Verna made a short, tight noise. The madness in her eyes receded a little; they were suddenly brimming with injured tears. “What was I supposed to do? What did he think I’d do?”
Claire ventured, “You loved him...”
Verna’s eyes grew feverishly bright. “Yes, yes. You know. You understand. I loved him. I’m...not young. Not pretty. I was never pretty. I met Martin. We married. He was a good man. We had a good life, even though the... children never came. And then he died. And I thought, well, that’s it. That was all of it. You’ve had what you will have. But then...”
“You met Alan.”
“Yes. Alan.” Verna smiled, a dreamy smile. She still held the gun on Claire, but she had relaxed a little. Her hands were steady now. “I met Alan. And life was... new again. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me, of all people. That magic, that loveliness. But it was. I loved him from the first morning when I tapped on the door of the bungalow and he stuck his head out and smiled. He said, ‘Hello there, come right in....’He was wearing a maroon silk robe, with his initials on it. He was fresh from his shower, and the room smelled of his after-shave. I was embarrassed at first. I asked him if maybe I should come back later, when he was dressed. But he said he was making coffee. Would I like a cup... ?”
Verna’s dreamy voice faded. She rested her head against the high back of her chair. Her eyes drooped, and the hand with the weapon in it began to droop in the same way.
Claire watched the gun, as the hand that held it softly drifted down to rest on the arm of the recliner. If she moved swiftly, propelled herself straight across at the other woman, and then knocked the gun...
Verna’s eyes shot open and her head snapped erect. “Don’t move. Don’t get ideas.” Once again, Claire found herself looking down the round, gray mouth of the quivering gun.
“I haven’t,” Claire assured her. “I won’t.”
“Good. Where was I?”
“He, um, offered you coffee.”
“Oh, God.” Verna wiped sweat from her brow with her free hand. “Yes. He offered me coffee. And I shouldn’t have, but I said yes. Yes, yes, yes...” Verna’s eyes went dreaming again, but this time she kept them wide open and the gun remained pointed straight at Claire’s heart. Verna blinked. “After things became... intimate—” she blushed “—he said we had to be discreet about us, that he had a few things going on here in town that would be ruined if anyone knew about us.”
Verna sighed. “Of course, I knew what he meant. He was trying to get something going with you. But I also knew you never looked at anyone but Joe Tally. So I knew that would pass. And Alan and me would leave town together, eventually. So I met him in secret. It was easy, since I cleaned his room five days a week. And you never checked on me. You trusted me. I was a dependable employee. I don’t think a soul in the whole town knew what was going on.”
The dreamy look in Verna’s eyes began to fade. “I gave him everything, the whole twenty-five thousand I had left from Martin’s insurance. He was supposed to be investing it for me. He said he knew a way to double it in a year.”
Claire shook her head, feeling compassion for Verna in spite of her own plight. She knew the rest without hearing it. “Oh Lord, Verna. I’m sorry....”
Another tight sound escaped the plain woman in the reclining chair—a sound between a mad bark of laughter and a sob. “Right. So am I. Oh, God, so am I. I was such a fool.” Now Verna seemed unable to remain still. She stood up. “Don’t you move.”
“I won’t.”
Still keeping the gun trained on Claire, Verna skirted an open box in the middle of the floor and went to the window by the front door. She peered around the comer of the shade. Then she turned back to Claire. “God. I can’t believe how stupid I was. When you told me that night that he was leaving, I still thought everything was fine. I thought that we were leaving. I left the office and went straight to him... and he told me the truth.”
Verna’s face twisted up again, and her voice grew thin. “He was packing already, planning to just skip out...by himself. He tried to sweet talk me a little, but only a little. He didn’t even put much effort into covering up the truth. And the truth was that I was nothing... nothing to him. And, as for my money. ..he just gave me that grin of his. My money was safe with him, he said. He’d be in touch....”
Verna sucked in a long breath, steadying herself. The mad light in her eyes blazed up once again. “I left. I was going to come back here, get my own gun, and go tell him if he didn’t want me, that was fine. But he’d better give me my money, or else. But I passed the office, and I thought about that gun you always kept behind the desk, and I had my key with me....”
Slowly, Verna approached the couch where Claire sat. Claire tried to keep eye contact with her, though all she thought of was the neat, round mouth of the gun.
“And the rest, well, I guess you can figure it out for yourself. I—I didn’t plan to shoot him, though. I didn’t. I loved him. But even when I pointed the gun at him and told him to give me my money back, he went on smiling. And it was too much, just too much. I pulled the trigger. He fell against the dresser. When he hit the floor, he didn’t move... I thought he was dead, I swear it. So I got out of there.
“I waited, all night. I almost went crazy with waiting. And then in the morning, I had to go up to the schoolyard and get the damn float ready.”
She loosed a mad snort of laughter and backed up a few feet, recoiling at the memory of what she’d been through. “Can you believe it? I’d shot the man I loved, and I had to be in charge of the Snow’s Inn Independence Day float!” She turned, a fraction, toward the recliner. “And then, just after the damn parade, the news hit. It was all over town. You’d found him, and he wasn’t dead. He was in a coma. My God, a coma... ”
Now Verna began to cry, huge, soggy tears that streamed down her face and dribbled into her mouth, over her chin, everywhere. Her nose ran. She sobbed, deep, hiccuping sobs.
“Oh, Verna...” Claire seized the moment when Verna’s guilt and regret totally controlled her. She stood up.
“Stop. Stop right there.” Verna wiped at her nose with the back of her hand and waved the gun wildly at Claire. “I told you not to move!”
“But Verna—”
“Shut up. You just...shut up. You...you shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have, Claire. You didn’t leave me any choice, coming here.”
Claire put up her hands. “Verna, it’s over. Face facts. If you shoot me, there’ll be no one to pin it on. They’ll figure out this time that it’s you.”
“I’ll be long gone.”
“You can’t hide forever. Think, Verna. You don’t even have any money, you said so yourself...”
“I’ll steal it. I’m a criminal now, I’ll do what I have to do. That’s how it is these days. Women like me don’t have any choice.” The gun wavered again, and Verna looked as if she might crumple. “Oh, how did all this happen? Oh, Lord. What should I do?”
“Give me the gun, Verna.” Claire stepped closer, hoping against hope that, for once in this whole mess surrounding Alan Henson, luck would be with her. If only she could disarm the other woman before Verna actually fired.
Verna continued to back away. She had cleared the recliner. Behind her was the open packing box she’d skirted earlier to go to the window. “No, you step back now. Don’t you come any closer. I mean it, Claire. I’m warning you...” Verna steadied the gun. Claire saw her own fate in Verna’s bright, mad eyes just as Verna took one more step backward—and lost her balance when her heel hit the box.
The contents of the box clanged and rattled. Verna teetered. Claire bent at the knees and launched herself at Verna’s legs.
Both women hit the floor. “Oof,” Verna said.
And the gun went off—a deafening crack in the close, hot room.
The shot went wild, and Claire writhed up the length of Verna’s body, grabbing for Verna’s wrist. Her fingers closed around it. She squeezed, in an attempt to
wrest the weapon from the other woman’s moist hand.
“Don’t you.. .I’ll get you...” Verna muttered between soft, intent grunts and groans.
Claire didn’t speak. She was fighting for her life and the life of her unborn child against a bigger, heavier opponent. As the two of them wrestled frantically for control of the gun, Claire tried to keep the top position.
But Verna was bigger, and she used her weight to advantage. With a heavy grunt, she got their struggling bodies turning.
And then Verna was the one on top. She scowled down at Claire. Then she lunged back and pointed the gun in Claire’s face. Claire saw the small, round mouth of death.
Somehow, she managed to free an arm and knock Verna’s arm up and out just as the gun fired again. The shot exploded. Beneath the ringing in her ears, Claire heard one of the windows by the front door shatter. Glass tinkled and chimed as it hit the screen, and then slid out beneath the shade to pepper the floor beside the door.
Verna, set off-balance by Claire’s move, collapsed with another “Oof” on top of Claire, cutting off her air. Claire took the split second of advantage to roll their entwined bodies once more and gain the top herself.
She looked down into Verna’s sweating, twisted face as Verna struggled to aim the gun at Claire once more. Claire thrashed and grabbed, catching Verna’s outstretched arm just as she brought it back in again.
Now the gun was cradled between their two bodies, Claire’s hands around Verna’s hand, as Verna beat at Claire with her free arm.
The gun went off again. Claire heard the sound all through her body, right after she felt the hard shove against her shoulder. For a moment, dazed, she thought Verna had punched her there. But a quick glance showed her the blooming flower of red that was staining her shirt. And she felt the heat, the burning, the pain. She had been shot.
She looked in Verna’s eyes. And she saw pure bloodlust.
“I’ll get you...”Verna grunted. “You’re done. You’re finished....”
Claire knew the next shot was coming. With superhuman effort, she managed to shove Verna’s hand upward. The gun discharged, a rolling thunderclap, seeming to catch up the echoes of the other blasts, and expand on them, until the whole world was one loud, unending boom. Claire felt a hot, slicing sensation along the side of her head.
She was hit for the second time. Verna crowed in mindless triumph. Claire looked down at the twisted face beneath her, dazed, as Verna smacked her a good one, on the side of the head, using the gun as a cudgel in the same spot the bullet had just creased.
Verna crowed again.
For Claire, the world went fuzzy. Her head grew heavy, numb. Dizziness sent the whole drab, hot room spinning.
Claire fought on, though the blow to the head had been a bad one. She forced her mind to keep functioning, her body not to give up. For the sake of the baby, the tiny innocent baby. And the chance for life it would never have if the madwoman beneath her had her way. Claire managed to grab Verna’s wrist, and more or less pin the gun to the floor above the other woman’s head.
Verna fought like a tiger; it took all Claire’s weight to hold the gun hand down. How many shots were left? Claire tried to get her deadened mind to recall. Two, probably, if the gun was like most revolvers. If Claire could only last through two more shots...
Craa-ack! Another wild shot, echoing loud and then splintering the ceiling.
One more, Claire thought, only one more....
Verna fought to bring the gun between their bodies again. Claire took a final, dangerous chance, and released the other woman’s hand.
“Ha!” Verna crowed, and brought the gun in, aimed it... With all the fading strength she possessed, Claire reared back on her knees. Though her injured shoulder seemed to scream aloud in protest, she drew back her arm and whacked Verna’s wrist with her left hand.
The gun went flying, hit the side table by the recliner, and then spun on across the floor. Claire collapsed on top of Verna.
Verna shrieked in foiled rage. She bucked, her whole large body gathering and then shoving. Claire felt herself going up and over. She fell backward across the open packing box.
Verna rolled to her knees and began crawling, scrambling for the gun.
Through a veil of her own blood and ever-increasing lightheadedness, Claire made out the ceramic lamp on the table by the recliner. She dragged herself upright, felt the world go spinning crazily, and managed, somehow, to stagger around the back of the recliner where she could pick up the lamp.
She reached out both hands, lifted the lamp and tottered the few steps to where Verna was just wrapping clutching fingers around the trigger of the gun.
Claire dropped the lamp on the back of Verna’s head in the split second before Verna managed to turn and fire.
With a soft “Oof,” Verna passed out facedown on the floor, squeezing the trigger one more time as she faded from consciousness.
The last shot buried itself harmlessly in the plaster of the wall.
Claire blinked and swayed, thinking woozily that, at last, there would be quiet... that she could sit down until the world stopped whirling around.
But the quiet never came. Behind her, the front door was kicked from its hinges. It crashed against the jamb. And, though she could hardly see for the way everything was spinning and shifting, she knew who it was, anyway.
It was Joe, sliding around the side of the door, and aiming his own gun at her. Staggering, barely able to stay up-right, she still couldn’t repress a smile. He was something— only minutes behind her in figuring out who shot Alan Henson.
He took in the situation at a glance, and lowered his gun. “Claire. Damn it, Claire...”
Unconsciousness rose up and rolled toward her, a massive gray wave. “It’s all right, Joe. I handled it. Verna’s only knocked out. And I’m a little dizzy. But I’m pretty sure the baby’s all right....”
Suddenly, her silly legs wouldn’t hold her up. She was sinking. And Joe was there, catching her, cradling her across his lap.
“Getting...blood all over the place...” she sighed. “Love you. Always. Never stopped....”
His face was so close, his gold eyes afire with both anguish and tenderness.
The gray wave descended, and she knew no more.
Chapter Sixteen
The world was water, gray water. She swam in the grayness and felt soothed. At peace. Far above, she could see the water’s surface. Beyond that was the glaring light of consciousness.
“Claire? Claire, can you hear me?” Joe was calling her, from up there, where pain and reality waited.
She didn’t want to go. It was so peaceful here, where she floated without cares or...
“Claire! Wake up. Damn it, Snow...”
So much for peace. Joe wanted her.
She looked at the surface, and she swam toward it. Up, up and up. And then she broke the surface. Her head pounded when she did it, and her shoulder throbbed and burned, but she opened her eyes, anyway.
“Okay, okay,” she croaked. “I’m awake. Stop shouting.”
“Thank God.” He took in a long breath and released it. Then he carefully smoothed her tangled, blood-matted hair away from her forehead.
Now that the adrenaline rush had left her, every muscle in her body throbbed—not to mention the agony that pounded in her head and blazed in her shoulder.
Joe was talking. “I’ve got to find a phone. Call an ambulance and the sheriff’s office. Do you hear me, Snow?”
“Yes. I hear. I do.”
“But there’s no phone in this room. I have to leave you, to do it.”
She realized his chest was bare. “Joe...your shirt...” And then she understood. He was pressing his wadded-up shirt against her injured shoulder.
He took her right hand, put it on the makeshift bandage. “Here. Keep the pressure on this.” He slid out from under her. She cried out at the pain.
“Claire?”
“I’m okay. Really. Okay.”
&nbs
p; Then she heard groaning. She was still disoriented enough that she thought for a moment she was the one doing it.
“Damn,” Joe muttered as he picked up Verna’s spent revolver. “Verna’s coming to.”
Though her head and shoulder protested shrilly, shredding her nerve endings with agonized alarms, Claire dragged herself to a sitting position, and leaned, panting, against the back of the reclining chair. She could see then that Verna was the one groaning. As Claire watched, Verna moaned and turned her head.
“Give me your gun...” Claire volunteered. “I’ll cover her while you find the phone.”
“In a minute,” he said, setting both guns well away from Verna. He grabbed the cord of the broken lamp and yanked it until it came free from the shattered base, then he tied Verna’s hands behind her back with the makeshift rope.
Verna moaned as he bound her, but didn’t put up any kind of a fight.
Over by the open box in the middle of the floor, there was a roll of twine. Joe used it to tie Verna’s ankles together. Verna was crying by then, soft, defeated sobs.
“Joe,” Claire said gingerly. “I don’t think she’ll do anything now. She’s done fighting. I really—”
He shot her a furious look. “I’m not in the business of reading minds, Claire. The way I know she’s through is I make it impossible for her to do any more.”
“She’s had a really rough time—”
“Lots of people have a rough time,” he said flatly. “It’s no excuse to go over the line.” He jerked the last knot tight and stood up. He looked down at Verna. “Okay, Verna, where’s the phone?”
“K-kitchen,” Verna managed between sobs.
Joe turned and looked around. Then he knelt by the flowered couch and tore a long strip off the dust raffle at its base. He went back to Claire and held his gun out, butt first. “Cover her. I’ll tie that shirt to your shoulder.”
Claire swallowed another cry of pain as he swiftly bound his shirt over the wound.
He stood up. “Keep that gun on her. I’ll make the calls.”
Claire nodded. He left the room. Verna lay limp on the floor, her body shaking with slow, deep sobs, but otherwise not moving. Still, Claire kept the gun trained on her until Joe returned.
Born Innocent Page 20
