I S
TAND
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LOOR
in my bare feet. I can hear the wind outside, still howling, building to freight-train shrieks as it tries to fight its way inside through the seams of windows, the dryer vent, the fireplace flue.
But there’s a fight inside already. I have the poker in my hand. I like the heft of it. In the black, I can’t really see the whole of it, only if I swing it about a bit, brandish it. I try to do that a little, build up some confidence.
I’m going to connect this piece of wrought iron to the soft of someone’s body. I am fully prepared to do it. I don’t want to feel the impact, but I will do it.
Another contraction hits me, stabs across the top of my belly, wraps like a boa constrictor around to the base of my spine. I can’t help it, I suck in a breath. The air whistles between my teeth.
If I just gave up my position to Mari, I’m going to be pissed. Damn contraction.
I pivot on my heels, make a turn in the black of the living room. Nothing moves.
Somewhere in the house, Tessa hides. She wields a Mag Lite flashlight. It’s perfect. When the house is safe, it will show her the way to the car, to safety, hopefully. For now, it could clock someone in the head and render her senseless.
I hear something, from the library, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
The piano. Mari plays the piano. The melody makes me cringe. It’s something I’ve heard Andrew play before. I think he learned it for a movie.
“Kelly! I’ll burn the house down,” she calls. “You know I will.”
She doesn’t know Tessa made it. This is our advantage.
But she’s playing the piano to announce her position. I guess this is it. We’re going to go toe to toe. She’s calling me out, and I have to answer. She’s too unstable to ignore. I don’t doubt the threat about burning the house down. When we first arrived, I wasn’t sure of her motives. But the sketchbook made everything clear. She is crazy, and she wants to hurt my family. Of course she’s threatening to burn down the house. She’ll do it.
I walk softly toward the library. The wide, smooth wood floor creaks under my feet. She will hear me coming.
I come around the corner, and I can see her. There’s a candle on the top of the piano, casting a soft, warm glow across the room. Books, the couches, the worn white coffee table shimmer in the orange light.
She looks up at me. She rests one hand on top of the piano, dabbles the ivory keys with the other.
I stare at her face. Her eyes are streaked with tears. The pupils are glowing in the candlelight; her blue eyes look ghostly.
She waves me closer, and in her hand is the gun. It’s built from gray and golden amber streaks in the light. “Kelly. Glad I didn’t have to go any farther with the kerosene lantern idea.”
“Don’t,” I tell her softly. “You need to take a deep breath and slow down. Nothing needs to be so extreme.”
“You don’t know what I need. You have everything. You don’t need anything.”
“What do you need?”
“I need to know why someone like Andrew, so worldly, so young, so curious, would settle for you.” She points at the gun at me.
“I thought you wanted him to be happy.”
“Happy with me. Come on, Kelly. You’re a kind woman, but I don’t need a friend. I needed to be with my soul mate. I needed to feel his mouth on mine, his hand in mine.”
“Andrew is your soul mate?”
“Everything would’ve worked out. You corrupted it, polluted his mind. You ruined him.”
I swallow, hard. Her thinking isn’t rooted in fact. And it sounds an awful lot like the letter I got at the shower.
She laughs, brittle and tight. “At first, I thought he was just out of my reach. Then you got pregnant. You insinuated yourself into his world, like a parasite. I was so mad at him for falling for that shit.” She snorts. “If he can’t see that we’re meant to be together, what’s the point in him living? But I felt horrible. To see him in pain, it hurt so bad. I hoped he’d wake up from the trance you put on him. Just because you’re pregnant. What a manipulative move. Come on, Kelly! You should be a strong woman. You didn’t need to do the desperate thing.” She smacks the keys of the piano with the gun. I flinch. The gun could go off accidentally.
“I can leave him,” I offer, willing my voice to remain steady. “You don’t have to hurt me. You don’t have to hurt Andrew.”
“I’m just so sick of it all. I kept waiting, waiting for him to figure it out, realize you were wrong for him. Then I thought I could get you to leave him, but he fixed things between you each time—even after I made sure he missed the party in Boise. I tried to tempt him away from you, but his loyalty to you is blind. You’ve ruined him completely.”
“The residue at the airport.”
“It was me. But Amanda’s a good decoy. She does still seem to want him, and she slashed his tires. I didn’t have a thing to do with that. I saw her cry into her drink about him, but she couldn’t get him to join in. If she’d gotten him drunk, maybe she could’ve seduced him.”
I try to breathe. I feel my hand cramping up around the fireplace poker. If she shoots me on the spot, I won’t get a chance to even swing. And if she shoots me in the torso, it could kill the baby, kill him straightaway. But this may be my chance. She’s spinning out all sorts of fantasies. If she keeps going, maybe I can edge closer and get a swing in.
“I wouldn’t do that to him, you know. You know that, right, Kelly?”
“What wouldn’t you do?”
Stall, Kelly. Slow her down.
“I’d never tempt his sobriety. He worked so hard to get clean. He’s noble, isn’t he? A hero, really.” She rubs her face with a shaking hand. The gun rests in her lap.
“You love him. Why would you hurt him? Why’d you try to push him into traffic?” I inch a bit closer.
“Because he wasn’t paying attention, and then I found out you were pregnant. He wasn’t ever going to leave you. He hadn’t noticed me. And I was so mad. If I couldn’t be with him, he shouldn’t be with anyone. I felt terrible afterward. But I thought if you were so angry and clingy, maybe he’d see the light and leave you. Then I could have my chance. Now, I just don’t know. I don’t know how we’re supposed to be together. You sunk your claws into him deep, and I don’t see how he’ll ever be the same.”
I take another step. I pause for a moment. I hear something somewhere in the house.
She jumps up, gun clasped in both hands. She swings it around, turns in a circle in the narrow ring of candlelight. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes.” I stay still.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know. Mari, I need to go home. The boys—Hunter and Beau need me. Please.”
“I love those guys. I could take care of them, you know.”
“They need me. They already lost their dad.”
“Then maybe the original family should stay together.”
“Where? Where would we go, just me and the boys?”
“You could be with Peter.”
“You wouldn’t kill the boys. They’re innocent. Just like how you were, before Cameron’s accident.”
“Don’t you bring that up. You don’t even know. How do you know how it feels? My dad couldn’t even look at me in the eye. It was my fault. Everyone hated me. I loved Cameron so much.”
“It was horrible, Mari. You needed someone to love you and take care of you. Your dad should’ve helped you. It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”
She starts to shake. Her shoulders shudder. She’s sobbing. Now is my chance. I should hit her with the poker.
I don’t think I can. Her cries are so young. She’s such a little girl. “Mari, come here. Let me help you. Please.”
She shakes her head. “No. No, no, no, no! It’s not right. It wasn’t right. I was happy. Everything was taken from me. In one stupid, horrible moment.” She covers her face with one hand, and the hand with the gun drops to her side.
The shattering of glass comes from somewhere in the house. Is it Tessa? Is she all right?
“What was that, Kelly? What shit are you trying to pull?”
I take a step to her. “Please. It’s just the storm. Please. Mari, let me help you. I’m so sorry.”
She looks up at me. Her face is stone cold. “You know, I really don’t want your pity.” She points the gun and fires.
Sharp pain bites me in the arm, and almost immediately it stings and tears through, registers in my ribs like an electric shock. Black, seething fury floods my body. I want to hurt her, badly. I swing the poker at her, my anger forceful and raging. The shaft hits her across the arms and body. She reels backward, and I swing it again, catch her on the elbow, and see the gun fly behind her, out of her hands. It clatters across the piano keys, and I duck, waiting for it to fire.
She comes at me, but I swing the poker at her knees. She howls in pain and drops to the floor. I jump on top of her. I have her by the hair on the back of her head, and I yank, hard.
“Stop! You are done! You are done, Mari. Do you hear me! Stop it now! No more, no more, no more!” I shriek. I bellow. All my rage pours out of my lungs.
She’s still. She doesn’t fight me. Now I’m not sure what to do. “Mari, you lie still. If you struggle, I’ll beat you senseless with this poker. Do you understand me?”
I feel her head nod, pulling slightly against the death grip I have on her ponytail.
“Tessa!” I call. I hope she can hear me, because another contraction is coming on, and I’m terrified that Mari will try something. “Tessa! Come out!”
“Kelly! Kelly, where are you?” It’s not Tessa. It’s Andrew.
“Andrew? Andrew! By the piano! Andrew!” I cry.
Shafts of flashlight beams swing wildly down the hallway.
Mari yanks at my grip, jerks her head down, and bites me, hard, on the ankle. I feel her claw at my hands, yanking and pulling on my fingers. I grab her head tighter and smack it against the wooden floor. “Stop now! Stop it now!”
A contraction tears through my lower half, and I feel a strange searing pain as it intensifies and meets with a different pain under my ribs. That pain in my arm, the one under my ribs. That was a bullet. I feel it now.
I hear shouts, and I can’t hold on to Mari anymore. The pain under my ribs seizes me, stabbing across my tightening belly and shooting down my legs and up to the base of my neck. I yell from the pain. Mari pushes me off of her, but there are legs and beams of light. I roll onto the smooth wooden floor, and someone catches my head. I feel something wet. I wonder if it’s my blood or if my water’s broken. There’s a lot of noise, commotion I can’t sort out.
“Kelly? Kelly? Answer me. Oh my God, please answer me.” It’s Andrew.
I can’t do this anymore. I feel bile rising in my throat, and heat sweeps through my body. The pain closes over me like a wave.
“K
ELLY
? K
ELLY
? A
NSWER
M
E
. Oh my God, please answer me.” Kelly’s body goes limp, and she slumps over. Tucker catches her before her head cracks on the floor. Mari pushes out from under her and scrambles behind the piano.
I go after her. She stands up, gun in hand. But I have a flashlight, and I swing it, hard, connecting with the side of her head. She goes down like a rag doll.
Tucker puts a boot down on her arm, points his gun at her head, kicks her gun away.
Kelly lies on the floor, still. I see a tiny glint in the puddle of blood or water, I can’t tell which. It’s her ring, her engagement ring. I can tell that as I pocket it. Mari must’ve pulled it off her finger in the struggle.
I slide down to her side, cradle her head in my hand. It’s too dark; I can’t tell what’s wrong with her.
I feel down her side, and my hand comes up wet. I feel a warm, jagged wound, flesh torn and bleeding. Panic threatens to strike me paralyzed, but I force my hand to search and come up with another wet warm tear in the fabric of her shirt under her arm, and there’s something sharp sticking out of it, splintered like a broken stick. A rib.
“Tucker. She’s hurt. She’s not awake. She’s been shot, Tucker.”
The deputy and Prescott come in with kerosene lanterns from the back utility room. Finally I can really see what the hell is going on.
Tucker calls the deputy over. “Cover her. Andrew and I need to help Kelly. She’s been shot.”
Tucker is next to me, his fingers at Kelly’s throat for a pulse.
“She’s breathing. Her pulse is thready, though. She’s going into shock.”
“We’ve got to get her out of here, Tuck. The baby.”
“I know. We’re going to do this, okay? We’re going to help her.” Tucker points to my hoodie. “Take that off. We’ll tear it into strips, tourniquet the arm wound. You’ll need to put pressure on the one under her arm. Then we’ll move her.”
The deputy holds his gun steady and covers Prescott as he pulls Mari upright and takes her back the way they came.
Tucker calls to him. “There are zip ties in the toolkit.”
“We’ll watch her. We’ve got it handled.” The deputy leaves the room with Mari.
Tucker calls to Prescott. “Go look for Tessa. Her car was out front. She’s probably upstairs in one of the other bedrooms. She can help you contact Kelly’s family, if you can get the radio or cell working. And call for backup and ambulance.”
“I don’t know. We didn’t have any luck getting a signal just now.”
“We need the truck, then. You might be forced to hold Mari here for a while.”
“You go, Tucker, and we’ll handle it here.” He disappears down the hall, calling for Tessa, identifying himself.
I don’t know what to say. I stare at Kelly’s still, pale face. “Where are we going with Kelly?”
Tucker’s thinking. “There’s no point trying to get to Portland, probably not even Seaside. That low bridge along the bay was basically washed out when we got past it coming down here. By now it’s gone.”
“She needs help. And the baby, we need to know about the baby.”
“So, the deputy said the fire department runs incident command during a winter storm. We need to get there. Someone’ll be on duty, and they’ll have enough resources. We can deliver the baby if we have to. EMTs in a little town like this have probably even done it before if they’ve been around long enough.”
“A fireman?”
“All of us will help.”
I pick her up in my arms. She’s lifeless, limp. I swallow hard and feel my heart pushing blood through my veins, taut with adrenaline and panic. We have to get her out of here. “Let’s get her to the truck.”
Along the road into town, Tucker powers through standing water and even surf in more than a few spots. I hold Kelly in my arms, talk to her, and hit redial on the cell over and over, hoping to raise dispatch long enough to tell them we’re coming.
Kelly shudders in my arms. “She’s having another contraction, I think, Tuck.” I hold her, try to help her through it, cradle her shaking body.
He looks at his cell. “They’re coming pretty close together, but we’re still okay. I think it’s a good sign that labor’s still progressing.”
I squeeze Kelly’s hand. “Hang on. Hang in there, Kells. We’re almost there.”
I say this nine million times in the fifteen minutes it takes us to get there. And Tucker is going as fast as humanly possible, I know. We hydroplane a couple times before he can wrestle the truck back into the middle of the road.
We roar into the fire station’s drive. Tucker leans on the horn and screeches to a halt. Three men come out in T-shirts, rush to the side of the truck.
Tucker’s out and talking immediately, shouting over the screaming storm. “Two gunshot wounds, active labor. Thready pulse, loss of consciousness. It’s been about twenty minutes since the injury. We’re not sure how long she’s been laboring. She’s having contractions about a minute apart.”
“Inside.” A white-haired man points to the doors. There’s another man holding the door. “Everybody scrub up.”
I carry Kelly inside and lay her gently on the gurney they’ve brought to the door. She’s whisked off to another room. The lights are on here, and I can hear the metallic chugging of a generator outside, earning its keep.
Tucker stands shoulder to shoulder with two of the other men, waiting to wash up so he can help. He looks at me. “Scrub up.”
I do as I’m told, soap up to my elbows.
Tucker turns to another fireman. “You need to find all the bedding you can, and start thinking about a way to warm the baby. Assuming he’s fine, he’s going to need to stay warm.”
I break in. “If he’s not?”
“We’ll cross the bridge when we need to, Andrew. Like I said, babies get born all over the place.”
The gray-haired man must be the chief. He nods. “They don’t wait for us to be ready. They like to make it complicated. Announce their arrival with some drama.”
“If they can find formula, be thinking about that also. You might have to bottle feed him till Kelly’s able.”
I dry my hands, slip into latex gloves. I can’t stop shaking.
This is not how this was supposed to go.