One Last Scream (41 page)

Whimpering, Stephanie clung to him. He couldn’t drop her out the window. It was too high for her, and she was terrified.

Suddenly, the kitchen door slammed.

George swiveled around. He skulked back to Jody’s bedroom doorway and glanced toward the kitchen again. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had just punched him in the gut.

He saw the young man holding Jody up by his back collar. Blood trickled from a gash on the corner of Jody’s forehead. He seemed dazed, barely able to stand. The young man pressed a gun to his ear.

George was paralyzed.

Even with those dark glasses on, it was obvious the man was staring right at him. “Hi, Daddy,” he said. “Look who was trying to run away. I think I heard his skull crack when I hit the little bastard.” He smirked. “So, do I get a reward for finding him?”

A flat-edged shovel was wedged under the handle of the fallout shelter door.

That big, heavy door muffled Amelia’s voice. “Who’s out there? Karen? Please, somebody…”

With her hands tied behind her, Karen stood in the Faradays’ cold, clammy cellar. Among the clutter, there was a washer and dryer pushed against the wall, a bicycle, and some boating equipment. Karen noticed a drain in the middle of the concrete floor, and cobwebs on the exposed pipes running along the low ceiling.

Annabelle kicked the shovel aside, and it hit the floor with a loud clang. On the other side of the door, Amelia suddenly fell silent.

Karen felt woozy from the blow to her head earlier, but she fought the nausea and dizziness. She furtively pulled at the cord around her wrists while Annabelle was busy with the door. The hinges groaned as she opened it.

Amelia stood by a cot in the grimy little room. Her hair had been cut in a short shag style identical to her sister’s. Despite the blanket wrapped around her, she was trembling. She wore the same T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms she’d had on last night. In her hand, she held a jagged piece of glass. Dumbstruck, she stared at Annabelle.

For a moment, neither one said a thing.

“Are you going to pretend you don’t know me?” Annabelle asked finally.

Amelia slowly shook her head. Clearly, she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. She didn’t move.

Karen kept tugging at the cord around her wrists. The skin there started to chafe and burn.

“Tell her who I am, Karen!” Annabelle barked. She suddenly grabbed Karen’s arm and jerked her forward.

“Amelia…. honey, this is your twin sister, Annabelle,” she said carefully. “You haven’t seen her since you were four, not since before the Faradays adopted you. Do you—do you recall telling me that you often talked into the mirror when you were a little girl? You—”

“You have to remember me,” Annabelle cut in, her voice choked with emotion. “Just look at me, Amelia. I’m your sister, your
real
sister. Those others, they weren’t your real family.”

Amelia stared at her. “My God,
you
killed them, didn’t you?” she whispered.

Annabelle let go of Karen’s arm. “I did it to bring us closer together,” she said. “You needed to feel what it’s like to have absolutely no one. That’s what happened to me after you left, after you forgot about me. You need to feel that
firsthand
, so we can be the same again.”

Karen edged back from her again. She kept pulling at the binding around her wrists. She felt it loosening.

“You killed my parents,” Amelia whispered, squinting at her twin, “and Collin and Aunt Ina….” She still had the piece of glass in her shaky grasp, as if ready to strike. “I
felt
it when you killed them. I thought it was me….”

“I’m closer to you than any of them ever were,” Annabelle said. “And we can be sisters again, Amelia. We’ll be there for each other. You really don’t have a choice. There’s no one left.”

“My God,” Amelia whispered, tears in her eyes. “You shot Shane, too. In a boat. I saw it. I thought it was a nightmare. Oh, Jesus, he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Annabelle nodded. “I had to. It makes us closer. My boyfriend will die tonight, too. It’s one more thing we’ll share. We don’t need them if we have each other. Don’t you see?”

Suddenly, she grabbed Karen again, and yanked her toward the fallout shelter doorway. Karen stumbled onto the dirty, concrete floor. Annabelle pulled her up by her hair.

“Stop that!” Amelia cried. “Stop hurting her!”

“Karen, make her understand!”

Trembling, she knelt in the doorway. She frantically tugged at the cord around her wrist. She could almost squeeze her hand past the knot. “Your sister wants you to start someplace new with her. She killed that police detective. The police think you did it. They’ll probably blame you for my death, too. Annabelle’s making it so you have no one else to turn to except her.”

Annabelle rolled back her sleeve and pressed the revolver to Karen’s head. “And I’ll look after you, Amelia, I promise,” she said. “I’ve forgiven you for turning your back on me. You’ll forgive me, too. You’ll have to. I’m the only family or friend you have left.”

Tears streaming down her face, Amelia stared at her twin sister. “That mark on the back of your wrist,” she murmured. “I felt it when that happened. Someone burned you….”

“Our father put a lit cigar out on me. You felt it, too?”

Amelia nodded.

“See?” Annabelle said, with a tiny smile. “We feel each other’s pain.”

Karen tried not to squirm as the cord scraped a layer of skin off her knuckles. Still, at last her hands were free. But she kept both hands clasped in back of her. The cord dangled off one wrist.

“Please, Annabelle, put the gun down,” Amelia said, finally. “You don’t have to do this. Let her go. Karen’s my friend.”

“I know she’s your friend,” Annabelle whispered, nodding. “That’s exactly why she has to die.”

“Wait. Look at me,” Amelia said, imploring her. “Do you
really
feel what I’m feeling right now?”

Annabelle nodded.

“Okay,” she said. Then she slashed the piece of glass across her own hand.

Annabelle let out a shriek. The gun flew out of her grasp.

It happened so fast, Karen wasn’t sure if Annabelle had dropped the gun in a moment of panic or if she had actually felt the glass, too. Karen only knew that the revolver dropped on the floor right in front of her. She dove on it.

All at once, Annabelle was on top of her, frantically clawing at her, struggling to retrieve the weapon. Karen fought back. She wouldn’t let go of the revolver. With her elbow, she smacked Annabelle on the side of her head, but the young woman was relentless. She tugged at the revolver and scratched at Karen’s hands. Suddenly the gun went off.

An earsplitting shot echoed in the tiny gray room.

Jody went limp and fell to the kitchen floor at the man’s feet.

George quickly put Stephanie down and started toward his son.

“No way!” the man said in a loud voice, glaring at him from behind the dark glasses. He had his .45 trained on Jody’s crumpled body. “First you show me the safe, then you can tend to the kiddies.”

Crouching down, George carefully pried the duct tape from Stephanie’s mouth. He watched her eyes tear up with the pain. Once he pulled the tape off, she gasped for air, and then started crying. She threw her arms around his neck. “Daddy, Daddy…” was all she could say.

The young man grabbed Jody by the collar, then dragged him across the kitchen floor as if he were a bag of laundry. Then he dumped him at Jessie’s feet. George could see Jody was still breathing. But he was afraid his son might have a concussion.

“We need to get him to a doctor,” Jessie said.

“Shut the fuck up!” the man snapped. He turned to George, and pointed the gun at him. “I want to see where this safe is,” he said. “C’mon, show me, and bring the little brat with you.”

“It’s in the living room,” George lied. He took one more look at Jody, still breathing, but not moving a muscle. The blood from the gash on his forehead had trickled down to his jaw.

“
Where
in the living room?” the man pressed. “I’ve been all over this dump.”

“Around this corner,” George said, shielding Stephanie’s eyes from the sight of Mrs. Bidwell’s corpse on the sofa. Steffie cried softly. Her whole body was trembling. George patted her on the back. “When I say
go
, run as fast as you can out the front door,” he whispered. “When I say
go.
Okay, honey?”

She sniffed, then nodded her head.

“Good girl,” George said under his breath.

“So where is it, man?”

George nodded to an antique oval mirror on the living room wall. It was 24 by 18 inches, with a very ornate, pounded-tin frame.

“The mirror?” the young man said. “Shit, I already looked behind there, asshole.”

“Well, then you weren’t looking very carefully,” George replied.

“Show me.”

George patted Steffie on the back again. “I need to put you down for a minute, sweetie,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Be a good girl, and remember what I told you.”

Stephanie clung to his leg.

Swallowing hard, George reached for the mirror on the wall. “The money’s not in the wall, it’s in the back of the mirror,” he lied. He glanced back at the man with the sunglasses, and then lifted the mirror off the wall. It was lighter than it looked, only a few pounds. “There’s about six thousand dollars back here, sort of an emergency fund. It’s yours. Just take it and
go
. Do you hear me? Just
go
!”

All at once, Stephanie scurried toward the front door.

The young man turned his gun on her.

He didn’t see that behind the mirror frame, there was nothing. He didn’t see George swinging the mirror at him with all his might.

A shot rang out. The young man howled in pain as George hit him in the face with the mirror. There was an explosion of glass.

Squeezing his eyes shut, George turned his head away for a second.

When he opened his eyes again, Stephanie was gone, and the front door was open. The .45 lay on the carpet amid shards of reflective glass.

In a stupor, the young man stared at George. His sunglasses had been knocked off his face. His eyes were listless. Blood dripped from several little bits of broken mirrored glass embedded in his face. One large piece was stuck in his neck. In a daze, he pried it out. Blood gushed from the fatal wound, cascading down the front of his white shirt, tie, and the shiny black jacket.

He remained standing, looking stunned.

George heard the sirens from police cars coming up the street. He realized Jody’s friend, Brad, must have called the police. The searchlights and beams from the red strobes poured through the windows. For a few seconds, the same light danced off the mirrored fragments in the young man’s face.

Then he collapsed dead on the floor.

Through the sheer window curtains, George could see four police cars pulling in front of the house. One policeman ran across the yard and scooped up Stephanie.

George started toward the kitchen, and stopped dead.

His forehead still bleeding, Jody stood near the kitchen counter with a tired smile on his face. He staggered toward his father, and threw his arms around him.

Dazed, George embraced his son. He glanced over at Jessie, a bit unsteady on her feet, slowly making her way into the living room. George realized Jody must have untied her. He kissed the top of Jody’s head. “God, you—you sure had me fooled,” he murmured. “I thought you were practically dead.”

“Me, too,” Jody said, with a weak laugh.

“We still need to get you to a doctor,” George said. With an arm around his son, George dug the cell phone out of his pocket. He checked for messages. There were two Jessie had left on the home phone and two more from that sheriff in Salem. No one else.

“Are you calling Karen?” Jessie asked.

He nodded. “It’s been nearly two hours.”

It rang and rang. No one picked up. It didn’t even go to her voice mail.

Jessie gave him an apprehensive look. He just shook his head at her.

When he’d last talked to Karen, she’d been on her way to meet Amelia at the restaurant near the lake house.

George stayed on the line. He didn’t want to hang up just yet, not even as the three of them started toward the front door.

Jessie paused for a moment and looked down at something on the carpet amid the mirrored fragments. Frowning, she kicked it out of her way and then moved on.

The bent, broken sunglasses skittered across the floor.

Breathless, Karen ran along the water’s edge.

Her head was still throbbing, and her lungs burned, but she pressed on toward Helene Sumner’s house. She could see the lights on inside her cottage farther up the beach.

She’d left Annabelle Schlessinger in that grimy, little fallout shelter with a bullet in her stomach. Annabelle’s black knit top had been soaked with blood by the time Amelia had staggered back down to the cellar with several dishtowels from the kitchen. They’d managed to move Annabelle to the cot, and pulled off her blood-sodden sweater. Karen had told her to lie still and keep the towels pressed against the wound.

But Annabelle wouldn’t stop screaming and squirming. Her shrill cries echoed off the walls of the little gray chamber. Her legs were curled up toward her stomach as if some shifting in her organs had locked them there. Pale and trembling, she seemed very afraid. “Don’t let me die in here!” she cried several times. She’d lost a lot of blood, and Karen noticed her breathing was shallow. She wasn’t sure about her chances. At the same time, she couldn’t help wondering if Annabelle was stronger than she let on. Was it an act to throw them off guard?

Karen remembered something Naomi Rankin had told her about Annabelle always being the weaker twin. Amelia was the stronger one.

The cut across the palm of Amelia’s hand wasn’t too deep. Karen wrapped a wet dishtowel around her hand to slow the bleeding. Amelia admitted the searing pain in her stomach—exactly where her sister had been shot—was far more severe.

She promised to look after her twin sister. “Helene Sumner’s house is closer than Danny’s Diner,” she told Karen, catching her breath as they paused in the fallout shelter’s doorway. “You’re better off calling the paramedics from there.”

Furtively, Karen tried to pass the revolver to her, but Amelia shook her head. “I won’t need it,” Amelia whispered. “She won’t try anything.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because,” she said with a pale smile, “I can
feel
it, Karen.”

“Just the same,” Karen murmured. “I’ll leave this upstairs on the kitchen counter. You haven’t been through the living room yet, have you?”

Amelia shook her head. “No, why?”

“Don’t go in there if you can help it,” Karen said. “I’ll explain later.”

Coiled up on the bed, Annabelle let out another shriek. “Hurry, goddamn it! I’m bleeding to death!”

“Watch her like a hawk,” Karen whispered, giving Amelia’s shoulder a pat. She raced up the basement stairs. She left the revolver on the kitchen counter, and then ran out of the lake house.

That had been only five minutes ago, and yet it seemed like forever.

Helene’s dog started barking as Karen banged on the front door of her cottage. “Ms. Sumner!” Karen cried. “Ms. Sumner, I need to use your phone! Please! It’s an emergency!”

The old woman answered the door with a robe on and a rifle in her hand. It took her a moment before she seemed to recognize Karen from that afternoon. She held her collie by the collar while Karen, frazzled and out of breath, asked if she could use her phone to call the police. “There’s been a shooting at the Faradays’ cabin,” she explained. “Somebody’s hurt.”

“My goodness,” Helene murmured. She pulled her dog aside and cleared the doorway. “C’mon, Abby, move it. Come in, come in. I thought I heard a shot about fifteen minutes ago. The phone’s right there in the kitchen….”

Helene’s kitchen had a huge old-fashioned stove, a blue Formica-top breakfast table with three mismatched chairs, and the only working telephone in about a mile. It was a yellow, wall-mounted phone with a dial instead of a touch-tone pad. Karen called the police on it.

The 911 operator said they’d be at the Faradays’ house with the paramedics in fifteen minutes.

“Is it Amelia who was hurt?” Helene asked, once Karen hung up.

With a hand still on the receiver, Karen shook her head. “No, it’s—a relative of Amelia’s. Could I make another call? It’s long distance, but I’ll pay you back.”

Helene nodded. “Go ahead.”

Karen dialed George’s cell phone number. She nervously tugged at the phone cord and counted the ring tones. On the fourth ring, he picked up: “Hello?”

“George, it’s Karen,” she said, the words rushing out. “Is everyone okay there?”

“Yes, yes, we’re all fine,” he said, sounding just as anxious as she was. “Thank God you called. I’ve been so worried. How are you? How’s Amelia?”

Relieved, Karen just wanted to sink down in one of the chairs at Helene’s breakfast table. But there was no time. She quickly explained to George what had happened. “I’m not sure if Annabelle’s going to pull through,” she said.

“Well, her boyfriend didn’t make it,” George remarked. “Just a second…”

Karen heard him talking with someone on the other end. Then he got back on the line. “We’re here at the West Seattle police station,” he said. “My house is a mess. We can’t go back there tonight, and Jessie says all the hotels in town are booked. She thought you wouldn’t mind putting up Jody, Steffie, and me for the night.”

“Not at all,” she said. “There’s plenty of room. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Jessie has a key.”

“Thanks. Think you and Amelia will make it home tonight?”

“It might be a few hours, yet,” Karen said, still catching her breath. “We’ll have a lot to explain to the police here.”

“I’m probably in for the long haul myself,” George said. “Salem’s finest have quite a few questions for me. If I make it to your house before you and Amelia, I’ll wait up for you.”

“That would be really nice, George,” she said with a little smile. “Listen, I should get back to Amelia and her sister.”

“Please, be careful, Karen,” he said.

“See you later—at my house.”

She hung up, and then started to dig into her purse. “Thank you, Ms. Sumner. Do you think five dollars will cover it?”

Frowning, Helene shook her head. “Put your money away, for goodness sakes. Do you need any medical supplies? I have some bandages and hydrogen peroxide….”

“I think we’re okay,” Karen replied, heading for the door.

“What exactly happened?” she asked. “Did I just hear you say something about Amelia’s
sister
?”

“I’ll explain it to you later, okay?” Karen said, still frazzled. She opened the door. “I really need to get back. Thank you again, Ms. Sumner.”

But Karen stopped abruptly. In the distance, she heard a strange pop—like a firecracker going off. Helene’s dog let out a yelp. The old woman put a hand over her heart. “My goodness, there it is again.”

Karen gazed at her and blinked.

“That’s the same sound as before,” Helene explained.

“Oh, no,” Karen whispered. She turned and started in the direction of the Faradays’ house. At first, she just took a few cautious steps, but then she started moving faster.

“I wouldn’t go back there!” Helene called. She held on to her dog’s collar to keep her from chasing after Karen. “Miss, I wouldn’t go there! That was a gunshot! Wait for the police!”

But Karen didn’t stop. She didn’t hear her. She was thinking about Amelia.

And she was running for her life.

Ten minutes before Frank Carlisle’s old revolver was fired for a second time that night, Amelia had been standing in the doorway of the fallout shelter. She’d watched over her twin sister, curled up on the cot with a bloody dishtowel on her stomach. Shivering in just her bra and jeans, Annabelle looked so vulnerable. There were patches of blood smeared on her exposed pale, creamy skin. Her every breath seemed like a struggle. “I’m cold,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

“I know, I’m cold too,” Amelia replied, wincing as she clutched her own stomach. The cut on her hand was starting to sting, too. She wondered if her sister also felt it.

Amelia had bled all over that itchy old blanket when she’d slashed the palm of her own hand. She knew there were extra blankets up in the bedrooms. She’d told Karen earlier she didn’t think Annabelle would try anything. But she wasn’t so sure anymore. She noticed the large piece of glass still on the floor beside Annabelle’s shoes. Amelia and Karen had removed her brown suede flats in an effort to make her more comfortable.

Amelia quickly retrieved the shard of glass. “I’ll get you a clean blanket,” she said, finally.

“Thanks,” Annabelle whispered. It seemed like an effort as she lifted her head to look at her.

Amelia backed away from the fallout shelter, but then she hesitated. She had a bad feeling about leaving Annabelle unguarded. She didn’t know if it was her own intuition or if she’d read her sister’s thoughts. But suddenly she didn’t trust her.

“I’m sorry,” Amelia murmured, with one hand on the thick, heavy door. She pushed it shut.

“Amelia, no!” her sister cried, her voice muffled.

Amelia set down the piece of glass. Then she grabbed a square-edged, short-handled shovel from the floor, and propped it under the door handle. “I’ll be right back,” she called to her sister. She had a déjà vu sense about this moment, about talking to someone locked in a bomb shelter. Amelia didn’t remember ever experiencing this before—certainly not here in the basement of the lake house. She wondered if something similar had ever happened to Annabelle.

Ascending the basement stairs, she felt slightly winded and dizzy. Between the pain in her gut, the slash across her hand, and everything else, it was a wonder she hadn’t fainted yet. In the kitchen, Amelia went to the sink, and slurped some cold water from the faucet. She splashed her face, and felt a little better. Then she grabbed the revolver off the counter.

Annabelle’s purse, a large leather satchel, sat on the kitchen table. Amelia peeked inside it to make sure her sister didn’t keep a gun of her own in there.

Annabelle didn’t have a revolver, but she had a blackjack and a hunting knife. Amelia glanced around the kitchen for a place to hide them. She finally stashed them in the refrigerator inside the crisper drawer. She dumped the purse’s remaining contents onto the tabletop to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Amid the junk, she noticed Annabelle’s wallet: her lipstick and compact; several loose bills, some twenties among them; chewing gum; and a beautiful black onyx ring.

It was Shane’s ring. He’d loved it. That ring had belonged to his grandfather.

Amelia felt a pang in her gut, and she started to cry. Clutching the ring in her wounded hand, she wandered toward the living room. She’d forgotten Karen’s warning not to go beyond the kitchen. She hadn’t been prepared to see all the dried blood on the wall behind the rocking chair. Another large bloodstain marred the carpet. In both cases, she knew whose blood she was looking at, because she’d seen it happen through her sister’s eyes. She’d seen Annabelle murder her mom and dad, and Ina, as well as Collin, and Shane.

Amelia tearfully gazed at Shane’s ring again, then she kissed it and tucked it inside the pocket of her flannel pajama bottoms.

Now the only thing she held was the revolver.

Her sister knew about guns. But Amelia didn’t. She’d never really fired a gun before. She’d only experienced it secondhand.

Amelia forced herself to go halfway up the stairs, until she saw the bloodstains on the wall by where Annabelle had shot her mother. Almost in a trance, she walked back down the steps and out the front door.

She needed a practice shot. She didn’t want to screw it up when she did it for real. Though barefoot, and dressed in only her pink T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, Amelia barely felt the cool night air whipping at her. She didn’t even notice that the ground was wet and cold, and hundreds of stars were out tonight. All she thought about was showing Annabelle that she could kill, too. She picked out a target—a pine tree about thirty feet from the house. Aiming the revolver at a branch, she squeezed the trigger. On the branch, there was a small explosion of bark, wood, and pine needles. She felt a jolt in her hand, and the sound made her jump.

But she hadn’t dropped the gun.

The shot still echoed across the lake.

She could do this, Amelia told herself. It was easy.

She turned around and headed back inside the house. She would tell Karen and the police that Annabelle had suddenly attacked her. They’d believe her, too. Amelia couldn’t help smiling a tiny bit. She was already thinking like her sister.

With the gun in her hand, she passed through the living room, and then into the kitchen. Once again, she glanced over at Annabelle’s purse and its contents strewn on the kitchen table. She wondered if she’d missed anything, perhaps some jewelry belonging to her mother or Ina.

All at once, she started to feel faint again. She couldn’t get a decent breath, and she was deathly cold. The only thing keeping her going was her anger. Amelia tried to ignore the signals, the strange feeling that her sister was already slipping away.

She didn’t notice anything familiar amid the debris from Annabelle’s purse. She opened up the wallet, and saw some fake ID’s and credit cards that were obviously not hers. Amelia didn’t recognize any of the names on the cards.

She found a photograph in the wallet, creased and worn as if it had been carried around for a long, long time. It was a picture of two identical, dark-haired little girls in overalls, holding hands and smiling at the camera. The color was so faded, and the images nearly washed out. But Amelia remembered those overalls were a very pretty shade of green.

She remembered, and she started to cry again.

Karen ran as fast as she could.

Somewhere along the way, she’d stumbled over a tree root and hit the ground hard. She’d banged her knee, but dragged herself up and relentlessly pressed on toward the sound of that gunshot. Her throat had gone dry, and it hurt every time she tried to breathe. Still, she didn’t slow down.

She kept hoping to hear the police sirens. But there was nothing except Helene’s dog barking in the distance. She couldn’t even see the Faradays’ house yet.

Karen kept wondering who had fired the gun. At this point, it could have been either Amelia or Annabelle. And at this point, she was probably already too late.