“Big whoop-dee-shit.”
“I won, see? I fucked you over harder than you ever fucked me. I’m more of a Wells than you are.”
“Oh, I get it now. That blame thing. It’s all my fault you killed Momma, right?” Joshua slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit it. When he exhaled, the smoke strangled Renee. “You won nothing,” he said to Jacob.
“Carlita,” Jacob replied.
“You could have had her for a few thousand, dumbass. My first time, it only cost twenty bucks. But four million ain’t bad.”
Jacob nodded at Renee. “Paid in full, brother.”
Renee’s legs trembled. Her mind was crushed by the wild clouds above, the fog of God’s breath, the rising twilight that darkened the eastern horizon. Joshua eased her toward the Chevy.
Two million.
Her line on Jacob’s M & W insurance policy.
Jacob was getting rid of her, too. Cashing her in, just as he had done their children.
Means to an end.
And Jacob’s end was to become his brother.
“I figure the bridge,” Joshua said.
“Not bad,” Jacob said. “She lost her footing in the dark, fell into the river, and smashed her head on the rocks. Blacked out and drowned. Another tragedy.”
“Them Wells sure do got bad luck.”
“The grieving husband and father. No one will blame me for marrying Carlita so soon after my loss.”
“And the money suits me. Carlita’s kind is a dime a dozen. I don’t know what it is about her that drove you so donkeyshit.”
“She was yours.”
Joshua opened the car door on the rear driver’s side. Renee tried to pull away, but he shoved her into the stinking seat amid the fast-food wrappers and empty beer cans. Jacob climbed in behind her and slammed the door while Joshua got behind the wheel. Renee sat up but Jacob put his weight on top of her.
His mouth pressed against her ear. “Sorry about the kids. But this is the only way.”
“You’re crazy,” she managed to say.
“No, Joshua’s crazy. Because this is the kind of thing I would never do unless I was him.”
Joshua started the car with a rumble of pipes. Music blasted from the speakers, Johnny Cash singing about the green, green grass of home. She crawled across the seat and lunged for the door, but the handle was missing. She tried to climb over the seat but Jacob grabbed her hair and yanked. The engine gunned and the car lurched forward, bouncing on sprung shocks as it crawled along the narrow dirt road.
Renee slumped against the rear of the seat, her head turned toward the dark window. Only the outlines of the trees were visible and the ridges were black humps against a violet sky. Johnny Cash hit the last verse of the ballad, awakening from a dream to find himself in prison facing a death sentence.
“Why, Jakie?” she said to the window. In the dashboard’s dim glow, she could see his reflection in the window. His twisted face, narrowed eyes, and bright scarred skin made him look like a demon.
“Because you wanted me to,” he said.
Joshua reached down to the floorboard and pulled out a can of beer. He steered with his elbow while he popped the tab. Foam sprayed across the windshield, lathering the twin troll heads that hung from the mirror. “No, she wanted me to,” Joshua said. “Ain’t that right, honey?”
“Shut up,” she said. “You made Jake do this.”
“It was his idea. All I did was nudge him along. See, I always wanted what was best for him. Not like you.”
“I gave him everything.” She turned to Jacob. “I gave you everything.”
The tears came and it was as if she was looking through greased glass. Jacob sneered at her and said, “You gave Joshua everything. You had Mattie for him.”
Her voice cracked like her mind was cracking. “I didn’t know.”
“I thought Christine would make up for it. But she wasn’t as perfect as Mattie. She wasn’t a Wells.”
“How could you?”
“Christine was easy. No whimpers with a plastic bag, no blood, no questions asked.”
Renee said nothing. She was next to die, but she didn’t care anymore. Perhaps in heaven she would have her children back. She could spend an eternity begging their forgiveness, and maybe one day on the far side of forever, they would love her again.
Johnny Cash went into a song about a highwayman, dying and coming back again and again. The vocal part was taken over by Willie Nelson, then by someone she couldn’t recognize. She lost herself in the slick guitars, a “Wish me” game of dissociation and despair.
Joshua finished his beer and tossed the can behind him. The car hit a rut and he bounced high enough that his head hit the roof. He cursed and slowed down a little. The night had become liquid and the Chevy moved through it like a bottom feeder.
“I mean, you’re sweet and all,” Joshua said to her. “But you ain’t as sweet as money.”
“You know what’s funny?” Jacob said to his brother.
“What?”
“You’re going to be richer than the old man.”
“Shit fire. That’s great. Maybe I’ll dig the old bastard up and prop his skeleton at the dinner table. Piss in his coffee cup.”
“He always did love you best.”
“Naw. That was Momma.”
“You would have killed her if I hadn’t gotten to it first.”
“Well, you beat me at one thing, I reckon.”
The Johnny Cash was winding down in a repetitive guitar riff. Joshua stopped the car and killed the engine. “Here we are.”
He opened his door and the dome light blinked on. Renee could hear the river churning below. She recalled her drive over the bridge and pictured the water thirty feet below. It wasn’t a far enough fall to kill her unless her head hit a rock. But bad luck followed the Wells family.
And, sometimes, you had to make your luck.
Joshua left the door open after he exited, and the dome light cast a dirty yellow glow. Jacob grabbed Renee’s wrist, his face a mask of wicked joy. She didn’t struggle. These two men had already torn her to shreds. There was nothing left worth fighting over.
Joshua opened the back door. “Bring her on.”
Jacob’s Southern accent returned, a bizarre replica of his brother’s. “Reckon we ought to bash her head in first, or just chuck her over the side?”
“You want to make sure. It ain’t the kind of thing you leave up to chance. What if she turns up alive six miles downstream?”
“That would be sand in the craw, all right.”
“You do it. You’ll enjoy it more than I will.”
“Why, thanks, Josh. I appreciate it.”
“I’m Jacob, remember? Don’t go getting all confused on me, or we’ll never get the story straight.”
“Right, Jake. You’re the Wells now. I’m just pig shit, rolling around with a Mexican whore in a Tennessee trailer park.”
“And you’re going to love every minute of it. I know I did, but now it’s time for the big switcheroo.”
Jacob’s hand tightened around Renee’s wrist, sending sparks of pain up her arm. Joshua handed his brother something, and Renee saw its rusty bulk in the dome light.
A pipe wrench.
She could almost see the police report: Blunt head trauma, followed by asphyxiation due to drowning.
Jacob’s latest accidental victim.
And who would be next? Joshua? Carlita? Or would he plant more seed, each sprout insured for a million dollars?
“Hold her for a sec.” Joshua got out of the driver’s side and went to the back door. He yanked it open and leaned in, his breath sour with beer and cigarettes and the lingering tang of salsa. “Come here, sweetie.”
Renee backed away, kicking, until she was across the seat. Joshua climbed in, and now she recognized that perverse grin, one glimpsed in the dim light of a night nearly a decade ago. The night of Mattie’s conception.
She shoved her foot toward his face. He caught it an
d his eyes twinkled in the greasy dome light, the cut on his forehead oozing blood again. “Hmm. She still got a little fight in her. Tempting me to go one more round. What say, brother, wanna watch just for old times’ sake?”
Jacob yanked her wrist. “I can fantasize about it later. Right now, we better get her in the river.”
Joshua’s face sagged, his smoker’s wrinkles deepening. “Reckon so. Give the water more time to wash away evidence.”
“Besides, we’ll still have Carlita.”
Renee wondered if they would play this sick game the rest of their lives. Swapping partners, playing with money and murder, tricking each other. But that was the future. She had none.
Joshua dragged her by the ankle. She grabbed for the armrest but it came off in her hand. Her fingernails broke as she clawed at the nylon seat covering. No saving grip there.
Jacob released her and got out of the car to join his brother. She knew this was her final chance. The passenger door was open, though it seemed miles away.
She twisted upward, reaching for the front seat, but Jacob had her other leg now and she was being worried between them like a butcher-shop bone in the mouths of two dogs.
“Treat her like a wishbone, brother,” Jacob said.
“I’m wishing for two million goddamned dollars. On three. One . . . ”
She wriggled, nothing.
“Two . . . ”
“Jacob,” she said. “Honey?”
But the word was a lie. Even his name was a lie. He had always been Joshua.
“Three.”
She was jerked into the moist night.
“Do her,” Joshua said.
He had Renee pinned to the rail, shoulders leaning toward the river, facing the whispering, frothing water below. Jacob tested the heft of the pipe wrench. How would she hit if she had actually fallen?
No, not “if.” When.
Think it out, Jakie, just like always. Momma’s cane . . . an accident. Could have happened to anybody. Anybody with a murderous son, that is.
Christine. That one had been the saddest. But she was barely formed, not even talking. All I did was save her from the life of a Wells. So that was a mercy killing.
Mattie. Too bad about her. But she was Joshua’s fault all the way, from sperm to burn victim.
The moon was out, the clouds like violet sheep counting down to a restless sleep. He wondered if blood would spatter onto the bridge railing. He’d have to strike her at an angle, so the pattern would fly out and into the water.
“Smash her up,” Joshua urged. “Just like you did the chickens.”
The wrench grew heavy in Jacob’s hand. “I didn’t do the chickens.”
Joshua, holding Renee’s arms behind her back, his crotch pressed against her rear, gave a thrust of his hips, causing the wooden railing to squeak with their combined weight. “Hell, yeah. You went donkeyshit, brother. Chopping their heads off, licking blood from the hatchet—”
“Stop it.”
Red. The night had gone from purple to red.
“You’re one sick fuck, all right.”
“Shut up. That wasn’t me. It was never me.”
“Tell it to the judge. I got a date with two million bucks.”
“I was only doing what you’d do, if you had the brains.” Jacob gripped the wrench so tight his hand hurt. The metal was slick with his sweat. He thought of the fingerprints he would leave behind. And the DNA, which he shared with Joshua. The DNA one of them had passed to Mattie.
And maybe Christine. He didn’t know how often Joshua had slipped into his bed over the years.
The blood in the Chevy would be Joshua’s. The cops would figure it out. Even though Jacob had the same blood.
“Do it, Jakie,” Renee wheezed from constricted lungs. “Just like we talked about.”
Joshua turned toward him, his face as twisted as the rubberized troll heads hanging from the rearview mirror. Confusion. The dumb bastard had been late out of the womb, and had always been two steps behind his entire life.
Jacob swung the wrench.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Blood everywhere,” Jacob said, mopping at the stains on the railing.
“No murder is perfect,” Renee said. She wanted to vomit, but her gut was like a clenched fist. “You taught me that, if nothing else.”
“I can’t help it if you’re lousy at choosing.”
“I guess you should go get Carlita. Think you guys will be happy together?”
“What do you care? You’re getting what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
Jacob leaned over the railing. “He’ll be downriver soon. As drunk as he was, nobody will question a fall.”
Renee glanced at her husband’s exposed neck, alabaster in the moon’s warm glow. The wrench lay on the seat of the Chevy. She could have it out and bring it down in a matter of seconds.
She loved him.
When you loved somebody, you owed him.
“Mattie,” she said, her voice breaking a little. The rush of the kill had faded, leaving her feeling washed out and limp. Her heart was a husk rattling against her dry ribs.
Maybe all the tears were gone forever.
Jacob came to her, took her hands. He almost kissed her. Then he glanced up at the hill, where the Wells house stood dark and brooding, as if remembering some memory tucked in a far, dusty closet. The first flickers teased the windows, and smoke drifted on the air. Davidson and her crew would be on the way soon, late as always, left to sift through the ashes of the Wells family secrets.
He reached into the car, grabbed the wrinkled pack of cigarettes, and stuffed one in his mouth. He lit it, then reached under the seat and pulled out a beer. Warm, it sprayed foam all over his pants when he pulled the tab. He reached up and tapped the twin rubber heads, sending them swinging.
Just like Joshua. He looks just like his brother.
And on the heels of that thought came another, rising bright and strong from the murk of her confusion.
What if we killed the wrong one?
But maybe there was no right one.
Renee looked over the rail. In the gloom, she could barely make out the broken form on the rocks below.
“Oh, God, Jake, he’s moving. He’s still alive!”
Jacob ran to the railing, cigarette smoke pluming from his mouth along with his whispered “Shit.”
He leaned over, straining against the darkness. “I don’t see nothing.”
“I do,” she said. “I see it all now.”
The wrench was heavy. But she managed. Oh, yes, she managed.
The crunch was subdued, like hitting a bag of ice wrapped in a towel. Jacob gave a small bleat of surprise and collapsed onto the rail, head and arms trailing over the far side.
She didn’t check his pulse. She didn’t want to touch him. If he took a long time to die, he deserved it.
She patted her belly.
She’d never mentioned it to Jacob. Three months along.
Whether it was Jacob’s or Joshua’s, she would never know.
But it didn’t matter. One Wells was as good as another.
And a Wells never fails.
As she headed up the dirt road to free Carlita, she glanced at the house, the orange flames now rising to heaven in a wavering thread.
I love you, Mattie. I love you, Christine.
She was relieved to see the burning house blur in her vision.
She was still human, if only barely.
As long as she could cry, there was hope for her yet.
Renee staggered across a land long polluted and ruined, tears streaming down her cheeks. The tears wouldn’t wash away the past, but they might clear her vision for the future.
She had a child to raise.
One last chance.
THE END
Return to Table of Contents
Alternate Ending
###
About Scott Nicholson:
I believe we build v
aluable ideas together, some of them inside a book, and some outside a book. I am honored that you shared my ideas and brought them to life in your imagination. I invite you to write a brief review or tell your friends about these ideas we have shared.
I’m author of more than 30 books, including The Red Church, Liquid Fear, Chronic Fear, The Harvest, and Speed Dating with the Dead. I collaborated with bestselling author J.R. Rain on Cursed, The Vampire Club, Bad Blood, and Ghost College. I’ve also written the children’s books If I Were Your Monster, Too Many Witches, Ida Claire, and Duncan the Punkin, and created the graphic novels Dirt and Grave Conditions. Connect with me on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Twitter, my blog, or my website. I am really an organic gardener, but don’t tell anyone, because they think I am a writer.
Feel free to drop me a line anytime at [email protected], or visit my Author Central page at Amazon to ask a question. Thanks for sharing your valuable time with me. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try.
Try these other thrillers because they’re good:
CREATIVE SPIRIT
By Scott Nicholson
After parapsychologist Anna Galloway is diagnosed with metastatic cancer, she has a recurring dream in which she sees her own ghost. The setting of her dream is the historic Korban Manor, which is now an artist’s retreat in the remote Appalachian Mountains. Drawn both by the ghost stories surrounding the manor and her own sense of destiny, Anna signs up for the retreat.
Sculptor Mason Jackson has come to Korban Manor to make a final, all-or-nothing attempt at success before giving up his dreams. When he becomes obsessed with carving Ephram Korban’s form out of wood, he questions his motivation but is swept up in a creative frenzy unlike any he has ever known.
The manor itself has secrets, with fires that blaze constantly in the hearths, portraits of Korban in every room, and deceptive mirrors on the walls. A mysterious woman in white calls to Anna from the forest, while Mason is driven by the whispers of an unseen critic. With an October blue moon looming, both the living and the dead learn the true power of their dreams. The author’s preferred edition of the 2004 U.S. paperback The Manor.
Disintegration: A Mystery Thriller Page 25