Season of Fear

by Brain Freeman

  ‘I have no choice,’ Deacon replied.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re some kind of closet Nazi,’ Tarla interrupted loudly. Somewhere in her mother-of-a-policeman brain, she thought: Play for time. Time made all things possible. Even rescue. ‘One of those awful Alliance members out to make the world safe for fascism? That would be very disappointing.’

  ‘I can do this, or I can go to prison for the rest of my life. That was my choice then. It still is.’ He added: ‘I don’t take any pleasure in it.’

  ‘Well, that makes me feel so much better,’ Tarla said.

  ‘Don’t toy with us!’ Caprice hissed, speaking for the first time. ‘If this is who you are, then you have to live with yourself. If you think you can do this, then screw up your courage and do it.’

  Deacon pointed the gun at Caprice. ‘Do you want me to kill you first?’

  ‘I don’t care what you do.’

  Deacon stared at her and said, ‘Bang’ – but he didn’t fire. He swung the gun back to Diane, who showed no fear. She watched Deacon and the black barrel of the gun with a peculiar fascination. Deacon limped closer, arm outstretched, ready to shoot. No regrets or doubts. No hesitation. No second thoughts.

  Tarla stepped in front of him.

  She blocked his way, a human shield between him and Diane. She wasn’t going to let him kill her friend, not then, not now. ‘I think we’ve been in this position before,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yes, we have,’ Deacon replied.

  ‘I’m curious. Why didn’t you kill me ten years ago?’

  ‘Honestly? You were too beautiful to kill.’

  ‘And now?’

  Deacon actually smiled. ‘You’re still beautiful.’

  He pointed the gun at her lovely face.

  She thought: So it’s like this.

  A voice from the broken window interrupted them. It was Cab’s voice, calm and deadly. It wasn’t in her head, it was real. ‘Deacon, put your gun down right now.’

  *

  Cab stood in the window between the sharp jaws of glass. Clouds of rain swarmed around him. He had both hands on the butt of his gun, his finger on the trigger. The wind made it hard to aim, but he fought the gales as he stepped through the wreckage of the window into the sunroom. He didn’t blink as he stared Deacon down. Behind him, silently, Lala slid inside the house too, her own gun also directed at Deacon’s face. Two against one.

  Deacon eyed them quietly, but he didn’t lower his weapon.

  ‘It’s over,’ Cab told him. ‘Kneel down, and lay the gun on the floor.’

  Deacon still didn’t move. He was a game-player, analyzing his options, deciding if there was a way to win.

  ‘That’s my mother,’ Cab went on. ‘If you kill her, I’ll be forced to kill you.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I want,’ Deacon said.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re suicidal.’

  Lala spoke to Deacon. Her voice was soft. ‘We already found Frank Macy’s body. We know you were planning to frame him. The plot’s done. You’ve lost. More killing won’t change that.’

  Deacon gave the barest shrug. He turned away from Tarla and squatted and laid the gun at his feet. When he straightened up, he lifted his hands in the air. ‘What now?’ he said.

  ‘Lace your fingers on your head,’ Cab told him. ‘Turn around. Walk backward toward me slowly.’

  Deacon did as he was told. He turned around. He took a step backward.

  At that moment, with wicked timing, Chayla intervened.

  The locked patio door shuddered. The sixty-mile-an-hour wind knocked on the door and then smashed it in, throwing the door on its hinges. It swung like a missile into Cab’s back, kicking him sideways into Lala like a bowling pin. They both toppled; their guns skidded along the wet floor.

  Deacon immediately bent down to scoop up his gun. He pivoted to aim at Cab, but Caprice dove across the short space, colliding with Deacon, who tumbled backward and rolled. Dizzied, he scrambled to his feet with his gun in his hand. Caprice grabbed Cab’s gun from the floor, and together, simultaneously, they pointed the weapons at each other.

  Deacon backed toward the open window. He held his side, which was bleeding profusely. ‘Have you ever fired a gun?’ he asked Caprice.

  ‘No.’

  He took a sideways glance at Cab and Lala, who were crawling on the slippery tile, trying to regain their balance. ‘Do you really think you can?’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘You’ll die, too,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Deacon took her measure, deciding if she was serious.

  He tilted the gun barrel down as if to surrender, but then, with a smirk, he turned and ran. Caprice fired repeatedly after him. The bullets were like little bombs blasting between the walls. Windows cascaded outward, breaking and falling. The storm howled as if Caprice were firing into its belly. She kept shooting wildly as Deacon vanished, until the gun was empty and each new pull of the trigger ended in an impotent click.

  Deacon was gone. Chayla folded him up into her furious heart.

  Cab, who was still reeling from the impact of the door, jumped through the window in pursuit.

  54

  A searing pain burned like a lit cigarette on Deacon’s back and made a trail of fire through his soft insides. As the bullet exited through the taut muscles of his stomach, he realized with a sense of wild surprise: She shot me. The impact kicked him forward, stumbling, but he righted himself. He put a hand on his abdomen, which was warm and wet, and pressed hard, feeling blood squirm between his fingers.

  He was invisible in black. Behind him, silhouetted against the pinpoints of candles, he saw Cab Bolton scanning the grounds. The gardens hid Deacon. He lifted his gun and fired from the trees, and Cab ducked. He didn’t think he’d hit him.

  The distance to the foreclosure house felt like miles. He knew he wouldn’t make it. He headed away from the main gate, following the vine-draped north wall through dense bushes that whipped into his face. The house loomed to his right, nothing but a black shape.

  Escape was impossible. He understood that. He was dying from the hole in his abdomen, but it didn’t stop him from using his last breath to get away. If he could get to the estate’s garage, if he could steal a car, there was hope. As long as blood pumped, then his heart was beating, and he was alive. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago.

  Why is there so much blood?

  That one night, that one moment on the road, never left his head. He could still feel the bitterness gripping his stomach as he made the night-time drive from Tampa. He could feel his head swim with each joint, but the pot didn’t relax him; it just fed his impatience. That night, he was an eighteen-year-old boy, hating the world, hating his domineering brother, hating his little sister puking in the back seat, hating his parents who had died. All of that rage made its way into his foot, dead-heavy on the accelerator. Seventy miles an hour. Eighty.

  He was alone on the highway, and then he wasn’t alone. Alison was with him.

  Alison, who was nothing but a flash of blond hair in his headlights. Alison, who flew when the bumper of Lyle’s Mercedes clipped her bicycle tire, whose head landed like a falling meteor on the asphalt.

  He remembered the panic he felt. His body was bathed in sweat. His fogged head went around and around. He remembered running from the car to where she lay. He remembered staring at her on the ground, so small and limp, blood flowing, her eyes closed. He knew what to do. Call an ambulance, wait with her, hold her hand, whisper in her ear that everything would be okay. That was what he planned to do, even as he took her sneakered feet and dragged her off the road into the damp gully. He could imagine himself explaining the accident on the phone and giving the police his location, even as he covered her still-breathing body with dirt and leaves, even as he shoved her mangled bicycle under the cover of a flowering bush. There’s a girl, she’s hurt, he heard himself say, even as he screamed at Peach to get back in the c
ar, as he told her never to say a word to anyone about what had happened.

  He hit a deer. That was all. That became the truth.

  If Lyle had left it at that, if he had let Deacon take the car to Jacksonville for repair, maybe his brother would still be alive. Lyle was no fool. He’d seen the headlines; he’d seen through the lie. And so he had to die. Strange, how simple the calculation was. He could talk to a lawyer and plead guilty and give up his life, or he could put a bullet in his brother’s brain. Strange, how easy it was to do that. How good it actually felt, silencing that awful, judgmental voice forever.

  He wasn’t sorry. He hated Lyle. He only wished he could have told his brother to his face who the man of the family really was. Lyle was a coward who wanted big things but blinked at what it took to get them, who never understood that the ends justified the means. Not like Deacon. He wished his brother had known the truth. Then again, maybe he did. Maybe in that final instant, he knew who was putting that gun to his head.

  Deacon emerged, bent and weak, from the trees. He staggered for the garage’s rear wall and collapsed against it, breathing heavily. When he twisted the doorknob, it was locked, but he pressed his gun against the bolt and fired, busting the door inward. He fell inside. The three-car garage was sticky and dark, and he could see vehicles in each stall. He limped beyond the cars and threw open one of the big doors. Turning back, he spotted a door leading inside the house, and next to it were three sets of hooks, which glistened with car keys. He dragged himself across the concrete floor, trailing blood. He grabbed the keys and threw himself inside the closest vehicle, which was a monstrously sized ebony Cadillac Escalade.

  He tried the first set of keys. They didn’t fit. The second set made the engine growl to life. He shot backward, weaving, dinging the side of the Audi in the adjoining space. The rain swirled down as he backed into the cobblestoned turnaround, spilling over onto mud and brush. He gripped the wheel with one hand like a vise. His insides were a blowtorch that didn’t cool when he shoved his other hand into the wound. He had to remind his brain what to do next.

  He shoved the gear into drive. His foot jammed the accelerator, and the truck fishtailed. He couldn’t keep straight. He fingered the dashboard and found the switch for the headlights, and the bright beams lit up the driveway like searchlights. Through the driving rain, he caught a glimpse of Cab Bolton running toward him across the estate’s sodden lawn. Deacon headed for the iron gates, which snapped open and shut, and he crashed through them, tearing them off their hinges, skipping them like beach stones onto the street.

  He was free. He swerved down the neighborhood street, throwing up waves, barely clearing the trees on either side. Debris clung to his windshield. He squinted to see. He felt the way he had a decade earlier, bitter, his head swirling, going faster and faster.

  And then there she was. In the middle of the street. In his headlights.

  Just like back then. An innocent girl, about to be thrown aside, crushed by the tons of steel. His foot lurched to the brake, and he heard a voice screaming in his head: Stop stop stop stop stop stop.

  It wasn’t Alison. He was in the present, not the past.

  It was Peach.

  *

  She saw him coming, and she knew it was her brother. There was no doubt in her mind. He drove wildly, like a man trying to escape his crimes. The headlights of the SUV were dragon’s eyes. The truck bore down on her, but she stood in the middle of the street, her hands at her side, the storm punishing her body, and she didn’t move. She made no attempt to dive clear. She heard the whine of brakes, heard the tires slipping in the water, saw the back of the truck skid.

  The Escalade lurched to a stop inches from her body.

  She had to shield her eyes, but she could see him behind the headlights. The driver’s door opened, and he climbed out. He clung to the window with one hand to keep himself upright, and he screamed at her.

  ‘Fruity! Get out of the way!’

  Peach simply shook her head and didn’t move. The lights bathed her, making her feel small. Small, which was how she’d felt ten years ago, wandering in a haze onto the deserted highway. Deacon had screamed the same way then, in desperate terror, telling her to get back in the car.

  He was the same man. Her brother.

  ‘This isn’t about you!’ he shouted.

  She walked around the corner of the SUV. She came close to the driver’s door, and she could see that he was badly wounded. ‘Not about me?’ she said, but the storm was louder than she was. Hearing it try to drown her out, she raised her voice and shouted back. She was no longer a child.

  ‘Not about me? You killed Lyle, didn’t you? You killed Justin, too. It was you!’

  Deacon raised his other hand. There was a gun in it, pointed at her head. ‘Fruity, get out of here!’

  ‘Sure, kill me! That’s what you do, Deacon. You kill people.’

  ‘I’m not kidding!’

  Peach walked closer, until the gun was a beast in her eyes. Wild wind, wild rain, plunged from the sky. ‘Neither am I! Do it!’

  He was the young one now. He was still eighteen. His voice screeched. ‘Goddamn it, Fruity! Don’t make me!’

  ‘I don’t care! Do you think I don’t know what you did? I remember the accident. I remember Alison. So now you have to kill me, too, just like everyone else, right? So pull the trigger!’

  Deacon shoved the barrel against her forehead. It was hot; it burned. Over his shoulder, beyond the car, she could barely make out two people sprinting through the storm. They were fifty yards away, but they were getting closer. Two people. Cab. Lala.

  Deacon glanced back and saw them, too. He pushed the gun into her face again, so hard it made her stumble.

  ‘Go away! Just go away! I don’t want to hurt you!’

  Peach took both hands and wrapped them around the gun. His hand was cold against her warm fingers. His blood smeared her face. Their eyes found each other, and his eyes were lost and lonely. His skin was bone white, his red hair matted on his head. His whole body trembled.

  ‘Deacon, stop!’ Cab shouted.

  Deacon wrenched away, ripping the gun from her grasp. He threw it into the gutter, where the weapon vanished under the rushing water. Slamming the door, pushing past her, he ran, but it was not a run at all. He tottered like a dirty drunk. Six steps later, he lurched to a stop, and his knees crumbled. He went down, sinking to all fours, and then his left side gave way, and he sprawled onto his back, twitching, spread-eagled. A river washed over him, deep enough nearly to cover his body.

  Peach’s breath stuttered in her chest, and she splashed toward him. She got on her knees and slid an arm under his limp neck and held him. His eyes were open but gray. His lips frothed with blood. She was vaguely aware of Cab and Lala drawing close, of them standing over her and touching her shoulder, but she didn’t move. She waited, because the end was near.

  She stared into his face, but it wasn’t him she saw. He seemed to become everyone else she’d lost, everyone she’d never had a chance to hold. Her mother. Her father. Lyle. And Justin. Justin, with his porkpie hat swirling away in the water, his mustache drooping, but still with that grin, teasing her, loving her. She wanted to hold on to all of them forever. Keep them here. Keep them alive for another second.

  But the man in her arms was none of those people. He was her brother. He was a killer.

  ‘Oh, Deacon,’ she said, but his eyes had already closed.

  55

  Chayla had fled.

  The clouds scurried after her, leaving the detritus of the storm – cars pushed around like toys, trees downed, roofs torn away – to glitter wetly under a perfect sun. Steam rose from standing pools of water. Fish rotted on streets and sidewalks half a mile inland from the Gulf and the bay. The rumble of back hoes and dump trucks made a whine in the background as the clean-up of the region began.

  The elegant landscaping of Diane’s garden had been torn apart. A fallen palm tree lay across the grass, its shaggy top
half submerged in the duck pond. A stone flamingo had been beheaded. Bushes were uprooted, and when the mild wind blew, they rolled like tumbleweeds. The floor of the gazebo, where Diane and Cab sat, was dirty with mud and branches.

  They’d cleaned off chairs, and they sat with china mugs of pomegranate oolong tea. Diane didn’t look at him; instead, she studied the disarray in the foliage, as if plotting its rebirth. She picked up a long strand of weeping willow that lay across the ledge of the gazebo. It was like seaweed plucked from the beach. She tried to bend it into a circle, but it didn’t bend, and so she dropped it back to the earth behind the shelter.

  ‘I haven’t thanked you for saving our lives,’ she told him.

  ‘Thanks aren’t necessary,’ Cab replied. ‘I’m sorry you were placed in such a frightening situation.’

  ‘Well, nevertheless. I’m very grateful. I’m sure Tarla is, too.’

  Cab smiled. ‘I believe her exact words were, “Did you have to wait until the last second like this was the eighteenth sequel to Die Hard?”’

  ‘That does sound like Tarla,’ Diane said.

  ‘She also mentioned that McTiernan wanted her in the original movie instead of Bonnie Bedelia, but she couldn’t stand Bruce Willis.’

  ‘So she’s coping well with her second brush with death.’

  ‘She is.’

  Diane picked up her cup of tea, but then she put it down again, as if it had lost interest for her. ‘I’m still shocked about Deacon. I do feel bad for him, despite everything. And for his sister.’

  ‘Peach is strong. I like her. If it weren’t for her, Deacon’s plan might well have succeeded. Frank Macy’s body would have disappeared into some deserted part of the Everglades. Deacon used the gun he got from Macy at Picnic Island, so Macy’s prints would have been on it. All the evidence would have pointed toward Macy, not just now but for the Labor Day murders, too.’

  ‘And toward me,’ Diane added. ‘Or Drew.’

  ‘Yes, a lot of people would have believed that you or your son paid Macy to kill Birch back then. Neither of you would have been alive to protest. Meanwhile, Deacon would have reappeared a couple days later, having “escaped” from wherever Macy and his friends had been hiding him after he was supposedly abducted.’