“It can’t be.” Breath like diesel fumes.
Still not making any sense.
“He came snooping around up here. Saw just a little too much. He had to be terminated.”
I leveled my disbelieving stare on Fillmore. “You’re not making any sense. If that’s Cornsilk, who the hell killed Bridges and torched Rae’s home? And where’s my son?”
Fillmore straightened to his full height. “The answer to both questions is standing right behind you.”
I twisted round, expecting to see yet another incarnation of one of Fillmore’s lies. What I didn’t expect was to see George, my homicidal son, standing in the doorway, smiling lopsidedly.
“Hey,” he said. “Been a long time, Dad. Glad you could make the party. Miss me?”
___________________________
The impact came with a delay. The sea level shying from the shore in the quiet moments before the killer wave strikes. In that tranquil interim I was suspended in a limbo of uncertainty, unable to process. I stared at the smiling image of my son, the father in me elated that he still lived, while the lawman in me deflated that he did. Then the emotional tsunami swamped, bringing with it a deluge of questions and throwing me into a mental tumult.
“George?”
There was a Zippo lighter in his hand, a blunt thumb flicking the cap open and shut. Gasoline vapors out in the hall. A manic look in his brooding eyes.
Fillmore came around and patted my son on the shoulder. I sensed George tense, inside – I knew my son – but no one else saw it.
“George has been a great help to us, brother. An asset. That ex-FBI piece of shit Cornsilk was about to expose us. George happened to be in the neighborhood at the right time. He dealt with the problem quite efficiently.”
I couldn’t take my bulging eyes off my son. “You torched Cornsilk?”
“It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, Dad: him off your case? I did you a favor. Besides, I didn’t appreciate him gatecrashing my party. He who lives by the sword and all that baloney.”
I was speechless. Utterly thunderstruck.
All this time I’d believed Cornsilk had caught up with my son and killed him, when in fact the complete opposite was true.
“We’re on a tight schedule,” Fillmore said to my son. “We need to close this chapter and move on.” He turned to me. “It’s been fun, brother.” He gave Engel a nod. “Slice her up.”
Engel went straight for Rae.
He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head back, viciously, so suddenly that her eyes sprang wide. I saw her whole body go rigid. He had the combat knife against her throat in the same moment I hollered
No!
___________________________
A line of blood surfaced on her neck.
“Wait.” George intervened.
And Engel paused.
My pounding pulse didn’t.
Rae was breathing hard through bloodied nostrils. A trickle of blood pooling in the dip where her clavicles met.
“May I remind you we had a deal,” George said to Fillmore. “I disposed of Cornsilk and here is my reward. This is my endgame. That’s why I brought them here. Y’all give us a little privacy.”
Fillmore: “You sure?”
“Positively. Just a little last minute father and son business I’d like to take care of. For old time’s sake. You boys carry on. I won’t keep y’all more than a minute or two.” He flipped the Zippo open and closed. “Then I’ll burn the place.”
Fillmore checked his watch. “Okay.” He nodded at Engel, who released Rae and wiped her blood on his thigh. “But make your goodbyes quick; I want to be on the water in ten minutes, tops.”
“Like I said: a minute or two is ample enough.”
Fillmore nodded to his cohorts, and the three of them left the room. George waited until they were out of earshot before squatting down next to us.
His feral gaze prowled across my face. “How’ve you been holding up, Dad? I heard they had you locked up in the nuthouse for a while. How’d that work out for you? Learned what a bad dad you’ve been? I expect you’ve got a truck load of questions buzzing round in that head of yours. I wish I could say I wanted to stay and answer them all, but I don’t. The time for niceties is long past. We both knew we’d end up here someday.” He put a hand to the small of his back and produced a handgun. Looked like Rae’s Glock, taken during her abduction.
He waved it in my face. “See this? Consider it your ticket to redemption. Your last chance to make good on all those promises you failed to deliver. All those times you built my hopes up and then dropped them in the trash. That’s right, Dad. The time has come for you to make amends.” He dropped the clip out of the butt. “See, no bullets. Just one lonesome in the chamber. And it has your name on it.” He slapped the clip back home. “I’m going to make you a deal, Dad. Best deal of the day. Your life for Libby Rae’s.”
“You’re insane.” It got to my lips first, ahead of a string of expletives which crashed into the back of my gritted teeth.
He sniggered, “Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black – considering I wasn’t the one in Springfield? That’s the deal, Dad. Your life for your floozy’s. Take it or leave it.”
I saw Rae shake her head, vehemently. Blood and snot flying.
“Now don’t go getting all hysterical on us, Libby Rae, or I’ll shoot you myself, here and now.”
My fingers curled to form fists. Instinctively, I wanted to grab hold of my son and hug him, squeeze the demon out of him, but I also wanted to knock some sense into him with my knuckles.
“What’s it going to be, Dad? Are you with me? Are we both on the same page? It’s a good deal, mind you. The best there is. You shoot yourself dead – dead as a doorknob – and I promise on Momma’s sweet southern soul I’ll let your floozy here have a fighting chance.”
Again, Rae shook her head. Fear-stricken eyes pleading with me to ignore my son’s crazy offer.
My knuckles were white. Lips peeled back.
“Of course, I can’t promise she’ll survive. That all depends on her, and you. I take it you’ve seen the setup downstairs. Fillmore’s fixing to jump ship. Raze this place to the ground. Burn the two of you with it. I’m saying I’ll cut her loose, but only if you give your life for hers.” He waved the gun in my face again, menacingly, then raised an eyebrow. “What do you say, Dad? You going to man-up and do the honorable thing for once in your miserable life?”
I snarled: “It’d be madness trusting you.”
He cuffed me on the cheek with the butt of the gun. Pain spiked through my skull.
“Show some respect! I just swore on Momma’s soul, goddamit.” He shook his head. “Honestly. A guy tries his best. He tries to be all civil and all. And what thanks does he get? I just saved Libby Rae from Engel’s knife, didn’t I? Show a little gratitude.”
He tapped the barrel against my cheekbone, on the cut from Engel’s blade. For a moment, I contemplated grabbing the gun from his hand, using the single bullet to put him out of my misery. But that would leave both Rae and I manacled and trapped, while Fillmore set the house on fire.
“Any way you look at this,” George continued, “you don’t really have much in the way of a choice, and that’s the truth. Me, I can walk away right this second. Let y’all fry for all I care. Makes no difference to me; you’re already dead in my eyes, Daddy dear. At least this way, I’m offering one of you a stab at life.”
I looked at Rae. There were big tears pooling in her eyes. A look of sheer terror that screamed silently
don’t listen to him!
George shoved the Glock into my hand. Forced my finger over the trigger. Then, in a surprise move, he pressed the muzzle against his forehead.
“It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” He grated the muzzle against his brow. “Blow my brains out. Kill your pain.”
I resisted his grip.
He pressed the steel harder against his skin. Eyes feral. “Go ahead, Dad. If you’re lucky, maybe killing me will exorcise your demons.”
I was sorely tempted. God help me, I was. One shot and my psychopathic son would be no more. Zero chance of him ever hurting anyone ever again. But he was my son. My own flesh and blood. I’d raised him wrong. His condition was no excuse, but neither was my neglect. Either way, my unconscious mind had cut off the signals traveling down the nerves to my trigger finger.
“All right,” I growled.
Tears were rolling down Rae’s cheeks. Chest heaving as fear-induced tremors coursed through her.
“You have a deal.”
We were in a dire situation for sure, our prospects less than grim. I knew my son well enough to know he wouldn’t let Rae live, at least not longer after I took my own life. It was all a game to him. His way of heightening our suffering. I had to let him believe I’d go through with it. Give Rae a chance to escape.
George released my hand. The Glock came away, leaving a red pressure ring in the center of his forehead.
“Let me say my goodbyes, in private?”
“Sure thing, Dad.” He got back to his feet. “I wouldn’t want to come between you and your misguided romanticism.” He backed up toward the door. “Just no lollygagging, you hear? If I don’t hear your brains being blown out in less than a minute, I’m going to let Engel carve your floozy here a new face, and then I’ll shoot you myself.”
He disappeared into the hallway. I heard him go to the room next door. Muffled voices as he explained his plan to Fillmore and his henchmen.
The first thing I did was carefully peel the duct tape from covering Rae’s mouth. She winced as it came away, blotted with blood. She spat out red glue and sniffed back a bubble of snot.
“Gabe.” A single, shaky word, drenched in fear. “Don’t do this. Please. Not for me. I’m begging you. There must be some other way.”
I wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into the embrace, warm and tender, trembling. Her hand cupped the back of my head and held me close, tight, so that my lips caressed the soft hollow beneath her ear.
“Rae, I’m sorry for getting you into this.” I emphasized it with a squeeze. “I never meant any of this to happen. This is all my fault.”
“No,” she whispered back.
She pulled away a little, just enough to look me directly in the eyes. Her pupils were as big as black holes, sucking me in. My heart quaked.
“Don’t say that,” she said, sniffing. “I chose this life. It was my choice to make a career out of chasing down bad guys. Sooner or later one was going to bite back. If it ends here and now, with you by my side, so be it. I know I’ve made a difference and I can live with that. So long as we’re together.”
I felt a quiver run through her. She was scared. So was I.
“Rae, listen to me. It’s going to be alright. This isn’t how it ends for us. Not here. Not today. Not if I have my say.”
She sniffed through tears. “You need to know there’s no way he’s going to let me live. George blames me for causing the rift between y’all. I’m the other woman, remember? And the truth is, Gabe, he’s right. If we’re assigning blame here, then right now I’ll hold my hands up and be accountable. I took his precious daddy away from him when he needed him most, and it’s unforgivable.”
Rae had listened to all the terrible tales I’d told about my son. About his hatred of me. About his warped desire to make me pay for the death of his beloved momma. About his premeditated killings, going right back to Jeanette Bennett, his first psychiatrist from Philadelphia. Rae had every right to be scared out of her wits; I wasn’t far behind her.
“Being with you back then, Rae, that was my choice. That’s on my shoulders. You don’t deserve to die because of my mistakes.”
Rae stared at me through welling tears.
“Dammit. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Men say clumsy things.” I brushed damp hair from her face. “What we had was real,
is
real. No regrets. None. If I could go back in time, right now, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”
She smiled weakly. “I hate saying this: but your boy’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.”
I went to kiss her, but was stopped by a fist banging against the wall.
George’s voice: “Hello? Anyone blown their head off yet? I’m waiting impatiently for the sound of gunfire.”
Rae pulled back, dread darkening her eyes. “Don’t do it,” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t kill yourself for me. I mean it.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I breathed. “Trust me, Rae, I know what I’m doing.”
Famous last words.
I dug a hand in my jacket pocket, feeling for the small hole in the seam. Located it with a fingertip and pulled at it until the lining ripped, wide enough to get my hand in. Then I rummaged deeper, into the corner of the jacket until my fingers found the wayward bullet that had been out of reach since chasing Jefferson through the rain-soaked woods in Missouri.
I fingered it out.
Rae looked at the solitary bullet in my open palm. I could see her adding things up and coming up with the same answer as me: even counting the bullet already in the chamber, we were short by two.
I dropped the magazine and fed the bullet inside. Clipped it back into the handle. Then I pulled against the chain fastening my wrist to the loop bolted to the floor. Pressed the muzzle against a link.
Jefferson had given me the idea.