“It’s just money, Tom. You make it. You lose it. You can make more. Maybe not as much. But you can. We’ve still got the kids. They need you, Tom. They need a father.”
“Oh yes, the kids. Well let’s ask the doctor here. So glad to have you with us today. Do I have kids or is this a shut-out?”
“Mr. Tully, this isn’t a football game. There aren’t winners and losers.”
“Don’t tell me that, you fucking sack of shit. There sure are winners and losers. That’s what it’s all about. Football. Life. Winning and losing. So what’ll it be, Doc?”
Tully stood directly before Reece and pointed the gun right between his eyes. “The truth, Doc. If I think you’re lying, you’re dying.”
Reece saw himself walking on a beach, his trousers were rolled up. Danielle was playing in the surf. Prufrock lied. The world would end with a bang. Not a whimper.
“Mr. Tully, I haven’t made my mind up. I’m still collecting data.”
“Bad answer, Doctor. I think you’re lying.” Tully slowly squeezed the trigger.
“I was going to recommend custody to your wife, Mr. Tully.”
“Well fuck me with a chain saw, what a surprise. You laying pipe to her, too?”
Tully turned back to his wife. “Well that’s that. This case is over. You get the kids, the house, and my money. I get to teach phys. ed. in west bumfuck. I don’t think so.”
Serena leaped from the chair as Tom turned. She reached for the gun with both hands. Tully pulled his arm free and ripped the pistol backhand across her temple. Serena collapsed like a dynamited building.
Reece swept Tommy behind him and took two steps before Tully turned the gun on him.
“Now where were we?” he said.
The doorbell rang.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
“Sit down,” Tully barked.
Reece put his hands up and backed towards the sofa. Feeling the edge, he sat down. Tommy was on the near edge, looking down at his mother, who bled slowly onto the wood floor.
“Tina, come here … Sit on the sofa.”
Tina walked past her mother. She had a doll hugged tight to her chest and her thumb in her mouth.
Tully pointed the gun at Reece’s chest. “Don’t move. I hear your lungs expand and I’ll kill you. All the doors are dead-bolted and I’ve got the keys.”
The doorbell rang again. Tully walked towards it. Reece scanned the room. If he threw a chair through the window, he could get out. Maybe he could scoop the children up in his arms and get them out. He’d never get Serena out. If he got out and whoever was out front got away, they could get the police here in minutes. It would be a hostage situation. They had trained negotiators. He couldn’t save them all. Serena was the one he was most likely to kill. Maybe he should try to get her out. Leave the kids. She’d be the hardest to move with. He probably couldn’t pick her up and carry her out in the time he’d have. No. This guy had put himself in a corner. He saw no options, no hope. This was exactly the situation where people killed themselves, their kids, everyone. If not in this world, they’d have custody in the next one.
Maybe getting out wasn’t the answer. He should rush Tully at the door, when his back was turned. Hope it wasn’t a neighbor kid over to play with Tommy. Together they might overpower him or at least disarm him. Reece decided to rush him if he had a chance; otherwise it was out the window with the kids.
Tully pulled back the curtain. He had the gun down at his side. The guy was some kind of deliveryman. He had a uniform on and there was a van in the driveway. Lost Arrow Deliveries. He had a box in his hands with a clipboard on top of it.
Tully stuck the gun in his waistband and opened the door.
“Tom Tully?” the man asked.
“Yeah.”
“I got a delivery for you. Please sign here.” The man turned the clipboard towards Tully and supported it with the box.
Tully looked for the line he had to sign on. The guy was an old geezer. Jesus, you live that long and you wind up a fucking deliveryman. Must have had a helluva divorce.
Tully reached for the pen. As he did, the old man pulled the silenced .22 from inside the box, put it against Tully’s left eye and pulled the trigger. Phfft. Tully fell back dead and knocked the door open going down.
There were other people in the house. That idiot Colabucci told him that the guy lived alone. He was getting divorced. The wife had the kids. Fuck this.
Reece saw Tully fall back and the old man step across his body. What was going on? The man had a gun with a very long barrel in his hand. He closed the front door. Reece spun away and looked for Tommy. Tommy had run to the kitchen door and was turning the useless knob.
“Tommy let go. It’s locked.” Reece yelled.
The old man moved towards him, his gun arm fully extended. Reece swept Tina up in his arms and ran for the stairs. He looked back. The man was between him and Tommy.
Two long strides and the old man was behind Tommy. Christ, kids. He was going to have to talk to Vinnie about this one. He didn’t get to this point by being careless. Prison was no place for a man of his years. Besides, a kid this unlucky was bound to die young.
He put the gun to the back of Tommy’s head and pulled the trigger. The slow-moving bullet bounced around inside his tiny skull like a racquetball before it finally stopped. The old man lowered his body to the ground.
The woman on the floor was unconscious. Leave her for last? No. Easy enough to do it now. Who knows, she could come to any second. He pulled the trigger. Then again. Serena Tully jerked twice and died.
Okay. Up the stairs. One guy. One kid. Boom, boom and we’re outta here. The old man had been doing this work for almost forty years. He prided himself that on only one hit had his name surfaced as a suspect. Ghost in, ghost out. Change m.o.’s. Use what was handy. This was not one he wanted to be tagged with. Killing kids. Not the reputation he’d worked so hard to build. A witness is a witness. Rule number one: no loose ends. No exceptions. He might just whack Vinnie when this was over for putting him in this situation.
Gliding up the stairs behind his gun, he found all the doors open. There were noises to his left. He pressed himself against the doorframe, then spun through it. The man was crouched in the far corner. He pointed the gun at him.
“Where’s the kid?”
“She’s in the bathroom. I locked her inside. She never saw you. I covered her eyes. Don’t hurt her. She’s only two years old. She’s too young to talk.”
The old man moved into the room. He saw the closed door to his left out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey, I’m sorry about this, but I got rules. You’d lie to save the kid. I understand that. I just can’t take the chance. You all just ran into a shitload of bad luck. It happens.”
The old man rapped on the bathroom door. “Open up honey. If you don’t, I’ll have to kill the nice man here. We don’t want that to happen, do we?”
When the door didn’t open, he tried the handle. It was locked. “What’s her name?”
Reece shook his head. The old man pointed his gun at him. “What’s her name?”
“Rebecca. We call her Becky.”
“Okay Becky, honey. Come on, open up.”
Reece knew that his life had come down to one single question and that he was seconds from answering it. When the old man turned his head to talk through the door, he shoved his hand under the mattress, found the grip and pulled the gun from the bed.
“Don’t move,” he croaked, his voice breaking with fear.
The old man looked at him. This was getting out of hand.
“Don’t shoot. You don’t want to shoot.” He slowly slid down the door, until he was squatting, with his gun pointed halfway between Reece and the ceiling. “You know what you got there. That’s a .44 magnum. You don’t want to shoot me with that.”
“Why is that?”
The old man rapped on the door.
Reece yelled, “Don’t come out. It’s not me.”
&
nbsp; “That’s good. You got a code so the kid’ll know when to open the door. I keep rapping. Maybe I’ll get her to open up.” He rapped again. “Hear that. You have a real problem. This is a hollow core door. That .44 is gonna go right through me, this door and that little kid. You shoot me and she’s dead, too. Unless you’re superman that is and can see through doors. No. You don’t want to take that chance.”
Even as he said that he began to draw down on Reece, who promised himself that if he was wrong, he would kill himself. He could not bear the weight of another life.
Reece fired. The recoil of the big gun surprised him and threw his arms towards the ceiling. He steadied himself to shoot again, but it was unnecessary.
An enormous hole had appeared in the old man’s chest. He slumped over and fell away from the door. An even larger hole appeared behind him. Reece vaulted over the bed, and pushed the man out of the way.
“Tina,” he yelled. “It’s Doctor Reece. It’s safe to come out now.” He rapped twice very quickly, then waited a count and rapped once more.
Nothing. No noise. No turning handle. She’d told him she was scared as they ran up the stairs. He shoved her in the bathroom, turned the lock and told her to hide in her safe place. What if she hadn’t? Reece closed his eyes and began to cry.
The lock turned and the door opened. Reece spread his arms and Tina Tully climbed inside. She buried her head in the crook of his neck and he rubbed her back trying to calm her. Danielle had always gone to sleep this way.
Reece stood up, stepped over the old man and walked to the top of the stairs. He looked over the railing and saw red stains flowing into the hall from two directions. He couldn’t take her downstairs. Reece looked into the other rooms and found a phone in the guest bedroom. He called the police and then sat in the window, rocking the little girl until he heard sirens in the distance. Far, far away the hooves of fifty thousand horsemen came to a halt, in the space between the shrieking and the silence. Inside, in that very same place, Morgan Reece felt something move.
EPILOGUE
The following Sunday morning Morgan Reece drove out to Great Falls, parked his car and joined the others gathering in the parking lot.
He searched the crowd for Lindsay.
“Hi,” she said, seeing him first, and broke away from two other women.
“Hi,” Reece replied, wishing she’d take off her visor-style sunglasses.
“I’m surprised to see you. When you didn’t show up last week, I figured you changed your mind.”
“No. I didn’t change my mind. Something came up at the last minute and I couldn’t get away. But I’m ready now.”
“Great. It’s a beautiful day to go climbing,” Lindsay said, and opened her arms to encompass the sun’s warmth, the clear skies, the gentle breeze. She turned to head down the path to the cliffs that rose up from the river’s shores.
Morgan Reece took one last look around, and hurried to catch up with her, glad to be alive.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for the gift of their friendship and expertise: Dawn Temple, typist; Tara Fajens, rock climber; Joe Condo and Glenn Lewis, whose skill and integrity bring honor to the practice of family law. Any errors are entirely my responsibility.
About the Author
Benjamin M. Schutz was an Edgar and Shamus Award–winning author, and was best known for his stories about PI Leo Haggerty. Based out of the Washington, DC, area, Schutz was also a practicing forensic and clinical psychologist, which influenced his writing a great deal. In his lifetime, he authored seven novels and a short story collection. Schutz passed away in 2008.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Benjamin M. Schutz
Quote from A Man for All Seasons, Random House, 1960. Reprinted by courtesy of the publisher.
Cover design by Rebecca Lown
ISBN: 978-1-4804-9326-1
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