by Sharon Sala
“That’s sick,” Sarah said.
“Yes, it is, and so is she, but they’ll stop her. However, I want you away from here until they catch her, okay?”
“But my father—”
“We’ll lay him to rest, sweet baby, I promise. But I don’t want the task of having to bury you there beside him.”
“Surely there’s no reason to kill me now,” Sarah argued. “Not now that she knows the secret is out.”
“Now more than ever,” Tony said.
“But why?”
“Because she can’t let you win.”
“Dear God.”
He stood up, his focus already on the things to be done.
“Pack your things, Sarah. I’m going to talk to Lorett…tell her what we’ve planned, then make a few calls. We’ll be out of here before dark.”
“Yes,” Sarah said, suddenly anxious to get as far away from this place as quickly as she could.
Tony kissed her once more, then left her with a wink.
She moved to the window and looked out to the lake, reliving the feeling of being pulled under. Then she lifted her chin and turned away. The truth of Moira Blake’s guilt and her father’s innocence would be all over the news before morning. She’d almost paid the ultimate price for the truth, but there was satisfaction in knowing that she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do.
It was time to go home.
Moira Blake surfaced just under the dock at Tony’s house, floating in the shadows, out of sight. She watched them carrying Sarah into the house and knew that she had only moments before the place was crawling with armed men. Quickly she took off her mask and flippers, fastened them to her air tank and dropped them into the water. They sank to the bottom beneath the pier as she got out of the water and started through the woods toward her house.
She had always known this day would come. She’d known when Sonny had bashed in Franklin Whitman’s skull with the crystal paperweight on Paul Sorenson’s desk. She’d known, even as she was sobbing hysterically and helping stuff Franklin’s body into the trunk, that God was going to make her pay. She’d known when the trunk went into the water, floating for a few moments on the surface of the lake and then bubbling slowly as it began to sink. She’d known when the first shovelful of dirt had landed on Sonny’s coffin that it was only a matter of time before she wound up the same way.
And then the waiting had begun. Year after year, until twenty long, lonely years with a cripple for a husband had come and gone and she was too riddled with guilt to spend the ill-gotten gains. Then some idiot had robbed an armored car and kidnapped a woman. After that, it began coming undone.
She’d tried. So desperately, she’d tried, but she was tired of running and tired of the lies. It would be simple to just turn herself in and wait for the hand of God to strike her down.
She was almost out of breath by the time she got to the edge of her property, but the caution that had served her so well all these years saved her once again. She paused for a moment to scan the yard around her house and saw the tail end of a police car in front. In that moment, she knew it was over. Somehow they’d discovered the truth. She was going to be revealed as a thief and a killer. If she was lucky, she would spend the rest of her life behind bars. That knowledge was almost her undoing. There was a part of her that wanted to march up to the house and turn herself in, but not just yet, not before Sarah Whitman knew what it felt like to lose the man she loved.
Instead of going to the house, she moved quickly to the right and slipped into the barn, where her husband used to keep his sheep, before he’d gone and crippled himself. She ran to the old granary at the end of the barn, grabbed the sawed-off shotgun he’d used to kill rats and ran back into the woods. If they were already searching her house, they would be in the woods within minutes. She didn’t have much time.
Tony had just told the head of the security team to continue packing, that they would all be leaving soon. Dunn and Farley were still packing their things into their car and Maury Overstreet was already on his way home. Sheriff Gallagher had gone off with one of the search teams, but not before coordinating another one to search by air.
Tony stood in the foyer, thinking that the house seemed empty, although he could hear Lorett humming down the hallway as she packed up her things, and the intermittent creak on the floor above told him Sarah was doing the same. Now there was nothing left but for him to pack, too, load the car and put the memories behind them.
He’d already made up his mind to put this house on the market. Not even the passage of time would be able to erase the images of Sarah being yanked into the water, nor would he be able to stand out on the deck and not remember the echo of the gunshot or Sarah’s screams. The place was haunted with too many ugly memories. It was time to lay them all to rest.
He started toward the stairs, then remembered he’d forgotten to lock the storage shed out back. Fingering the keys in his pocket, he headed for the kitchen. It wouldn’t take a minute to put the padlock in place.
He paused on the deck, searching the area until he recognized one of the deputies walking through the trees, and knew the sheriff and his men were on the job. Satisfied that all was as it should be, he hastened down the steps and then moved toward the storage shed at a jog.
Sarah was coming down the stairs as she heard Tony go out the back. She was at the last step when Lorett came running from her room. Sarah took one look at her face and knew something was wrong.
“She’s going to kill him,” she said, then staggered, as if overwhelmed by the vision.
Sarah’s heart stopped. “No…no…this is supposed to be over.” She raced to Lorett, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“What are you saying, Aunt Lorett?”
“She will kill him.”
“The security guards! They’re still out front. Hurry, Aunt Lorett. Tell them to hurry!”
Lorett blinked and then jerked as she looked at Sarah’s face. She went one way as Sarah went another. Sarah ran through the kitchen and out onto the deck, just as Tony disappeared into the storage shed. She had no way of knowing exactly what Lorett had seen, but the horror of it had been there in her aunt’s expression. That was enough for her.
She flew down the steps without thought for her own safety and dashed toward the shed. She was reaching for the doorknob when she heard a woman’s voice. Before she could open the door, there was a loud shout and then a gunshot.
“No!” Sarah screamed, and gave the door a yank.
Sunlight flooded the opening as Moira spun at the sound. Her face was a caricature of its former elegance. Still wearing parts of the wet suit, she screamed an obscenity at Sarah as she swung the sawed-off shotgun toward her.
After that, it seemed to Sarah as if everything happened in slow motion.
Tony’s body was falling against a workbench. There was blood on his shirt, and Sarah was reaching for the ax on the wall by the door. Then the images became a series of stills.
Moira’s lips curled over her teeth, her thumb cocking the hammer on the still-loaded barrel.
The scent of chain-saw oil.
The scrape of sawdust beneath their feet.
The weight of the ax pulling hard against Sarah’s elbow as she swung it sideways, like a baseball bat.
The earsplitting scream as steel connected with flesh.
The echo of the second gunshot as the pellets hit the roof.
Then the blood, spraying in a neat little pattern on the sawdust like a sprinkler in the grass.
The frantic heaving of lungs tortured for air.
And then the silence.
“You’ve killed me,” Moira whispered.
A moment of panic flew across Sarah’s face, and then she gritted her teeth.
“You killed yourself,” she said.
Moira Blake died on the way to the ground.
Sarah dropped the ax, then staggered, and she would have fallen but for the pair of strong arms that caught her.
“I’ve got you, baby girl,” Lorett said, as a half-dozen armed men swarmed through the door. They went straight to Tony, who was lying on the floor beneath the bench.
Sarah’s expression was haunted. “I was too late. She shot him. Oh God…Aunt Lorett…I was too late.”
“He’s not dead, Miss Whitman. Some of the shot caught him across the forehead, but his pulse is strong and steady. He’ll have a headache and some scars, and that’s about it,” the guard said.
Sarah rushed to Tony, dropped to her knees beside him and slid her hands beneath his head.
“Tony?”
He moaned, then opened his eyes.
“This is getting to be a habit,” he said, as he touched his fingers to his forehead. “Damn. That hurts.” Then he remembered Moira and sat up with a jerk. “She has a gun.”
“Not anymore,” Sarah said.
Tony looked over Sarah’s shoulder. His eyes widened in shock as he saw what was left of Moira Blake. He drew a deep breath and looked at Sarah. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew what she’d done.
“You saved my life.”
“No, I saved mine,” Sarah said. “Because if anything had happened to you, it would have killed me.” Struggling with the urge not to scream, she put her arms around him and closed her eyes.
“Sarah…can you tell me what happened?”
Sarah shuddered as she recognized the voice. It was Ron Gallagher, and as she pulled away from Tony to look up, she had a strong sensation of déjà vu. It took a bit for her to remember that she’d seen Gallagher at this angle before—at the cemetery, the day of her mother’s funeral. That day he’d bent down and touched her face, and there had been tears in his eyes. But today there was nothing but concern.
“She tried to kill Tony,” Sarah said. “Then she tried to kill me. I stopped her. That’s all. I just wanted it to stop.”
Gallagher looked at Tony.
“What can I say? Moira caught me unaware. I came in to get the padlock, and she was waiting inside. She kept screaming something about Sarah needing to know what it felt like to live the rest of her life without the man she loved, and before I could stop her, she pulled the trigger. I jumped backward as she shot. A couple of pellets grazed me. I don’t know what happened afterward, but I will say that if it hadn’t been for Sarah opening that door, I would be dead.”
The explanation was good enough for Gallagher. He pointed to one of his deputies.
“Call an ambulance, and call the coroner, too.”
“I don’t need an ambulance, just another damned Band-Aid.”
Gallagher grinned. “Good thing your head is so hard.”
“That’s not funny,” Sarah said, while she struggled to her feet. The coppery scent of Moira’s blood was in her nostrils. She felt she was going to throw up.
Gallagher helped Tony to his feet as Sarah bolted for the door.
By the time they got outside, she was sitting against the side of the building with her head between her knees. Lorett was kneeling beside her.
Gallagher knew what Sarah had been forced to do. He also knew she would be a long time forgetting it. Then he turned to Tony.
“I understand you were leaving. You can fill out a report on your way out of town. If we have any other questions, I know where to find you.”
Sarah stood, her face pale and expressionless, but her voice was strong with determination.
“We won’t be leaving yet. Now that the danger is over, I will bury my father tomorrow…next to Mother. The arrangements have already been made.”
“I understand,” Ron said. “But if you’d rather take some time, I can hold his remains until—”
“I don’t want to come back—ever,” Sarah said.
Gallagher nodded in understanding. “You did good, Sarah. Never doubt that.”
Sarah looked at her aunt, then at Tony. Besides the love, she saw something in his eyes that she’d never seen before, and it scared her. Quickly she looked away, unwilling to see that far inside herself. Then he took her by the hand, and together, they started toward the house.
Only once, as they reached the deck, did Sarah look behind her. She looked past the turmoil at the storage shed to the serenity of Flagstaff Lake. The beauty of the sunlight on the surface and the bird singing from a nearby tree seemed sacrilegious in the face of what she’d done.
Dark water.
Dark deeds.
But it was over.
The rest of her life had just begun.
The weather was as somber as the mood of the day. It had dawned gray and overcast, threatening rain. Every road leading into the cemetery was lined with parked cars as people waited for the hearse to arrive. It was hard to judge what they were thinking, but few spoke. It was as if they were too ashamed to look one another in the eyes.
The whole town was still in shock. That they had harbored such a heinous criminal as Moira Blake, without realizing her true nature, seemed impossible. Tiny Bartlett, Marcia Farrell and Annabeth Harold were suffering something of what Catherine Whitman had endured those many years ago. The citizens of Marmet could not believe that the women would have been such good friends to one another and not known what Moira had been about. And then there was the business of Charles Bartlett’s hunting rifle being used to try to kill Sarah Whitman. Even though he had been completely exonerated, there were those who still claimed that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
And so the people waited, shivering and silent, to pay their respects to a man and his daughter, and maybe, just maybe, to give up a quiet little prayer for their own forgiveness.
Within minutes, the crowd began to shift as it became apparent that the hearse had arrived, with one family car and three patrol cars from the sheriff’s department directly behind it.
At that point people began to move toward the open mouth of the grave, wanting to be ringside for the biggest show of the year. And then the back door of the hearse was opened, and an ebony casket was pulled forward. At Sarah’s request, Ron Gallagher and all four of his deputies stepped up to the casket, as did Harmon Weatherly, dressed formally in his dark business suit, the one he’d always worn to the bank. With three men on one side and three on the other, they gripped the handles of the casket and slid it the rest of the way out of the hearse, then carried it steadily to the grave.
When Silk DeMarco emerged from the family car with Sarah Whitman beside him, there was an audible intake of breath. They knew what she’d done. They knew why she’d done it. And yet they couldn’t tear their gazes away from the stricken look on her face.
Sarah swayed on her feet as she stopped at the open grave. Tony steadied her, holding her close against his side. After yesterday’s ordeal with Moira, the doctor had wanted to sedate her, but she’d refused. There were no drugs that could make her forget the insanity in Moira’s eyes as she’d aimed the shotgun in her face, or the way the ax had felt in her hands as it sliced through sinew and skin.
A pastor from the church that Sarah had attended as a child stepped forward. He’d been asked to read one Bible verse over Franklin Whitman’s grave, and he’d readily agreed. His voice was strong and steady as he opened his Bible, then looked up.
“We come here today to lay Franklin James Whitman to a long and overdue rest. His daughter, Sarah Whitman, has asked that I read one verse to you all, and one verse only, after which she will depart.”
There were frowns among the people, but no comments, although it was obvious that they were feeling cheated, to have waited all this time in the cold only to learn the burying would be over almost before it began.
The pastor cleared his throat and looked directly at Sarah.
“Miss Whitman, before I begin, I want to apologize to you, on the behalf of every citizen of Marmet, for denying you in your darkest of hours.”
Sarah flinched. She hadn’t expected him to say that. She hadn’t expected the words that she’d waited so long to hear would draw her throat so tight or make her eyes
fill with tears.
Tony felt her shock, then saw her shudder. He leaned down, whispering in her ear.
“Stay strong for me, baby…don’t let them see you cry.”
It was exactly what she needed to hear. She took a slow, deep breath and then, ever so slightly, leaned into his strength as the pastor opened his Bible.
“From the New Testament, the Book of Matthew, seventh chapter, first verse. And the Lord said, ‘Judge not, lest ye also be judged.”’
He closed the Bible and looked up. “Remember those words. You are dismissed.”
But nobody moved. They were watching Sarah Whitman take an object from her pocket, then lay it on top of the casket. Only the closest could see that it was a small bunch of keys on a ring that said “Number One Dad.”
Sheriff Gallagher stepped forward, took off his hat and shook Sarah’s hand. His deputies followed suit and then moved to their cars. Harmon Weatherly paused in front of Sarah, and when she would have shaken his hand, he lifted hers to his lips and kissed it instead.
Sarah couldn’t look at them without crying, so she fixed her gaze on the small ring of keys lying atop the ebony casket instead. And as she stared, a drop of rain fell on her cheek, and then another.
Tony was worried. Sarah was near the breaking point, and he feared if she gave way, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Sweetheart…”
She jerked as if she’d been slapped, then looked at him as if he was a stranger.
“It’s starting to rain,” he said.
The gentleness of his touch as he took her hand steadied the slow but impending hysteria she’d been struggling to deny. She turned toward the crowd. Slowly, slowly, she stared into the faces, seeing Paul Sorenson meet her gaze and then drop his head, watching Annabeth Harold look away—making them see her while denying them all the gift of absolution. She didn’t ever want them to forget what their lack of Christian kindness had done.
Then she looked at Tony, letting his love wash over her, cleaning the last of the bitterness from her soul.
