Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  “The concept of right and wrong are patriarchal constructs to control the populace.”

  Jane turned her head to look at the woman. “You can’t be serious.”

  “You’re too fucking blind to see it. At least now you are.” Paula had picked up a knife. She chopped brutally at a bundle of carrots. “I heard you with him in the van. All that loveydovey bullshit, telling Nick how wonderful he is, how much you love him, how you believe in what we’re doing, and then you get here and suddenly you’re abandoning him.”

  “Did you hear him in the bathroom, strangling me into unconsciousness?”

  “I could happily hear that every day for the rest of my life.”

  A piece of carrot landed on the floor beside Jane.

  If Jane stood up, if she took one small step, she could close the distance between them. She could grab the knife from Paula’s hand, wrench the gun from her waist.

  And then what?

  Could Jane kill her? There was a difference between despising someone and murdering them.

  Paula said, “It happened before Berlin, right?” She motioned down at her own stomach with the knife. “I thought you were getting fat, but—” She blew out air between her lips. “No such luck.”

  Jane looked down at her stomach. She had been so nervous about telling people about the baby, but everyone seemed to have figured it out on their own.

  Paula said, “You don’t deserve to carry his child.”

  Jane watched the knife move up and down. Paula wasn’t paying attention to Jane.

  Stand up, take one step, grab the knife—

  “If it was up to me, I’d cut it out of you.” Paula pointed the blade at Jane. “Want me to?”

  Jane tried to pretend that the threat had not sent an arrow into her heart. She had to think about her child. This wasn’t just about Andrew. If she attacked Paula and failed, then she could lose her baby before she even had the chance to hold it.

  “That’s what I thought.” Paula turned back to the carrots with a grin on her face.

  Jane tucked her chin to her chest. She had never been good at confrontation. Her way was to remain silent and hope that the explosion would pass. That was what she had always done with her father. That’s what she did with Nick.

  She looked at the bundle of Polaroids on the table. The photo on top showed the deep gash in her leg. Jane touched her leg in that same spot now, feeling the ridge of the pink scar.

  Bite mark.

  She remembered clearly when the pictures had been taken. Jane and Nick were staying in Palm Springs while Jane’s cuts and bruises healed. Nick had gone out for lunch and returned with the camera and instant film.

  I’m sorry, my darling, I know you’re hurting, but I’ve just had the best idea.

  Back home, Andrew had been wavering about the plan. There were good reasons. Andrew didn’t want Laura Juneau to go to prison for attacking Martin with the red dye packs. He was especially conflicted about hurting Martin’s pride. Despite the beatings and the disappointments and even the awful things that Nick had uncovered while working at Queller Healthcare, Andrew still had a sliver of love for their father.

  Then, when they returned from Palm Springs, Nick had shown him the Polaroids.

  Look at what your father did to your sister. We have to make him pay for this. Martin Queller has to pay for all of his sins.

  Nick had assumed that Jane would play along, and why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she keep from her brother the fact that it was Nick who had beaten her face, who had ripped open her skin with his teeth, who had pummeled her stomach until blood had poured from between her legs and their baby was gone?

  Why wouldn’t she?

  Jane dropped the Polaroids into the metal box. She wiped her sweaty hands on her legs. She thought about sitting with Agent Danberry in the backyard. In less than a week, the cops had seen right through Nick.

  He had everybody in his circle convinced he was smarter than he actually was. More clever than he was.

  Paula said, “I used to be so jealous of you. Did you know that?”

  Jane stacked the files and put them back in the box. “No shit.”

  “Yeah, well.” Paula had moved on to chopping a potato. She was using a meat cleaver. “The first time I met you, I thought, ‘What’s that snooty bitch doing here? Why does she want to change shit when all the shit in the world benefits her?’”

  Jane didn’t have an answer anymore. She had hated her father. That’s where it had started. Martin had raped her when she was a child, beaten her throughout her teenage years, terrorized her into her twenties, and Nick had given Jane a way to make it stop. Not for herself, but for other people. For Robert Juneau. For Andrew. For all the other patients who had been hurt. Jane was not strong enough to pull away from Martin for her own sake, so Nick had contrived a plan to wrench Martin away from Jane.

  She put her hand to her mouth. She wanted to laugh, because she had just now realized that Nick had done the same with Andrew, using the Polaroids to weaponize his anger on behalf of Jane.

  They were like yo-yos he could snap back with a flick of his wrist.

  Paula said, “Andy has everything, too, but he’s so conflicted about it, you know? He struggles with it.” She used her teeth to tear the plastic wrap around a bundle of celery. “You never seemed to struggle, but I guess that’s the point with gals like you, right? All the right schools and the right clothes and the right hair. They Pygmalion your skinny white asses from birth so you don’t ever seem to struggle with anything. You know what forks to use, and who painted what Mona Lisa and blahdee-duh-blah. But underneath, you’re just—” She clenched her hands into tight fists. “So fucking angry.”

  Jane had never thought of herself as angry, but she understood now that it had lived just beneath the fear all along. “Rage is a luxury.”

  “Rage is a fucking narcotic.” Paula laughed as she attacked the celery with her knife. “That’s why Nick is so good for me. He helped me turn my rage into power.”

  Jane felt her eyebrows go up. “You’re babysitting his girlfriend while he’s out planting bombs.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.” Paula threw the knife on the counter. “You think you’re so fucking clever? You think you’re better than me?” When Jane didn’t answer, she demanded, “Look at me, Dumb Bitch. Say that to my face. Say you’re better than me. I fucking dare you.”

  Jane turned sideways in the chair so that she was facing Paula. “Did Nick ever fuck you?”

  Paula’s jaw dropped. She was evidently thrown by the question.

  Jane wasn’t sure where it had come from, but now, she pressed on. “It’s all right if he did. I’m pretty sure he fucked Clara.” Jane laughed, because she could see it so clearly now. “He’s always been drawn to fragile, famous women. And fragile, famous women are always drawn to guys like Nick.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Jane found herself puzzled that the thought of Nick and Clara together elicited not even a flicker of jealousy. Why was Jane so okay with it? Why was all of her envy directed at Clara, who had somehow managed to get what she wanted out of Nick without losing herself completely?

  Jane told Paula, “I bet he didn’t fuck you.” She could tell from Paula’s pained expression that this was true. “It’s not that he wouldn’t fuck you if he needed to, but you’re so brazenly desperate for any show of kindness. Not giving it to you was much more effective than giving it to you. Right? And it provides your drama with a villain—me—because I’m the only thing keeping him from being with you.”

  Paula’s lower lip started to tremble. “Shut up.”

  “One of the FBI agents called it days ago. He said that Nick was just another con man running another cult so he could bed the pretty girls and play God with all the boys.”

  “I said shut your goddamn mouth.” The bluster had gone out of her tone. She pressed her palms to the edge of the counter. Tears dripped down her cheeks. She kept shaking her head. “You don�
�t know. You don’t know anything about us.”

  Jane closed the lid on the metal box. There was a tiny handle on the side, too small for Andrew’s hand, but Jane’s fingers easily slid through the loop.

  She stood up from the table.

  Paula reached for the knife as she started to turn.

  Jane took a step forward. She swung the box at Paula’s head.

  Pop.

  Like a toy gun going off.

  Paula’s mouth dropped open.

  The knife slipped from her hand.

  She crumpled to the floor.

  Jane leaned over Paula and found the steady pulse in her neck. She pressed open her eyelids. There was a milky white in her left eye, but the pupil in her right eye dilated in the harsh overhead light.

  Jane pushed through the swinging door, the box tucked under her arm. She walked through the living room and down the hall. Andrew was sleeping in the bedroom. The morphine bottle was empty. She shook him, saying, “Andy. Andy, wake up.”

  He turned toward her voice, a glassy look in his eyes. “What is it?”

  “Didn’t you hear the phone?” Jane could only think of one lie that would move him. “Nick called. We have to get out of here.”

  “Where’s—” He struggled to sit up. “Where’s Paula?”

  “She took off. There was another car parked on the road.” Jane struggled to get him up. “I’ve got the box. We have to go, Andrew. Now. Nick said we had to get out.”

  He tried to stand. Jane had to lift him to his feet. He was so thin that holding him up was almost effortless.

  He asked, “Where are we going?”

  “We have to hurry.” Jane almost dropped the metal box as she guided him down the hall, out the front door. The walk to the van seemed to take hours. She should’ve gagged Paula. Tied her up. How long before she woke up and started screaming? Would Andrew leave if he thought they were betraying Nick and the plan?

  Jane couldn’t risk it.

  “Come on,” she begged her brother. “Keep moving. You can sleep in the van, all right?”

  “Yeah,” was all he could manage between raspy breaths.

  Jane had to drag him the last few yards. She leaned him against the van, her knee keeping his knees from bending, so that she could open the door. She was buckling him into the seat when she remembered—

  The keys.

  “Stay here.”

  Jane ran back to the house. She pushed through the door into the kitchen. Paula was on her hands and knees, head shaking like a dog.

  Without thinking, Jane kicked her in the face.

  Paula oofed out a sound, then collapsed flat to the floor.

  Jane patted Paula’s pockets until she found the keys. She was halfway to the van when she remembered the gun in Paula’s waistband. She could go back and get it, but what was the point? It was better to leave than risk giving Paula another chance to stop them.

  “Jay—” Andrew watched her climb behind the wheel. “How did . . . how did they find . . .”

  “Selden,” she told him. “Clara. She backed out. She changed her mind. Nick said we have to hurry.” Jane threw the van into reverse. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor as she drove back up the driveway. She checked the rearview mirror. All she saw was dust. Her heart kept pounding into her throat as she drove down the winding roads outside the farm. It wasn’t until they’d finally reached the interstate that Jane felt her breathing return to normal. She looked over at Andrew. His head was lolling to the side. She counted his arduous breaths, the painful in and out as he strained for air.

  For the first time in almost two years, Jane felt at peace. An eerie calmness had taken over. This was the right thing to do. After giving herself over to Nick’s insanity for so long, she was finally lucid again.

  Jane had been to Northwestern Hospital once before. She was in the middle of a tour and suffering from an earache. Pechenikov had driven her to the emergency room. He had fussed around her, telling the nurses that Jane was the most important patient that they would ever care for. Jane had rolled her eyes at the praise but been secretly pleased to be handled with such care. She had loved Pechenikov so much, not just because he was a teacher, but because he was a decent and loving man.

  Which was likely why Nick had made Jane leave him.

  Why did you give it up?

  Because my boyfriend was jealous of a seventy-year-old homosexual.

  An ambulance whizzed by on Jane’s right. She followed it up the exit. She saw the Northwestern Memorial Hospital sign glowing in the distance.

  “Jane?” The ambulance siren had woken Andrew. “What are you doing?”

  “Nick told me to take you to the hospital.” She pushed up the turn signal, waited for the light.

  “Jane—” Andrew started coughing. He covered his mouth with both hands.

  “I’m just doing what Nick told me to do,” she lied. Her voice was shaking. She had to keep strong. They were so close. “He made me promise, Andrew. Do you want me to break my promise to Nick?”

  “You don’t—” he had to stop to catch his breath. “I know what you’re—that Nick didn’t—”

  Jane looked at her brother. He reached out, his fingers gently touching her neck.

  She glanced into the mirror, saw the bruises from Nick’s hands strangling her. Andrew knew what had happened in the bathroom, that Jane had chosen to stay with him.

  She realized now that Nick must have given Andrew the same ultimatum. Andrew had not driven to New York with Nick. He had stayed at the farmhouse with Jane.

  She told her brother, “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  He closed his eyes. “We can’t,” he said. “Our faces—on the news—the police.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jane mumbled a curse at the red light, then another at herself. The van was the only vehicle in sight. It was the middle of the night and she was obeying traffic laws.

  She pressed the gas and blew through the light.

  “Jane—” Andrew broke off for another coughing fit. “Y-you can’t do this. They’ll catch you.”

  Jane took another right, followed another blue sign with a white H on it.

  “Please.” He rubbed his face with his hands, something he used to do when he was a boy and things got too frustrating for him to handle.

  Jane coasted through another red light. She was on autopilot now. Everything inside of her was numb again. She was a machine as much as the van, a mode of conveyance that would take her brother to the hospital so he could die peacefully in his sleep.

  Andrew tried, “Please. Listen to—” Another coughing fit took hold. There was no rattle, just a straining noise, as if he was trying to suck air through a reed.

  She said, “Try to save your breath.”

  “Jane,” he repeated, his voice no more than a whisper. “If you leave me, you have to leave me. You can’t let them catch you. You have to—” His words broke off into more coughing. He looked down at his hand. There was blood.

  Jane swallowed back her grief. She was taking him to the hospital. They would put a tube down his throat to help him breathe. They would give him drugs to help him sleep. This was likely the last conversation they would ever have.

  She told him, “I’m sorry, Andy. I love you.”

  His eyes were watering. Tears slid down his face. “I know that you love me. Even when you hated me, I know that you loved me.”

  “I never hated you.”

  “I forgive you, but—” He coughed. “Forgive me, too. Okay?”

  Jane pushed the van to go faster. “There’s nothing to forgive you for.”

  “I knew, Janey. I knew who he was. What he was. It’s my—” he wheezed. “Fault. My fault. I’m so . . .”

  Jane looked at him, but his eyes were closed. His head tilted back and forth with the motion of the van.

  “Andrew?”

  “I knew,” he mumbled. “I knew.”

  She banked a hard left. Her heart shook at the sight of the
NORTHWESTERN sign outside of the emergency room.

  “Andy?” Jane panicked. She couldn’t hear him breathing anymore. She held onto his hand. His flesh was like ice. “We’re almost there, my darling. Just hang on.”

  His eyelids fluttered open. “Trade—” He choked a cough. “Trade him.”

  “Andy, don’t try to speak.” The hospital sign was getting closer. “We’re almost there. Just hang on, my darling. Hang on for just a moment more.”

  “Trade all . . .” Andrew’s eyelids fluttered again. His chin dropped to his chest. Only the whistling sound of air being sucked through his teeth told her that he was still alive.

  The hospital.

  Jane almost lost control of the wheel when the tires bumped over a curb. The van fishtailed. She somehow managed to screech to a halt in front of the entrance to the ER. Two orderlies were smoking on a nearby bench.

  “Help!” Jane jumped out of the van. “Help my brother. Please!”

  The men were already off the bench. One ran back into the hospital. The other opened the van door.

  “He has—” Jane’s voice caught. “He’s infected with—”

  “I gotcha.” The man wrapped his arms around Andrew’s shoulders as he helped him out of the van. “Come on, buddy. We’re gonna take good care of you.”

  Jane’s tears, long dried, started to flow again.

  “You’re all right,” the man told Andrew. He sounded so kind that she wanted to fall to the ground and kiss his feet. He asked Andrew, “Can you walk? Let’s go to this bench and—”

  “Where—” Andrew was looking for Jane.

  “I’m right here, my darling.” She put her hand to his face. She pressed her lips to his forehead. His hand reached out. He was touching the round swell of her stomach.

  “Trade . . .” he whispered, “. . . all of them.”

  The other orderly ran back through the door with a gurney. The two men lifted Andrew off his feet. He was so light that they barely had to strain to get him onto the gurney. Andrew turned his head, looking for Jane.

  He said, “I love you.”

  The men started to roll the gurney inside. Andrew kept his eyes on Jane for as long as he could.

  The doors closed.

  She watched through the glass as Andrew was rolled into the back of the emergency room. The double doors swung open. Nurses and doctors swarmed around him. The doors closed again, and he was gone.