by Jo Crow
My tongue was swollen, like it was meant for a mouth far larger than mine. Nausea flooded me in waves, and I entrusted the chair with the bulk of my weight as my knees went weak.
From the time I was eight years old, I’d had behavioral issues. I’d acted out. I’d disobeyed my parents. When I got older, I started smoking and drinking. I’d looked for attention in all the wrong places, including the beds of married men. When I’d left Hickory Hills to pursue my education and get the hell out of Detective Elkins’s way, I’d taken a hard look at myself and decided to study neuropsychology to figure out why I did the things I did, but I’d never been able to figure it out.
Now I knew.
I’d repressed the memories so deeply I couldn’t even dream about them in detail. My mind allowed only sensations and vague feelings to seep through into my subconscious.
Terror. Panic. Guilt.
How many times had I woken, screaming, during the night, not understanding why? Now I knew.
My father wasn’t the monster—I was.
“I’m sorry, Clara. You were never supposed to find out.” Jerry frowned. “Your father and I worked very hard to make sure you’d never be hurt by what happened.”
“And you’ve been invested in my well-being ever since,” I murmured. “All this time, you’ve been trying to look out for me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
I understood where Jerry was coming from, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. I realized if he’d told me the truth from the beginning, I wouldn’t be in the position I was, and James would be safe.
“I remember fragments of that night, like peeping through the keyhole of a door to see what’s on the other side.” If I’d been standing, my knees would have buckled. I sucked in a breath and tried to hold myself together. “I remember how the gun felt, and the way my feet were rooted to the floor. I remember the chaos. I remember the smell in the air. I remember the fear.”
“You didn’t talk for three days afterward,” Jerry said. “Your father and I were discussing treatment options when you snapped out of it, and from then on, you never mentioned it again. We didn’t mean to hurt you by keeping the truth from you, but we figured your mind had done what it needed to do in order to move on.
“I know you’ve learned some difficult truths, but I promise you, your parents loved you, and they tried to do the best they could for you. No matter what you think of them, they had your best interest at heart. It was the best solution for everyone.”
“But it wasn’t the best solution for Amanda.” I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, trying to find a place where it didn’t feel too big and clunky. My heart ached for Amanda as my friend in the same beat as it burned with hatred for her as my enemy. “She spent her whole childhood thinking she wasn’t loved. I found out her father started drinking and doing drugs, then left home when it got to be too much. He destroyed himself over Rachel’s loss, and their loss destroyed Amanda.”
Orphaned before she was ten, all the while under the impression she was unlovable.
When I considered all that had happened, was it really a surprise we’d acted out as teenagers? Both of us hurting, we did all we could in order to get through the pain.
And Amanda, heart still raw from her troubled childhood, was still acting out. She’d learned the source of her pain was my father, and she’d been doing everything in her power to strip that pain from her soul.
That meant killing me.
I understood. It hurt me to know it, but I sympathized. We weren’t all that different. If she’d been able to get out of this small town, if she’d been able to find a better outlet for her frustrations, if she’d been able to find someone to love her unconditionally like I’d found in James…
“I need to talk to her,” I said. It was so clear to me. I knew it would end badly, but she deserved to know. She was hurting just like I was and, if I told her I knew, if I offered to help her through it, then there was a chance no one had to die. The violence could stop. “I need to do my best to make this right.”
“You’re a good girl, Clara.” Jerry’s frown tightened. “I see a lot of your father in you, and he was a man I admired very much.”
“Thank you.” I swallowed hard and nodded.
The unspoken understanding that this may very well be the last time we’d ever see each other passed between us. The air was thick, and I resisted the urge to cry. If I was going to die, I wanted Jerry to remember me as the young, stoic woman who’d given it her all selflessly, not the coward who’d barely managed to pull herself together before she succumbed.
When I left his office, I did so with my head held high and my gait confident.
35
The dial tone taunted me, each drawn-out ring spiking my anxiety as I waited for it to be cut short as the call connected—or if Amanda declined the call. My new cellphone was unregistered, so there was a chance she wouldn’t pick up at all.
I hoped she knew better. She had me right where she wanted me, and if she were smart, she’d at least let me talk.
But the phone rang and rang.
Right before I was about to give up hope, the dial tone stopped. There was static on the other end. Then Amanda spoke.
“Hello?”
“It’s Clara.” I hadn’t planned what to say. All I knew was I had to say it from my heart. “Please, don’t hang up. I want to talk.”
Amanda snorted. “You wouldn’t call if you didn’t.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. With the doors locked and the keys in the ignition, I felt safe. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for what happened. I-I found out the truth.”
“You found out the truth?” Amanda was unimpressed. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, then? Because I’d love to hear how you’ve twisted the facts around this time.”
I had a hard time processing the sound of the voice I knew so well paired with unadulterated hatred. “Your mother didn’t kill herself. Her death wasn’t suicide.”
“And?”
I winced. “My father didn’t kill her.”
“I’m impressed.”
The sarcasm was meant to hurt me. I accepted the blow. All of the pain inside of her needed to come out somehow, and if I had to be her whipping boy, I was ready. As long as James came home safe, I’d do anything.
“So, who was it?”
“It was… it was me.” I bit down on my lower lip and let my breath out slowly through my mouth. It wasn’t quite a shuddering sigh, but it came close. “I read the coroner’s report. And I remember what happened. I’d repressed it for years, but after I heard the details, I knew.”
“You repressed it? Oh my god.” Amanda laughed. “Do you really think I’m going to buy into a story like that? You don’t forget murdering someone, Clara. Ask me how I know.”
I didn’t need to ask. I already knew.
“But you know, let’s go ahead and say you really had no clue. I can play that game. So, what should I do? Should I reward you for coming forward, for admitting you took the life of an innocent woman? Do you expect me to put you on a pedestal and shout your praises from the rooftops because you’re so virtuous and pure to admit you murdered my mother?”
“It was an accident.”
“Bullshit, it was an accident!” Amanda snarled. “You were eight years old. Eight fucking years old. Do you know what eight-year-olds do? Eight-year-olds read at a third-grade level. They can write. They can reason. They can be persuasive and informative. They’re skilled and can be athletic. They can do simple algebra, Clara. Are you telling me you were old enough to reason, yet firing the gun and killing my mother was an accident?”
My childhood was too foggy for me to remember anything of value. I didn’t know why I’d thought playing with the gun was a good idea, or why I’d wanted to see how it worked so badly—and that meant I couldn’t give Amanda the closure she wanted. “I was a dumb kid.”
“And you’re a goddamn idiot of an ad
ult, too.”
The criticism was deserved. But my stupidity didn’t matter—what mattered was my son. “I want to make things right. I want to meet you so we can finish this. But you have to agree to let James go. He’s not involved; he’s innocent.”
“And so was my mother,” Amanda seethed. “Do you think she had a choice?”
“You killed my parents, and I’m willing to meet you right now if you let James go. Isn’t that enough? You know he won’t live long without me, anyway. Without the experimental treatment, he only has a few months left.” If I dangled the carrot right, I hoped she’d bite. “Please, just… just let me do this. You don’t need the blood of another innocent. I took one life from you—isn’t taking three compensation enough?”
Amanda didn’t answer. I imagined her eyes narrowed in thought and her lips thinned as she considered what I’d said. She was the one with the power. The police were suspicious of me, not her, and they might never be. What Amanda wanted, she would get.
“Here’s the deal,” Amanda said after a long pause. “I’ll meet you with James, but it’s going to be on my time, and on my turf. If you don’t follow my conditions, I will kill him right there in front of you.”
“Okay.” I tilted the dashboard vent in my direction, channeling the air conditioning my way. The sun made the inside of the car sweltering hot, and not even the blasting air was helping me stay cool. My nerves were fried. “Where, when, and what are the conditions?”
“Where? The old McNair Furniture plant. When? Three hours from now. I’ll give you a whole hour to show up before I decide you’re a no-show. If you don’t come, I’ll kill James, anyway. Might as well put him out of his misery if he’s going to live the rest of his life in pain, isn’t that right?”
“I understand.” My words were hollow. I was too drained to commit to feeling. What little energy I had left, I needed to save for our last encounter. “I’ll be there.”
“You know if you cause a scene, if you bring the police, if you do anything I feel might degrade the sanctity of our little get-together, I’m not going to let him live, either, don’t you?”
“I know.” I couldn’t expect anything less. Amanda wasn’t dumb. She’d been planning for this day for a long time, and I’d been dropped into the middle of it in the dark and without a flashlight. I could only agree to go along with what she said. “I won’t do anything that might offend you.”
“Good.” Amanda’s voice brightened. “You know, Clara, it’s always so nice talking to you. It’s really a shame you didn’t come back to town sooner.”
The chipper words didn’t suit the sinister point of the message. My stomach churned. “All I ask is that you keep him safe. He’s just a little boy. He can’t take care of himself.”
“I deal with children day in and day out. You don’t have to worry about me.” Amanda chuckled. “See you in three hours. Don’t forget what we talked about today.”
“I won’t.”
Three hours didn’t give me a lot of time, but it would have to do. No matter what Amanda wanted, I wasn’t about to walk into the old McNair Furniture plant unprepared. The police weren’t on my side, and I knew Amanda had the upper hand, but I needed something to keep me going. I refused to go down without a fight.
No matter what it took, I would be there for James. My little boy needed me. I wasn’t going to fail him.
I started the engine and made the drive back to where it all began.
The McNair house was silent. The cleaning staff came by a few times a week but, if they were on duty, they were keeping a low profile. When I shut the heavy front door behind me, there was nothing but the thunk of the wood as it settled back into place and the sound of my footsteps.
I’d lost the revolver Amanda had given me in the staff house fire, but that didn’t mean I was defenseless. Attached to my father’s home office was a panic room, and inside were emergency supplies, including weaponry. If my memory served me right, he kept a revolver hidden in a small box behind several boxes of non-perishable food.
Amanda had warned me not to do anything that would discourage our tête-à-tête, but if she thought I was going to walk in there like a lamb to the slaughter, she was insane.
Maybe that went without saying.
I climbed the stairs and followed the hallway to my father’s office. Even after all these years, his office supplies were neatly set out on the table as if the cleaning staff expected him to come home to start working. It was melancholic and nostalgic, and I took a second to look at what I’d lost before I made my way to the door behind my father’s desk.
To anyone looking in without knowledge of the house, it was designed to look like a closet door. Made of simple wood that mimicked the rest of the closet doors on the second floor, it was inconspicuous. Just behind the door, however, was a reinforced steel door that locked from the inside only. I opened both doors and let myself inside the panic room to take a look around.
I’d only been in my father’s panic room a few times during my childhood. My father’s office was a place I wasn’t encouraged to be, and the panic room even less so. At sixteen, my father had taken me inside to show me the location of the revolver and the other weapons in the room, just in case I ever found myself in a situation where I needed to be prepared. In retrospect, I wondered if he feared retaliation from the Harwoods, and had installed the panic room as a means to escape potential attack.
Amanda had blindsided him. I had no idea how she’d discovered the truth, but it was clear my father hadn’t considered her much of a threat. If he had… I couldn’t bring myself to consider how different my life would have turned out if my parents were still alive.
The old cardboard boxes filled with canned foods and other rations were in good shape, and the room was surprisingly free of dust or musty smells. I assumed the cleaning staff came in to tidy it up regularly—the revolver might not be stored here.
I took my chances and searched anyway.
The small wooden box I remembered from twelve years before was tucked approximately where I’d last seen it. I pulled it out from behind the cardboard boxes of non-perishables and opened the top. Inside, in need of a cleaning, was my father’s revolver, a few cartridges, and the cleaning supplies I needed, including a small instruction pamphlet detailing what to do. The process wasn’t all that dissimilar from cleaning a hunting rifle, and with the help of the pamphlet, I wasted no time in preparing the weapon.
My teenage experiences meant I wasn’t totally clueless about guns—I knew enough to make sure it was unloaded before I started disassembling it. I settled at my father’s desk and laid out the supplies, then removed the rear cylinder and set it aside. The tiny bottle of cleaning solvent in the box was enough to coat the bore brush and, once it was prepared, I slid it into the barrel and let it twist as it followed the passage. When that was done and I’d slid the brush back out, I picked up a cleaning rod, attached a clean patch, and used some of the remaining cleaning solvent to lubricate it. The patch came back clean, so I discarded it and ran a few clean, dry patches into the barrel to get the solvent out. I cleaned the muzzle and the rear cylinder next and, when each piece was clean and dry, I assembled the revolver. There was only a little bit of gun oil left, so I used it sparingly and hoped it wouldn’t be an issue.
Then, heart heavy, I loaded the revolver and clicked the safety into place. I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it—that Amanda would come down from her crazed high and see the light—but I wasn’t naive enough to think that would be the case. There was a lot of evil in Amanda’s heart, rooted by years of internal anguish and perceived injustice, and I didn’t think I could strip it from her that easily.
I didn’t want to advertise that I had a revolver, so I resolved to slip it into my purse. None of the clothes I owned would be loose enough to conceal it, and wearing a sweater in the middle of summer would draw Amanda’s suspicion. I supposed a purse wasn’t much better but, with it, there was a chance Amanda wouldn’t think twi
ce. With everything going on, distraction was a possibility.
I hoped, for my sake and for James’s, it would turn out that way.
On the way from my father’s office, someone started to pound on the front door. Only a few steps from the stairway leading to the front entrance I froze.
What now?
The door was flung open, and police hurried into the room. My eyes widened, and I stepped back.
“McNair?” Detective Elkins called. “Give it up. Video footage reveals you broke into a government building this morning. You’re coming in with us.”
Shit.
I’d swept the outside for cameras, but the inside? I hadn’t thought to look. And even if I had, I’d been in such a rush to leave there was nothing I could do.
I knew that if I was arrested, I’d miss the time slot Amanda had reserved for me. She would kill James.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
When I’d first returned, I’d resolved I wouldn’t run anymore—running had only complicated my life and postponed my problems. I’d resolved to make my time in Hickory Hills work, and to take proactive steps to make sure I was doing everything in my power to set things right. But facing my arrest and the subsequent death of my son, I had no other choice than to do what I’d tried so hard to avoid.
I ran.
Escaping the McNair house was an old pastime of mine—something I’d done so regularly as a teenager I didn’t have to scramble to plan my escape route. I darted into my old bedroom as boots pounded on the stairs in pursuit. Heart hammering, I crossed the room, snagging a purse from my bedside as I went. As the footsteps beat along the upstairs hallway, I flung open my bedroom window, kicked the screen out, and dove through. It was never fun landing in the carefully pruned bushes below my window, but I’d never significantly damaged myself by doing it. That day was no exception. Branches snapped to break my fall, and in seconds I was on my feet and running for the woods as the police stormed the house, looking for the woman they believed was hiding inside.
