Sweet Cherry Pie

by J. D. Monroe

  “Such a crass little girl,” Calloway says. “Patrick.”

  “Georgia,” Charity says. She can’t see anything but Calloway. “You still there?”

  “Y-yep,” Georgia says.

  “This piece of shit shot my sister,” Charity says. “Far as I’m concerned, he killed my daddy by proxy. I don’t care what he says. You shoot him in his fucking face.”

  “I will kill her, Georgia,” Calloway says. The smile lingers on his face, but his eyes harden as he presses the gun to her throat. The cold barrel digs into her windpipe. It feels like she tried to swallow an orange and got it stuck halfway down.

  “Ignore him, Georgia,” Charity says. Please God, let her shoot. Don’t hesitate, she prays. Patience is wheezing. Adam Keller hasn’t made a sound in minutes.

  No guts, no glory.

  She bucks her hips up and throws her arms out against Calloway’s as hard as she can. The cold metal leaves her skin, and she goes deaf when the gun goes off. Something stings her earlobe. Calloway’s mouth opens in a silent shout of rage. Red blooms on his neat white shirt as he staggers back. He jerks again and hits the dock on his knees.

  It feels like moving through sludge. She grabs her gun from Calloway’s limp hand and runs for Patrick. He swings at her with the knife, and for a split second, she sees Harmony. His eyes are wild, his lips curled up in a sneering smile. At his feet lies his best friend, bloodied and beaten to a pulp. She wants nothing more than to put a bullet in his eye, the way she tried all those years ago.

  But she promised.

  “Patrick!” she shouts. He swipes at her with the knife, and she dodges it. The quick move makes her dizzy. She plants her feet as she stands over Adam. “Patrick, I know you don’t want to hurt anyone else!”

  “Just one more,” Patrick says. His voice sounds distant and dreamy, just like Harmony’s did. “Then my tribute is fulfilled, and I can live forever.”

  “I’ve got him!” Georgia says.

  “No!” Charity shouts, hammering a punch into his side. Something stings hot on her shoulder as Patrick gets a slice on her. “Patrick, please!”

  She gets in close and grabs his face. Please don’t stab me, she prays fervently. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I order out whatever evil has taken root in this soul.”

  Patrick jerks under her grasp, but she digs in, hard enough to turn his flesh white under her fingers. His face is ice-cold in her grasp, and she can feel something pushing back at her. As she stares into the darkness in his eyes, she feels the falling sensation of looking into the abyss. “Patrick, listen to me. This is your best friend. You don’t want to kill him, and you don’t want to kill me.”

  Patrick’s lips quirk up, and he jerks against her, driving the knife into her side. There’s a cold-hot sensation down her side that quickly sharpens into searing pain. “I want to do both. I want to slice you into so many pieces they’ll never put you back together.”

  “No, you don’t,” she says. Yes, he does. Her side hurts like hell, and he’s not done yet. She presses her hand to his, and for a second it’s like making out with a guy who’s working hard to get in her pants, hands moving too fast and too low. The knife trembles in his hand, scraping against her ribs.

  “Charity!” Georgia says. She’s got her gun on him, perfect shot.

  “Calm your tits, Georgia!” She holds tight to Patrick, fingers pressing into his face. Everything hurts. Patience is hurt. Maybe dead. Patrick deserves to die.

  But she promised.

  “It’s not your fault,” she tells him. She squeezes his wrist, pressing her thumb into the fine bones. “Just let go. Let go of the knife, let go of it, Patrick. Let it be over.”

  And maybe there’s a God up there after all. Patrick leans against her, and there’s a clatter as the cursed knife hits the dock. She wants to kick it into the water and never see it again. But things like it always resurface.

  Patrick lets out a long sigh that turns into a moan as he slumps against her. “I—I killed him,” he slurs drunkenly. “All of them.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she says, over and over. Her fingers curl into his hair, and he wraps his arms around her like a tired child looking for a hug. His body shakes, and she feels the wet warmth of tears through her shirt. It takes her a minute to remember this is a multiple murderer who ripped out his victims’ lungs and cut their eyes out for his necromancer teacher to use.

  Fuck it. Everyone needs a hug once in a while.

  Sirens howl in the distance, and Patrick looks up frantically. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “I know,” Charity says. “But baby, you’re gonna need one badass lawyer.”

  35. CHECKING OUT

  IT MUST BE A SIGN FROM GOD that Officer Hayes and Officer Buxton are first on the scene. When she hears the crunch of feet in leaves, keys jangling on belts, she’s sitting on the ground with her jacket balled up and pressed hard against Patience’s chest. She’s too tired for hysteria or heroic gestures. Her sister is breathing shallowly, but she won’t wake, won’t so much as squeeze her hand.

  The arrests are a blur. They arrest everyone just to be sure, but everyone except for Patrick Bell is headed straight for a hospital. In the chaos, Georgia disappears with the knife. Good girl. Officer Hayes picks up Charity’s discarded knife, still wet with Calloway’s blood, and bags it for evidence. She dimly hopes he doesn’t pin Adam’s condition on her. Even she can’t talk her way out of that.

  Thanks to Patrick, the emergency room at Stedman County General is the hottest spot in town. When they arrive, someone makes her sit on a stretcher, and they roll her into a tiny cubby of a room. Before she knows what’s happening, there are too many people in the room crowding her. They seem overly concerned about all the blood, but she just wants them to give her some space and tell her what the hell’s going on.

  A blond doctor shines a light in her eyes, while a tall guy in green scrubs paws at her clothes.

  “I want to see my sister,” Charity says. She bats the flashlight away. “Patience Dupree.”

  The doctor shakes her head. A badge around her neck says Dr. Lisa Gamble. “She’s going into surgery. You can’t go in.”

  “Then I’m putting you in charge of telling me what’s going on,” Charity says. “If you don’t, then—” There’s a sharp knock at the door, and Officer Hayes peeks around. “Then I’ll be very grumpy.”

  Gamble rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t be in here.”

  The tall nurse—Brody—starts to cut through her shirt.

  “Come on, dude, really?” She twists awkwardly and strips it over her head. He winces. “I can’t afford to keep replacing my clothes.”

  “I’m pretty sure this is already shot,” Brody says.

  “Figures,” she mutters.

  “She’s my suspect,” Hayes says, flashing his badge.

  Gamble shoots her an incredulous look.

  “No, I’m not,” Charity says. “He’s been dying to see me with my clothes off, and this is the only way he can swing it.” She gestures to her bloodied torso. “Is it everything you hoped?”

  “Unbelievable,” Hayes mutters.

  Gamble presses a gloved hand to her side. “Looks like a fairly deep laceration—”

  “Stitches?” Brody asks.

  “Possibly.”

  “No,” Charity says. She glares at Gamble. “Butcher. Give me some tape and a handful of Vicodin, and I’ll be on my way. If it’s too much trouble, you can keep the tape. “

  Hayes stands at the door, arms folded across his chest, while Brody and Gamble fuss over her. Despite her protests, they end up putting a line of neat black stitches in her side, and she unleashes a barrage of profanity. As if it wasn’t enough, Gamble changes gloves, then presses fingers to her nose, which feels like broken glass.

  “If you ask if that hurts, I’m going to kick you in the tits,” Charity says, fingers pressing into the mattress. “Both of them.”

>   Gamble smirks. “It’s a clean break,” she says. She brushes fingers across the butterfly closures on her face. She leans in and pretends to check Charity’s jaw as she whispers, “Do you need help?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is someone hurting you? We can help you.”

  Charity laughs and immediately regrets it as her entire face hurts. “No. Trust me. If a man did this to me, he’d be dead. Actually, he probably already is.”

  Doctor Gamble looks uneasy. “I’ll be back in to check on you in a bit. Try not to kick anyone in the tits.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Officer Hayes says. He comes in close, and before she realizes what he’s doing, there are handcuffs on her wrist and the moveable bed railing.

  “You kinky bastard,” Charity says. “You and I should really exchange numbers for next time I’m in town.”

  He hooks a blue plastic chair with his foot and sinks into it, looking up at her. “Drop the shit, Miss Pierson. You owe me an explanation, or your next stop is North Carolina Women’s Correctional.”

  “Funny story about that,” she says. “Tell you what. You get me a cup of coffee and check on my sister, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Does this look like room service to you?”

  She shrugs and smiles. “You want me to lawyer up and tell Doctor Gamble you’re harassing me? I think the stress is going to my heart.”

  Hayes rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake.”

  “Black coffee,” she says. “Patience Dupree.”

  He slams the door on the way out, and she immediately thrusts her hand into her pocket for her cell phone. No word from Georgia. She sighs and settles back on the propped-up folding bed. She hates hospitals. They ask way too many questions. You come in with a broken arm, the next thing you know, they’re running X-rays and asking why every finger on both hands has been broken and trying to keep you until you start talking.

  There’s a knock at the door, and she looks up to see a familiar redhead in blue scrubs. Her face is scrubbed clean, and she flounces in with a pile of sheets.

  “The hell are you doing?” Charity whispers.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “What are you thinking?”

  “Told you I was a nurse,” Georgia says. She glances at the clipboard in the plastic rack by the door. “I know my way around.”

  “Where’s the knife?”

  “Safe. I did it exactly like you said,” Georgia says. She glances over her shoulder into the hallway, then back to Charity. “I can’t get into the OR, but I already looked at Patience’s intake file. Gunshot wound to the chest, but she was stable on the way over.”

  “So she’s all right?”

  “She took a bullet to the chest,” Georgia says. “She’s not all right.”

  “All right is relative, Georgia,” Charity says. “Will she be?”

  “I think so.”

  Charity lets out a sigh of relief. Her shoulders slump as the long-held tension finally eases. Her body suddenly feels exhausted, like the adrenaline keeping her up evaporates all at once. Now she just wants to lie down and sleep for a year. “What about Calloway?”

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Shit,” Georgia mutters. She whirls with the sheets in front of her face. She slides past Hayes with her back to him. He ignores her as he walks in with two cups of coffee.

  He offers one to her. “Now talk.”

  “Sister.”

  “They just took her into recovery,” he says. “Condition is good. Said she’ll recover fine.”

  “She’s hard to kill,” Charity says. The relief is palpable. They may not be on good terms, but she still needs to know that Patience is out there somewhere being Patience. She takes a sip of the coffee. It tastes like burning fertilizer, but it warms her stomach and makes her feel more awake already.

  “All right,” Hayes says. “Explain why I shouldn’t take you straight to jail.”

  “Because you’d look like a complete idiot,” Charity says. If there’s any consolation here, it’s that even in their miscalculation, they still did a hell of a lot more to stop Patrick than the cops did. “Your killer was walking around free this whole time. Patrick Bell stabbed Tommy Crane to death on camera, then murdered his two closest friends. He almost killed Adam Keller—you’re welcome—before we showed up. Now if I was you, and I’m sure glad I’m not, I wouldn’t want to have to own up to that. So you figure something out.”

  “I still want to know what you were doing here in the first place,” Hayes says, shaking his head. He reminds her of a kid demanding the secret to a magic trick. “And how you figured out it was Patrick.”

  “Yeah, well, my mama always said you could wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first,” Charity says. “What I’ll tell you is this. Patrick Bell is your killer. But Calloway put him up to it, and he covered for Patrick. I’m willing to bet he’s the one who tipped you off that we were following Adam.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you had nothing to do with it?”

  “Like I told you the last time you arrested me, I was out of the state when Tommy died, and I was in jail when Mikey Wagner died. I’m a pretty shitty accomplice if I was in on it.”

  “I should arrest you for interference,” Hayes says.

  “Only if interference means I solved your case for you,” she says. “Which you’re not going to do anyway.”

  “I’m not?”

  “Nope,” Charity says. “You make any trouble for me or my girls, then I’m going to be as loud and proud as I can about solving this case before you did. Police incompetence plays gorgeous on the nightly news. They might even give us medals. Citizens of the damn year.”

  He just gapes.

  “So unless you’re gonna bring that cutie Officer Buxton in here to ease my pain, how about you uncuff me and send me on my merry way?”

  36. SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

  TWO HOURS LATER, Doctor Gamble clears her to leave, if Charity absolutely insists.

  She does.

  She immediately heads to the surgery recovery unit on the third floor, where Patience is asleep and enjoying a drip of something clear and narcotic. Her face is relaxed and peaceful for the first time Charity’s seen in years. After a few minutes, the nurse shoos her out and tells her to come back in the morning for visiting hours, and Charity doesn’t protest. When she emerges from the corner room, Georgia is waiting outside in her stolen scrubs, examining a clipboard intently.

  “You ready?”

  “God, am I,” Charity says. “They told me if I wanted the good drugs I had to stay overnight. To that, I say hell to the no. Let’s roll.”

  The little silver car is parked outside on the curb when they get out of the hospital, and after the week they’ve had, it looks like God’s own chariot. Charity flops into the passenger seat and lets the cool air blast her face. She looks over her shoulder and sees her weapons lying in the back seat. She might be in love with Georgia.

  She doesn’t realize she’s drifted off until Georgia nudges her awake. They’re parked in front of the RV. “We’re home,” Charity murmurs, the word crossing her lips before she realizes it.

  “Home,” Georgia says. “Come on, I’ll make you some coffee.”

  “No caffeine, just sleep,” Charity says. “Lots of sleep.”

  As she eases out of the car, every ounce of skin and bone aches something fierce. Turning down the overnight stay and the accompanying narcotics was probably a mistake. Next time Georgia sneaks around a hospital, she needs to steal more than a clipboard.

  Georgia passes her the keys before heading to the trunk. Charity’s stomach sinks a little when she sees the plastic box full of water. The knife glints through the cloudy salt mixture as Georgia carries it, almost reverently. She holds it the way the altar boys hold up the Bible for a priest.

  “What should I do with this?”

  “Throw it in the lake,” Charity says. Georgia turns towar
d the swampy pond. “Shit, Georgia, I’m joking. Stow it for now. I’m not doing it tonight. I need sleep first.”

  Charity struggles with the keys to the door, hands shaky and uncoordinated with exhaustion. Her hand fumbles to the lights, and she manages to sling her bag to the floor, kick off her shoes, and flop onto the couch in a single stride. God bless the RV. She hears the clunk and slosh of the box as Georgia places it on the dinette table. The leather gloves are stacked neatly on the lid. Georgia touches her hand suddenly, and Charity opens her eyes to see her holding out the Colt. Charity nods and tucks it under her pillow.

  “So where are you doing it?” Georgia asks.

  “Home,” she says. “We’re going to take it back to Aran Valley. I’ll get Christina to come help me make sure it doesn’t go tits up and turn me into Harmony 2.0, and then we’ll bury it out at the Winstead place with the rest of the garbage.”

  “You want to leave now?”

  “I want to sleep now,” Charity says. “It’s in the box. Patience is stable. There’s no rush.”

  “All right,” Georgia says. “You get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

  “Before I crash,” Charity murmurs. She scrubs at her eyes and peers at Georgia. The redhead leans on the kitchen counter, watching her closely. “You did good tonight.”

  “Nah, I was just—”

  “Stop that,” Charity says. “Modesty’s overrated. You did good. You saved my life.”

  “It was a team effort,” Georgia says. “You saved mine, too.”

  “That’s what we do,” Charity says. Partners, she means. That’s what partners do. But she’s sinking into sleep, and the moment is over.

  Something wakes Charity from her well-deserved sleep. A faint creak, a movement where there shouldn’t be. Before her eyes have gotten the message to open up, her hand flies to her pillow. The reassuring cold steel is gone. Her eyes fly open to see Georgia standing over her.

  “What the…”

  Adrenaline floods her body, but she doesn’t have time to do more than flinch as Georgia swings something hard and heavy down on her. Pain crashes on her like a wave at high tide, clamps down on her lungs with big, mean fists. Her brain fills with variations on holy shit, but all that comes out of her mouth is a whining wheeze as she scrambles off the bed and onto shaky foal legs.