Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  Andy listened to heavy boots pounding down the hallway.

  “Andrea,” Laura said, her tone clipped. “This is deadly serious. You need to tell me—”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Edwin demanded.

  Andy turned around.

  “Shit,” Edwin muttered. “Andrea.”

  “Is that—” Laura said, but Andy pressed the phone to her chest.

  She asked the man, “How do you know me?”

  “Come away from the window.” Edwin motioned Andy out of the office. “You can’t be here. You need to go. Now.”

  Andy didn’t move. “Tell me how you know me.”

  Edwin saw the phone in her hand. “Who are you talking to?”

  When Andy didn’t answer, he wrenched the phone out of her hand and put it to his ear.

  He said, “Who is—fuck.” Edwin turned his back to Andy, telling Laura, “No, I have no idea what Clara told her. You know she’s been unwell.” He started nodding, listening. “I didn’t tell her—no. Clara doesn’t know about that. It’s privileged information. I would never—” He stopped again. “Laura, you need to calm down. No one knows where it is except for me.”

  They knew each other. They were arguing the way old friends argued. Edwin had known Andy by sight. Clara had thought she was Jane, who was really Laura . . .

  Andy’s teeth had started to chatter. She could hear them clicking inside of her head. She rubbed her arms with her hands. She felt cold, almost frozen.

  “Laura, I—” Edwin leaned down his head and looked out the window. “Listen, you just need to trust me. You know I would never—” He turned around and looked at Andy. She watched his anger soften into something else. He smiled at her the same way Gordon smiled at her when she fucked up but he still wanted her to know that he loved her.

  Why was a man she had never met looking at her like her father?

  Edwin said, “I will, Laura. I promise I’ll—”

  There was a loud crack.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  Andy was on the floor, the same as the last time she had heard a sudden burst of gunfire.

  Everything was exactly the same.

  Glass broke. Papers started to fly. The air filled with debris.

  Edwin took the brunt of the bullets, his arms jerking up, his skull almost vaporizing, bone and chunks of his hair splattering against the couch, the walls, the ceiling.

  Andy was flat on her belly, hands covering her head, when she heard the nauseating thunk of his body hitting the floor.

  She looked at his face. Nothing but a dark hole with white shards of skull stared back. His mustache was still curled up at the ends, held in place with a thick wax.

  Andy tasted blood in her mouth. Her heart felt like it was beating inside of her eardrums. She thought that she had lost her hearing, but there was nothing to hear.

  The shooter had stopped.

  Andy scanned the room for the burner phone. She saw it fifteen feet away in the hall. She had no idea if it was still working, but she heard her mother’s voice as clear as if she was in the room—

  I need you to run, darling. He can’t reload fast enough to hurt you.

  Andy tried to stand. She could barely get to her knees before throwing up from the pain. The McDonald’s milkshake was pink with blood. Every time she heaved, it felt like fire was ripping down her left side.

  Footsteps. Outside. Getting closer.

  Andy forced herself up onto her hands and knees. She crawled toward the door, her palms digging into broken glass, her knees sliding across the floor. She made it as far as the hallway before the searing pain made her stop. She fell over onto her hip. She pushed herself up to sitting. Pressed her back to the wall. Her skull was filled with a high-pitched whining noise. Shards of glass porcupined from her bare arms.

  Andy listened.

  She heard a strange sound from the other side of the house.

  Click-click-click-click.

  The cylinder spinning in the revolver?

  She looked at the burner phone. The screen had been shattered.

  There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do but wait.

  Andy reached down to her side. Her shirt was soaked with blood. Her fingers found a tiny hole in the material.

  Then the tip of her finger found another hole in her skin.

  She had been shot.

  August 2, 1986

  14

  Jane felt the ivory keys of the Steinway Concert Grand soften beneath the tips of her fingers. The stage lights warmed the right side of her body. She allowed herself a furtive glance at the audience, picked out a few of their faces under the lights.

  Rhapsodic.

  Carnegie had sold out within one day of the tickets going on sale. Over two thousand seats. Jane was the youngest woman ever to take center stage. The hall’s acoustics were remarkable. The reverb poured like honey into her ears, bending and elongating each note. The Steinway gave Jane more than she had dared hope for; the key action was loose enough to bring a nuanced delicacy that bathed the room in an almost ethereal wave of sound. She felt like a wizard pulling off the most wondrous trick. Every keystroke was perfect. The orchestra was perfect. The audience was perfect. She lowered her gaze past the lights, taking in the front row.

  Jasper, Annette, Andrew, Martin—

  Nick.

  He was clapping his hands. Grinning with pride.

  Jane missed a note, then another, then she was playing along to the staccato of Nick’s hands like she had not done since Martin first sat her down on the bench and told her to play. The noise sharpened as Nick’s clapping amplified through the hall. Jane had to cover her ears. The music stopped. Nick’s mouth twisted into a sneer. He kept clapping and clapping. Blood began to seep from his hands, down his arms, into his lap. He clapped harder. Louder. Blood splattered onto his white shirt, onto Andrew, her father, the stage.

  Jane opened her eyes.

  The room was dark. Confusion and fear mixed to bring her heart into her throat. Slowly, Jane’s senses came back to her. She was lying in bed. She pulled away the afghan covering her body. She recognized the blue color.

  The farmhouse.

  She sat up so fast that she was almost knocked back by a wave of dizziness. She fumbled for the switch on the lamp.

  A syringe and vial were on the table.

  Morphine.

  The syringe was still capped, but the bottle was almost empty.

  Panicked, Jane checked her arms, legs, feet for needle marks.

  Nothing, but what was she afraid of? That Nick had drugged her? That he had somehow infected her with Andrew’s tainted blood?

  Her hand went to her neck. Nick had strangled her. She could still remember those last moments in the bathroom as she desperately gasped for air. Her throat pulsed beneath her fingers. The skin was tender. Jane moved her hand lower. The round swell of her belly filled her palm. Slowly, she inched down farther and checked between her legs for the tell-tale spots of blood. When she pulled back her hand, it was clean. Relief nearly took her breath away.

  Nick had not beaten another child out of her body.

  This time, at least for this moment, they were safe.

  Jane found her socks on the floor, tugged on her boots. She walked over to the large window across from the bed and drew back the curtains. Darkness. Her eyes picked out the silhouette of the van parked in front of the barn, but the other two cars were gone.

  She listened to the house.

  There were low voices, at least two people talking, on the far side of the house. Chopping sounds. Pots and pans clattering.

  Jane leaned over to buckle her boots. She had a moment where she remembered doing the same thing days ago. Before they walked downstairs to speak with agents Barlow and Danberry. Before they had left in Jasper’s Porsche without realizing that they would never go back. Before Nick had made Jane choose between him or her brother.

  These anarchist groups think they’re doing the right thi
ng, right up until they end up in prison or flat on their backs in the morgue.

  The door opened.

  Jane didn’t know who she expected to see. Certainly not Paula, who barked, “Wait in the living room.”

  “Where’s Andrew?”

  “He went for a run. Where the fuck do you think?” Paula stalked off, her footsteps like two hammers hitting the floor.

  Jane knew she should look for Andrew, but she had to compose herself before she spoke with her brother. The last hours or days of his life should not be filled with recriminations.

  She went across the hall to the bathroom. She used the toilet, praying that she did not feel the sharp pain, see the spots of blood.

  Jane looked down at the bowl.

  Nothing.

  The tub drew her attention. She had not fully bathed in almost four days. Her skin felt waxen, but the thought of getting undressed and finding soap and locating towels was too much. She flushed the toilet. Her eyes avoided the mirror as she washed her hands, then her face, with warm water. She looked for a rag and wiped under her arms and between her legs. She felt another wave of relief when she saw there was still no blood.

  Were you stupid enough to think I’d let you keep it?

  Jane walked into the living room. She looked for a telephone, but there wasn’t one. Calling Jasper was likely pointless, anyway. All of the family phone lines would be tapped. Even if Jasper was inclined to help, his hands would be tied. Jane was completely on her own now.

  She had made her choice.

  From the sound of it, someone had rolled the TV into the kitchen. She blinked, and time shifted back. Nick was on his knees in front of the set, adjusting the volume, insisting they all watch their crimes being cataloged for the nation. The group had arrayed themselves around him like blades on a fan. Clara on the floor taking in the frenetic energy. Edwin solemn and watchful. Paula beaming at Nick like he was the second coming of Christ. Jane standing there, dazed from the news that Clara had given her.

  Even then, Jane had stayed in the room rather than finding Andrew because she still did not want to let Nick down. None of them did. That was the biggest fear they all had—not that they would get caught, or die, or be thrown into prison for the rest of their lives, but that they would disappoint Nick.

  She knew that now there would be a reckoning for her defiance. Nick had left her here with Paula for a reason.

  Jane rested her hand on the swinging door to the kitchen and listened.

  She heard a knife blade striking a cutting board. The murmur of a television program. Her own breathing.

  She pushed open the door. The kitchen was small and cramped, the table wedged against the end of the laminate countertop. Still, it had its charms. The metal cabinets were painted a cheery yellow. The appliances were all new.

  Andrew was sitting at the table.

  Jane felt her heart stir at the sight of him. He was here. He was still alive, though the smile he gave her was weak.

  He motioned for Jane to turn down the television. She twisted the knob. Her eyes stayed on his.

  Did he know what Nick had done to Jane in the bathroom?

  Paula said, “I told you to wait in there.” She threw seasoning into a pot on the stove. “Hey, Dumb Bitch, I said—”

  Jane gave her the finger as she sat down with her back to Paula.

  Andrew chuckled. The metal box was open in front of him. Folders were spread out on the table. The tiny key was by his elbow. A large envelope was addressed to the Los Angeles Times. He was doing his part for Nick. Even at death’s door, still the loyal trooper.

  Jane worked to keep the sorrow out of her expression. Impossibly, he looked even more pale. His eyes could have been lined in red crayon. His lips were starting to turn blue. Every breath was like a saw grinding back and forth across a piece of wet wood. He should be resting comfortably in a hospital, not struggling to stay upright in a hard wooden chair.

  She said, “You’re dying.”

  “But you’re not,” he said. “Nick took the ELISA test last month. He’s clean. You know he’s terrified of needles. And the other way—he’s never been into that.”

  Jane felt a cold sweat break out. The thought had not even crossed her mind, but now that it was there, she felt sickened by the realization that, even if Nick had been infected, he probably would’ve never told her. They would’ve kept making love and Jane would’ve kept growing their child and she would’ve not found out the truth until it came from a doctor’s mouth.

  Or a medical examiner’s.

  “You’ll be okay,” Andrew said. “I promise.”

  Now was not the time to call her brother a liar. “What about Ellis-Anne?”

  “She’s clean,” Andrew said. “I told her to get tested as soon as . . .” He let his voice trail off. “She wanted to stay with me. Can you believe that? I couldn’t let her do it. It wasn’t fair. And we had all this going on, so . . .” His voice trailed off again in a long sigh. “Barlow, the FBI agent. He told me they talked to her. I know she must’ve been afraid. I regret—well, I regret a lot of things.”

  Jane did not want him to dwell on regrets. She reached for his hands. They felt heavy, weighted somehow by what was to come. His shirt collar was open. She could see the purplish lesions on his chest.

  He couldn’t stay here in this too-warm house with less than half a thimbleful of morphine. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I love you.”

  Andrew was never one to return the sentiment, but he squeezed her hands, smiled again, so that she knew he felt the same.

  Paula mumbled, “Christ.”

  Jane turned to glare at her. She had started cutting up a tomato. The knife was dull. The skin tore like paper.

  Paula asked, “You two into incest now?”

  Jane turned back around.

  Andrew told her, “I’m going to rest for a while. Okay?”

  She nodded. They would stand a better chance of leaving if Andrew was not involved in the negotiation.

  “Get a scarf,” Paula said. “Keep your neck warm. It helps the cough.”

  Andrew raised a skeptical eyebrow at Jane as he tried to stand. He shrugged off her offer of help. “I’m not that far gone.”

  She watched him lurch toward the swinging door. His shirt was soaked with sweat. The back of his hair was damp. Jane turned away from the door only when it stopped swinging.

  She took Andrew’s seat parallel to Paula because she did not want her back to the woman. She looked down at the files on the table. These were the two things that Nick had valued most: Jasper’s signature attesting to his part in the fraud. The Polaroids with their red rubber band.

  Paula said, “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not going anywhere.”

  Jane had thought that she was incapable of feeling any more emotions, but she had never abhorred Paula so much as she did in this moment. “I just want to take him to the hospital.”

  “And let the pigs know where we are?” Paula huffed out a laugh. “You might as well take off your fancy boots, ’cause you ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  Jane turned away from her, clasped her hands together on the table.

  “Hey, Dumb Bitch.” Paula lifted up her shirt and showed Jane the handgun tucked into the waist of her jeans. “Don’t get any ideas. I’d love to shoot six new holes into that asshole you call a face.”

  Jane looked at the clock on the wall. Ten in the evening. The Chicago team would already be in the city. Nick was on his way to New York. She had to find a way out of here.

  She asked, “Where are Clara and Edwin?”

  “Selden and Tucker are in position.”

  Edwin’s apartment in the city. He was supposed to wait for phone calls in case anyone was arrested.

  Jane said, “Northwestern can’t be far from here. They’re a teaching hospital. They’ll know how to take care of—”

  “Northwestern is straight down I-88, about for
ty-five minutes away, but it might as well be on the moon because you’re not fucking going anywhere and neither is he.” Paula rested her hand on her hip. “Look, bitch, they can’t do anything for him. You did your rich girl slumming at the AIDS ward. You know how this story ends. The prince doesn’t ride again. Your brother is going to die. As in tonight. He’s not going to see the sunrise.”

  Hearing her fears confirmed brought a lump into Jane’s throat. “The doctors can make him comfortable.”

  “Nick left a vial of morphine for that.”

  “It’s almost empty.”

  “That’s all we could find on short notice, and we’re lucky we could get that. It’ll probably be enough, and if it’s not—” She shrugged her shoulder. “Nothing we can do about it.”

  Jane thought again of Ben Mitchell, one of the first young men she’d met on the AIDS ward. He’d been desperate to go back to Wyoming to see his parents before he died. They had finally relented, and the last eight minutes of Ben’s life had been spent in terror as he suffocated on his own fluids because the rural hospital staff were too frightened to stick a tube down his throat to help him breathe.

  Jane knew the panic that came from not being able to breathe. Nick had strangled her before. Once during sex. Once the last time she was pregnant. Once a few hours ago, when he was threatening to kill her. No matter how many times it happened, there was no way to prepare for that terrifying sensation of not being able to pull air into your lungs. The way her heart felt like it was filling with blood. The searing pain from her muscles cramping. The burning in her lungs. The numbness in her hands and feet as the body gave up on everything but staying alive.

  Jane could not let her brother experience that terror. Not for one minute, certainly not for eight.

  She told Paula, “The doctors can knock him out so that he’s unconscious for the worst of it.”

  “Maybe he wants to be conscious,” she said. “Maybe he wants to feel it.”

  “You sound like Nick.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Don’t,” Jane said. “It’s meant to make you think about what you’re doing, because it’s wrong. All of this is wrong.”