The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  She knocks loose a few remaining shards as she impulsively hurls the boots out the window into the darkness, and then tosses the sheet across the windowsill, as if for protection from the jagged glass. She quickly pulls one last perfect shard from the frame, and then she’s off the cot, onto the floor, flattening herself, scooting under the bed as the man’s heavy footsteps stop outside the door. Momentarily shifting the wedge of broken glass to her left hand, she uses the cup of her bra to get a tight grip on it with her right. The shard is roughly the size and shape of scissors. With the bra as protection, she wields it like a weapon.

  The key snicks in the lock. She holds still, ignoring the carpet of broken glass, praying that her ruse will work.

  If he doesn’t believe she has escaped out the window … if he looks under the bed … Don’t hesitate. Attack the instant you see his eyes.

  The door bangs wide. A glare of light. He roars like a bear and his huge boots clomp into view, inches from her nose. She doesn’t breathe. The piece of glass gripped in her hand seems futile, but she holds it tight, listening to him curse, watching his boots stomp sideways.

  Strike fast. Get him in the eyes. Stab him in the throat.

  Suddenly, he pivots on the balls of his feet and rushes away, leaving the door ajar.

  Releasing her grip on the jagged shard, she scuttles out from beneath the cot, oblivious of the broken glass gouging her palms and knees.

  A door slams. He’s outside searching for her.

  How long until he figures out that his prey is still inside? Three minutes? One?

  With no time for clothes, she is out the door, dashing down the hallway and into the living room, trying to orient herself, working out the contours of the house, uncertain where to turn. Her keys are in the Jeep. She can’t hope to outrun him, barefoot and in the dark, but the Jeep can save her. She’ll crash through the gate and find help.

  It sounded like he went out the front door, so she sprints past it and heads toward the side door. She’s through the house in a flash, into the utility room, her bare feet treading on grit and stray beads. She’s about to grasp the doorknob when she freezes. Her own reflection blanches in the glass, and she realizes that she’s illuminated like a fish in a bowl while he’s roaming around outside. She drops to the floor, feeling trapped and panicked.

  What if he’s between her and the Jeep? She needs a weapon, something, anything.…

  She curses herself for not having thought to keep the glass, but she can’t go back. Glimpsing a dark area to her right, she scuttles over on hands and knees. With no windows here to worry about, she jumps to her feet, searching, and what she finds makes her gasp: a gun cabinet.

  She turns the knob and the cabinet door swings open. It’s a whole damn arsenal, a full array of gleaming guns, their barrels neatly vertical above an orderly row of tins of gunpowder.

  She snatches up what she recognizes as a shotgun, murmuring, “stopping power.” It feels heavy and foreign in her hands.

  She hears a noise and turns just in time to see the man open the door. It swings wide and she stands motionless, hoping he won’t see her. For a heartbeat, she imagines that he’ll charge into the house and she can slip away behind him.… But then his shoulders turn and his eyes shine and his body seems to swell.

  She grips the gun with both hands, trying to remember Tilly’s brother’s instructions, and thumbs off the safety. Aiming at his chin, she clumsily pumps the shotgun and watches his Adam’s apple roll up and down.

  He pastes on a sour grin. “You don’t even know if that thing is loaded.”

  “Your face just said it is.”

  He scoffs. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?”

  “Maybe.” She licks her lips. “Who are you?”

  “You have no idea, sweetheart.”

  Dr. Lerner’s words echo in her head—a narcissist wouldn’t opt for suicide. It doesn’t fit—and she inhales sharply.

  “Put the gun down, kid. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  The gun feels slick in her hands. Blood, she thinks. From the broken glass.

  “Take off your shirt,” she says.

  “What?” He scoffs. “Listen, put down the gun. You can’t even aim.”

  “I don’t need to be accurate, I just need to be close.” She takes a step toward him, and almost imperceptibly his features shift. “The shirt,” she says. “Take it off.”

  He unbuttons his shirt while rolling his eyes as if it’s a game, shedding the fabric slowly, exposing clavicle, chest hair, abs … until the shirt slides off his shoulders and reveals the inked ring encircling the taut muscle of his left bicep. He gives the tattoo a sideways glance, then meets her eye.

  Her stomach constricts. “I know who you are.”

  “You think so?” He smirks. “Are you going to call the police?”

  She glances involuntarily toward where her purse waits on a chair.

  “Go ahead. Call.”

  There’s no way she can get her cell phone and place a call while keeping the shotgun leveled at him. They both know it.

  “I had plans to cut you, but it looks like you’ve already done the job,” he says mockingly. “You know you’re bleeding, right?”

  She shifts her foot and feels something wet and sticky beneath her toes. The gun should make her feel powerful, but it only feels heavy. Every moment is like sinking deeper into soft wax.

  He watches her weaken, utterly confident that he’ll regain the upper hand. He knows she can’t manage that shotgun. He’s got the trigger pull adjusted tight, and she sure can’t aim, not with the lame way she’s holding it. Seems like there’s something wrong with her left hand.

  He makes a tsking sound. It’s a nuisance that she’s dripping blood on his floor, but he knows how to clean up blood.

  “That was pretty clever, that bit with the broken window. The sheet. Your boots. It took me a minute to figure it out.”

  Realizing he’s trying to distract her, Reeve tightens her finger on the trigger. The barrel wavers and his eyes follow the zigzag of the gun.

  “Hey now, Reggie, be careful with that.”

  She raises the shotgun and swallows. She has to do something besides stand here and talk. “Put your hands on your head.”

  “What?”

  “Hands on your head. Do it! Okay, now turn. Slowly … That’s right, go on.” She doesn’t prod him with the gun barrel, doesn’t dare get that close, so she’s relieved when he turns and steps forward. She moves in behind him, keeping the gun pointed at his spine, reminding herself that she is the captor, he is the captive.

  “Stop right there,” she says, surveying the room. She wants him where she can keep an eye on him. Not on the sofa … not by a door … Her eyes focus on a single upholstered chair that is just a U-turn from where she found the guns, near the corner, pooled in the light of a lamp. She chews her lip, looking from the chair to her purse. She can rest the shotgun on the table while getting her phone. She can manage.

  She directs him toward the chair and he does exactly as he’s told, following along the wall and slowly easing down until he’s seated.

  “That’s right. Now, put your hands behind you.”

  Again, he does as he’s told. And sitting in that pool of light, half-clothed, he appears suddenly vulnerable. She has an overwhelming desire to let her guard down, but takes a breath, shakes it off, and sidles around the table to her purse, saying, “I know who you are.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You kidnapped Tilly, and Hannah, and Abby. Who else?”

  He shakes his head.

  The gun barrel wavers and she tightens her grip. “I should shoot you just for Tilly.”

  “You don’t want to do that. It’s not in your character,” he says, shifting his weight to the back of the chair where he has stashed the handgun. He knows exactly where the Colt 1911 is, and he figures it will be simple to overpower her while she’s fumbling with the phone. The shotgun has given her an irrational sens
e of infallibility. He can pull the Colt from between the cushions and aim before she even has a chance to react. Perhaps she’s lost so much blood that she’s not thinking clearly.

  He almost chuckles, thinking, Edgy Reggie is losing her edge. But he’s careful to keep the smile off his face while he watches her rest the shotgun on the table.

  She keeps it pointed at him with her finger on the trigger while using her left hand to open her purse.

  “You’re the sniper that shot Vanderholt,” she says.

  He sneers. “A mercy killing.”

  “And Montoya was framed.” Her mouth has gone dry and her voice sounds strangely gruff. “You killed him, and you killed those other two guys.”

  “Why would you think that?” All he needs to do is keep her talking.

  “What about Emily Ewing? You killed her, too, didn’t you?”

  “That stupid woman with the high heels?” He laughs while extending his hand between the cushions behind him, finding the handgun hidden there. He pinches the handle grip with his fingers and smoothly guides it into his palm. “She tripped and fell into that fancy koi pond, a victim of ridiculous shoes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Read it in the paper.”

  “That wasn’t in the paper.”

  He smirks at her, his lips twisting into the same kind of loathsome, arrogant grin that Daryl Wayne Flint used to wear. An urge to kill him boils through her. She imagines shooting him smack in the mouth, right through those disgusting yellow teeth.

  He recognizes that look. “If you’re gonna shoot that thing,” he says calmly, “you better watch the recoil.”

  “What?”

  “It has a nasty kick.”

  It works like a charm, just enough of a distraction so that she glances down at the shotgun, and in that instant he’s pulling out his weapon in a swift motion he has practiced a hundred times, getting the drop on some imaginary intruder, swinging the pistol up and forward in a smooth arc, taking aim and squeezing the—

  BOOM!

  The shotgun blast fills the room and the Colt flies from his hand as gunshot rips open the wall behind him. Knocked off her feet, ears ringing, Reeve barely hears him shout as he jumps up, his eyes focused on the pistol on the floor. In that instant, he bumps the lamp, which teeters and falls as if in slow motion, light splashing down the wall, illuminating the cavity where the sheetrock has turned to dust, where the back of the gun cabinet has splintered, where rifle butts jut through like broken teeth. He jerks toward the lamp and cries out as Reeve glimpses the ruptured tins of gunpowder. The lamp shatters on the floor and flames erupt with a hot bright whoosh! as heat and light explode through the room.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Duke’s closest neighbor, Maggie Shaw, has never been one to meddle. Live and let live and leave me the fuck alone, that’s her motto. If teenagers want to race down the road in their souped-up cars, she doesn’t care. If some drunk tosses beer bottles out the window, or some kid shoots BBs at a squirrel, it makes not a lick of difference to her. She has sturdy, barbed wire fences posted with plenty of “No Trespassing” signs, and as long as intruders stay off her ten-acre property, she’s not going to confront another living soul, much less call the cops.

  But damned if that isn’t some kind of racket! She shuts off the blare of the television and listens to what sounds like gunfire—Jesus! like a goddamned war!

  She bolts out of her chair, across the living room, and out onto the porch. The door slams behind her as explosions rip through the night and she jerks to a halt, staring off in a southerly direction while the detonations crescendo and then abruptly cease.

  Maggie Shaw stays fixed in her bedroom slippers, gaping toward the old Eubanks’ place, wondering what the hell could have set off such a blast.

  Gas? Propane? A meth lab?

  Her heart pounds while she stands there in the cold, listening hard, trying to hear past the dripping eaves and spattering rain, watching what looks like a smoky-yellow glow, appalled to think that this time she’ll have to call 911.

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Reeve staggers to her feet and stares around wildly. The house is howling, ablaze. Clouds of thick smoke fill the room while hungry blue flames lick the ceiling. She spins in panic, choking on scorched air, searching for escape. The floor bucks as she’s blasted by detonations of heat, and the horror of her situation clamps down so hard she swoons under the certainty that she’s about to die.

  She falls to her knees and scuttles away from the inferno as fast as she can. The world is on fire but the floor seems slick as ice. Where is the man? She can’t see. She hits a wall. Wheezing, feeling like a rat in a maze, she scrambles along it, knocking against furniture and catching on electrical wires.

  Here’s a corner, a hallway. Blinded by smoke, she gets to her feet, coughing, and stumbles away from the fire. If the man is following, she can’t see him. Her shoulders bang against walls. Smoke stings her eyes. Here’s a door ajar and she pushes into the room and stands there, gasping. It’s cooler here. She sucks in air rank with sweat and smoke and finds the light switch. No power.

  She lurches forward in the dark, groping, and smacks into something hard. A desk? Yes, here’s a keyboard … another keyboard. She hurries on, deeper into the room, blindly feeling in front of her, finding monitors and equipment and more desks stacked with so many computers that she fears she’s going in circles.

  Now smoke is pouring into the room. Why didn’t she shut the door? She chokes in despair and keeps going. There has got to be a window somewhere!

  Coughing, she crashes into a rolling chair, bounces off a table, turns, and window glass gleams before her. She bumps into another desk and quickly sweeps computer monitors and equipment off the surface. They clatter and smash on the floor as she climbs unsteadily onto the desktop.

  The stink of smoke intensifies. Her throat burns. Gasping, she reaches up and fumbles along the windowsill, sliding her fingers along the glass. She gropes for the lock, struggles with the mechanism. It clicks, and the glass slides open with astonishing ease.

  Fresh air rushes in, carrying the sound of sirens in the distance as Reeve puts both hands on the windowsill and boosts herself up, balancing on the edge before she tumbles out naked into the cold and welcoming darkness.

  EIGHTY

  Wearing coveralls and carrying a fire extinguisher, Maggie Shaw climbs over the fence and charges through the brush toward her neighbor’s burning house. She arrives just moments before the fire truck screams up the driveway. Shouting, she hurries over to it and grabs the sleeve of the first fireman she can, insisting that she just saw a naked woman jump out the window.

  When they search, they find her in the carport, smudged with soot and smeared with blood, sitting cross-legged on the ground beside an open suitcase, dressed in sweats and bloody socks.

  “He’s in there!” she rasps, waving a wounded hand.

  It takes the paramedics a few minutes to coax the young woman into the ambulance. Her voice is raw and she seems disoriented. When she tries to explain what happened, they tell her to take it easy. Her respiration is shallow, her pulse is racing, and they diagnose smoke inhalation and shock, just for starters.

  * * *

  Firemen, doctors, and cops ask questions, and Reeve does her best to answer—tongue thick, throat scorched—while drifting in and out. She feels hot needles and cold hands. And as her pain evaporates, she dimly recognizes the same quality of drug that was injected into her that night years ago in Seattle, after she was pulled from the trunk of Daryl Wayne Flint’s crumpled car.

  When she opens her eyes again, she is safely in the hospital.

  “Hey there.”

  She looks up at Nick Hudson, who is sitting in a chair at her bedside.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks.

  She lifts off the oxygen mask with a bandaged hand. “You know what happened?” she asks hoarsely.

  “Yes, but it’s over now, and you need to rest, oka
y?”

  She coughs, troubled eyes searching his. “He’s dead?”

  “He is. Most definitely.”

  “I didn’t kill him, did I?”

  “No, the fire did that.”

  “They’re sure?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  She sighs heavily and he reaches over to stroke her forehead, then helps her replace the oxygen mask. She closes her eyes, her breathing deepens, and she surrenders to a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  When Reeve next opens her eyes, Nick Hudson has vanished. The stink of burnt hair fills her nostrils and she realizes the oxygen mask is gone.

  She slowly sits up, looks around, and tosses off the covers. Her legs are marked with cuts and bruises and burns, and bandages are taped around her knees and both feet. She stares, thinking: Damn. More scars.

  She swings both legs over the side of the bed, stands gingerly, and hobbles two steps across the room to a bouquet of long-stemmed yellow roses. Clumsily, she lifts out the small white envelope tucked among the blooms. Even with her bandaged fingers, she can feel something small and asymmetrical inside.

  She opens the card and finds a key taped beside a note that reads:

  I hope you never need one of these again, but just in case … Nick.

  She stands very still, regarding the universal handcuff key in her palm, weighing what to say to Nick Hudson.

  He answers her call two minutes later, and she thanks him for the roses. “They’re gorgeous. And thanks for the key.”

  “Promise me you’re not going to need it.”

  She coughs a laugh.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been chewed on by a very large dog.”

  He chuckles. “Well, your voice is sounding pretty good, a lot better than when you gave your statement.”

  She’s momentarily confused. She can scarcely remember talking to investigators after the fire. “It was recorded?”

  “I’ve listened to it twice. Pretty wild stuff, I’ve gotta say,” he continues. “The arson guys are like kids in a candy shop.”