Shilling started as Ray dropped onto the bench beside him. His eyes flared – feral as a cornered fox’s – in the instant before recognition landed, and then all the fight drained out of him with one long, exhausted breath. He looked like shit. Worse than shit. “Ray,” he said, voice defeated. “I’m glad you could make it.”
Ray scanned the playground through his sunglasses. The kids, in their colored t-shirts and shorts – running, yelling, dodging – looked like bright little beetles zipping around in the afternoon sun. “Yeah. I’m sure the rest of these concerned parents are glad too.”
Shilling sighed, a bone-weary sigh. “I don’t want to fight.”
“No?” Ray asked, feigning innocence. “I guess you did always prefer picking on women and children.”
“No I don’t!”
Heads turned in their direction. Two kids coming down the slide were startled and tumbled off the end into the sand. One started to cry and her mother ran to her.
Shilling wiped his mouth with his palm and stared at his toes. “I don’t,” he repeated. The glance he slanted up at Ray was ragged and wet, totally defeated. “I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said, and Ray felt a prickling go up the back of his neck. Something – some invisible shift in the wind – was badly wrong. “But I didn’t kill Rene. Or” – he swallowed hard – “our girl. I know who did.”
Ray felt the hair on his arms stand at attention. He still didn’t believe the asshole – how could he? – but his curiosity was good and piqued. “Who?”
Shilling took a pained-sounding breath. He watched the children. “My son.”
“Your son?”
“I had a boy out of wedlock,” Shilling said sadly. “A long time before I was married. I never acknowledged him. I think maybe that’s why he was so angry with me. Why he – ”
“Hold on.” There was an electric current, supercharged with doubt and anger, coursing beneath his skin. “You have a bastard son – who killed your wife and daughter – and you choose to tell me now? Not when I was trying to keep you out of prison?” Ray started to stand, and Shilling stayed him with a desperate, flailing hand motion.
“I know. I know. But…I was trying to protect him. I didn’t know” – he swallowed hard, Adam’s apple jackknifing in his throat – “that he would try to do it again. I didn’t know – ”
“Look, you’ve got about fifteen seconds to explain this shit. Otherwise – ” He let the threat hang.
Shilling took a breath. “I had this girlfriend in my younger days. She was wild. We both were. We were into coke and heroin and God knows what else. Everything. She was a looker, and a good time, but she wasn’t anyone I’d ever take to meet my mother. I was never going to marry her.
“When she turned up pregnant – shit, I’m not proud – I gave her some money to go get rid of it. With her drug habit, I figured there was probably something wrong with the baby anyway…but she had it. I paid her off and didn’t think anything else about it. At least, not till…”
“And your son is…?”
“The girl I got pregnant was Gretchen Albright.”
And Ray knew of only one Gretchen Albright: beautiful, but haggard with age, bottle blonde and married to a retired banker twice her age. She had one child: a son.
“And my son,” Shilling said, “is Tristan Albright.”
“Missy,” Lisa sighed. She hit the gas as the light turned green and rapped her nails against the back of the cell phone she held to her ear. “Can you please, for once, stuff our bullshit feud up your ass and just listen to my question?”
“Oh, you’re a bitch – ”
“Don’t hang up! Please! God.” She sighed again, and didn’t hear a dial tone. “Missy.” She changed lanes, glancing over her shoulder and across Drew in the passenger seat to check her blind spot. “I just left the hospital. Do you know who attacked Dani?”
“Um, no – ”
“Tristan did.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Missy snorted. “Wow. This is a new low for you. I mean, seriously.”
“Believe me or not, I don’t care. But he did it.” She had only so much emotional room at this point, the shock too severe to digest. She couldn’t hold onto her disgust at the moment, and it was fast being replaced with a high-burning panic, the kind that left her chest tight and her heart pounding. “Where is he? Is he still with you?”
Missy made a disgusted sound. “I’m not telling you.”
“Missy!”
Drew flinched.
Missy sucked in a breath on the other end of the line.
“I’m telling you,” Lisa said through her teeth, “that your husband tried to kill one of your best friends! Now where the hell is he?!”
She must have yelled louder than she thought, because Missy took a rattled breath and said, “I-I don’t know. He dropped me off at work and then left.”
“If he comes to pick you up,” she said, “don’t go with him.” And hung up before Missy could say anything else.
It was a hot afternoon, too hot for the truck’s air conditioning to do much more than swirl her loose scraps of hair. Heat mirages shimmered between her bumper and that of the Mercury in front of her. They were well out of Alpharetta and driving through the sleepy farmland that lie between it and home – Cartersville. The house wasn’t too much further. Just past that big cattle operation and through downtown, then down their tree-lined street to their own personal Tara.
And worry was gnawing at her, for reasons she didn’t understand.
“Did you call my dad again?” she asked.
“Straight to voicemail,” Drew answered. “He must be out of network.”
“Call Sly,” she said, “and tell him what’s going on.”
“And what is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“He came to me, about eight years ago,” Shilling said to his clasped hands while children played and screamed around them. “Before his mother married that ancient old bank crook. He wanted money – a lot of it. He wanted to go back to school. Get a new degree.”
Tristan had been dating Lisa at that point, this sophisticated older guy with a head of dark hair and an easy smile.
“I gave it to him. But he was back two months later, wanting more. He hounded me. Called my secretary and scared her. He came by the house and scared Rene one afternoon.” He shook his head. “I gave him one last payoff, and told him to get out of my life.”
“He was your son,” Ray said, without emotion.
“He was a spoiled prick. And he was drunk. And he wasn’t right in the head.” Shilling’s smile was twisted and broken. “That’s what I thought. And I didn’t want him in my life.”
“And he killed your family for that?” Ray’s voice had become the steady, non-judgmental tone he’d used at court. His attorney voice. But inside, he was boiling.
“He said afterward that it was an accident. He went to see Rene and it just – he was sobbing when he told me. He left notes, he said, and flowers, so it would look like a serial killer did it. It would look like some freak – God, I should have killed him then. I should have.” His hands balled into shaking fists. He blinked hard, his face red. “But I’d just lost my wife and daughter and he was a kid – ”
“You let everyone think you killed your wife, to protect him.”
Shilling didn’t answer. “When I got out on parole, he started – I dunno why, but, Jesus, he thought I’d come to you. Tell you that it had been him all along.”
“And he starts sending flowers to Lisa and Cheryl.”
“If I violate parole – if I reach out to someone like that – the old case could be retried with new evidence. I could go away for good.”
The sun had shifted, the shadows it threw across the grass long and distorted. Ray could feel his pulse shooting through the veins in his ears. “This,” he said carefully, “sounds like the biggest load of shit.”
Shilling closed his eyes and made a whimpering sound.
“I’m not asking you to understand it. I don’t understand it myself. But you have to believe it. You have to believe me.”
***
“I don’t know where you are or why you won’t pick up your phone,” Cheryl said into her cell. “But I sent Eddie to the store for me. Ellen’s coming over for dinner and if you boys get done playing detective, give me a call and tell me how many to set the table for.” She hung up before Ray’s voicemail cut her off and sighed. Her key wouldn’t fit in the back door and the weight of her purse and shopping bags dragging down her arm wasn’t helping. Through the window in the door, she could see Hektor waiting for her, beating his nub of a tail.
“I’m trying,” she said, and finally managed to turn the key. “There. This old house and its old locks…”
The Doberman bounded around her as she entered. She dropped her purse at the back door and heeled it shut; the door rested against the jamb, but didn’t seal. “Damn,” she muttered, stroking the dog’s head, shuffling toward the kitchen table with the rest of her bags. She had a ham and enough green beans to feed an army. The plastic shopping bags were cutting into the skin of her forearms and she hefted them onto the tabletop with a grunt. “Alright. There.” Hektor nosed her hip. “What? You want a handout?”
Her phone rang and she disentangled her hand from the bags to answer it. “Hello?” she asked, stepping toward the island and the jar of dog treats there.
“Mom,” Lisa said on the other end of the line, sounding breathless. Cheryl felt the back of her neck tingle immediately. “Where are you?”
“At home – ”
A fast flash of movement caught her eye: a shadow on the screened in porch.
“It’s Tristan, Mom. He’s the one who strangled Danielle.”
There was a man on her back porch. And the door was open a crack.
“He’s sending us the flowers.”
“Oh, God.”
Cheryl threw herself at the back door. Hektor snarled low in his throat and leapt. Her hand hit the door and she pushed – but it flew open, striking her in the face.
“Mom?!” Lisa said. “What’s – ”
“No!” she yelled, and everything went black.
“Mom?” Lisa pulled the phone away and stared at it. There was a sharp clatter, a rustle, and then a sequence of muffled sounds she didn’t understand. She heard Hektor snarling. “Mom? Mom!”
“What?” Drew sat up against his seatbelt beside her. “Lisa, what?”
“Oh my God…Oh my God…” Her hands shook uncontrollably on the wheel as she stomped the brake and spun down their street. The interlaced branches overhead threw dappled light on the windshield that made her squint. “Oh God.” Her heart was leaping against her ribs; her stomach liquefied and panic seized her, took her breath.
Her brain still worked, though. In a way. In a rampaging, red way. “Open the glove box,” she said. “Now.”
He did, and she lunged toward it, the truck veering. They hit a mailbox with an awful screech.
“Lisa, what the – ” She was aware of his hand on the wheel, steadying them, but all she cared about was her own hand – it was curling around the grip of her revolver.
She turned the truck into the drive, seatbelt already disengaged, door already flying open. She managed to throw it into park and tumbled out onto the driveway, hitting the pavement at a sprint.
“Lisa!” Drew shouted at her.
She ignored him. He might be quick in the ring, and he might be strong, but she had blind fury fueling her. She had her keys in one hand, gun in the other, as she streaked across the front lawn, the world a tumbling blur of green around her.
Tristan.
She didn’t understand any of the hows or whys, but she knew. She knew in her bones. And she knew what she was going to do to the bastard…once and for all.
Her key slotted in the lock, the front door gave way, and she was pounding through the hall while Drew yelled somewhere far, far behind her. When she hit the living room, she could hear Hektor. He sounded like a hell dog. Her boots rapped against the hardwood, sharp as gunshots. She forced herself to slow the last corner, lifting her .357 in both hands, leveling it at the kitchen as she swept into it.
“Mom?”
Cheryl was under the table, clutching the side of her face in one hand, blood trickling between her fingers. She had an arm hooked over the seat of a chair. Her eye, the one that wasn’t covered by her hand, came to Lisa in panicked shock. “Lis, no – ”
Tristan was on the floor beside the table, just inside the back door, Hektor on top of him.
“Hektor, heal!” Lisa commanded in a voice that defied every ounce of her terror. He obeyed, coming to her, putting himself between her and the intruder, growling low in his throat, hackles raised.
Tristan struggled back against the door.
“Don’t move.”
He froze, and his eyes pinged up to hers. Hektor had savaged his arm and the side of his throat. There was blood all over him, glossy and crimson, throbbing from deep punctures along the soft inside of his arm. Red foam dotted his face, cast off from the dog’s snarling muzzle. There was no malice, no hatred, nothing but naked fear on his face, his eyes wide and white-rimmed.
“Lisa,” he said, and bright sparks of hatred shot through her head.
“Don’t talk.”
“Lisa!” She heard Drew. He sounded a world away. Car doors slammed in the drive. Someone else was here. Sly, probably.
Sly: “Not everyone has the stomach for killing.”
She pulled the hammer back with her thumb and adjusted her aim, the barrel of the revolver aimed at Tristan’s chest. “You might bleed to death from the dog bites,” she said. “Or I might kill you first.”
“Lisa,” Cheryl said from under the table. Chair legs scraped against the floor as she pushed them back.
Tristan was pasty-white and slick with sweat. He licked his lips. “You can’t do it, Lis.”
She took a step closer, so she had a clear shot over the top of Hektor’s back. Tristan’s eyes widened.
“Lisa!” Drew shouted again. It was definitely him. She heard his sneaker treads in the hall.
She didn’t have much time. She looked into Tristan’s face; how had she ever looked in that face and seen anything worth wanting? God, she’d been stupid. God, she’d put her entire family in danger.
“You bet I can,” she said.
He screamed.
She pulled the trigger…and her arm went spinning up to the ceiling, the gun kicking in her hands, a larger, stronger hand locking around her wrists, as the shot went into the plaster overhead, and not into Tristan’s heart.
“No!” left her as a long, pitiful wail as she fought the grip that held her. She tried to wrench away, but couldn’t. She twisted her head and saw Drew behind her, drawing her back against him. He pried the gun from her hands as if he were taking a toy from a child, his face grim.
And then she saw Sly, and Eddie, and her dad and uncle. All of them. The sound of distant sirens pricked her ears.
“No,” she said again, to no one.
31
She was going to throw up again. Her stomach churned and her eyes throbbed and her pulse was killing her, choking her down at the base of her throat. “Let go of me,” she hissed, and Drew’s hands finally released her. She staggered to the edge of the porch and heaved over the bushes. She didn’t have anything to bring up, but she gasped and gagged anyway, eyes running, tears falling down onto the pine straw.
The police were pulling up on the front lawn, sirens wailing, and she hated the sound. It meant that she’d lost.
As her retching subsided, she heard Drew step up behind her. His hand landed in the middle of her back and she ducked away from him, spinning so they faced one another. She leaned back agai
nst one of the heavy white porch columns and saw the cops coming up the front steps from the corner of her eye. She ignored them and they proceeded into the house. The sirens had been shut off and it was quiet now, out here on the porch and away from the chaos of the kitchen.
Lisa was shaking she was so furious. Her teeth chattered as emotional tremors overtook her. “Why?” she demanded.
His brows lifted in what might have been an incredulous stare. He was breathing hard too, she noticed, t-shirt clinging to the perspiration on his chest. He’d had to wrestle her out of the house, kicking and arching like a snake. “Why? You mean, why did I stop you from getting charged with murder?”
“It was self-defense,” she hissed.
“He was lying on the floor after your dog almost ripped his ear off. How is that self-defense?” His eyes were dark, flashing with anger, glittering as the evening sun turned molten.
“My mom – ”
“Is a little beat up, but she’s gonna be fine.”
“Fine?” She bristled further, pushing away from the column. She still felt like she was choking, a hot, painful lump stuck in her throat. “She was attacked – ”
“Lisa.”
“What?” Her voice was a terrible screech that scraped her throat raw. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she swiped at them, not wanting him to see, not even understanding them.
“I was trying to help you. Trust me, you don’t want that on your conscience. You don’t want to remember killing
him – ”
He’d been inching toward her across the porch and he stopped when she lunged, slapping both palms ineffectually against his chest. It was like slapping a wall, a sharp sting shooting up both wrists. It made her cry all the harder. She shoved him. “You don’t know that! You don’t know anything!”
He reached up and caught her arms, face gentling. She hated it – the way his eyes softened. “Lisa, baby – ”
“Don’t call me that!” she shrieked. She was sobbing now, great shuddering sobs that left her breathless. “I’m not-not-not your anything! If you cared about me e-even a little – ”
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