. 'Go on, shoot me.' He was only a foot away from her. 'Pull the trigger, little girl. Show me how tough you are. Stand up for yourself for once in your pathetic little life.' Finally, he reached out and grabbed the gun from her, saying, 'You stupid bitch.'
'Let him go,' she pleaded. 'Just let him go and leave.'
'Where are those papers?'
'I burned them.'
'You lying slut!' He slammed the revolver into her left cheek. Terri fell to the floor, blood sloshing out of her mouth.
Lena felt her own teeth start to ache as if Paul had hit her and not Terri. She had to do something. She had to stop this. Without thinking, she went to her knees, then flattened her chest to the floor. Procedure said she should identify herself, give Paul the opportunity to drop the gun. She knew there was no chance he would surrender. Men like Paul didn't give up if they thought there was a chance of escape. Right now, he had two chances: one on his hip, the other on the floor.
Lena angled her body across the hall, placing herself at the top of the landing, gripping her gun in both hands, resting the butt on the edge of the stair.
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