The Wrong Family

by Tarryn Fisher

  Even though Winnie was in her own house, on her own turf, she took a step back, and that was obviously enough to solidify her guilt in Terry’s mind. The older woman looked murderous.

  “I know everything,” she said. “I know exactly what you did.”

  “It was you!” Winnie said. “You sent me those articles and you somehow checked out a book on my library card! You’ve been stalking me!” She shook her head, openmouthed, so angry now that she missed the look of confusion on Terry’s face. “You’re crazy! I didn’t do anything to your daughter. Get the hell out!” Winnie marched toward the front door, determined to get this madwoman out of her home before Samuel heard or Nigel came home. She tried not to let her fear show as she yanked open the door and stared expectantly at Terry. Winnie had learned that if you used confidence to command people, they were often compelled to listen.

  She heard Samuel’s bedroom door open at the same time Terry Russel turned to face the exit she clearly didn’t plan on taking. She stared right at Winnie as she said, “I know that you worked for Illuminations, the supposed facility where Josalyn was receiving care.”

  Winnie’s heart was racing. If either she or Terry called the police, there would be questions. Of course, there was no proof—nothing. Was there?

  “I have the police report Josalyn made, reporting her kidnapped infant,” Terry continued, and that’s when Winnie’s vision shook like there was an earthquake in her head. If she hadn’t been holding on to the door, trying to usher Terry Russel out, she would have collapsed.

  The police report. No one knew about that because the woman in it had not been named—she’d been a Jane Doe. Josalyn had somehow found Winnie’s landline after she stopped picking up her cell—and left a message on the answering machine.

  Winnie could still hear the girl’s voice, thick with something she’d either drunk or smoked. When she said Winnie’s name it came out “Wunnie...”

  “Someone took my kid, my fucking kid. Please call me. I don’t have a phone anymore, I’m calling from a payphone. I tried to go to the police and make a report, but fuck, they don’t give a shit about me, they never did! Fuck you, Officer Morales!” She’d shouted the last part, like there was an officer standing in front of her. “They thought I was drunk, they wouldn’t listen to me...!” And then the line had gone dead. She’d played the message once more and then deleted it. Within the hour, Winnie had disconnected the home phone with the company and put the cordless relic in the pile to take to Goodwill. She changed her cell number, too, and made sure the new one was unlisted. She’d replaced the landline later, when she wasn’t so afraid, and Nigel asked why they got rid of it in the first place.

  “I don’t remember,” she had lied.

  For the next few weeks, she’d pored over articles online, trying to find a mention of Josalyn, though Winnie wasn’t certain who to look for. A girl...? A homeless woman...? A prostitute...? She’d been all those things under Winnie’s care, but she’d also been something else—a very vulnerable, likable girl. There was nothing in the news or online about any of the above, nor did the news report a missing infant. A child no one knew existed had simply ceased to exist. She could have let it go, but her need to know what happened to Josalyn was consuming. Eventually she’d done the only thing she could—asked Nigel for help.

  “Why can’t you leave it alone?”

  “Don’t you want to know so we can be—”

  “What, Winnie?” He had a look of disgust on his face. “Better prepared to lie our way out of it?”

  She’d seen red then; it was like he wanted her to go to prison. “Well, yes, Nigel,” she’d snapped. “I don’t want to go to prison. Do you want me to go to prison?” She’d placed both hands on her belly, which had swollen to the size of a melon. He’d caved. Nigel had no intention of raising a baby alone. Together, they’d decided that Nigel would go to Mike, Shelly’s husband. Not only did Mike really like Nigel, he was of those “bros before hoes” types. If Nigel asked his cop brother-in-law to dig up some dirt on someone or look up police reports, he would. And if he asked him to keep it a secret, he’d do that, too—the more beers Nigel was able to get in him the better.

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” she said firmly, masking her fear with her deep disdain for this woman who’d shown up on her doorstep to start a war.

  “Of course you don’t.” Terry Russel smiled bitterly. “But I have it right here if you need to see it.” She pulled a piece of folded paper from the side pocket of her handbag and held it out to Winnie. She stared down at the white square in horror. She had no intention of touching that thing. She shook her head, not taking her eyes from the woman’s face. She didn’t have to read it; she knew exactly what it said. How could this woman have it? And she didn’t want Terry Russel thinking she was entertaining the garbage coming out of her mouth either. But it’s not garbage is it, Winnie? said a voice from deep inside her.

  She tried again. “I need you to leave right now.” If the woman didn’t get out of her home in twenty seconds, she was going to remove her herself. But Terry Russel looked as if her own spool of sanity was unraveling. Winnie had seen that look plenty—often in the mirror. With a sinking feeling in her belly, she realized that she wasn’t going to get rid of Terry Russel that easily.

  Terry, seeing something waver in Winnie’s eyes, pulled back her upper lip and said from between her teeth, “Where is my daughter’s baby? Where is Josalyn’s son?”

  Winnie’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t have said a word if she’d wanted to. Was this woman saying—did this woman think—she was still trying to piece together what was happening, that there was a stranger in her house accusing her loudly of something as her son was doing his homework upstairs. Samuel. Terry thought that Samuel—

  “You took my daughter’s child!” Terry Russel wasn’t shouting, but her voice was so cold she didn’t have to.

  “He’s...not her son!” Winnie gasped. “You crazy old bitch. Get out of my house!”

  She hadn’t called anyone a bitch since she was eighteen, and then it had been because her best friend had slept with her boyfriend. It flew out of her mouth with enough venom to stop Terry Russel in her kitten-heeled tracks. But then—oddly—Terry’s head pivoted right, like she’d seen something outside the open door. Winnie thought that she was imagining the whites of Terry’s eyes growing larger with each passing second, but then the woman’s mouth opened and she let out a little gurgle of surprise.

  And then it happened: the scene shifted, and the villains rearranged themselves into a new order. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds to play out, but to Winnie, everything happened excruciatingly slowly.

  A noise preceded her husband, a guttural, wet moaning that raised the hairs on Winnie’s neck. He moved into view in slow, laborious steps, like he was pulling something behind him. Winnie saw his brow, then his nose, and then his shoulders struggled past the open door, heading straight for Terry, who seemed frozen, staring.

  He was walking in a strange, zombie-like gait. What Winnie noticed first was that the white T-shirt he’d been wearing when he left to take his run was no longer white. A bloom of red started just under his shoulder, near his collarbone, dark in the center and bright scarlet on the edges. She just had time to register that her husband was injured—terribly so—before he fell directly into Terry Russel’s arms. Winnie ran for Nigel at the same time as his weight pushed the older woman off her feet and onto the foyer floor with a hard thump. They went down in a tangle of legs. But before Winnie could reach them, Nigel had rolled off Terry Russel and was lying on his back on the floor, gasping.

  Winnie dropped down next to him. He was rearing his head up, struggling to look out the door.

  “Dakota...”

  Winnie heard him but couldn’t register his words. Her husband was busted like a cracked wine bottle, leaking on her hardwood. Winnie d
idn’t even notice that Terry Russel had risen to her haunches and backed herself against the closet door, her mouth slack with horror.

  She saw the blood on his shirt at the same time her brother walked through the front door holding a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.

  29

  WINNIE

  “Dakota...oh my God, call an ambulance!” Winnie’s hands were slippery, and she didn’t want to think about the color of the substance on them; the color was hurting her eyes and there was so, so much of it. She was trying to stop the blood that was easing out of Nigel’s shoulder in a thick stream.

  She had her phone a second ago; where was it? Her eyes scanned the floor around her as she tried to remember if she’d dropped it. Nigel moaned, the whites of his eyes flickering through the small gap of his eyelids. How was she supposed to stop the bleeding? Ripping off her sweater, she balled it up and pressed it to Nigel’s shoulder. Her cream-colored sweater soaked his blood like a sponge and Winnie let out a cry. God, he was going to bleed to death. That horrible woman—Terry Russel—was slowly standing up, using the closet door as leverage so she could slide slowly up the wall. One of her kitten heels had come off and was lying on its side next to Nigel’s head.

  “Dakota!” Winnie cried again. She turned to Terry, her rage so large her words grated out of her throat. “You! Get out! Get out right now!” Then, back to her brother—

  “Are you drunk, Dakota? Did you hear me? Nigel is hurt!”

  “He knows that,” Terry Russel said. Her voice was almost dry. “He’s the one who did it.”

  Her voice summoned Dakota’s gaze. He looked at Terry with little interest, and that was when Winnie really began to panic. Her gaze leveled on the knife held limply in his hand and she felt a quake of uncertainty, but then Nigel was squeezing her hand. What strength he had left was leaking out of his body alarmingly quickly. His face was a shade of gray that scared Winnie. People didn’t turn that color unless something was very wrong. Nigel’s eyes were open, and he was staring at Dakota, his mouth distended with terror.

  Winnie connected the dots slower than she would have if it wasn’t her husband who was dying in front of her. Terry Russel knew exactly what was going on, which was why she hadn’t made a dash for the door: the object of her fear was blocking it. Dakota. She glanced back at Terry and saw the older woman’s eyes scan the room and then, with a little flicker of hope, land on her handbag, the one she had so primly carried on her arm when she knocked on Winnie’s door.

  Dakota’s face was expressionless, like he was zoned out watching TV rather than his brother-in-law bleeding out on the floor. He sheathed the knife in a holster on his belt, the holster she knew he used for hunting because she’d bought it for him. She was about to scream his name again, this time wake him up from whatever alcohol-or drug-induced trance he was in—when she really saw the gun, and Manda’s words came rushing back to her: He has it out for Nigel...

  “Dakota, what are you doing?”

  He ignored the question—he ignored her altogether, in fact, and took a step toward Nigel, lifting the arm holding the gun.

  “Dakota!” Winnie’s scream was shrill, but the only indication he’d heard her was a slight sway his head made in her direction.

  She looked down at Nigel, afraid to leave him and even more afraid to move him. But if her phone was trapped underneath his body... She needed to calm down, clear her head. She thought of Samuel, upstairs doing his homework—had she really heard his door open, or had she imagined it?—and mentally begged him to stay put. If he heard Dakota’s voice he’d stay in his room, she thought. But Dakota had yet to say anything, and that was the strangest, scariest part.

  Winnie tried to stand up, but something abruptly slammed her back to the floor. She felt pain explode in her knees and she fell forward over Nigel, the palm of her hand almost landing on his bleeding shoulder. Astonished, she looked over her shoulder at Dakota, who had been the one to shove her down. He wasn’t looking at his sister; his eyes were now on Terry Russel—the thing that didn’t belong in this situation. Winnie tried to stand up again with the same result: Dakota’s heavy hand resting on her shoulder before slamming her back to her knees. This time, she managed to crawl across Nigel’s legs and away from her brother.

  “What is wrong with you?” she gasped, backpedaling farther from him. His only response was to raise the gun, the muzzle pointing at Nigel’s chest, and to shoot it, once...twice. Winnie didn’t scream; she was too stunned. Besides, if you knew you were dreaming it was stupid to scream, wasn’t it?

  Terry Russel screamed, however. It was an old woman’s scream, deep and frail, and it didn’t go very far. Nigel’s body bucked only when the second bullet hit him. There was a faint curling of smoke above where the bullet entered his chest—or at least Winnie thought there was. The pops of the gun were so loud Winnie’s vision seemed to tremble, and when the air settled, her husband was dead. Winnie was puzzling over the fact that her knees had hurt when Dakota shoved her down, hurt like it wasn’t a dream. She could see a stream of red pooling underneath Nigel; his shirt had been white, hadn’t it...? She reached to touch the blood; if it was warm, this wasn’t a dream. You couldn’t feel warm in a dream. Winnie opened her mouth to scream; in that moment her head suddenly exploded with pain and everything went black.

  * * *

  Her eyes opened gently, but what came after she opened them was the most painful moment of her life. Her head felt like someone had opened her skull and poured hot coals inside. Pressing the heel of her hand to her right eye, she struggled to sit up. When her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was Terry Russel, sitting across from her on the floor of the blue bedroom, the one in the apartment. She wasn’t dreaming, and that meant that Nigel was dead.

  Winnie felt the pain straight down her middle; it tore out of her mouth in what should have been a cry of anguish, but, muted by the gag in her mouth, came out as no more than a muffled sob. Her hands were bound behind her back with what felt like duct tape. She couldn’t see; beneath her tears, her eyes strained to focus on anything other than Terry Russel. She moaned again, this time in frustration, and blinked furiously to clear her eyes. Where was Samuel? The panic drove her to her feet, which she was relieved to see were not bound. She wobbled unsteadily before rushing for the door. Winnie couldn’t reach the doorknob with her hands bound. She had no doubt it was locked from the other side, the house side. Nigel had insisted they put a solid lock on the door to the separate apartment in case they did decide to take on a renter; they could make sure the tenant couldn’t get into the main house, he’d said, by dead-bolting the door from the Crouches’ side. She looked around at the kitchenette and bathroom door. On the other side of the locked door was Nigel’s den. She could picture the Lovesac, the ridiculously overpriced couch he loved so much. At the thought of her husband she bent over, pulling short breaths in through her nose. Focus. Samuel... Samuel... Samuel... Focus.

  Her eyes were stinging as she considered the room.

  This room—the addition—had its own entrance, the one her husband had insisted on. This entrance led to an alley behind the house.

  Her eyes darted to that door at once, and she saw Terry Russel’s head jerk in the direction. She didn’t want to think about that awful woman right now; her brother had snapped, murdered Nigel in cold blood, and she needed to get to Samuel. If she could get out to the street, she could run to the neighbors for help. But Dakota had duct-taped her hands together so tightly behind her there was no give. How was she going to open the door? She had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been unconscious, though it was dark outside the windows. She could knock her head against the glass until someone on the street heard. But what were the actual chances of that? Dakota would hear her, if he was still in the house, or she’d give herself a concussion and then she wouldn’t be able to help Samuel.

  Terry was rocking back and forth, her
eyes practically rolling around in their sockets. Her brother had used the woman’s own scarf to gag her, and a portion of her hair had gone into her mouth with the gag. She was making absolutely no move to do anything helpful, just staring at Winnie with panicked eyes. Winnie started working on getting her hands free.

  But Dakota walked into the room not two minutes later, the gun still in his hand. Winnie craned her neck to see if Samuel was with him, trying to call to him around her own gag.

  “Where’s Samuel, where’s Samuel?”

  But it sounded like nonsense, like “Wazazow...wazazow.” Her eyesight blurred again with new tears. Grief and horror were cycling through her, and she bent at the waist as Nigel’s death replayed behind her eyelids, the way his body had jerked when the bullet hit.

  Dakota grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and pushed her onto the bed. Her legs flew up as she fell on her back, which was what he was counting on. He had her ankles tied before she could even try to struggle into a sitting position. She screamed at him through the gag, screamed until her throat was on fire, trying to get him to acknowledge her, but her brother’s face was as vacant as a mannequin’s.

  30

  JUNO

  Juno was in Hems Corner when Dakota shot Nigel Crouch. She made a noise when the gun went off, but it was drowned out by guttural screaming, and then the screaming stopped abruptly. There was a thud as a body hit the floor, and then Juno wet her pants.

  Terry Russel was remarkably quiet for a woman who’d stumbled right into a family tragedy and had seen a man murdered in front of her. Or had Dakota shot her, too? Juno had heard two shots and a scream. She could hear harsh breathing from the other side of the closet door, but she couldn’t tell whose it was.

  Juno had crept up to the door when she’d heard Terry’s voice. She’d been waiting for Terry Russel to show up, counting on it. Nigel stumbling into the house minutes after with Dakota on his heels had been a complete shock to Juno. She’d expected Nigel to discover the two women at odds when he came back from his run, then shit would have really hit the fan. But now Nigel was dead—presumably—and that was not something Juno had ever wanted. She reached for the trapdoor. She’d crawl back down there and hide until this was over. The neighbors must have seen something—heard something—cops would be swarming the place before too long. But before she could open the trapdoor and crawl through, she heard voices. Terry Russel—she was alive!—was pleading. She was talking very quickly, as if Dakota might turn the gun on her next. Juno buried her face in the carpet, carpet that still smelled faintly of urine from the last time.