Truth and Consequences

by V. J. Chambers

  She took a shaky breath and continued up the steps, but the feeling of being watched didn’t abate. Her pulse raced. She started to sweat under her arms and between her breasts. She got to the top of the steps and rushed across the snow covered porch to the front door.

  A gun shot rent the air with a crack.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Elke turned to look out into the darkness.

  But there was no one there. The gun shot had been close, but she couldn’t see the gunman. He could be out in the woods, or he could be next to the building. She wasn’t going to wait to find out. She yanked on the doorknob to get inside.

  It was locked.

  She fumbled in her pocket for her keys. She’d transferred her set of keys to the cabin to her keyring when she took Patrick up here. He was using the set that was always kept in the cabin itself.

  She pulled them out of her pocket and her fingers slipped against the metal.

  The keys fell down on the wooden porch.

  Geez. Damn it. She looked behind her again, sure she was going to find someone there.

  Nothing.

  She picked up the keys. Straightened. Shoved them into the door and turned.

  Then she threw herself inside and shut the door, locking it again immediately.

  She was inside the living room of the cabin, a great room that enclosed the living room, dining room and kitchen. The ceiling was high, roof beams exposed and polished. There was a fireplace in the center of the house, a stone chimney going all the way up to the tip of the roof. Across from the fireplace was a couch, flanked by two matching easy chairs. There was a blanket haphazardly thrown over the couch and a discarded paperback book sitting next to it. Both of the chairs were empty. In between the couch and the fireplace was a rug. Patrick’s shoes were sitting on the rug.

  On the other side of the living room was the dining room area. There was a rustic table sitting there, surrounded by chairs. The table was empty except for a pile of Patrick’s textbooks at one end.

  Beyond the dining room was the kitchen. Tucked into the corner were a sink, stove, and refrigerator. The sink was full of unwashed dishes and the stove was piled with stacks of more.

  Where was Patrick?

  “Patrick?” she called softly.

  No answer.

  She walked through the living room, tracking snow over the floor, over the rug. She didn’t care.

  “Patrick?” Louder this time.

  Around the corner from the fireplace were three doorways. They led to the bathroom and the two bedrooms in the cabin.

  She rounded the corner. All three of the doors were closed.

  “Patrick?” she called again.

  “Elke?” The response was weak.

  She threw open the door to the master bedroom, where she knew Patrick was sleeping. “Patrick?”

  Rumpled covers on the bed. The big, mounted television was still on, broadcasting Netflix choices.

  “Elke, is that you?” His voice wasn’t coming from this room.

  She tried the next bedroom. It was dark in there. “Patrick?”

  “Elke!”

  The bathroom.

  She threw open the door.

  Patrick was on the floor, his back braced against the wall beside the sink. He was clutching his leg. There was a big, red stain on his thigh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Patrick!” Her voice was a shriek.

  “Shh!” he said. “They’re out there.”

  “They?” She was on her knees, next to him, her hands fluttering over his leg.

  “I don’t know how many there are,” he said thickly. “One of them shot me. I managed to get inside and get the door locked. I came in here to…” He looked up at her, and there was terror in his eyes. He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his mouth was fringed in uneven facial hair, but his expression made him look five years old. He was her baby brother, and he was scared.

  “It’s okay,” she said to him, nodding as if that would make it more true. She needed to reassure him. “I’m here. We’re going to fix this.”

  “I was going to bandage it, but then I got worried that the bullet was, like, still inside my leg? Isn’t that bad?”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know. How should I know?”

  “Is there an exit wound?”

  “Uh…” He was shaking.

  “We have to take off your pants.”

  “Okay.” His face was white. He lifted his trembling hands to try to work the button of his jeans.

  “Here,” she said, shoving his hands away and deftly unbuttoning and unzipping him.

  “Hey,” he said. “I can do that.”

  “Patrick, you are my little brother, and I used to change your diapers,” she said, yanking his jeans down and exposing a pair of Mickey Mouse boxers.

  He cried out in pain.

  “Sorry,” she said, peeling the fabric away more carefully. There was sticky blood on the back of his leg. “I think it’s okay,” she said. Yes, he was bleeding back here. There was an exit wound. “It went through and through. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I’m bleeding,” he grunted. “It hurts.”

  “I know,” she said, looking at him in sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

  He rested his head against the wall.

  “It’s going to be fine, though. I’m here, and I’m going to fix everything.” She got up and stepped over him to open the medicine cabinet. As she gathered up first aid, she kept up a steady, cheerful chatter meant to put him at ease, but she had to admit she was doing it for her own benefit as well. Inside, she was panicking, but she couldn’t panic. She needed to stay calm for both of them. She’d never tended a gunshot wound, but she acted like she knew what she was doing. She cleaned it with peroxide. (He swore at her that it stung.) She packed both the front and back with gauze. She wrapped more gauze around his leg. She taped it all down with medical tape.

  Then she sat back on the floor next to him and hugged her knees. “There.”

  He blinked at the ceiling. His eyes were wet.

  Oh, geez. “Hey,” she said. “We’re okay here. This is okay.”

  He looked at her. “This is not okay, Elke.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Look, maybe if I go out on the porch with this—” She pointed at the duffel bag, which she’d dropped on the way into the bathroom, and now it was in the doorway, wedging the door open. “I’ll tell them I have what they want, and maybe they’ll just take it and go.”

  “Yeah, and maybe they’ll shoot you the minute you go out there,” said Patrick.

  “Well, we have to do something,” she said. “We can’t just sit in this bathroom—”

  A tinkling sound. Shattering glass.

  Her eyes widened.

  “They broke a window,” said Patrick. “They’re coming in.”

  * * *

  Elke shoved the duffel bag out of the bathroom door and tugged the door closed. She locked it, but she didn’t see what good a lock like this would be against men with guns. For that matter, the door was one of those flimsy hollow core things. That wasn’t going to stop anyone determine either. But maybe they’d see the duffel bag and take it, and maybe this would all be over.

  She bit down on her lip and shuffled over to her brother.

  They sat against the wall together, both breathing shallowly, neither speaking. They listened.

  At first, they didn’t hear anything. But then they heard a voice.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” said a man’s muffled voice. “Can’t you tell I just got through the window?”

  A knocking, coming from the front door, most likely.

  “Hold your horses, you fuck!” yelled the same voice.

  Patrick reached behind the toilet and pulled up a handgun.

  Elke’s eyes widened.

  Patrick whispered, “This was at the camp.” He gestured with his head for her to get behind him.

  She shook her head furiously. “Gi
ve it to me.”

  Now, he shook his head.

  If it came down to shooting someone, she was going to do it. She wasn’t going to let Patrick do that. He’d been through enough. She was the big sister. She should have the gun. “Patrick, give it to me.”

  He set his jaw.

  More voices from outside the door.

  “They got to be in there,” a different voice with a thick New York accent was saying.

  “Yeah, it’s the only closed door,” said the first voice.

  “What’s this?” said New York.

  “Don’t kick it, asshole. Maybe it’s a bomb.”

  “It’s not a fucking bomb. Don’t be an idiot.”

  The doorknob rattled.

  “Hey!” yelled New York. “What’s in this bag?”

  Elke cleared her throat. “It’s what you want. Take it and go.”

  “What do we want?”

  “It’s your damned drugs!” Elke yelled.

  No response.

  Then the sound of a zipper.

  “She might be lying,” said the first voice. “If it blows up in your face—”

  “She’s not lying,” said New York. “It ain’t no bomb.” A pause. “Looks like it’s all here.”

  “Great, so let’s take this back to the boss and—”

  “Not so fast,” said New York.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we keep some of this, maybe all of this. Maybe we tell the boss that they didn’t have it, and that we shot them, just like he said, to send a message. No loose ends. No way to say anything different.”

  Elke reached over and snatched the gun from Patrick, her heart banging in her chest.

  Patrick seemed to be so startled by what they’d said he let her have it.

  “I don’t know,” said the first voice. “Boss didn’t say anything about her. It was just supposed to be the kid. We don’t even know who she is.”

  “I’m a cop,” yelled Elke, getting to her feet. “You kill me, and you’ll regret it.”

  “Shit,” said New York.

  Suddenly, bullets splintered through the door of the bathroom. Bits of wood flew everywhere and there were huge holes in the door.

  Elke screamed.

  Patrick screamed.

  Lying like that had been a bad idea. She flattened herself against the wall.

  Patrick threw himself sideways so that he was against the floor.

  Elke nodded at the toilet. “Get behind there,” she whispered.

  Patrick hesitated.

  “Do it,” she said, too loud.

  More bullets came through the door.

  Now, Elke could see through the holes. The door was practically demolished. There were too men out there, both in winter jackets and hoods. She stepped forward, cocking the gun at the same time, and she could see them both.

  One of the men brought up his gun.

  Elke pulled the trigger first.

  She was aiming for his head.

  She hit it. She didn’t have a lot of practice with guns—okay, any—but it was really close quarters, so she guessed that helped a lot.

  The bullet exploded the man’s nose. Blood went everywhere. He staggered, landing on his knees. His gun went off, but the bullet lodged in the ceiling. Then he fell to the floor, lifeless.

  The other man wasn’t armed. He held his hands up over his head. “Hey, lady, look.”

  “Don’t move,” said Elke, gasping. Oh, fuck, oh fuck. She’d just killed a man.

  “Why don’t you put the gun down?” said the man. It was the first voice, not the New York voice. The one who hadn’t wanted to kill them.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, listen. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take that duffel bag, and you’re going to leave.”

  The man nodded. “Sure thing, lady. Sure thing.”

  “Good.”

  “How about you lower the gun, all right?”

  “Okay.” She let out a shaky breath.

  Suddenly, the man dove for the gun in New York’s hand.

  Elke raised her gun and squeezed the trigger in one fluid movement.

  This time, she wasn’t really aiming, and the shot hit the man in the neck. It must have hit an artery, because blood started pumping out of the wound, arcing out over the walls and the ceiling.

  Elke shrieked. She raised her hands, raised the gun, trying to ward it all off.

  “Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  It was quiet on the other side of the door.

  Elke was shaking. All she could do was shake. She turned to look at Patrick, who was in the corner of the bathroom. He’d tried to make it behind the toilet, but he hadn’t quite gotten there. He had a stricken look on his face, like he was in shock or something.

  Seeing Patrick helped.

  Got to keep it together for Patrick, she told herself.

  She started to set the gun down.

  Stopped.

  How many times had she seen a movie where the final girl put the gun down and the bad guy jumped back up again? She tightened her grip on the gun, but she needed to open the door, and it wasn’t as if she could really aim the gun with one hand and open it at the same time. Plus, she didn’t want to accidentally pull the trigger or something.

  So, carefully, she opened the door.

  Blood.

  She could smell it. It was coppery and bright and she felt ill.

  She could see it. It was everywhere. There was so much blood.

  Elke gagged.

  Keep it together for Patrick!

  She took a deep breath and managed to step out of the bathroom, backing into the master bedroom, away from the bodies. They were blocking the path to the living room and kitchen. “Okay,” she said out loud. “Okay, Patrick, you can come out. They’re dead.”

  Neither of them were moving, anyway.

  Oh, hell, she should probably get their gun. She lurched toward them, toward all that blood.

  One of the men was lying on top of New York, and the gun was under both of their arms. She would have to touch the bodies in order to… She gagged again.

  Oh, fuck.

  She was crying, she suddenly realized. When had that started? When had tears started pouring out of her eyes?

  “El?” Patrick was in the doorway to the bathroom, leaning against the door frame. He wasn’t putting weight on his hurt leg.

  She put a hand to her mouth and tried to stop crying.

  “What are we going to do?” said Patrick.

  She shook her head.

  “We have to get rid of them,” said Patrick. He looked up at the ceiling. “But how can we clean this up? I mean, if Mom and Dad see this—”

  “We’re not getting rid of them,” said Elke. “I’m not hiding bodies. I am a prosecuting attorney. I do not clean crime scenes.” Now, she was starting to sob.

  “I thought you worked for that CRU thing now,” said Patrick.

  “Same difference,” said Elke. “We have to… call…” Shit, she couldn’t call the police. Powell already thought she was involved in drugs. Now, he would nail her for murder.

  It was self-defense, she thought fiercely. Hell, this was her house. Her parents’ house, but that was all the same thing. There was castle doctrine in Maryland. She had the right to defend herself in her own home.

  But what if it didn’t look like self-defense? What if Powell made it out to be something else, and what if everything… everything was destroyed?

  Oddly, she found she’d stopped crying.

  She got out her phone. No service.

  “Are you calling the police?” said Patrick, a thread of terror in his voice. “What are you doing?”

  “I might not be calling anyone,” said Elke. “We have no cell service.” The landline phone was in the kitchen. Getting to the kitchen meant climbing over the bodies, and… no. Just no.

  She walked around with her phone, trying to get a signa
l. Nothing.

  She went into the master bedroom. Nothing there either.

  “You can’t call the police,” said Patrick.

  She turned to look at him. “Patrick, you have a gunshot wound. It’s not as if you can help me drag bodies. And I don’t think I’m strong enough on my own.”

  Patrick swallowed.

  “Besides, even if we could clean this up, how are we going to explain what happened to you? You need medical attention.”

  “So, you’re calling the police?”

  “No, I’m just…” She turned and came face-to-face with the Netflix screen. “Internet!”

  “Yeah?” said Patrick.

  “You have your laptop in here?” said Elke. “We can use Google voice.”

  “To call who?”

  “Someone who might be able to help,” said Elke.

  * * *

  “Explain the scene to me again,” Iain was saying on the other end of the phone.

  Elke, hiccuping, went through everything one more time. “Do you think I should move—”

  “Don’t touch anything,” said Iain.

  “I was thinking about getting the gun,” she said. “You know, in case they’re not dead.”

  “Lawrence, don’t put your fingerprints on the other gun,” said Iain. “Don’t tamper with anything.”

  “Okay,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “I think I need to come up there.”

  “It’s snowing here,” she said. “It’s like a blizzard. And we’re kind of trapped behind the bodies. It’ll take you hours to get here with the weather, and we’ll be stuck here, and I can’t—”

  “It’s not going to take hours,” said Iain. “Just… you said there was a bedroom, right?”

  “Yes,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “So, go in there and close the door,” he said. “And I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

  “Hudson—”

  “Do it.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Of course,” he said. “Now, try to calm down. You’re no good to anyone, not even yourself, if you’re panicked.”

  “Right,” she said. He was so no-nonsense, even in the face of this.

  She and Iain hung up, and she helped Patrick get out of the bathroom. Together, they went into the master bedroom and shut the door.