by L. D. Fox
Bryce sobered immediately. He dropped his head, eyes burning through Drew as his lips curled into a sneer. “It wasn’t about her. It never was.” The man sat forward, making Kelly look up from the phone. “It was about me.”
“Hey, sit still.” Kelly put the phone to her ear, pointing the gun at Bryce. “And shut up, both of you.”
Drew ran his tongue over his teeth. It hurt like a bitch, but at least it had stopped bleeding. He gathered spit in his mouth and sent that pink blob splashing to the floor between his feet.
“Hello? Yes! Please, you have to send help. There’s been a fight. Uh…” Kelly’s voice trailed off.
When he lifted his head, Bryce’s face had lost all expression. “It was all about me,” he repeated quietly. “You did it to get back at me.”
Drew cocked his head to the side. “You know what, Bryce? Yeah. It was all about you. But that’s the way it’s always been, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not in danger.”
Drew looked up at Kelly. Her lips began trembling as she swung the gun to him. “Please, hurry. It’s lot 15A, Pine Drive, Blackwater Lake…”
He dismissed her, turning his attention back to Bryce. The man tugged his hands guiltily away from the seatbelt, dropping his eyes. It was undone now. But was he planning on going for Kelly, or him?
Smiling, Drew sat back in the chair, hooking his thumbs over the seatbelt like a cowboy. “You know, I thought the impact would have killed her.”
Bryce’s eyes snapped up to his. His fingers flexed before curling into two tight fists.
“But it didn’t.” He put his head to the side, studying Bryce. “She was hanging upside down from her seatbelt—” he twanged his own seatbelt “—moaning and groaning.” He swayed from side to side, his smile inching up.
Bryce’s lips began trembling. “You fuck,” he hissed.
“Want to know what she said to me, bro?” He let the word trail from his mouth, slow and deliberate.
Bryce shook his head. For a moment, he thought a raindrop had gotten caught in those long lashes, but then the man blinked once — hard — and set free a pair of tears.
“She thought I was you,” Drew whispered, sitting forward in his seat.
Now, with Bryce so intense on his face, on his words, his brother wasn’t paying attention to his hands. Wasn’t watching them move slowly closer to that latch.
Kelly neither. He could see her from the corner of his eye. Could see the phone lowering. How it dangled at her side. The gun was still on him, but it would take a miracle for her to shoot anything higher than his ankle at the angle she pointed it.
She seemed as rapt as Bryce, at that moment. Perhaps it was the unraveling of the story, or the drugs pumping through her system, but she was as lost as his brother.
“When I came down the embankment? When she saw me?” Drew shrugged. “She called out your name.”
He shifted forward, lacing his fingers and resting his chin on them. The belt was loose now, but neither Bryce or Kelly seemed to have noticed.
“See, the windshield, the windows — they were all gone. Shattered. ‘Cos the car had rolled so many times. So I could hear her just fine. And she called for you. Said it hurt. That she couldn’t get out. And you want to know what I told her, Bryce? Want to know what I said to her, right before she died?”
Bryce was shivering now. His mouth was in a grim line, a deep crease between his eyebrows. He shook his head, black eyes imploring for mercy.
A mercy he would never receive.
“I told her I didn’t love her. That I never had. I told her I was using her to get back at Drew.” He pointed to himself with his thumb. “Back at me.”
Bryce’s eyes squeezed shut. He shook, his head swaying from side to side as his body fought against the revelation.
“She died thinking you used her.” He sat back then, grinning as his brother shook. “Now isn’t that fucking ironic?”
57
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly
Kelly ended the call with a decisive stab of her thumb; the last thing she needed right now was someone telling her to calm down. The gun was heavy, slick with rain. She knew a little about them. Enough to know how to shoot someone so they wouldn’t get up. Enough to know that Bryce had had the safety on the whole time.
But God, how she wanted to shoot him. Not Bryce; the man had been reduced to a trembling wreckage.
No, she wanted to shoot Drew.
She wanted it so much that she knew she couldn’t do it. Because, if she shot him, he wouldn’t get up again.
Ever.
It might have been his story, the one he’d just laid on Bryce like a meat tenderizer. But she had a feeling it was more than that. Because that one story… Drew didn’t sound terribly proud of himself. And not because of guilt, but because of how humdrum it was to him.
Sure, he’d set up his wife’s accident, in effect murdering her. And sure, he’d done it without anyone finding out. But what about before that? Because the man sure as shit wasn’t shaken up by it. Not the confession, not reliving the memory.
Was it because so much time had passed? Would she able to speak about killing someone as if was a thing of the past… even if it had happened less than a year ago?
Or was it because it wasn’t the first time? Had there been other times that Drew had set the world right — at least in his own perspective?
The thought made her fingers tighten over the grip of the gun. She kept it trained on Drew.
“Enough talking.”
Drew gave her a quick frown as if he’d forgotten she was still standing there. Then he shrugged. “Sure thing.”
“The police are on their way.” Rain was beginning to work its way down her back and through her clothing. She shivered, wrapping her other hand around the gun for extra support.
“Guess that’s only fair,” Drew said. “After all, wouldn’t want anyone else suffering at Bryce’s hands.”
His brother glanced up, frowning as he wiped furiously at his eyes.
“At Bryce—?” She cut off, waving the gun toward Drew’s twin. “He’s done nothing.”
“Sure the cops will see it that way,” Drew said quietly, tipping his head down and studying his hands where he’d laced them between his legs. “After all, it’s his gun. You’re both high. And I have absolutely no reason to hurt my brother.”
“Like hell you don’t!”
She jerked, swinging the gun toward Bryce. The man had his hands on his knees, fingers white. He sat forward as if about to lunge at Drew.
“Hey!” She took a quick step closer. “Put your seatbelt back on.”
Bryce’s face twitched with irritation. He turned his head to study her, fastening his belt with exaggerated care.
“Now we’re all just going to sit tight until—”
There was movement at the corner of her eye. Bryce’s eyes flashed away from her, toward Drew. She spun, the gun arcing through the air.
But she was too late.
Drew’s elbow drove the wind from her lungs and sent her crashing down the short flight of steps leading inside the boat. White lightning sparked across her eyes. The jolting pain from her head shot down her spine, to her legs. They caved under her, sending her sprawling to the rain-slick deck.
The gun spun away across the deck. Drew’s foot slammed down.
Bryce let out a yell, already loose and surging forward from his seat.
But he was also too late.
Kelly grabbed hold of a railing, hoisting herself up in time to see Bryce trying to wheel back from Drew. The man had both hands raised, face slack with terror.
Drew advanced a single step. Spread his legs. Aimed.
She screamed when the shot rang out.
The sound snapped through her like a physical force. She cracked her head against the door behind her, reeling forward with both hands on the back of her head as pain whipped her.
Something gripped her hair. Yanked her up the stair. Turned h
er to face the slowly expanding pool of diluted blood staining the deck.
“Can you see it now?” Drew hissed in her ear. “Hey, Kelly, baby? Can you see how different we are, now?”
“Drew, please, I—”
“Don’t bother,” he said, tossing the gun aside as if it had lost its use. He wrenched his shirt up, wadding it up against his nose and flinching. “If I was going to shoot you, you’d already be dead.”
He released her, and she fell to her knees with a cry. Scrambling forward, she grabbed Bryce’s jacket and tried turning him over. But he was too heavy. Too unresponsive.
She pressed her fingers to his neck, not even knowing if she was doing it right. Not even knowing what to feel for.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” she mumbled. She spun around, glaring at Drew through the rain as the man stood a few feet away, watching her. “You’re going to jail. You’re going to rot there. I saw everything! I heard what you did…”
Drew lifted a finger. Then he smiled and slowly pulled open the door leading inside the boat. He dropped his shirt, wiped at the blood oozing from his nose with the back of his hand, and gestured inside. “Shall we get out of the rain?”
She shook her head hard, spraying rain from the tips of her hair.
Drew cocked his head, and then tipped his chin to where the gun still lay, dull and dark under the heavy rainclouds.
“You’ve called the cops. And I can’t hurt you now. At least let’s wait out of the rain.”
She turned back to Bryce, shaking his shoulder. “Bryce. Bryce!”
“I doubt he can hear you with that bullet in his head.”
She plucked her hand away, cradling it to her chest with the other and got unsteadily to her feet. When she twisted to the front of the boat, Drew was holding the door open for her. She glanced past him, blinked hard, and then slowly walked forward.
“I won’t bite,” he said, grinning through blood-stained teeth. He spread his arm wide she wouldn’t have to touch him walking by.
She was on the first step when his fingers touched her hair. “Duck — don’t want you knocking your head.”
Shuddering at that touch, Kelly ducked her head and stepped down into the galley. It was tiny, that room. Her hip was right against a sink, and less than a pace away there was a padded berth, the middle folded up to form a seat. Scuba gear lay everywhere; several air cylinders had been stacked in the space between the seat, three suits lay discarded across the pale leather like deflated dummies.
Pink, green, dark blue. Those colors scorched her retinas and left afterimages in their wake.
Drew’s footsteps followed her, only slightly muffled by the drumming rain.
When she glanced at him over her shoulder, he gave her a sneering, lopsided grin.
“Oh, Kelly. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.” He put his head to the side. “How naive can one person be?”
There was something in his hand when he drew back his arms. An air cylinder?
Whatever it was, it drove pins and needles and an all-encompassing blackness through her when it connected with the side of her head.
58
Catch, Never Release
Angel watched Bryce climb onto the boat. He was the size of an ant, from here. The boat, a large crumb. When the jet ski bobbed away from the side of the boat, her fingers tightened on her cellphone until it creaked.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, pressing the phone against her chest.
A sullen, hard thumping started up in her chest.
Angel hurried down the steps and let herself into the lakehouse. She closed the door behind her, glancing around for keys or something to latch it with. She found nothing, and the urge to find out what Bryce was doing was too intense for keep looking.
She pushed through to the deck and shoved her phone into her pocket. Bryce’s shed left on the table in front of the fireplace. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she stared out over the rain-pocked lake.
The boat was still there. But she could see only blobs of light and shadow on the deck.
Did Drew keep binoculars in the lakehouse? If she knew where they were, she could find—
Her phone rang. She yelled, forcing her hands to unfurl from their fists so she could wrestle her cellphone from her pocket.
“Angel?”
“Penny? Penny!”
“Angel? What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God, I—” she gulped a breath, spinning away from the sight of the boat and whatever was happening on its deck. “Penny, I don’t…”
And she didn’t. She had no fucking clue how to tell this girl that her father was a killer. That his twin brother and their next-door neighbor were on a boat in the middle of the lake with a gun and fuck-knew what was happening.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay? Say something, Angel!”
“It’s… it’s your dad,” she whispered.
“My… dad? Angel, what—”
“He’s… something’s happened, Penny.”
“Shit, is he okay? What’s going on?” There was panic in Penny’s voice. A thick, trembling dread bordering on fear.
“No, he’s not. He’s really, really not.”
“Jesus, Angel, you’re scaring me. Please, just tell me—”
“I’m sorry, Penny.”
“Sorry? About what? What the—”
“Everything.” Angel slid with her back down the deck’s railing, clamping a hand over her eyes to try and push back the tears threatening to fall. Rain dashed against the back of her head, stinging her scalp.
“What’s wrong with my dad? Is he okay?”
“Bryce said he’s going to kill us,” Angel murmured. “He… he had a gun, Penny.”
“Bryce? A gun? What…” Penny gave a loud sob. “What are you saying?”
“They’ve been fighting.” Angel pressed her fingertips to her chest, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. It didn’t help — the tears found a way through, regardless. “Over me. It’s my fault, Penny. Everything. If I hadn’t—”
“Angel, you’re not making any sense! Did you call the police? An ambulance? Who’s there? Is Bryce there? Did he—”
“I’m sorry, Penny.” She pressed her hand over her mouth, feeling her lips quivering under her fingers. “I didn’t mean—”
A gunshot echoed across the lake.
Angel spun around, eyes flashing open. The movement was so sudden that she slammed the back of her hand against the railing. Her phone jarred from nerveless fingers.
“No!”
She lunged at it, but it struck the railing, twisted, and slipped through the slats while she was still trying to get a grip on it.
It fell into the lake with a plop.
Exactly like a bright pink, diamond-encrusted fish.
59
Young, Impressionable Women
A heavy thump woke her. Kelly’s eyes flickered, fell shut again. For a moment, she caught sight of something big and black moving past her.
Then consciousness fled again as if it was too scared to stick around.
*
Angel pressed her face against the slats in the rails, a last tear trickling absently down her face. She pushed away, gripping the bench behind her when her legs threatened not to take her weight.
She looked up. Across the lake.
The boat bobbed up and down, blurred by the now furious rain. She wiped hair and water out of her face, staggering backward until her shoulder crashed into the side of the door.
Sidling inside the lakehouse, she drew her hair back against her scalp, urging as much water from it as she could manage.
The door — she had to bar it.
The police were on their way; she just had to make sure she was still alive by the time they arrived. No one could get up on the deck, so that was fine. But the front door posed a massive risk.
She dragged the dining room table over the living room’s shag carpet, wincing at the scream of wood on wood when sh
e got closer to the door. She wedged the back of the chair under the door, giving it a kick for good measure, and stepped back.
A shiver tore through her, clattering her teeth together before departing.
The kitchen window.
Out here, there weren’t burglar bars. The house might have an alarm system, but it would take her longer to figure the thing out that to make sure no one could get in through the kitchen.
The problem with the kitchen door, she realized after dragging another dining room chair across the living room, was that it opened into the kitchen.
“Shit!” She gave the chair a kick and stared at the closed kitchen door with the heel of her hand pressed hard over her mouth.
Think, Angel. Fucking think!
*
Something thumped against Kelly’s leg. She groaned and shifted less than an inch. Pain blossomed like someone had set off every single Fourth of July firework in the state. In her head. Simultaneously.
The ground canted under her. There was the sound of metal against metal. Something rolling.
Her fingers dug into plastic flooring, and she tried to urge herself onto her elbows.
Nothing worked.
Her body lay like a damp rag on the floor, spineless, immobile.
The floor seesawed back.
Behind her, the scuba cylinder rolled back across the slanting floor.
*
Angel had the bench halfway through the deck’s sliding door when an inexplicable urge overtook her. She paused, wiping a mixture of sweat and rain from her forehead as she glanced over her shoulder at the distant boat.
It hadn’t moved.
At least, it wasn’t any closer.
It just bobbed up and down, seeming otherwise indifferent to the gusting wind and the small swells that pitched it left and right.
Angel shrugged her shoulders, trying to get rid of a curious tension building between them. Of that crawling sensation that was slowly making its way up her spine.
Then she ducked down, gritted her teeth, and put her shoulder to the bench.
*
The cylinder struck Kelly’s ankle this time, hard enough that the small jolt of pain forced her eyes open all the way. It took a few seconds, but she could eventually focus on the ground in front of her.
