Hopewell shoved him back and stepped inside, then slammed the door. The revolver made a heavy weight in his coat pocket. He put his hand in the pocket and clasped it tightly. “You tell me the truth, boy. Ain’t no use tryin’ to lie. You went over to Lily’s place today, didn’t you?”
“Goddammit, why do you always talk like she owns it? It’s ours. Yours and mine.”
“It’s
mine
. Your name ain’t on no deed. Never have been. And you got no right to go there.” He stepped toward Joe. “You killed all her stock, didn’t you? It was you.”
Joe’s gaze shifted. He shrugged. “I warned you. You ain’t gonna tell nobody.”
“You’re coming with me, boy. I’m taking you over to the sheriff.”
Joe stared at him. The sly, lax expression vanished. “It’s too late to back out on that Colebrook thing, old man. You want me to make killin’ a few chickens and a hog look like a Sunday school lesson? Hell, I will.”
“We aren’t dealin’ with Artemas Colebrook. I was wrong—it was the other one—his brother, James. Artemas ain’t goin’ to hide behind a lawyer and money He’ll come right into the open—and then he’ll chew you up and spit you out, boy.”
Joe’s stunned expression became a mask of fury. “You talked. You told—you told somebody. You told
her
, didn’t you? Lily. And she’ll go to him with it, and he’ll screw me over. But he’ll get you, too, old fool. Nobody cares about you.”
“You’re wrong. Even if you weren’t, I’m through with you. Now, be a man. Get your stuff together and come with me. You been drinkin’, you stole from me, you did that god-awful thing at Lily’s. You never even tried to live up to your parole. You never meant to.”
Joe shoved him. Spit flew from his lips. “I was goin’ to have protection! I was goin’ to have money! You set it up for me, and then you took it away!”
“You never earned nothing by honest work in your life. You can’t claim what nobody owes you.”
Joe raised a fist. Hopewell stepped back and drew the gun from his pocket. Pointing it at his son’s chest, he said, “Get your stuff together. Ill shoot you if I have to.”
Joe gaped at him. His fist dropped. He looked beaten. He went to the rumpled bed and sank down on the foot of it, his hands lying limp on his thighs. “Please don’t send me back to prison, Daddy.”
Hopewell thought his heart would shrivel and disappear from the misery. He knew it was foolish to let Joe get to him, but his hand wavered a little. Tightening his grip on the revolver, he said between clenched teeth, “Don’t call me Daddy and sound pitiful.”
“You don’t know what it was like in there.” Joe’s mouth trembled. “If you got to know why I’m so desperate … why—oh, I never wanted you to know, Daddy.”
“What? Tell me.”
“Don’t send me back. I … I got raped in there, Daddy. They ganged up on me. It happened a lot.”
The sick, slow horror pressed on Hopewell’s lungs. He lowered the gun and stood in numb silence. “Son. Oh, Son.”
“I got nothing now, Daddy. Nothing but bad memories. Please, don’t you turn against me.”
Hopewell slipped the gun back into his coat. “You got to leave this town, boy. Just leave. And don’t come back. That’s the best I can do for you.”
Joe sighed and got to his feet. Moving leadenly, he gathered clothes that were scattered around the room and put them in his canvas tote bag. He zipped his jeans and pulled his jacket on. Then he opened the drawer of the cabinet beside the bed and retrieved the pistol he’d taken from Hopewell. “Not that gun,” Hopewell said. “You give that back to me. It’ll only cause trouble for you, boy.”
Joe carried it over, but stopped just out of reach. The hard amusement snapped back into his eyes. He tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, old man.” He vaulted forward.
His fist slammed into Hopewell’s jaw. Hopewell slumped to the floor. Blackness spread like spilled ink over his vision. He tried to wipe it away with one hand. Dimly he realized Joe had knelt beside him. Joe’s breath and whisper were hot in his ear. “Colebrook won’t let me just disappear, and you know it. My life’s ruined for good this time, and you helped him do it. You know what else? I might as well go out in a blaze of glory. Make a name for myself. You be proud of your famous son now, you hear? I’m gonna go kill an important man.”
Hopewell moaned bitterly and tried to push himself upright. Joe hit him in the temple. The blackness deepened, and took over.
Thirty-two
Lily’s shoulders ached with the tension. She stared at the portable phone in Little Sis’s hands. Little Sis stood in the parlor doorway, clutching the phone as if it might explode if she used it. Aunt Maude stood up impatiently. Big Sis hunched forward, watching.
“You want me to call?” Maude said.
Little Sis shook her head. Looking defeated, she punched the number in and slowly brought the phone to her ear. “Bertie? It’s Sissy. Bertie, has the sheriff gotten a call from Hopewell Estes tonight?” Little Sis was silent, listening. Shock and fear pulled fine lines together between her brows. “Thank you, Bertie,” she whispered, and dropped the phone on the floor. “Hopewell never called the sheriff.”
Lily took a deep breath. The inevitable sank into her bones. There was no way around it. “I’m going to find Joe,” she said, and walked out.
By the time she reached the street, Aunt Maude and Little Sis caught up with her. Big Sis tottered on the porch, rapping her cane on the snowy railing, while she glared at the slick porch steps. “I’m not about to be left behind!” she called.
Lily jerked the truck’s door open. Little Sis grabbed her
arm. “Let’s wait. Maybe Hopewell just hasn’t made up his mind yet. Oh, that fool, that dear old fool—”
“Don’t you dare leave,” Aunt Maude commanded, pushing all her considerable girth between Lily and the cab. “We’ll go call the sheriff back and get him to take care of it.”
“You call him,” Lily told her. “But I can’t stay here and do nothing.”
Aunt Maude leveled a hard gaze at her. “You’re avoiding the thing you don’t want to do. You’ve got to go to Artemas and tell him about his brother. It’ll come out sooner or later, Lily. Don’t let him find out from somebody else.”
Lily made a sound of fury and despair. “I can’t give up. I’m not going to throw away everything he loves on the chance that Joe Estes can’t be kept from talking.”
Little Sis tugged at her fiercely. “You can’t reason with Joe! You’ve got nothing to bribe him with either.”
“Yes, I have.” Lily stuck out her left hand, fingers splayed. The diamonds and sapphires in Grandmother Colebrook’s magnificent ring glittered in the light of a street lamp. Lily choked at the ethereal promise, the gift that represented so much sacrifice and devotion. But it was an empty symbol unless it saved them.
Her teeth clenched, she said softly, “If this is enough to make him keep his mouth shut and leave town, then I’ll give it to him without a backward glance.”
Maude asked darkly, “And if it’s not enough?”
Lily met her eyes. “One way or another, I’m going to stop Joe.”
The flash of headlights turning down the street made them all freeze. Little Sis shielded her eyes and cried. “It’s Hopewell’s old truck! It’s him! Thank God!”
She broke away and ran to the truck as it slid to a stop in the slush along the curb. But as she put her hands on the door handle the door swung open, almost knocking her down.
Joe leaped out and snatched her by one arm. Little Sis gasped in pain as he wrenched it behind her back. Lily
shoved past Aunt Maude, reaching into the cab of her truck and slamming the seat forward. She had her hands on the shotgun when Joe yelled, “I’ll kill her! Get out of that truck, or I’ll blow her damned brains out!”
Lily halted, her fingers tingling on the shotgun’s stock. Beside her, Aunt Maude was cursing and shaking the truck’s open door with both hands, her rage and fear trapped into futile gestures.
Joe had the muzzle of a pistol jammed into the hollow below Little Sis’s ear. He glanced at Big Sis on the porch and yelled, “You keep still, too, old lady!” His deadly gaze flicked back to Lily and Aunt Maude. “I need a little help with something I gotta do. Looks like I’ll get more than I expected. I ain’t leaving any of you bitches here to call and warn everybody.”
He jerked his head toward his truck. “Come on. All of you. I mean it. I’ll pull this trigger. Come on.”
Little Sis struggled and twisted toward the house. “Run!” she yelled to Big Sis. “Call the sheriff!”
Joe shook her and gave a harsh shout of laughter. “Why don’t you tell her to throw down her cane and sprint like a rabbit?” His mouth curled sarcastically. “Old lady,” he yelled to Big Sis, “you hobble this way as fast as you can, ’cause if you don’t, I’ll kill, everybody and come after you next.”
“Dead’s dead,” Big Sis retorted, but her voice shook. “If you’re going to shoot anyway, what difference does it make where you do it?”
“I don’t want to kill none of you. Y’all can get out of this alive, but you better do what I say. We’ve got a little trip to take.”
Lily moved slowly around Aunt Maude, her hands knotted by her sides. “I’ll go with you. You don’t need the others.”
“Hell, yes, I do. You always was crazy. You’d just as soon drive us both into a tree, if it was just you and me.” He dragged Little Sis toward his father’s truck. “Get in.” He shoved her into the cab and kept the pistol pointed at her.
“Come on, Lily. Goddammit. You other two get in the back.”
Big Sis held the railing of the porch steps and descended with choppy, fast steps. Aunt Maude walked forward helplessly. Lily stood in the middle of the street, trying to form a plan, seeing nothing but the lethal set of Joe’s flat, thin lips. “Where’s your father?” she asked.
Joe’s eyes flickered without regret. “Don’t talk to me about my old man, you thievin’ cunt. You made him think you was more important to him than me. He got what he deserved. Everybody’s gonna get what they deserve tonight.”
Hopewell plowed his old Chevy into the curb in front of Maude’s house. He staggered through the empty rooms, disoriented, his head full of pain, the scent of dried blood rising from his lips, his vision blurring. He kept trying to remember what Joe had said at the last. Where had Joe gone?
When he saw the phone on the floor, he sank to one knee, dizzy, fighting to remain conscious. Images refused to form a complete picture. The door of Lily’s truck, standing open! The door of Maude’s house too. The empty rooms. The phone.
He grabbed it and tried to focus on the console. Call the sheriff. But the blackness stained his sight again.
“Hello?” someone called from the front hall. A man’s voice, deep and solemn, unfamiliar. “Is anyone there?”
“Here! Here,” Hopewell gasped. “Help me.” He sagged, turned limply toward the parlor door, and squinted. A tall, dark-haired man appeared in the door—angel or devil, a stranger in clothes like the men’s magazines said rich people wore when they relaxed. The man came to him, limping a little, a long cloth coat flinging back from the bad leg, bending over him, grasping his chin. Hopewell recoiled.
James Colebrook
.
“What’s going on here? I came to see Lily.” Colebrook stared at his face. “You’re Hopewell Estes, aren’t you? Who did this to you?”
Hopewell swayed and threw up a hand to ward him off. “Hurt her. You’ll hurt her. Hurt me. Afraid—”
Colebrook hurriedly pulled him to his feet and held him steady with a brutal grip. “
Talk to me
. Where are Lily and the others?”
He was the enemy. Hopewell couldn’t trust him. But what if—what if Joe had been here?
I’m going to kill me an important man
. Hopewell moaned. “Joe’s took ’em, somehow! And I know where he’s gone! He’s gone to kill your brother!”
“Stop the truck.” Joe’s voice cut through Lily’s frayed concentration. She stepped on the brake. Beside her, Little Sis shivered. Joe sat on the far side of the seat, with the gun jabbed into Little Sis’s side.
They were on the road to the estate. Nothing but snow-drenched forest stretched ahead and behind, a ghostly tunnel. Joe cranked the window down and yelled over his shoulder, “
Get out.
”
Lily glanced back into the bed, where Aunt Maude struggled to help Big Sis slide toward the lowered tailgate. She met Joe’s cruel stare behind Little Sis’s head. “They ain’t gonna cause any trouble out here in the middle of nowhere,” he said lightly. “You can thank me for lettin’ ’em go.”
“They’ll freeze. I’m giving them my jacket,” Lily told him. Her hard tone sullied Joe’s control. Watching him tensely, she shrugged her quilted jacket off, opened her door, and held it out. Aunt Maude, breathing heavily, helped Big Sis along the truck’s side. “We’ll be all right,” she said, taking the jacket. “Dear God, do whatever he says, Lily.”
“Until you get the upper edge,” Big Sis interjected, craning her head to look in the dark cab. “Then kill him. Kill him and spit on his dead face.” Her voice broke. “Sissy, Sissy, I love you,” she called.
“We’ll have a fine story to tell around the fire, when this is done,” Little Sis answered, staring straight ahead, afraid even to turn her head toward them.
Joe grunted. “Let’s go. Shut the damned door.”
Lily gave Aunt Maude and Big Sis a shamed look. Aunt Maude patted her arm. “Go on. You can’t do any different.”
Lily closed the door and drove on slowly, stalling for time. “Why are we going this way?”
“I got business down here.”
“You had business at my place earlier today, didn’t you?”
He laughed softly, the sound creeping over her skin. “You know, they came right up to me. They was as tame as pets.”
She gripped the steering wheel until her hands ached. “I expect you knew how to get in and out through the woods without any of the estate’s guards catching you on my road.”
“Hell, yes. I hunted those woods for years.” He laughed again. “Shot me a nosy little shit of a girl once too. Grew dope in the hollows. Had it good.” His laugh became a low hiss. “Until Artemas Colebrook found out. Goddamn him. I been cheated out of my rights. Cheated by him. Cheated by my old man too, ’cause he turned on me for your sake. And for
yours
,” Joe added, leaning toward Little Sis and whispering the words near her face.