Sweetheart

by Chelsea Cain

  “The fire,” Henry said. “The Sisters cops are probably evacuating the town. Airport’s maybe closed so the others can’t get in. I don’t know. You should wait here. A fire crew will come by.”

  Susan shook her head. “No, one won’t. We’d have seen them by now. They’re fighting the fire somewhere else. You’re not leaving me.”

  “The fire’s headed north,” Henry said.

  Susan looked up at the sky. “What if the wind changes?”

  Henry turned his head in both directions down the abandoned highway, then turned and started up the gravel road, his gun at his thigh. “Fine.”

  Susan got in step behind him. “Okay,” she said.

  It took a half hour to get to the house. It wasn’t hard to find if you were looking for it. It was the only place up the long, dark road. They saw the mailbox first. Then the lights through the trees.

  The house wasn’t that old. It was Northwest lodge style, with cabin logs and a stone façade around a big front double door. The silver Jag was parked out front.

  “Stay here,” Henry said, lifting his gun and starting toward the house.

  Susan scrambled to stay behind him, pinecones and twigs crunching under her feet.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said, turning around.

  “I’m not staying out here alone,” Susan said. The glow of the western sky had faded to purple.

  Henry took her by each shoulder. “I need you to stay here, so that if Archie’s in there, and something happens to me, you can go get help.” She didn’t know how she was going to do that. Walk to Sisters? Flag down a helicopter? But the seriousness in Henry’s expression made her nod her consent.

  Henry lifted his gun again and moved toward the house, ducking as he made his way by the front windows. He reached the porch and moved toward the door.

  “Do you need a warrant?” Susan called in a whisper.

  Henry didn’t seem to hear her. He opened the door and moved inside the house. Susan was alone.

  A few minutes passed. A squirrel scrambled up the tree Susan was standing next to. It reached the top in four clawed hops, then froze.

  The front door to the house stayed open.

  Susan felt around on the ground and picked up the sharpest stick she could find. In one hand she had the stick, in the other the water bottle. She could stay outside alone or she could go inside and see what was going on. Either choice was dangerous. But if she went in, at least she wouldn’t be alone. Parker would go in. Parker wouldn’t even hesitate.

  Fuck it. She put down the water bottle and followed Henry into the house.

  There was music inside. Susan could barely hear it over the rush of her own pulse. A faint classical concerto drifted from the main room up ahead at the end of the hallway.

  For a second Susan let herself believe that maybe this was the wrong house. Maybe Archie wasn’t here.

  She slid along the wall a few feet at a time, the stick held in front of her like a sword. It was dirty and crooked and she gripped it so tightly she worried it might snap in her hands.

  Henry was standing at the end of the hallway completely motionless.

  “What have you done to him?” she heard Henry ask.

  Susan continued along the wall, drawn forward by a compulsion beyond her control. She wasn’t even aware of moving forward until she found herself at the mouth of the hallway.

  A huge fireplace loomed up ahead, the embers of a dying fire flickering within it. Then Susan realized that it wasn’t the dying embers flickering, it was the forest fire. On either side of the floor-to-ceiling stone mantel were picture windows and Susan could see the ridge of red flame growing closer in the darkness, a vision of sinister splendor. It was a mile away, at the most.

  Susan couldn’t breathe.

  Next to her Henry stood with his gun leveled at Gretchen Lowell. Susan couldn’t get enough oxygen, couldn’t concentrate. Gretchen was wearing slacks and a white silk blouse and her hair was half undone from a bun, blond strands falling against her cheeks. Archie was dead, his head in her lap. Susan tried to get air, but her gauze-packed nose made her feel like someone had a hand over her face. Gretchen’s white blouse was splattered with Archie’s blood.

  Susan wheezed, a wet rattle of a noise, like something dying.

  “Susan, get out of here,” she heard Henry say. Henry’s eyes were still fixed on Gretchen. “Back away from him,” he barked.

  Susan saw Gretchen hold an arm up, revealing a pair of steel handcuffs that bound her wrist to the banister. “I can’t,” Gretchen said. There was a little irritation in her voice, as if she shouldn’t be bothered with something so obvious.

  Henry started inching forward toward Gretchen, gun raised. Susan felt a hard nut of panic in her chest. A thousand possibilities streamed through her head. What she would do if something happened to Henry, if she were left alone with Gretchen, with Archie there on the floor. She looked at the stick in her hands and then glanced around for some better kind of weapon, a knife, a hammer, anything. She noticed the white purse on the bar, the key, the piece of paper, the empty prescription bottles, but no blunt objects. Then she saw a paring knife, on the bar. She dropped the stick on the floor, grabbed the knife, and tucked it into her hand. Henry had reached Archie and was kneeling beside him, gun leveled at Gretchen’s head as he reached a hand to Archie’s neck to feel for a pulse.

  “What have you done to him?” Henry demanded.

  “Guess again,” Gretchen said.

  Susan got her phone out and looked at it. There still wasn’t any service. If she lived through this, she was definitely changing carriers. She looked around for a landline and didn’t see one.

  “Both your hands where I can see them,” Henry said to Gretchen. He said it through gritted teeth, so it came out hard and fast.

  Gretchen raised her other hand. “He’s in liver failure. I’ve got naloxone. I can save him. There’s a key on the bar. Uncuff me.”

  Susan glanced over at the small key on the bar. Then back at Gretchen. Then the realization knocked her back on her heels: It wasn’t Archie’s blood all over Gretchen’s blouse. It was Gretchen’s. She’d split the flesh of her own wrist open struggling against the cuff.

  He might still be alive.

  “Fuck you,” Henry said to Gretchen.

  “He’ll die,” Gretchen said. She said it calmly, with complete conviction. “Uncuff me. And I’ll save him.”

  Susan looked back and forth between Gretchen and Henry. Somebody do something.

  “You’re going to help him,” Henry said with just as much conviction. “Or I’ll shoot you in the head.”

  Archie was still alive. Susan felt light-headed. Her nose was running through the gauze and she wiped it. The snot was black with particulate matter from the fire and blood. Archie was dying.

  Gretchen looked at Susan. “Uncuff me,” she said. Susan glanced back at the key. Gretchen’s authority was so absolute that Susan hesitated.

  “Susan, stay where you are,” Henry said.

  “Tick, tock,” Gretchen said.

  Archie was going to die. Like Parker. Like her father. He was dying right in front of them.

  At that moment Archie’s back arched and he started to seize. Susan couldn’t see well, didn’t know what was happening, but she could see his legs move, and his chest horribly buckled in the air. Susan had watched her father have seizures just like it. “Help him,” she pleaded. She was crying. She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t belong there. She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t think straight. Everything was falling apart.

  “Susan—my purse,” Gretchen said.

  Susan wasn’t going to let Archie die. Nothing else mattered. Gretchen seemed so confident. She had been a nurse. She knew what to do. She could save him. She had done it before. Susan looked over and saw the white purse on the bar, grabbed it, and hurled it toward Gretchen.

  She regretted it as soon as it left her hands. But there was no taking it back.

&n
bsp; The purse flew through the air and landed near Gretchen’s knee.

  The motion distracted Henry and he took his eye off Gretchen for a moment and shouted, “No!”

  In a flash, Gretchen had the purse open and had a gun to Henry’s head. They faced each other on their knees. The barrels of their guns were only inches from each other’s skulls. Gretchen grinned, her eyes bright, saliva glistening in the corners of her mouth. Archie’s prone body lay between them, the seizure over. He was probably dead, Susan realized. She lifted her fingers to her throat, horrified by what she had done.

  Gretchen smiled. “Shouldn’t work with amateurs, Henry.”

  CHAPTER

  65

  Susan,” Henry said softly. “Get out of here.”

  It was too late. Susan couldn’t move. Not because she was frozen with fear, but because she was so fucking pissed off with herself she couldn’t think straight.

  “Don’t even think about it, pigeon. You want to save Archie’s life, don’t you? The hypo’s in my purse. Come here.”

  Susan couldn’t respond. She was paralyzed.

  “You can save Archie’s life, if you get your ass over here in the next few minutes.”

  Susan wiped some more bloody snot from her lip and then forced herself to find the will to move. She slipped the paring knife in the back pocket of her jeans and took a halting step toward Gretchen.

  “Get out of here,” Henry said. “Go to the road, try to get to town.”

  But Susan kept walking. She could feel the sharp little knife pressing through the denim against her flesh and it was the only thing driving her to move. She went through a mental catalog of targets: Gretchen’s perfect blue eye, her elegant jugular. Stab and twist. It was a little knife, sure. But it would be all Henry would need to wrestle Gretchen’s gun away. Or shoot her between the eyes.

  As Susan got closer she could see Archie better. His eyes were white slits and his skin was tinged with blue. She fought back hot, angry tears. Henry still had one hand on Archie’s pulse. That was a good sign, Susan told herself. It meant there was a pulse to feel.

  Susan stopped walking and sank to her knees in front of Gretchen. The jugular was best, she decided. More room for error.

  “Good girl,” Gretchen said. “Now reach into the outside pocket of my purse. There’s a hypodermic with a plunger on the needle and a rubber tourniquet. Get them now.”

  Susan retrieved the hypo and tourniquet. “I don’t know how to use these,” she said.

  “You’ll learn,” Gretchen said. “And if you fuck it up, Archie will die. And then I’ll kill Henry. And you. Now, tie the tourniquet around his arm and find a vein,” Gretchen said. “Do you see one?”

  Susan rolled up Archie’s sleeve, tied the rubber tourniquet around Archie’s bicep, and picked up Archie’s arm. The skin was bluish and cool. But she could see a vein bulging out on the inside of his elbow. “I think so,” she said.

  Gretchen’s voice was completely controlled. “Position the needle bevel side up. Push it in. You’ll feel a little pop as you enter the vein.”

  Susan positioned the hypo, bevel side up, and pushed it into Archie’s arm. She felt the pop. “I think I’m in,” she said.

  “Good,” Gretchen said. “Is there any blood in the syringe?”

  Susan looked at the hypo. There wasn’t any blood. “No,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” Gretchen said. “Pull back on the plunger a little.”

  Susan pulled back on the plunger. A tiny squirt of red entered the syringe. “I see blood,” she said.

  “Good,” Gretchen said. “That means you’re in a vein. Now make sure the bevel is still up and push the plunger in.”

  Susan checked the bevel and then pushed the plunger in. She’d done it. She’d given him the drug. She wanted to laugh and cry and dance around the room. Then she caught sight of Henry’s grave face, his gun still leveled at Gretchen’s head. Susan pulled the hypo out of Archie’s arm. She didn’t have anything to stop the bleeding at the needle site so she bent his elbow and held it.

  Archie’s color immediately started to improve.

  “Now, give me the key to the handcuffs,” Gretchen said.

  Susan got up and got the key and came back. She told herself that she had to do what Gretchen said. Gretchen still had the gun trained on Henry. Susan put the little key into the lock on the cuffs and turned it. The cuff sprang open and Gretchen was free and in that moment Susan reached into her back pocket and with a movement faster than she thought possible she plunged the knife into Gretchen’s torso, below her rib cage. It was easier than she thought it would be. The knife slid in past the gristle with a series of knotty pops, bouncing off bone, then sliding below her ribs like it was going into hard cheese. When Susan withdrew her shaking hand, the knife was still there, driven into Gretchen’s silk blouse to the hilt, a ring of dark red around it.

  She hadn’t even come close to the jugular.

  But it was enough. Gretchen’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an “oh,” where a tiny sigh escaped as the knife penetrated her. Henry seized the opportunity and lurched forward, connecting his forearm with Gretchen’s elbow. Susan lost sight of the gun behind Henry’s frame as he dove for it, wrestling it from Gretchen’s hand and then sending it skidding across the carpet.

  As Henry scrambled to recover the weapon, Susan watched as Gretchen slid her hand down her side, her fingers folding around the knife Susan had plunged into her.

  “The knife,” Susan managed to say, as Gretchen pulled it out with a pop of her elbow. The silver blade was slick with blood. Gretchen held Archie’s head up by a fistful of hair, and pressed the knife to his throat.

  “I like knives better anyway,” Gretchen said.

  There was smoke in the house. It was just enough to soften the focus of the room. Susan wasn’t even sure that Gretchen or Henry had noticed it.

  The wind had changed direction.

  Gretchen slid backward on the floor in a modified crab walk, one arm now around Archie’s chest, the other holding the knife to his neck, pushing herself along on her elbows and haunches, dragging Archie with her like an animal with prey toward the open glass door to the deck.

  “No,” Henry said. He was lying on the carpet on his side, his arms extended, gun raised, pointed at Gretchen.

  “Have you ever killed a chicken, Henry?” Gretchen asked sweetly, pressing the knife against Archie’s flesh. “Some people use a chopping block. But you can also use a metal cone.” She smiled. “You tie the bird’s feet and stretch the neck through the hole at the bottom of the cone. Then you cut its neck.” She moved the knife along Archie’s neck, the blade turned on its side so it didn’t cut his throat. “The key is to sever the jugular, so it bleeds out. But you want to avoid the windpipe.” She winked. “They say it’s stressful for the birds.”

  “Not another inch,” Henry said. “You don’t escape from this.”

  “His body’s been through a lot,” Gretchen said. “How much blood do you think he could stand to lose?”

  Henry sat up, the gun still level at Gretchen’s head. And then, slowly, he stood. “You won’t do it. He’s too important to you.”

  Susan thought she saw Gretchen falter. Her eyebrows flickered and she held Archie closer, pressing her knees on either side of his torso.

  Henry was right, Susan thought, gaining confidence. She wouldn’t kill Archie. She’d just saved him. Again. She needed him alive. Henry took a step toward her, gun raised.

  Gretchen cut Archie’s throat. The knife pressed into the flesh, and it opened gently like the skin of an eggplant. Blood seeped from the wound, darkening Archie’s neck and chest.

  Susan felt woozy from adrenaline and shock and fear. She wished she’d kept hold of the stick so she could have jammed it into Gretchen’s eye. It might not have killed her. But it would probably have gotten infected. And at the periphery of her consciousness she thought she heard the faint sound of sirens.

  Gretchen’s eyes bl
azed at Henry. “Don’t ever think you can know what I’ll do,” she said. The knife and her hand were covered in blood, her hand like a red glove. Gretchen licked the blade and grinned. “I like a man with a damaged liver,” she said. “The blood is so sweet.”

  Every vein in Henry’s head bulged. Susan thought she could see his pulse, racing, threatening to burst through his skin. His hands gripped the gun like it was Gretchen’s neck.

  “Not yet,” Gretchen warned him.

  Archie was still alive. He was bleeding. But there wasn’t any splatter; she hadn’t hit an artery. His color was pale, but he was still sweating. Dead people didn’t sweat, did they?

  “Keep pressure on the wound,” she said to Susan. “Tell them he was in liver toxicity. He took about forty pills about three hours ago.” Her lips were smeared with the blood from the knife.

  She whispered something in Archie’s ear, kissed him on the cheek, leaving a bloody lip print, and then laid his head gently on the floor and was gone out the door to the deck. Henry fired a shot in Gretchen’s direction and then launched himself after her. Susan heard him fire three more shots into the woods.

  Susan ran back to the bar, grabbed a plaid dishtowel, then ran back to Archie and held it against the wound in his neck. “Don’t die,” she said to him. She used the sleeve of her shirt to gently rub the bloody kiss off his cheek. “You better not die.” Outside, the sound of sirens got louder.

  CHAPTER

  66

  You’re still alive,” Henry said. “And she got away.”

  There was a sprinkler head directly above Archie’s hospital bed. This was the first thing he saw. The second thing he saw was Henry, standing over him. Then Debbie, sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed, a magazine open in her lap.

  Oh, God. Debbie.

  “She fled into the fire,” Henry said. “There was a lot of smoke.” He ran his hand over his head. “We’re still searching the area. She might have gotten caught in the fire. But I won’t believe it until we have remains.”