The Bone House

by Brian Freeman

  'Katie!' Hilary screamed.

  The girl quickly aimed the gun at her.

  'Don't move. Stay right there.'

  Katie slid an arm around Gary Jensen's waist as he stretched his stiff muscles and twisted his neck. She pressed a quick, passionate kiss on his lips. 'You OK?'

  'I'm fine.'

  'Katie, you're being a fool,' Hilary warned her. 'Don't trust this man. I don't know what he's told you, but he's dangerous.'

  The girl gave her a peaceful smile. 'You've got Gary all wrong.'

  'He's using you.'

  'No, he's protecting me,' she said.

  'Protecting you from what?'

  Katie stared at Amy on the floor, and the smile washed away from her face. 'From who I was.'

  Jensen checked his watch and tugged Katie's arm. 'The police will be here soon,' he said. 'We should go.'

  'There's something we need to do first,' she told him.

  Jensen stiffened with unease, and Hilary tried to read his face. She realized for the first time that she had it wrong. Jensen wasn't the one in control. He was in thrall to this girl. It was Katie whose eyes betrayed a terrible detachment. It was Katie who looked like fragile china, riven with cracks, ready to break apart.

  'Katie, we don't have to do this,' Jensen said. 'Not now.'

  'We don't have a choice.' 'Yes, we do. Forget about them. We can run.'

  The girl's lips tightened into an angry line. 'I've been running my whole life. I'm done with it.'

  'Give me the gun. I can protect us.'

  'No, you can't.' Katie kissed Jensen again and pushed him toward the bedroom door. 'Don't lose your nerve now. We've come too far. Go downstairs and grab every alcohol bottle you can carry.'

  'Katie, stop.'

  'You know what we've been through. It's just one last thing. Then it's over. Then we're free.'

  Hilary saw something in Jensen's eyes. Self-awareness. Self-hatred. He couldn't say no to this girl. A man who had destroyed his first marriage seducing teenagers had been seduced and manipulated himself.

  'Hurry,' Katie told him, her voice insistent.

  Jensen vanished toward the stairs without further protest. Amy remained motionless on the floor. Hilary was alone with Katie. The girl cradled the gun loosely in one hand and chewed a fingernail on her other hand. Her glasses slipped down her nose, and she stared at Hilary through the rain-dotted lenses.

  'What's this all about?' Hilary asked.

  Katie shrugged. 'Glory saw me in Florida.'

  'Glory saw yow?'

  Her head bobbed. 'She started to remember everything. I knew she wouldn't let it go. She'd tell someone. Gary didn't want me to do it, but I couldn't take the risk. I had to stop her.'

  'You killed Glory? Katie, why?'

  The girl got a faraway look in her eyes. 'Everyone used to call me Jen back then, but my father always called me Katie. That was my grandmother's name. I was Jennifer Katherine. That's the only part of me I have left from those days.'

  Hilary's throat went dry with despair. 'You're Jen Bone. Harris's daughter.'

  'I was. I stopped being that girl that night in Door County. I thought I would never have to be her again. Really. It was over and done. But then Glory saw me, and it all came back to her. She remembered being in the garage that night. She saw me light the fire.'

  * * *

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  'I never wanted to believe it,' Tresa said. 'I convinced myself I was wrong, you know? Everybody said Harris did it. He confessed. The thing is, I knew he would have done anything for Jen. He must have known she did it, but he took the blame. To protect her.'

  Cab drew closer to the three of them, conscious of the gun in Reich's hand. He didn't know how far Reich would go to save himself. When he studied the sheriff's heavily shadowed face, he saw someone who was staring into the maw of a black hole, the way Cab himself had done in the storm cellar. He wondered whose face Reich saw looking up from the darkness. Harris Bone, screaming in agony for his life. Or Peter Hoffman, staring into the eyes of his friend as Reich shot him to death.

  'Sheriff, put the gun down,' Cab said.

  Reich ignored him. 'I don't believe this shit. Harris Bone was there. He admitted it. This is another of your fantasies, Tresa.'

  'Jen was with me that night,' Tresa went on. 'We were up late writing our stories together. She was really keyed up. I'd never seen her so out of control. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I saw that she was gone. I figured she couldn't sleep, you know? Then I heard her come in. She was naked. She'd taken a shower, and her hair was wet, but I could still smell it.'

  'Smell what?' Reich asked.

  'Smoke.'

  Reich's arm slowly sank, as if under a great weight. The gun slipped downward. He ran a hand over his bottlebrush hair, and his eyes were wide. 'Jesus,' he whispered.

  'I didn't tell anyone. I mean, by morning, I wondered if I'd dreamed it. Everyone was saying Mr Bone was the one. I wanted to be wrong, you know? I did just what Mr Bone did. I protected Jen. Even after what Glory told me.'

  'Glory?' Bradley asked her. 'What about Glory?'

  Tresa nestled closer to him. 'We were in the hospital. Glory and me. She told me what she saw. It was Jen, through the window of the garage, lighting a cigarette. That was the only thing she remembered. And I knew she'd seen her. She'd seen Jen starting the fire.' The girl bowed her head and stared at her feet. 'I convinced Glory she'd imagined the whole thing. We never talked about it again. Not ever. Glory never talked about the fire or told anyone what she saw. It was like it had never happened, you know?'

  'What about Florida?' Cab asked.

  'Jen must have been there,' Tresa said. 'I never thought that was possible. I mean, she's not a dancer, you know? I never dreamed she would do something like that. I still don't know why.'

  She saw someone she knew, Cab thought.

  Jen Bone. Through the window at the hotel. The memories must have stormed back, carrying Glory away like a tsunami. He felt sorry for the girl, coming face to face with everything she'd spent six years trying to escape. Remembering what had really happened at the Bone house.

  'When Mark said Hilary was in Green Bay, I knew,' Tresa murmured, 'I just knew. Jen goes to Green Bay. That man Gary Jensen, she wrote an article about him for the school paper last year. Peter Hoffman sent it to me. He thought I'd want to see it because it was about dancing. He told me Jen's roommate was a dancer just like me. It must be this girl Amy. The one you said disappeared.'

  Bradley picked up Tresa under her shoulders and lifted the girl away from him, protecting her with his body. He was inches from Reich. 'Are you going to shoot me, Sheriff? If so, you better do it now, because if not, I'm leaving. I have to get the police to find my wife.'

  Reich stared blankly at him and didn't move or raise the gun. He was in shock. Cab waved at Bradley, telling him to go, and he took off limping through the cemetery. Running for a phone. Cab beckoned to Tresa. He took her hand, and he put out his other hand toward Felix Reich.

  'Bradley's right,' Cab said. 'We need to call the Green Bay Police right now. We don't have much time. Let's go, Sheriff.'

  Reich said nothing at all. Cab gestured with his hand again.

  'Sheriff? Come on, it's over. You're too honorable a man for more violence. It's time to surrender.'

  'Take the girl and go.' Reich murmured. 'What?'

  Reich looked up, and his face was as dark and dreadful as a corpse. Their eyes met. Cab saw that the sheriff wasn't staring down into the hole anymore. He was inside it, consumed by the mold, dampness, worms, and stench of the burial ground. Reich withdrew Cab's own gun from his pocket, the one he had stolen when he assaulted Cab at Bradley's house, and threw it at his feet.

  'Take Tresa with you, Detective,' he repeated.

  Cab wrestled with his conscience. Stay or go. 'Sheriff?' he murmured, his voice a question and a warning at the same time.

  'The living are more important than the dead,' Reich told h
im.

  Cab retrieved his gun. As he did, Reich deposited his flashlight on the flat stone top of the headstone beside him. He turned his back on Cab and Tresa without another word and marched away, heading back toward the thick curtain of the forest. He still had Troy's gun in his hand. The night swallowed him in seconds, and he disappeared, and so did the wet sucking noise of his boots in the grass. Cab tugged at Tresa's hand.

  'We have to hurry,' he said, pulling her toward the road.

  'Are you just going to let him go?' Tresa asked. 'He'll escape.'

  'Nobody escapes,' Cab said.

  Reich was right. The living mattered now. Hilary Bradley. Cab hoped they were in time. He grabbed the flashlight and ran, fighting down the waves of pain in his skull, and Tresa ran beside him, her young body quick and graceful. She guided him more than he guided her, urging him to go faster when he slowed down. They fought through the pools of standing water toward the bay. From there, when they could see the beach ahead of them, they followed in Mark Bradley's path on the dirt road toward his house.

  That was when Cab heard the single gunshot behind them.

  He'd been waiting for it. Expecting it. The noise was loud and sharp as it pierced the forest, growing softer with each successive echo. Tresa flinched and looked in the direction of the shot, but he dragged her away. The waves of sound took several seconds to fade completely away, which was long after the bullet had traveled through Felix Reich's brain and long after the sheriff had fallen where he stood, an old soldier dead in the jungle.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  'I needed a cigarette,' Katie explained. 'I was on the patio with the Green Bay team while Gary gave one of his rah-rah speeches, and I wandered over by the hotel window and flicked my lighter. I heard a girl scream inside. Crazy. I knew Tresa was at the hotel, and I'd been avoiding her, but I never thought Glory would be there too. It must have triggered something when she saw me. The brain's a funny thing.'

  Hilary watched this pretty young girl talk clinically about her crimes, as if they had sprung from someone else's hand.

  'I never wanted this to happen,' she went on. 'I'm Katie Monroe now. I've spent six years trying to forget that I was Jen Bone or that I ever lived in that house.'

  'You murdered your mother and your brothers,' Hilary said. 'You burned them all to death.'

  Katie's eyes flashed. 'Did you live there? Do you know what it was like? Do you have any idea of the things they did to me? I wanted to erase them and that house and everything in it. I wanted it to be like none of it had ever existed. I didn't feel guilty. I still don't.'

  'But you let your father take the blame.'

  Katie's face went cloudy. That was the first real emotion Hilary had seen in her. 'Dad got home while I was watching the place burn. He acted like he was sorry. Can you believe it? I was doing both of us a favor. With them out of the way, it was finally going to be just the two of us, but Dad didn't understand. He sent me back to Tresa's house, and he stayed there to wait for the sheriff.'

  'Has he contacted you?'

  Katie shook her head. 'He's dead. If he wasn't dead, he would have gotten in touch with me. My aunt was always telling me I didn't have to be scared of my father coming back. Like she knew something. Like it was a secret I should keep.'

  Hilary wanted the girl to keep talking. She wanted time for the police to find them. 'So is Gary Jensen supposed to take your father's place?'

  'What does that mean?' Katie retorted. 'Do you think I was sleeping with my father? You think he was abusing me? Is that what you think?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'You're the one with the husband who screws teenage girls.'

  'That's a lie.'

  'Oh, you think so? You're like every wife, loyal and stupid. Gary's wife was the same way, until she found pictures of me on his phone. He convinced her he'd dumped me, but he dumped her instead. Off a cliff.'

  'Mark's not Gary.'

  'Yeah? I followed Glory out to the beach that night, but your husband got in the way. They put on a hell of a show.'

  'Don't play games with me,' Hilary snapped.

  'Glory took off her top, and then she got on her knees. Do I need to spell it out for you?'

  'Shut up.'

  Katie shrugged. 'You know I'm telling the truth.'

  Hilary saw Gary Jensen reappear behind Katie. He had liter bottles of gin, tequila, and vodka in his hands, but his jaw was clenched with dismay. He hovered in the doorway, unwilling to enter the bedroom. Katie gestured at him, and her face betrayed a growing agitation and impatience. She was losing control.

  'Pour the alcohol around the room,' Katie told him. 'Quickly.'

  Gary didn't move. 'We don't need to do this.'

  Katie reached out and caressed his cheek. 'There's no going back now. It's too late. If you'd gotten rid of Amy fast like I told you, then we would have been fine. But you let the cat out of the bag, lover. We could have contained the damage if it was just Amy, but not anymore. By the time the police sift through the ashes, we'll be in Canada.'

  Jensen opened his mouth but said nothing. He crouched down and laid two bottles at his feet. He unscrewed the cap on a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya and hesitated over the prone body of the girl on the floor.

  'Pour it over Amy,' she instructed him. 'Do it.'

  With a long glance at Katie, Jensen turned the vodka bottle upside down, letting the liquid spill out in spurts, covering Amy in strong- smelling alcohol. Her hair. Her shirt. Her arms. Her jeans. Her feet. As the fumes gathered in her nose, Amy began to stir. Hilary heard her moan, but the girl's eyes were still closed.

  He poured until the bottle was empty.

  'Now the rest,' Katie told him. 'Do the whole room. The curtains. The carpet. And don't forget Hilary here.'

  Jensen's eyes awakened with a kind of shock. 'Jesus, how did this happen?'

  'Hurry. We're running out of time.'

  'My wife. That girl in Florida. Now we have to kill two more people?'

  Katie picked up the bottle of Cuervo and shoved it into his hand. 'This is the only way.'

  Jensen slowly twisted the cap. When the bottle was open, he dropped the cap to the floor and watched it bounce and roll. He took a stuttering step toward Hilary, and then he stopped and shook his head.

  'No.'

  Katie clenched her fist. 'Gary, please.'

  'I won't do this.'

  'I told you, this is the last time. Once it's done, we're free.'

  'You said that about my wife. You said that about Glory.'

  'I know. I never meant for any of this to happen.'

  'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'You and me. Right now.'

  Katie kissed his cheek and exhaled in a slow, sorrowful sigh. 'OK. You win. Sure.'

  'Really?'

  'Whatever you want, Gary. You know I love you.'

  Katie gently pried the bottle from his hands. She upended the neck to her lips and took a long, burning swallow. When she was done, she wiped her mouth, pointed the gun at Gary Jensen, and fired into the center of his forehead.

  Hilary screamed. The explosion sounded like a bomb, rattling her head. Blood and brain matter blew out the back of Jensen's skull in a chunky spray and painted the wall. Jensen's body dropped straight down like an imploding building with its columns knocked out. He crumpled into a dead pile. The smell of charred metal was like sulfur in Hilary's nose.

  Katie bit her lip unhappily, staring down at his body. She blinked rapidly, as if even she was surprised at what she'd done. As if it was an impulse she couldn't resist, like scratching an itch. The echo of the shot died, and in the terrible silence, they all heard a rhythmic wailing, rising above the wind. In the distance, sirens grew louder and closer.

  Multiple sirens, overlapping, from police vehicles racing toward them.

  'It's over, Katie,' Hilary said softly.

  Katie listened to the shrill sirens, her face stricken with indecision.

  'It's over,' Hilary
repeated, it's too late.' She pressed her hands into the bed and tried to stand up without alarming the girl.

  Katie swung the gun, which was still smoking, and pointed it at Hilary's face. 'I swore to my mom I was going to burn the house down,' she said. 'She laughed. She didn't believe me.'

  'Don't do this.'

  Katie ignored her. Her mind was made up. She swung the vodka bottle into the corner of the door frame, and the neck of the bottle shattered across the floor in razor-sharp fragments. She jerked the open, jagged body of the bottle toward Hilary, letting the alcohol splash across Hilary's face and soak through her blouse to her chest.

  Katie shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.

  'Don't worry,' the girl told her. 'I've done this before.'

  * * *

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  On the floor, Amy Leigh's hand shot out.

  Before Katie could react, Amy locked her fingers around her roommate's ankle and yanked Katie's leg into the air. Katie flew, crashing backward on to bottles and broken glass. Sharp fragments stabbed through her clothes and impaled themselves like arrowheads in her skin. The gun broke loose from her hand.

  Amy lunged for Katie, leaping past Gary Jensen's corpse and landing on the girl's chest. She drove the air out of Katie's lungs, and Katie rasped for breath underneath her. Pinned, Katie's fingers twitched on the cigarette lighter. She cocked her elbow and pressed the lighter against Amy's alcohol-soaked clothes. Hilary shouted a warning, but before Amy could react, Katie's thumb flicked the wheel, spinning it, striking the metal against the flint.

  Amy pushed Katie down with a shout. Her eyes locked on the purple plastic cylinder in Katie's hand. She waited for a cloud of flame to billow over her body as the flash ignited the alcohol, but Katie spun frantically in a series of empty clicks without triggering a spark. The mechanism was wet and useless.

  Katie's fingers unclenched, and she dropped the lighter, but she reached out in the same instant and scooped the butt of the gun back into her hand. Amy grabbed the girl's arm and hung on. They rolled, scraping across glass, mingling alcohol and blood. Hilary saw the gun caught between the two girls and threw herself hard toward the wall as the flying barrel pointed toward her stomach. The gun didn't go off. Instead, as Katie squirmed away and aimed from her knees, Amy caught Katie's hand and grabbed her index finger before the girl could slide it on to the trigger. She bent back hard, snapping the bone. Katie screamed. The gun fell like a stone, and as the two girls struggled, Amy kicked it, and the gun slid across the floor and bumped into the far wall.