Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  Mike easily caught the end of the bat with his hand. He had to step back to do it. His legs were about a shoulder-width apart. Or a foot’s width, which Andy soon found out when she kicked him in the nuts as hard as she could.

  He dropped to the ground like a flaming sack of shit.

  “Fuh—” He coughed, then coughed again. He was squeezing his hands between his legs, rolling on the front porch. Foam came out of his mouth, the same as Hoodie, but this time was different because he wasn’t going to die, he was just going to suffer.

  “Well done.”

  Andy jumped.

  Paula Kunde was standing behind her. The shotgun was still resting against her shoulder. She said, “That’s the guy from the second drawing, right?”

  Andy’s fear of Paula was overridden by her rage at Mike. She was sick of people treating her like a crash-test dummy. She patted his pockets. She found his wallet, his stupid rabbit’s foot keychain. He put up absolutely no resistance. He was too busy clutching his balls.

  “Wait,” Paula said. “Your mother didn’t send you here, did she?”

  Andy shoved the wallet and keys into her messenger bag. She stepped over Mike’s writhing body.

  “I said wait!”

  Andy stopped. She turned around and gave Paula the most hateful look she could muster.

  “You’ll need this.” Paula dug around to the bottom of the change bowl and found a folded dollar bill. She handed it to Andy. “Clara Bellamy. Illinois.”

  “What?”

  Paula slammed the door so hard that the house shook.

  Who the hell was Clara Bellamy?

  Why was Andy listening to a fucking lunatic?

  She crammed the dollar bill into her pocket as she walked down the steps. Mike was still huffing like a broken muffler. Andy did not want to feel guilty for hurting him, but she felt guilty. She felt guilty as she got into the Reliant. She felt guilty as she pulled away from the house. She felt guilty as she turned onto the next street. She felt guilty right up until she saw Mike’s white truck parked around the corner.

  Motherfucker.

  He had changed the magnetic sign on the side of the door.

  LAWN CARE BY GEORGE

  Andy jerked the Reliant to a stop in front of the truck. She popped the hatch. She found the box of Slim Jims and ripped it open. Nothing but Slim Jims. She opened the little cooler, something she hadn’t done since she’d found it back at Laura’s storage unit.

  Idiot.

  There was a tracker taped to the underside of the cooler lid. Small, jet black, about the size of an old iPod. The red light was blinking, sending back the coordinates of her location to a satellite somewhere in space. Mike must’ve put it there while Andy was passed out in the Muscle Shoals motel.

  She chucked the cooler lid across the street like a Frisbee. She reached into the hatch and pulled out the sleeping bag and beach tote. She threw both into the front of Mike’s truck. Then she grabbed two weedeaters and a set of trimmers from the back and dropped them onto the sidewalk. The magnetic signs easily peeled off the doors. She slapped them onto the hood of the Reliant. Andy thought about leaving him the key, but fuck that. All the money was sitting in storage units. He could drive around in the Maxi-Pad box for a while.

  She got into Mike’s truck. Her messenger bag went onto the seat beside her. The steering wheel had a weird fake leather wrap. A pair of dice hung from the rearview mirror. Andy jammed the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life. Dave Matthews warbled through the speakers.

  Andy pulled away from the curb. Her brain summoned up a map as she drove toward the university. She figured she had about one thousand miles ahead of her, which was around twenty hours of driving, or two full days if she broke it up the right way. Dallas first, then straight up to Oklahoma, then Missouri, then Illinois, where she hoped like hell she could find a person or thing named Clara Bellamy.

  July 31, 1986

  12

  Alexandra Maplecroft’s screams were like a siren pitching higher and higher. The sirens from a police car. From the FBI. From the prison van.

  Jane knew that she should do something to stop the wailing, but she could only stand there listening to the woman’s desperate pleas for help.

  “Jane!” Andrew called from downstairs.

  The sound of her brother’s voice broke Jane from her trance. She struggled to put the gag back in place. Maplecroft started thrashing in the bed, pulling at the restraints around her wrist and ankles. Her head jerked back and forth. The blindfold slipped up. One eye spun desperately around before she found Jane. Suddenly, one of the woman’s hands was loose, then a foot. Jane leaned over to hold her down, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  Maplecroft punched Jane so hard in the face that she fell back onto the floor, literal stars dancing in front of her eyes.

  “Jane!” Andrew screamed. She could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs.

  Maplecroft heard it too. She struggled so hard against the ropes that the metal bed frame tipped over onto the floor. She worked furiously to untie her other hand while her leg jerked back and forth to work away the bindings.

  Jane tried to stand. Her legs felt wonky. Her feet would not find purchase. Blood was streaming down her face, gagging her throat. She somehow found the strength to push herself up. All she could think to do was throw her body on top of Maplecroft’s and pray that she could hold her down long enough for help to arrive.

  Seconds later, it did.

  “Jane!” The door flew open. Andrew reached her first. He pulled Jane up, wrapped his arm around her.

  Maplecroft was standing, too. She was in the middle of the floor, fists up like a boxer, one ankle still tied to the bed. Her clothes were torn, her eyes wild, her hair matted to her skull with filth and sweat. She screamed unintelligibly as she moved back and forth between her feet.

  Paula snorted a laugh. She was blocking the door. “Give it up, bitch.”

  “Let me go!” Maplecroft screamed. “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t—”

  “Stop her,” Nick said.

  Jane didn’t know what he meant until she saw Quarter raise his knife.

  “No—” she yelled, but it happened too fast.

  Quarter slashed down. The blade flashed in the sunlight.

  Jane stood helpless, watching the knife arc down.

  But then it stopped.

  Maplecroft had caught the knife in her hand.

  The blade pierced the center of her palm.

  The effect hit them all like a stun grenade. No one could speak. They were too shocked.

  Except for Maplecroft.

  She had known exactly what she was going to do. While they all stood transfixed, she wrenched her arm across her body, preparing to backhand the blade in Jane’s direction.

  Nick’s fist snaked out, punching Maplecroft square in the face.

  Blood shot out of her nose. The woman spun in a half-circle, wildly slicing the air with the blade that pierced her hand.

  Nick punched her again.

  Jane heard the sharp snap of her nose breaking.

  Maplecroft stumbled. The bed frame dragged back with her foot.

  “Nick—” Jane tried.

  He punched her a third time.

  Maplecroft’s head jerked back on her neck. She started to fall, but her pinned leg pulled her sideways. Her temple bounced against the metal edge of the bed frame with a sickening pop before she hit the floor. A pool of blood flowered from beneath her, rolled across the wood, seeped into the cracks between the boards.

  Her eyes were wide. Her lips gaped apart. Her body was still.

  They all stared at her. No one could speak until—

  “Jesus,” Andrew whispered.

  Paula asked, “Is she dead?”

  Quarter knelt down to check, but he leapt back when Alexandra Maplecroft’s eyes blinked.

  Jane screamed once before she could cover her mouth with both hands.

  “Christ,” Paula whispered.
<
br />   Urine puddled from between the woman’s legs. They could almost hear the sound of her soul leaving her body.

  “Nick,” Jane breathed. “What have you done? What have you done?”

  “She—” Nick looked scared. He never looked scared. He told Jane, “I didn’t mean—”

  “You killed her!” Jane screamed. “You punched her, and she fell, and she—”

  “It was me,” Quarter said. “I’m the one who put the knife in her.”

  “Because Nick told you to!”

  “I didn’t—” Nick tried. “I said to stop her, not to—”

  “What have you done?” Jane felt her head shaking furiously side to side. “What have we done? What have we done?” She couldn’t ask the question enough. This had crossed the line of insanity. They were all psychotic. Every single one of them. “How could you?” she asked Nick. “How could you—”

  “He was protecting you, dumb bitch,” Paula said, unable or unwilling to keep the derision out of her voice. “This is your fault.”

  “Penny,” Andrew said.

  Nick tried, “Jinx, you have to believe—”

  “You punched—you killed—” Jane’s throat felt strangled. They had all watched it happen. She didn’t have to give them a replay. Maplecroft had been spinning out of control after the first hit. Nick could’ve grabbed her arm, but he had punched her two more times and now her blood was sliding along the cracks in the floor.

  Paula told Jane, “You’re the one who let her get untied. So much for our ransom demand. That’s our leverage pissing on her own grave.”

  Jane walked to the open back window. She tried to pull air into her lungs. She couldn’t witness this, couldn’t be here. Nick had crossed the line. Paula was making excuses for him. Andrew was keeping his mouth shut. Quarter had been willing to murder for him. They had all completely lost their senses.

  Nick said, “Darling—”

  Jane braced her hands on the windowsill. She looked at the back of the house across the alley because she couldn’t bear to look at Nick. A pair of pink sheers wistfully furled in the late morning breeze. She wanted to be back home in her bed. She wanted to take back Oslo, to rewind the last two years of her life and leave Nick before he had pulled them all into the abyss.

  “Jane,” Andrew said. He was using his patient voice.

  She turned around, but not to look at her brother. Her eyes automatically found the woman lying on the floor. “Don’t,” she begged Andrew. “Please don’t tell me to calm—”

  Maplecroft blinked again.

  Jane didn’t scream like the first time, because the more this kept happening, the more it felt normal. That’s how Nick had gotten them. The drills and the rehearsals and the constant state of paranoia had all hypnotized them into believing that what they were doing was not just reasonable, but necessary.

  Paula broke the silence this time. “We have to finish it.”

  Jane could only stare at her.

  Paula said, “Put the pillow over her head, or just use your hands to cover her mouth and pinch her nose closed. Unless you want to try to stab her in the heart? Drown her in that bucket of piss?”

  Jane felt bile stream up her throat. She turned, but not quickly enough. Vomit spewed onto the floor. She pressed her hands against the wall. She opened her mouth and tried not to wail.

  How could she bring a child into this terrible, violent world?

  “Christ,” Paula said. “You can watch your own daddy being shot, but a gal bumps her head—”

  “Penny,” Andrew cautioned.

  “Jinx,” Nick tried to put his hand on Jane’s back, but she shrugged him off. “I didn’t mean to do it. I just—I wasn’t thinking. She hurt you. She was still trying to hurt you.”

  “It’s moot.” Quarter was pressing two fingers to the woman’s neck. “She doesn’t have a pulse.”

  “Well, fuck,” Paula mumbled. “What a surprise.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Andrew said. “What’s done is done.” He, too, was looking at Jane. “It’s all right. I mean, no, of course it’s not all right, but it was an accident, and we have to get past it because there are more important things at play here.”

  “He’s right,” Quarter said. “We still have Stanford, Chicago, New York.”

  Paula said, “You know I’m still in. I’m not like little Miss Princess here. You should’ve stuck to your volunteer work with the other rich ladies. I knew you’d wimp out the second things got messy.”

  Jane finally allowed herself to look at Nick. His chest was heaving. His fists were still clenched. The skin along the back of his knuckles was torn where he’d punched Alexandra Maplecroft in the face.

  Who was this man?

  “I can’t—” Jane started, but she could not say the words.

  “You can’t what?” Nick wiped the back of his hand on his pants. Blood smeared across like dirty fingerprints. There was more blood on the sleeve of his shirt. Jane looked down at her trousers. Red slashes crossed her legs. Speckles dotted her blouse.

  “I can’t—” she tried again.

  “Can’t what?” Nick asked. “Jinx, talk to me. What can’t you do?”

  Do this, be a part of this, hurt more people, live with the secrets, live with the guilt, give life to your child because I will never, ever be able to explain to her that you are her father.

  “Jinxie?” Nick had recovered from his shock. He was giving her his half grin. He wrapped his hands around her arms. He pressed his lips to her forehead.

  She wanted to resist. She told herself to resist. But her body moved toward his and then he was holding her and she was letting herself take comfort from the warmth of his embrace.

  The yo-yo flipping back on itself.

  Andrew said, “Let’s go downstairs and—”

  Suddenly, Quarter made a gulping sound.

  His entire body jerked, his arms flying into the air. Blood burst from his chest.

  A millisecond later, Jane heard the loud crack of a rifle firing, the sound of glass breaking in the window pane.

  She was already lying flat on the floor when she realized what was happening.

  Someone was shooting at them.

  Jane could see the crazy red dots from rifle scopes slipping along the walls as if they were in an action movie. The police had found them. They had tracked Jasper’s car or someone in the neighborhood had reported them or they had followed Andrew and Jane and none of that mattered now because Quarter was dead. Maplecroft was dead. They were all going to die in this horrible room with the bucket of shit and piss and Jane’s vomit on the floor.

  Another bullet broke out the rest of the glass. Then another zinged around the room. Then another. Then they were suddenly completely swallowed by the sharp percussion of gunfire.

  “Move!” Nick yelled, upending the mattress to block the front window. “Let’s go, troops! Let’s go!”

  They had trained for this. It had seemed preposterous at the time, but Nick had made them drill for this exact scenario.

  Andrew ran in a crouch toward the open door at the top of the stairs. Paula crawled on her hands and knees toward the back window. Jane started to follow, but a bullet pinged past her head. She flattened back to the floor. The vase of flowers shattered. Holes pierced the flimsy walls, lines of sunlight creating a disco effect.

  “Over here!” Paula was already at the window.

  Jane started to crawl again, but she stopped, screaming as Quarter’s body bucked into the air. They were shooting him. She heard the sickening suck of bullets punching into his dead flesh. Maplecroft’s head cracked open. Blood splattered everywhere. Bone. Brain. Tissue.

  Another explosion downstairs; the front door blowing open.

  “FBI! FBI!” The agents screamed over each other like a crescendo building. Jane heard their boots stomping through the lower floor, fists banging on the walls, looking for the stairs.

  “Don’t wait for me!” Andrew had already closed the door. Jane watched h
im heft up the heavy post that fit into the brackets on either side of the jamb.

  “Jane, hurry!” Nick shouted. He was helping Paula guide the extension ladder out the back window. It was too heavy for just one person to manage. They knew this from the training exercise. Two people on the ladder. One person barring the door. Mattress against the window.

  Duck and run, move fast, don’t stop for anything.

  Paula was first out the window. The rickety ladder clanged as she crawled on hands and knees to the house on the other side of the alley. The distance between the two windows was fifteen feet. Below was a pile of rotting garbage filled with needles and broken glass. No one would willingly go into the pit. Not unless the ladder broke and they plummeted twenty feet down.

  “Go-go-go!” Nick yelled. The pounding downstairs was getting louder. The agents were still looking for the stairs. Wood started to splinter as they used the butts of their shotguns on the walls.

  “Fuck!” a man yelled. “Get the fucking sledgehammer!”

  Jane went on the ladder next. Her hands were wet with sweat. The cold metal rungs dug into her knees. There was a vibration in the ladder from a sledgehammer pounding into the walls below.

  “Hurry!” Paula kept looking down at the pile of garbage. Jane chanced a peek and saw that there were three FBI agents in blue jackets swarming around the pile, trying to find a way in.

  A gunshot rang out—not from the agents, but from Nick. He was leaning out the window, giving Andrew cover as he made his way across the ladder. The going was slower for her brother. The metal box was clutched under his arm. He could only use one hand. Jane couldn’t even remember him bringing the box up the stairs.

  “Fuckers!” Paula screeched as she shook her fist at the agents on the ground. She was drawing a sick sort of excitement from the carnage. “Fascist fucking pig cunts!”

  Andrew slipped on the ladder. Jane gasped. She heard him curse. He’d almost dropped the box.

  “Please,” she whispered, begged, pleaded.

  Forget the box. Forget the plan. Just get us out of this. Make us sane again.

  “Nickel!” Paula yelled. “Throw it to me!”

  She meant the gun. Nick tossed it across the fifteen-foot span. Paula caught it with both hands just as Andrew was coming off the ladder.