Close to Home

by Nolon King

  Oh shit.

  She was trying to manipulate Dane, talking to him like he was one of her patients. And that was fine for a therapy session, but didn’t she care that the wrong words would earn her a bullet?

  Dane turned to Selena. “Tell me what you love about him.”

  She looked trapped. Every answer was a guaranteed wrong for someone.

  “I love Adam’s mind.”

  “What about his mind? Be specific.”

  Selena stuttered, then managed, “I … I love his imagination. It’s probably a lot like yours.”

  Dane scowled and shook his head. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not a child.”

  “I’m telling you what you already know. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you know violence gets me hot.”

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Of course you do,” Selena said. “Why wouldn’t you? But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.”

  Dane’s scowl turned to confusion. Adam was also perplexed. What was she up to?

  “You asked what I loved about Adam for a reason,” she continued. “You really want to know what I love about my husband that I could also love about you, or what you might be missing that he has. Isn’t that right, Dane?”

  To Adam’s surprise, the boy nodded.

  “I love his fantasies, and I love that he confesses them to me. The release is more than sexual. Isn’t it, Adam?”

  Selena looked to him with pleading eyes. Go with it.

  “Yes,” Adam admitted, hating to reveal even the smallest part of himself to this little shit who was trying to steal his wife. “I can’t live without it.”

  “But you’ve been living without that release,” she said to Dane. “You don’t have to. Tell me about your imaginings. I want to hear them.”

  Adam didn’t want to hear this, but he couldn’t plug his ears any more than he could close his eyes and miss the moment when Dane’s attention finally slipped. When Adam’s moment to disarm him would come.

  And come it would.

  Dane exhaled and a weight seemed to leave him. Smiling, he said, “I think about the ripple effect. It isn’t just the deaths that delight me, although they absolutely do.” He smiled wider. “I think about the misery those deaths leave behind. Echoes and stains … right, Selena? Isn’t that what you called them? Death is only the end if you assume it’s about you.”

  Adam had monstrous thoughts, but he wasn’t a monster. He’d lived with the guilt and the horror of who he might be ever since the first fantasies intruded on his teenage mind. He’d spent most of his life afraid that he was a demon walking the earth in its human shell, waiting for the devil to one day maybe set him free.

  But the fiend standing before him seemed to have no guilt at all. He embraced his evil. Relished the darkness.

  He peered at Adam and asked, “Is death only about you?”

  “No.” Adam shook his head, not knowing if that was right. Because everything felt so very, terribly wrong.

  Dane turned back to Selena. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “Okay Dane,” she said. “You win.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  You win.

  That’s what he needed to hear, and so that’s what Selena said.

  Every second she kept Dane talking was a second closer to finding a way out of this.

  Adam, thank everything that was holy, had followed her lead. Trusted her to understand what Dane was thinking and navigate the conversation toward a chance for escape.

  She loved him.

  “You win,” she repeated, hoping he would understand what she was about to do.

  “What do you mean?” Dane asked.

  He was smart enough to step around her trap, if he saw it, but infatuation could be even blinder than love. She could make him dance, if Adam steered clear of the conversation.

  “Exactly what I said: You win. You’re more of a man than my husband ever was, because as good as he was at imagining, he’s never followed through.”

  She licked her lips, took a small step toward Dane, praying he wouldn’t shoot her.

  “Do you know he’s been talking about getting a show on TV for over ten years? And talking about making his first kill for more than twenty?”

  Another step, this time with a deliberate sway of her hips.

  “Not you. You’re a man of action, Dane.” A smirk twisted his lips.

  This was it. So she went in for the kill.

  “But you also fucked things up for me. Because thanks to these killings my career is in jeopardy.” She took a chance, raising her voice and putting one hand on her hip, playing both mother and temptress. “How did you think that would go over? I know you’re not that fucking stupid!”

  Dane flinched. “I—”

  “Why couldn’t you have just come to me? Confessed your feelings?”

  Selena softened her voice as she shot a disparaging look toward Adam. Was he truly jealous or was he acting for Dane’s sake? She couldn’t tell. She focused on the boy.

  “You already knew he wasn’t working for me. You could see it every time he interrupted us talking.”

  A knowing look from Dane.

  He wanted to believe it, even though his brain was telling him this was a trap.

  Selena let her expression swell with regret. “None of this had to happen.”

  For the first time, Dane looked uncertain.

  And in that moment, she dared hope that they were going to make it. That their family would make it. She glanced at Adam, not daring to give him more of a hint.

  He didn’t nod back, because Dane was watching him too. But Adam didn’t need to. Selena could tell from the set of his jaw that he understood. And her husband was ready.

  “There’s a way out of this, for all of us. It isn’t too late for us. For you and me, Dane.” She let the promise linger in the air before adding, “But I want to see my children first.”

  “I don’t believe you.” His gun wavered again.

  “Seriously, you can have her,” Adam said, sounding disgusted. “I want out.”

  He couldn’t afford to send her a signal, nor did he need to. This was his confessional voice. She had never heard it outside of her office. His way of saying, I got this.

  “You’re lying,” Dane said.

  “I’m not.” Adam shook his head. “The only thing that my wife and I agree on right now is that we both want to see our children safe. Think about it. When’s the last time you saw us being affectionate?”

  He wasn’t trying to hurt her, but that one felt like a blade between her ribs anyway.

  Their marriage really had been falling apart.

  Maybe now, in the midst of this disaster, they could find what they needed to stitch themselves back together.

  Adam said, “Tell me where the children are and you can have her.”

  “It’s too late. You both know what I did.” Dane shook his head and waved the gun. “What I’m doing now.”

  “It isn’t too late,” Selena assured him.

  “Finally.” Adam gave her a dirty look, and Selena did her best to look stricken, for Dane’s benefit. “Something we can agree on.”

  “I’m not going to prison.”

  Selena said, “You won’t have to. I can help with that.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “I promise I will,” she lied, adding exactly what Dane needed to hear. “Genius like yours should be protected. There’s only—”

  There was a clattering from somewhere outside.

  “What was that?” Dane thrust the gun closer to Selena, even though she clearly hadn’t made the noise.

  “I don’t know,” Selena said.

  He turned his weapon on Adam. “What did you do?”

  Adam shook his head and raised his hands. “I’ve been here talking to you this entire time.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Selena said in the voice she’d used when the boys were little and were waking from a nightm
are. Her Mommy’s here, everything is going to be all right voice. “Probably a bird or a raccoon.”

  “It was too loud for that,” Dane protested.

  She laughed and changed gears again. “How did you do it, Dane? Evading the police is easy enough, people do that all the time. But I didn’t see it and I know you. So—”

  “You didn’t see it because you didn’t notice me!”

  “Is that why you killed the girl?” Adam asked.

  “That was a present for you. So that you could see what it looks like to follow through and finally execute.”

  He laughed at his joke like a maniac, but he was using her language, and that was an excellent sign. It meant that he’d started buying into the assumptions she was using to frame their conversation.

  Dane circled the counter, coming around to Selena’s side.

  “Please, Dane.” It took everything she had to focus on his face instead of the barrel. “Put the gun down. You’re making me nervous.”

  He seemed to consider, then lowered his weapon. Another good sign.

  “Why did you kill the girl?” Selena asked.

  “I made your husband’s fantasy come true.”

  Selena hoped that Dane wouldn’t look over at Adam. Not now, when he was so close to the butcher block and all of those knives. She used everything she had to turn her face into something that resembled exhilaration, or maybe arousal. Hard to tell with all this adrenaline screaming through her blood.

  “What did you do?” she asked, making sure that it sounded like a riveted query rather than an accusation.

  “I—”

  Adam drew a blade from the butcher block and charged.

  Dane heard him coming, spun around, and aimed his gun at Adam’s heart.

  No!

  Adam dove behind the counter.

  Selena tackled Dane, ramming her right shoulder into the small of his back and losing her balance as he fell forward onto the tile floor.

  Dane’s gun went off, so loud that Selena panicked for a moment, instinctively clapping her hands over her ears. Before she could recover, Dane shoved her off and scrambled to his feet. He kicked her hard in the stomach, growling, “Stay down!”

  Behind him, Adam vaulted over the counter, the blade of Selena’s favorite Santoku glinting silver as it arced down toward Dane’s back.

  He whirled, barely dodging the knife, bringing the gun up again to shoot at Adam, who was forced to duck behind the counter again.

  The Santoku clattered to the floor behind Dane, too far for Selena to reach before the kid pulled the trigger.

  So she reached for his ankle, hoping to trip him, but the hem of Dane’s jeans slipped from between her fingers as he retreated. He spun back around and shot her.

  Pain exploded in her shoulder. Selena screamed, curling into a ball as the world seemed to slow all around her. Ears ringing. Hot blood surging out with every pound of her hammering heart. Where was Adam? Hiding behind the counter. And now that she could barely move, there was nothing to distract Dane from chasing him into the open and shooting him too.

  Then the boys. If Dane hadn’t killed them already.

  “Come out,” she heard him say, as if from a distance. “Don’t you want to watch your wife bleed out?”

  “Fuck you,” Adam replied.

  Good. She needed him to live. Someone had to save the rest of their family from this asshole.

  Selena’s shoulder was on fire, but the rest of her felt icy. Like all the heat in her body was draining out through the hole where the bullet had entered her.

  “Suit yourself.” Dane came back into view, standing over her. Still clutching that damn gun. Still wearing that ugly leer. “This is really more your thing than mine, though. All that blood. This is your last chance to share a boner with her.”

  Adam crawled out from around the far corner of the counter. Scrambled over to Selena. Said something she couldn’t hear as he tore off his t-shirt and pressed it hard enough against her shoulder to make her scream again. Something hot and wet dripped on her face as he said no over and over again.

  If it’d been Adam bleeding out, she would’ve been cursing every atom in Dane’s body, wishing him to hell, except hell wasn’t awful enough for someone like him.

  And what did that make her? Someone who’d spent her life fascinated by men like Dane. Yes, she’d helped stop several of them from killing more people. She’d justified her career as a service to society. But deep down, she’d also admired them for their cunning resourcefulness and their ability to stay a step ahead of everyone else.

  She’d never hated herself more.

  “Soon as she dies, I’m going to kill you,” Dane promised Adam. “Then Levi. Then Corban. No, then Kari. I’ll make Corban watch her die before I kill him. That’s more romantic.”

  Adam bellowed and lunged for Dane’s knees. Another shot sounded, and Dane went down, Adam clinging to his shins in a bear hug.

  Please please please tell me he missed. Levi and Corban needed at least one parent to take care of them until they could survive on their own.

  Adam pushed himself up on all fours, grabbed the knife he’d dropped earlier and buried it in Dane’s chest.

  Dane wailed like a toddler with a stubbed toe. Adam punched him, once, twice. He stopped making noise.

  Detective Sharpe entered the kitchen, gun drawn. Soon as he saw Selena, he pulled his cell out and called for an ambulance. Then he knelt beside her, grabbed the bloody shirt Adam had dropped, and shoved it against her shoulder.

  She screamed.

  The room went blurry. Her body was frozen, and there was nothing she could do.

  Except make sure that the blame for all this landed squarely where it belonged. On Dane.

  “Phone,” she whispered as the darkness swallowed her whole.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Adam stood as a doctor in blood-stained scrubs entered the waiting room. He looked sweaty and exhausted. It was hard not to see both despair and relief in his expression. Probably because that was all Adam had been feeling for the past few hours while waiting for Selena’s surgery to be over.

  Levi and Corban jumped up too, rushing to meet the surgeon who’d been operating on Selena.

  “Is our mom okay?” Levi asked.

  “Can we see her?” Corban added.

  “Your mother is recovering, and the nurse will let you know when you can see her.” The doctor nodded at Adam. “Can I speak with you alone, sir?”

  Adam pulled a twenty out of his wallet and handed it to Corban. “Would you two please get me a coffee from the cafeteria?”

  “There’s a machine right over—”

  “I need cafeteria coffee.”

  Corban sighed and elbowed his brother. “I’m hungry anyway.”

  Once the boys were on their way to the elevator, Adam turned back to the doctor. “How bad is it?”

  “Your wife was extremely lucky.”

  Adam couldn’t help his exhale of disbelief.

  “The bullet nicked the brachial artery, but the internal bleeding was light. If the hole had been a millimeter to the left, she would’ve died in the ambulance.”

  “Will she be able to use her left arm?”

  “She’ll need reconstructive surgery and months of physical therapy, but yes.”

  The tightness in Adam’s chest loosened a little. “Can we see her? Just for a minute? I think the kids need to know she’s okay. They had quite a scare.”

  Who was he kidding? He needed to see her chest rise and fall, to touch her hand and feel its warmth, to hear Selena say his name. To prove to himself that Dane hadn’t won.

  “It’ll be an hour or so before she wakes up. The nurse will bring you back then.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  The man didn’t even say goodbye, he just marched back through the double doors, his lips pressed into a tight, thin line. Back to save the next dying person in the queue.

  He slumped back into his chair, weak with relie
f and ashamed that he couldn’t be stronger for his sons. The two had spent the last few hours huddled together in their chairs, whispering to each other. Adam hadn’t even tried talking to them. Maybe he should have, but how was he supposed to help them deal with the discovery that one of their best friends was a serial killer?

  He didn’t know how to deal with that himself.

  The boys were back much sooner than Adam expected — Levi carrying a cardboard coffee cup in each hand, Corban sipping from an enormous cup of soda and a paper bag that turned out to be filled with snack-sized bags of potato chips, mixed nuts, chocolate covered espresso beans, and bite-sized cookies.

  Corban tossed Adam a bag of cookies. “We need to talk.”

  They did. Adam braced himself.

  “When we heard the gunshots, we had no idea who Dane had shot,” Levi began. “But we realized—”

  “—we didn’t want it to be either one of you. You or Mom. And I’m sorry—”

  “—we’ve been such jerks—”

  “—for … for saying you weren’t my dad,” Corban finished.

  “And I’m sorry I told you to fuck off,” Levi added.

  “I’m sorry K—” Corban made a choking sound. “—sorry about the journals getting leaked.

  “If you want to put us on restriction until we’re thirty, we’ll understand.”

  Levi raised his chin, clearly being brave. “We won’t complain. We deserve it.”

  Relief hit him again, this time so hard that Adam was glad he was already sitting. He didn’t understand how it happened, but the boys had managed to rip out whatever wedge had been driving them apart this past year.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that needed fixing.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Adam said, gruffer than he meant to. His throat felt full of razor blades. Should happiness cut like this? “I haven’t been the father I should’ve been, not for a while. I’m not going to make any excuses, because you deserve better than that.”

  He’d been about to say more, apologize for being so broken, and for the pathological urges that had nearly ruined their lives. But before he could, Levi said, “I still can’t believe it was Dane. He fooled me. He fooled everyone.”