"Nick. Come on—"
"Don't fucking say my name." He spits. He points the gun at my chest. "I'll make sure to sob like a child at your funeral."
I hear the explosion of sound from the gun, I close my eyes, and my whole body braces itself.
But I feel nothing…and Nick is screaming.
I open my eyes. Nick has dropped the Colt, he has fallen to his knees, and he's clutching his arm. Blood seeps between his fingers.
"Aaron!" Greg's running up to us—with his Glock drawn—from across the pier. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," I call back. "I'm fine."
Nick stumbles to his feet. Greg points his gun at him as he stops in front of us.
"Put the gun down, Greg," I say.
"He just tried to kill you."
"He's unarmed and injured now. Lower your weapon."
Greg scowls, puts his gun into its holster, and snatches the Colt from the ground.
I turn to Nick. "You're mentally ill, Nick. You need help. Let's go to the hospital and find you some professionals to help you."
"Fuck you." He hisses.
Greg grabs his handcuffs.
I shake my head at him. "We don't need handcuffs."
"Aaron, I know you care, but—"
"I'm not going to treat him like a criminal," I snap. When I look back at Nick, there's still deep suspicion in his eyes, but there's also something new. Confusion? Doubt? His walls are starting to break down. Or is he trying to fool me again?
"Fine. You can take him to the hospital, and I won't start filing charges, but at least put the cuffs on him," Greg says. "All he needs to do is grab a pen and he can stab you."
I ignore him and keep my eyes on Nick. "How's your arm?"
Nick lowers his hand from his injured arm. The bullet seemed to cut across his arm, but not into it. It will bleed for a while and it will need to be bandaged, but it won't cause any lifelong issues.
"Let's take you to the hospital," I say.
Greg raises the handcuffs. I take them. Resigned to his fate, Nick turns around and puts his wrists behind him. I cuff him and try to remember how to breathe normally again. Inhale, exhale, and don't try to make sense of the world.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nick, 2015 (Wednesday afternoon)
AARON DOESN'T TELL the nurses the truth. He tells them a stray bullet hit me. He doesn't tell anyone I was trying to kill him.
What they say must be true—a person can kill with kindness. It feels like my heart is twisting inside my chest every time he lies for me.
The nurse finishes wrapping up my arm in elastic bandage. "Just keep that on for a couple days, and make sure it doesn't get wet. You can use a plastic bag around it while you're showering."
"Thank you," Aaron tells her.
"Of course, Chief Grant. You can both check out in the front." She leaves the room.
Aaron turns to me. "So…do you want to talk about Brianna?"
I stare at him. "Why would I want to talk about Brianna? I just tried to kill you, and you want to talk about a dead girl?"
"Yes, you tried to put a bullet in me just like Brianna had two bullets in her."
"You…think I killed Brianna?"
He shrugs. "Not long after you show up, she's dead. You spend a lot of time at The Charcoal Grill. You just tried to kill me with a gun. It's not a huge jump."
"Well, you're wrong. I didn't kill her. I was at home, remember?"
"I don't know where you were. I wasn't there," he says.
I shake my head in disgust. "Let's just get out of here. I hate hospitals."
"Look, I won't press charges. This will all be swept under the rug…as long as you agree to therapy."
"Sure. Whatever. Yeah."
We walk out of the room and back to the waiting area. Aaron leans against the counter that separates him from the receptionist. He keeps glancing toward me as he and the receptionist talk about the hospital bill.
I can't stay here. He'll eventually turn against me and throw me in prison, or he'll keep treating me with kindness that I don't deserve, which is just as suffocating.
I run.
When your parents used you as a drug dealer, you learn how to run fast. You learn how to place your foot at exactly the right angle on the floor or ground to propel yourself farther forward, and your legs have such good muscle memory they practically move on their own.
When I'm outside the hospital, I run toward the road. Aaron yells for me to come back, but he doesn't pull his gun on me. And I don't hear him trying to pursue me. I keep moving, dashing across the road, a car barely missing me. I sprint into the woods.
I keep moving. I run until my arm is throbbing with pain and my heart has the muscle memory of beating itself to self-inflicted pain.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sarah, 2015 (Late Wednesday afternoon)
ABOUT A MONTH AGO, I found a cardboard box stashed in the garage filled with Debbie's—the real Debbie, the first daughter of my father and not a figment of my mind—achievements and possessions. I smuggled it to my room and hid it inside my hamper. I look through it again now, memorizing everything she had ever touched or loved. There's one of her Green Fire Dance Team uniforms—I suppose they must have had more than one because she had to have been in her uniform when she died. There are pictures of her with her friends. There are essays with A+ on them and comments from her teachers, which praised her "incredible" mind.
"Sarah, I folded your laundry." My mother walks in before I have time to hide all of Debbie's possessions. She glances at everything that's spread out on my bed. "What are you looking at?"
As she steps closer, setting a basket of folded laundry on my floor, she sees the photos of Debbie, and her face goes stark white.
"What are you doing?" she demands, gathering the items. "Your father…my husband…will be so angry if he sees you have this stuff out. How did you even find this? You know he doesn't like to be reminded of her."
My mother is known throughout town for marrying up because she married a judge and/or for being twenty-four years younger than my father. Either way, she's harshly judged by the loving, inclusive town of Wyatt, which is intensified by the fact she is one of the few people around here who didn't grow up in the area.
My mother was reared and homeschooled by a strict fundamentalist pastor, who was determined to mold her into a proper God-fearing daughter. She would grow up to be a faithful wife and a devoted mother who would submit herself to her marriage and family. My grandfather's attitude could have been caused by the fact that his wife left him a year after she gave birth to my mother. My grandfather died when my mother was sixteen from a heart attack. If he hadn't, she quite likely would still be in her Southern Alaska small town, married to one of his flock. She completed high school and a secretarial course while living in a home for girls in Anchorage, and moved to Wyatt to work as an entry-level clerk of the court. This is where she met my father, the great and honorable Judge Latham.
The people of Wyatt don't know her well, despite her being married to the judge for nineteen years. As a teenager, she was too awkward and sheltered to even know how to make friends, and that awkwardness still rises up when she has to make conversation beyond the normal pleasantries. Even then, my father is usually beside her, carrying on her part of the conversation with his own loud mouth. In the last decade, she has made friends in Wyatt and a few in Anchorage, thanks to my dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading classes.
Despite her and the judge's age difference, she has been a faithful wife and a devoted mother. She loves her husband—idiotically and blindly—and it seems that she feels she has to be perfect in order to maintain the perfect marriage and life my father has provided for her. She's had numerous Botox injections and has dyed her hair a lighter shade of blond. I resent her for staying married to my father, but I also understand her plight. She's a woman who has lived under a man's thumb her whole life, and she doesn't know any other way to exist.
"I was
curious," I tell her, as she throws the items back into the box.
"Just because you have a feeling or a thought, doesn't mean you should act on it." She scowls.
"Is that why you don't open that bakery you dream about?" I ask.
She looks up at me, her eyes wide. "How do you know about that?" she gapes.
"Your blog isn't exactly Fort Knox. And you left the window up once a couple of years ago. Really, though? A bakery called Vanessa's Golden Streusel with a heart-shaped muffin logo that serves vegan food, too? I was really expecting you would be talking about some affair you were having or at least a fantasy about one, but instead you've decided what your menu is going to be in your fantasy bakery and what your staff is going to wear—"
"First," my mother snaps, "I would never cheat on your father. I wouldn't even dream of it. Second, it's just a dream I had a couple of years ago. It's nothing."
"You wrote five or six blog posts about it. That's not nothing."
"It's something I really wanted, but I would never have enough money to start a business."
"Dad has enough money."
"Your father would never approve of a bakery." She sighs and shoves the last item—the Green Fire jacket—into the box. "It's not practical."
I tilt my head. "What would happen if Dad died? You would get his life insurance money, right? All of it?"
She gasps. "Why would you even think about that? Your father isn't going to die for a long time, and you shouldn't even be thinking about what happens to the money when he passes away."
I shrug. "I just think you should pursue what you want to do."
"That's not a woman's job." She puts the lid back onto the box. "I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation. I advise you do the same."
She leaves my room with the box in her hands. As she closes the door behind her, Debbie appears in front of it. It's not as if she poofs in like a cartoon genie. It's like I blink and she has always been there—I just never noticed her.
"Isn't that your mother's way?" she asks. "Let's just pretend I don't know exactly what's going on in this house. My mother was the same. It's how Daddy gets away with everything. I'm telling you…she's just as guilty. If she stood up for herself—"
"He would just beat her down."
"You are too sentimental. It's annoying."
My burner phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out.
Nick: We need to meet.
Me: Did you do it?
Nick: Meet me at our place.
Something is wrong. He always answers my questions, and his answers usually aren't short.
I could really use some oxycodone pills right now, but I have to get to Nick as soon as I can. If he botched Aaron's murder that could mean trouble for me in the future, and I can't have anyone messing up my plans.
* * *
Our place beside Silver Lake is a fisherman's hut, filled with fishing rods, old reels, hooks, string, lures, old rope—that must have been used to tie a boat to a pier—and half of a wooden boat, which lies on its side against the wall. The hut itself is a faded yellow color and appears to barely stay upright. It's only a few inches taller than Nick and the two of us barely fit inside it. It's not practical, but it's private and it's a good place to have sex.
When I step inside, Nick is already there. He's sitting on the edge of the partial boat. He stands up as I close the door behind me.
I notice the bandage on his arm and ask, "What happened?"
He glances at his arm. "Why?" Are you concerned?"
"Of course," I say and reach toward his arm.
He jerks away from me and steps back, hitting his thighs against the boat's edge. "That's weird because I don't feel like you're concerned. In fact, I don't feel like you've ever cared that much."
"Are you kidding me? Of course I've cared. You're my boyfriend. I love you."
He snorts. "You know, my mother used to tell me that. She was full of shit, too."
"What is wrong with you?" I demand. "What happened to you? Did Aaron fill your head with some stupid love rhetoric?"
"No," he snaps. "And don't talk about Aaron. You don't know him at all. What is your problem with him? Didn't he save you from dying in a forest fire?"
"I have no problem with Aaron. You're the one who told me that you hated him and what he did to you. I was supporting you."
"You weren't supporting me. If you were, you would've listened to me when I said I didn't want to kill him. You would have—"
"So, you did kill him? It's done?"
"What? No, he's alive," Nick says. "And unlike you, he actually gives a damn about me."
I shake my head. "You've been brainwashed. You know I care about you."
"I thought you cared about me, but you don't. You have something against Aaron, and you've been using me to get information about him. I was stupid. I couldn't see it, but now I realize you asked about him almost every time we talked. Is that the real reason you use a burner phone? So he can't trace it back to you?"
"That's ridiculous," I say. "You know I keep it so our conversations are private. My parents have access to my phone and I'm sure they can somehow track who I'm talking to—"
"Stop!" he yells, slamming his fist against the boat. "Stop lying to me! Tell me what you have against Aaron. What could he possibly have done to you to make you want him dead?"
"I don't want him dead."
He steps toward me, his body tense with rage, but as he lifts his arms to grab me, he winces and clutches at his bandaged arm.
"Goddamn!" He sits back down on the edge of the boat.
"Come on, Nick. It's okay. You're just…freaked out…right now because you tried to kill Aaron. And you're lashing out. That's okay. I can take it. I know how it feels when everyone around you has disappointed you, and you finally find someone you trust…and it's hard to truly trust because you've been let down so often."
He looks at me through his long eyelashes. "Are we talking about…us?"
"Yes." I sit beside him, and rest my palm on his knee. "I care so much about you. I hate that you think I'm trying to…manipulate you or whatever you think I'm doing. I've only wanted you to be happy, and I thought by killing Aaron, you would finally set yourself free from what happened…from what he did to you."
He sighs, shaking his head. "I'm just all messed up now. I don't know what to believe."
"Believe in me." I cup his face and kiss his lips. "I won't ever mislead you, and I'll always believe in you."
"I guess that's better than Aaron," he mumbles. "He thought I killed Brianna."
I lean back. "What? Why in the world would he think that?"
He shrugs. "Because I tried to shoot him. Because I just moved here. Because I spend a lot of time at The Charcoal Grill."
"Yeah, but…you have no motive," I say. I unbutton his jeans and pull the zipper down. I slide my hand inside his boxers and run my hand over his cock. His whole body tenses. "Do you even own a gun?"
"Well, the one I tried to kill Aaron with was stolen from his closet," he says.
I wrap my hand around his member, rubbing my thumb over the head of it.
He leans back against the wall. "But other than that, no."
His breathing is already speeding up. He never lasts long.
"Honestly, I kind of doubted you would be able to kill Aaron," I say. "I don't think murder is in your nature."
"I started drug dealing when I was a child. I was surrounded by violence," he says. "If it's not in my nature, then whose nature is it in?"
"Whoever killed Brianna," I say. "I mean, two bullet wounds to the head…that is pretty brutal."
He straightens up and gives me a strange look, his eyebrows pulling together.
"What?" I ask.
"I never told you how she died."
"Of course you did," I say. "You told me when you were here last time in my truck. Maybe you don't remember because you just had an orgasm, but you told me."
"No, I definitely didn't tell you,"
he says. "I just found out she was shot twice today. There's no way I could have told you that."
I pull my hand out of his boxers. "Are you trying to accuse me of something?"
"I'm not accusing you," he says. "I know now. You killed her."
"Why would I kill Brianna?"
"I don't know. Probably for similar reasons why you wanted me to kill Aaron…or is that why you wanted me to kill Aaron? Because he was figuring out that you killed Brianna?"
"Was he?" I ask.
Nick buttons his jeans then pulls up the zipper. "You're not even going to deny it now?"
"That I killed Brianna? Why does it matter? Are you going to turn me in to your daddy-figure?"
"Yeah, maybe I will." He snarls. "You've been using me this whole time. Why would I give a flying fuck what happens to you?"
I turn away from him, facing the opposite corner from where he is. "I can't believe that you could stop caring about me that easily."
"It's not like you said something mean or you flirted with some guy. You killed someone."
"Isn't that what you were going to do?" I ask. "Kill someone?"
"I didn't go through with it."
"That's too bad," I say. "We could have bonded over that."
"You're sick," he says. "Mentally unstable. I knew something was off about you, but I thought it was because of the kidnapping."
I don't say anything. I keep staring down at the corner, where the rope is coiled.
"Sarah?" he asks.
The hut is so quiet I can hear his breathing. I feel his hand on my shoulder.
"Sarah, are you okay? Look, maybe some of the things I said were wrong and I do still care about you, but you can't kill people and use them."
I turn around to face him. "Do you mean it? You still care about me, even though I did this awful thing?"
Devil's Dawn (A Grant & Daniels Trilogy Book 2) Page 9