Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  Jane tried to pull away, but Jasper held her in his grip.

  “Do you know how many times I rescued him from yet another fag in the Tenderloin? How much cash I gave him so he could pay off whatever twink was threatening to go to Father?”

  “Ellis-Anne—”

  “Doesn’t have AIDS because Andy could never get it up to screw her.” Jasper finally let her go. He put his hand to his forehead. “Christ, Jinx, you never wondered why Nick would stick his tongue down your throat or grab your ass whenever Andrew was around? He was taunting him. We all saw it, even Mother.”

  Jane saw it now – more signs that she had missed. She laced her fingers through Andrew’s again. She looked at his ravaged face. She had never noticed before, but his forehead had premature lines from his constant worrying.

  Why had he never told Jane?

  She wouldn’t have stopped loving him. Maybe she would have loved him more, because suddenly, his lifetime of self-hatred and torture made sense.

  She told Jasper, “It doesn’t matter. I won’t dishonor his death.”

  “Andy’s the one who dishonored his death,” Jasper said. “Don’t you see he’s getting exactly what he deserves? With any luck, all of them will.”

  Jane felt ice shoot through her veins. “How can you say that? He’s still our brother.”

  “Think for a minute.” Jasper had collected himself. He was back to trying to control everything. “Andy can finally be useful to both of us. You can tell the cops that he and Nick kidnapped you. Look at you—your nose is probably broken. Somebody tried to strangle the life out of you. Andy let it happen. He helped murder our father. He didn’t care that people were going to die. He didn’t try to stop it.”

  “We can’t—”

  “What’s happening to him now is a Correction.” Jasper invoked Martin Queller’s theory as if it was suddenly gospel. “We have to accept that our brother is an abomination. He defied the natural order. He fell in love with Nick. He brought him into our house. You should’ve let Andy rot in the street. I should’ve let him hang in the basement. None of this would have happened without his disgusting perversion.”

  Jane could barely look at this man she had admired her entire life. She’d contorted herself to defend him. She had fought with Andrew to keep him out of harm’s way.

  Jasper said, “Save yourself, Jinx. Save me. We can still pull this family’s name out of the gutter. In six months, maybe a year, we can take the company public. It won’t be easy, but it will work if we stick together. Andrew’s nothing more than a pus we have to drain from the Queller line.”

  Jane sank down onto Andrew’s bed, her hand resting on his leg. She silently repeated Jasper’s words, because in the future, if she ever wavered about never talking to her brother again, she wanted to remember in detail everything he had said.

  She told him, “I have the paperwork, Jasper. All of it. I’ll testify in front of any judge that it’s your signature. I’ll tell them that you knew about Oslo, and I’ll tell them that you wanted to frame Andrew for everything.”

  Jasper stared at her. “How can you choose him over me?”

  Jane was sick of men thinking they could give her ultimatums. “I’ve been standing here listening to you try to justify your crimes and talk about Andrew as if he’s an aberration, but it’s you I’m most ashamed of.”

  He huffed a disgusted laugh. “You’re judging me?”

  “You went along with Oslo because you wanted power and money and the private jets and another Porsche and the only way you could take control was to get Father out of the way. That makes you worse than all of us combined. At least we did it because it was something that we believed in. You did it for greed.”

  Jasper walked toward the door. Jane thought he was going to leave, but instead he closed the curtain across the glass. The cop lifted his chin to make sure everything was okay. Jasper waved him off again.

  He turned around. He smoothed down his tie. He told Jane, “You don’t understand how this works.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Everything you said is true. Father’s academic bullshit was jeopardizing our valuation on the Stock Exchange. We were going to lose millions. Our investors wanted him to go, but he was refusing.”

  “So you thought the dye packs would do the trick.”

  “There’s no trick to this, Jinx. These are very, very wealthy men we’re dealing with. They will be very pissed off if they lose their money because of a spoiled little bitch who can’t keep her mouth shut.”

  “I’m going to prison, Jasper.” Hearing the words out loud didn’t scare her as much as she thought they would. “I’m going to tell the FBI everything we did. I don’t care about the collateral damage. The only way to atone for our atrocities is to stand up and tell the truth.”

  “Are you really so stupid that you think they can’t kill us in prison?”

  “They?”

  “The investors.” He looked at her as if she was a stubborn child to be dealt with. “I know too much. It’s not just the fraud. You have no idea what kind of crooked shit Father was doing to inflate the numbers. I won’t make it to lock-up, Jinx. They can’t risk me making a deal to save my ass. They’ll kill me, and then they’ll kill you.”

  “They’re wealthy men, not thugs.”

  “We are wealthy, Jinx. Look at what Father did to Robert Juneau. Look at what all three of us did to him.” He lowered his voice. “Do you really think we’re the only family in the world that is capable of conspiring to murder our enemies in cold blood?”

  He was hovering over her.

  Jane stood up to make him back away.

  He said, “You will be signing your death warrant if you say one word against them.” He jabbed his finger into her chest. “They’ll chase you down and put a bullet in your head.”

  Jane’s hand fluttered to her stomach.

  Trade him.

  “I’m not fucking around,” Jasper said.

  “Do you think I am? It’s not just me I have to think about.”

  Jasper glanced down at her stomach. He had figured it out, too. “That’s why you need to carefully consider what you’re doing. They don’t have daycare in prison.”

  Trade all of them.

  He said, “These men, they’ve got long fucking memories. If you go against them—”

  “What time is it?”

  “What?”

  She turned his hand so she could see his watch: 3:09 a.m. “Is this Chicago time?”

  “You know I always change it when I land.”

  She dropped his hand. “You need to go home, Jasper. I never want to see you again.”

  He looked stunned.

  “Live your corrupt life. Fuck over whoever you want. Keep your dangerous men happy, but remember I have those papers, and I can blow up your life, and their lives, anytime I please.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “What I do is no longer your business. I don’t need you to save me. I’m saving myself.”

  He laughed, then he saw she was serious. “I hope you’re right, Jinx, because if any of your shit blows back on me, I will not hesitate to tell them how to find you. You made your choice.”

  “You’re damn right I did,” Jane told him. “And if anybody comes looking for me, I’ll use those papers to make sure you go down right beside me.”

  Jane pulled back the privacy curtain. She slid open the glass door.

  The cop had already turned around. His hand was on his gun.

  She told him, “Tell the FBI they’ve got less than three hours to offer me a deal or there’s going to be a massive explosion in New York City.”

  August 26, 2018

  15

  Andy felt the tip of her finger slip through the hole in her skin.

  She had been shot.

  She leaned her head back against the wall. She sucked in air through her teeth and tried not to pass out.

  Edwin Van Wees was on the floor of his office. Broken glass was scatt
ered around his body. Pieces of paper. Blood. The MacBook that Andy had used to find out about her mother.

  Laura.

  Andy reached out, her fingers brushing the edge of the burner phone. The screen was cracked. She closed her eyes, concentrated on listening. Was that her mother’s voice? Was she still on the phone?

  A woman’s scream came from the other side of the house.

  Andy’s heart stopped.

  The second scream was louder, abruptly cut off by a loud smack.

  Andy clamped her jaw shut so she would not scream, too.

  Clara.

  Andy couldn’t stay frozen this time. She had to do something. Her legs shook as she tried to push herself up against the wall. The pain almost ripped her open. She had to hunch over to stop the cramping. Blood dribbled from the bullet hole in her side. Andy’s legs shook as she tried to move forward. This was her fault. All of it. Laura had warned her to be careful and still, Andy had led them here.

  They.

  To kill Edwin. To kill Clara.

  Andy’s shoulder slid along the wall as she tried to find Clara, to give herself up, to stop this awful mess she had made. Her feet got caught up on the rug. Pain sliced into her side. Her head bumped against the photographs that lined the hallway. She had to stop to catch her breath. Her eyes kept going in and out of focus. She stared at the pictures on the wall. Different frames, different poses, some color, some black and white. Clara and Edwin with two women around Andy’s age. A few snapshots of the women when they were younger, in high school, in kindergarten, and then—

  Toddler Andy in the snow.

  Andy felt numb as she stared at the image of her younger self.

  Was it Edwin’s hand she had been holding? The adjacent photo showed baby Andy sitting in Clara and Edwin’s lap. Laura had cut Andy out of their lives and superimposed her onto the stock photo of the fake Randall grandparents.

  “Nice, right?”

  Andy turned her head. She had been expecting to find Mike, but it was a woman’s voice. A woman she knew all too well.

  Paula Kunde stood at the end of the hallway.

  She pointed a familiar-looking revolver at Andy. “Thanks for leaving this for me in your car. Did you rub off the serial number, or was that Mommy?”

  Andy didn’t answer. She couldn’t catch her breath.

  “You’re hyperventilating,” Paula said. “Pick up the phone.”

  Andy turned her head. The burner phone was on the floor behind her. In the stillness, she could hear her mother wailing.

  “Jesus.” Paula stomped down the hall, scooped up the phone and held it to her ear. “Shut up, Dumb Bitch.”

  Laura didn’t shut up. Her tinny voice was vibrating with rage.

  Paula turned on the speakerphone.

  “. . . touch a fucking hair on her—”

  “She’s dying.” Paula smiled at Laura’s abrupt silence. She held the phone under Andy’s chin. “Tell her, sweetheart.”

  Andy clutched her hand to her side. She could feel the blood seeping out of her.

  “Andrea?” Laura said. “Please, talk to—”

  “Mom . . .”

  “Oh, my darling,” Laura cried. “Are you okay?”

  Andy broke down, a strangled cry coming from deep inside her body. “Mom—”

  “What happened? Please—oh, God, please tell me you’re okay!”

  “I—” Andy didn’t know if she could get the words out. “I was shot. She shot me in the—”

  “That’s enough.” Paula raised the gun and Andy went silent. She told Laura, “You know what I want, Dumb Bitch.”

  “Edwin—”

  “Is dead.” Paula raised her eyebrows at Andy, as if this was a game.

  “You stupid fucking idiot,” Laura hissed. “He’s the only one who knows—”

  “Shut up with your bullshit,” Paula said. “You know where it is. How much time do you need?”

  “I can—” Laura stopped. “Two days.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Paula grinned at Andy. “Maybe your kid will go into shock before she bleeds out.”

  “You fucking cunt.”

  Andy was rattled by the hateful words. She had never heard her mother like this.

  Laura said, “I will slice open your fucking throat if you hurt my daughter. Do you understand me?”

  “You dumb bitch,” Paula said. “I’m hurting her right now.”

  Andy saw a flash.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  Andy was aware that something was wrong even before she opened her eyes. There was not a moment where it all came back to her, because she had never for a moment forgotten what had happened.

  She had been shot. She was inside the trunk of a car. Her hands and feet were bound by some configuration of handcuffs. A towel was duct-taped around her waist to stanch the bleeding. The gag in her mouth had a rubber ball that made it hard for her to breathe because her nose was filled with blood from being pistol-whipped into unconsciousness.

  As with everything else, Andy could recall the blows from the revolver. She hadn’t really blacked out. She had felt more as if she’d been caught between the edge of sleep and wakefulness. When Andy was in art school, she had craved that stasis because it was where she found her best ideas. Her mind seemingly blank but still working through the various shades of black and white she would elicit from her pencil.

  Did she have a concussion?

  She should’ve been panicked, but the panic had gurgled back down like water circling a drain. An hour ago? Two hours? Now, her only overriding feeling was intense discomfort. Her lip was split. Her cheek felt bruised. Her eye was swollen. Her hands were numb. Her wrists had fallen asleep. If she lay the right way, if she kept her spine bent, if her breathing remained shallow, the burning in her side was manageable.

  The guilt was another matter.

  In her head, Andy kept playing back what happened inside the farmhouse, trying to identify the point at which everything had gone wrong. Edwin had told her to leave. Could Andy have left before the front of his shirt was ripped open by the bullets riddling his back?

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Click-click-click-click.

  The revolver’s cylinder spinning.

  Andy tried to analyze Clara’s two different screams, the startled quality of the first one, the smack that had cut off the second one. Not a hand slapping or a fist punching. Paula had struck Andy with the revolver. Had Clara suffered a similar fate? Had she awoken dazed in her own kitchen, walked down the hallway and found Edwin lying dead?

  Or had she never opened her eyes again?

  Andy cried out as the car hit a bump in the road.

  Paula slowed for a turn. Andy felt the change in speed, the pull of gravity. The glow of the brake lights filled the darkness. Andy saw the stub of the emergency trunk release that Paula had cut off so that Andy could not escape.

  They were in a rental car with Texas plates. Andy had seen as much when she’d been shoved into the trunk. Paula couldn’t fly with the gun. She must have driven from Austin, the same as Andy, but Andy had been checking sporadically for Mike. Which meant that Paula had known exactly where Andy would eventually end up. She had played right into the bitch’s hands.

  Andy tasted bile in her throat.

  Why hadn’t she listened to her mother?

  The car slowed again, but this time came to a full stop.

  Paula had stopped once before. Twenty minutes ago? Thirty? Andy wasn’t sure. She had tried to keep count, but her eyes kept closing and she’d end up having to jerk herself awake and start all over again.

  Was she dying?

  Her brain felt weirdly indifferent to everything that was happening. She was terrified, but her heart was not pounding, her hands were not sweating. She was hurting, but she wasn’t hyperventilating or crying or begging for it to stop.

  Was she in shock?

  Andy heard the clicking of a turn signal.

  The c
ar wheels bumped onto a gravel road.

  She tried not to remember all the horror movies that started with a car driving down a gravel road to a deserted campsite or an abandoned shack.

  “No.” She said the word aloud into the darkness of the trunk. She would not let her panic ramp up again, because it would only make her blind to any opportunities of escape. Andy was being held hostage. Laura had something that Paula wanted. Paula would not kill Andy until she got that thing.

  Right?

  The brakes whined as the car stopped again. This time, the engine turned off. The driver side door opened, then closed.

  Andy waited for the trunk to open. She had gone through all kinds of scenarios in her head of what she was going to do when she saw Paula again, primary among them to raise her feet and kick the bitch in the face. The problem was, you needed stomach muscles to raise your feet, and Andy could barely breathe without feeling like a blow torch was blazing open her side.

  She let her head rest on the floor of the trunk. She listened for sounds. All she could hear was the engine block cooling.

  Click-click-click-click.

  Like the cylinder spinning in the gun, but slower.

  Andy started counting to give herself something to do. Being stuck in the Reliant, then Mike’s truck, for so many hours had made her the type of person who said things out loud just to break the monotony.

  “One,” she mumbled. “Two . . . three . . .”

  She was at nine hundred and eight-five when the trunk finally opened.

  Andy blinked. It was dark outside, no moon in the sky. The only light came from the stairwell across from the open trunk. She had no idea where they were, except for another shitty motel in another shitty town.

  “Look at me.” Paula jammed the revolver underneath Andy’s chin. “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll shoot you again. All right?”

  Andy nodded.

  Paula tucked the gun into the waist of her jeans. She worked the keys into the handcuffs. Andy groaned with relief when her arms and legs were finally released. She clawed at the ball gag. The pink leather straps snapped in the back. It looked like something from a 50 Shades of Grey catalog.

  Paula had the revolver out again. She glanced around the parking lot. “Get out and keep your mouth shut.”