"God, you're dense. Of course I did. I would've taken care of you with the first one, but he assured me you weren't worth it. He said you wouldn't stick around. HE SAID I WOULDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT YOU AND MY MAN!" She wipes her mouth as spit falls down her chin. "He said all you'd need was a little warning and you'd be too scared to leave the house. WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN!"
Good heavens, she's insane.
"Who, Jess? Who said that to you?" I take another step back, my heart thundering in my chest when I almost slip on the sticky mess at my feet.
She moves away from the broken back door, kicking the rock she must've thrown through the window out of her way. As the barrel of her handgun gets closer, I feel panic rising in my throat.
"John, you dumbass. He seemed to think you wouldn't be a threat. One fire, he said, would be enough to make the timid little turtle go back into her shell. I thought he was right. You didn't come sniffin' back around my man for a while. But, then you had to go and fuck it all up, didn't you? Shoulda trusted my gut the first time I saw you with Clay at that piece-of-shit bar. Shoulda slit your throat when you left that motel, like I wanted to."
I shake my head, blown away by what she's saying. "The motel?"
"The first time I saw you with my man. I left it be because you stayed away and I gave you some time to make sure you wouldn't go sniffing back around what is mine. I knew Clay would get bored of your used goods. I knew he'd come back to me. But then you had to go and move your trash into my house with my MAN! That's when I knew you needed more of a reason to run far away from Pine Oak--and Clay. John didn't want to help me again, but he did when I reminded him who was in charge. No matter what we did, you didn't take a hint. You were supposed to leave!"
"You and . . . John? Y'all were the ones messin' up things with the rebuild of my store?" It takes everything in me to keep my voice calm as the panic starts to flow quicker. I just need to keep her talking. Keep her mind distracted. One more step. My hand slowly moves behind my back and I wait until I have an opening, finally being close enough to grab a knife, but not wanting to get shot when she realizes what I'm up to.
There's no way I'm going to give up without fighting to keep the beautiful life I have--I've got too much to live for.
"He didn't want me to, but I had to finish what I started. Saw right through his stalling and realized he wasn't really on my team. Stupid motherfucker. You know, I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. Now I'm goin' to be cleanin' up your blood in my kitchen. You dirty everything up. I should just light this place up so Clay and I can move on without your filth." Her chest heaves and her eyes narrow as her face gets bright red. "You just couldn't leave though, could you! Even with your stupid fuckin' store gone, you still didn't go. NO ONE WANTS YOU! You're nothin' but a paid whore now, moochin' off my man and livin' off his dime. There isn't anything for you here!"
"You're wrong," I whisper, wincing when the unhinged madness in her eyes amps up. In my inability to keep from defending what Clayton and I have, I might as well be throwing out a challenge to this madwoman.
"I'm wrong?! I'm WRONG?! You did NOT just say that. There isn't shit for you here! All you are and all you'll ever be is a warm hole."
"How did you get Clayton out of the house?" I hedge, knowing I need to steer her into something a little safer than my relationship with Clayton so I can get out of this kitchen alive.
She grins, evil and wicked, clearly proud of herself. "That dumbass ex of yours." She laughs, the sound nothing short of vile. "You know, all he wanted to do was apologize. Stupid bastard. I finally realized what he was doin' when he tried to stop me tonight. The whole time he's been tryin' to stop me--I just didn't realize it until today. Slipped up, he did. Told me you had a diamond on your finger--my diamond--and that he was fuckin' happy for you. Fool. Found out not long after that Clay married your dumb ass tonight. John couldn't hide it any longer. He was just blowin' smoke up my ass, protectin' you the whole fuckin' time by keepin' me from doin' what I wanted to do all along. Always had a reason why we shouldn't hurt you. Well, joke's on him since he damn sure can't protect you with a bullet through his brain."
"My God," I gasp, not dwelling on the thought of John being dead, but recognizing just how far past sane this woman is. There will be time later, when I make it through this, to reflect on everything she's said tonight--and I will make it through this.
"I made sure to leave Clay that stupid fuck as a present. Left him right next to the ashes of that ugly gazebo I hear you married my man under."
My heart clenches. Clayton worked so hard building that in our spot. "He's not goin' to forgive you for this, Jess. You might think hurtin' me is the answer, but he'll hate you more than he already does if you go through with this."
"HE LOVES ME!" The gun jumps as she waves it in my direction, spit flying from her mouth as she growls. "You don't know anything!"
"I know everything!"
"Clay loves me. He always has. He was comin' back to me!"
"He hates you! The second you killed his baby, you made it so he wouldn't ever feel anything more than hate when he thought about you. When he finds out what you've done, he'll do one more than just hate you. He'll forget about you. Because that's what MY husband does when someone wrongs him and doesn't deserve his forgiveness."
"Shut up!" she screams, shaking her head and banging her free hand against the side of it.
Taking advantage of the insanity inside her bubbling over, distracting her enough that she lowers the gun just enough so it isn't pointed at my head anymore and her eyes are no longer wildly hunting me as though I were prey, I lift my hand and grab the first knife handle I reach, pulling it from the block behind my back.
"All he had to do was give me that diamond and I wouldn't have had to take care of the problem."
"The problem?" I gasp.
"He didn't even want a fuckin' little snot-nosed brat. He said he never wanted them, but I knew he'd marry me if I was carryin' his child--then I could take care of it and we'd still have each other."
My hand tightens on the knife, my anger for the wrongs she's done to Clayton taking on a whole new life. "You bitch! He would have loved that baby. Even with you bein' stuck in his life because of the child y'all shared, he would have loved it. You're right, he definitely didn't want to have a baby with you, but he would've been the best damn father. Who knows, maybe he would've come around, but you'll never know, because you killed his child."
I see it in her eyes the second she decides to pull the trigger, that insane glint that's been dancing there since she broke in turning into something feral. I move on autopilot, jumping to the side and diving behind the island. Before I fall to the floor, though, my arm flies out and over my head as I release the knife. I don't even know if I threw it toward her, but it was the only thing I could think of. Fighting a gun with a knife leaves little room for options.
My thigh burns and I cry out when I land hard. My ears ring, the blast from her gun so loud that I feel its power in my bones. My body slides and slips against the eggy mess on the floor as I back toward the hallway. I had expected her to be on me the second I moved, but when I hit the hallway and press my back against the wall, all I hear is silence. Well, muffled silence. Between the gun going off and my thundering heartbeat, I can't hear much over the bounding tempo of my racing heart and my gasping breaths.
Think, Caroline. You can't just sit here and wait for her to come back for you. Fight.
The gun safe.
Clayton showed it to me a few weeks ago. Gave me the code, but I didn't think anything of it. I listen for movement, but still don't hear much of anything. However, when I go to stand, I realize why my leg is burning, and it has nothing to do with landing on it wrong. There's a small puddle of redness forming under my leg. Now that I've noticed, the bullet wound's pain becomes all but unbearable.
Linney, fight. FIGHT, baby!
Gritting my teeth, I do the only thing I can and rally. I wipe my hands on my shirt before pl
acing them behind me and turning from the wall. Unable to put weight on my leg, I start scooting back with my good leg, pushing my body down the hall toward Clayton's office. The red trail against the hardwood floors is unpreventable, even if it's basically an arrow telling Jess how to find me.
Once I reach the office, it takes me a little while to remember the code, but finally the metal door pops and swings open. I take in the different guns inside, but, not knowing anything about them, I just grab one and pray it's loaded. I start moving back toward the door but pause to look down at the gun I'm holding, remembering the safety that Clayton had mentioned. He hadn't been teaching me how to use the gun, merely mentioning how, if I needed it, I would have to click the safety off.
"Where the fuck are you, bitch!"
"Oh, God," I pant, blinding white fear slamming into me. "Where the heck is it?" I turn the gun around in my hand, finally seeing the small button. After making sure it's off, I try to move behind his desk, but the fire in my leg makes it hard to breathe without it throbbing.
"I'm goin' to find you and gut you from your nasty, used cunt all the way to your chest so I can rip out your heart and stuff it down your throat."
I raise the gun, leaning my back on Clayton's desk and try to calm my racing heart. I hear her moving, swearing as she does.
I look down at my still bleeding leg. Shit. Using the desk, I pull myself up from the floor and hobble as best I can to the attached bath, cracking the door and placing the tip of the gun between the gap in the direction of the office doorway. I hear her as she moves down the hall, her words incoherent as she rants and slurs. My vision is getting gray around the edges, and I know time is not on my side.
"Gotcha, bitch," Jess yells, jumping into the office doorway and searching the room wildly. "The fuck did you go?"
My hands don't even tremble as I adjust my hold on the gun and wait. She takes three steps into the room, stopping right next to where I'm hiding, and with one last slow exhale, my vision now a dull black, I pull the trigger.
27
CLAYTON
"Sometimes I Cry" by Chris Stapleton
Pulling up to the still-smoking remains of the gazebo, I park next to Mav's four-wheeler and cut the engine on mine. I expected Sheriff Holden to be here, but not the three other patrol trucks pointing their headlights toward the ash-and ember-filled space that I'd married Caroline in hours before.
What I also hadn't expected, was the body of John Lewis to be here.
"What the fuck?"
"Shit, Clay," Mav answers, blowing out his breath. "I know you thought it might have been him, but fuckin' hell."
I don't look away, my eyes struggling to make sense of what's before me. John Lewis, the man who deserves whatever hell is waiting on him, lying half burned on my property. "What did he do? Start the damn fire and fall in?" I ask no one in particular.
"Not sure, son," Holden says, coming to stand next to me. "Your brother tells me that there's a connection here?"
I nod, looking away and at the older man. "He's my wife's ex. There's not one good thing about what he shared with her either. Not to mention his history of erratic behavior from a few years ago."
He clicks his teeth, looking back down at the body. "That's right. I remember that. Such a shame, those horses of yours."
"I hadn't seen him after that until a month or two ago when I was pickin' up Caroline in Wire Creek. Didn't say a word to us, but saw him there watchin' and not hidin' it one bit."
"Has he contacted your wife?"
"Shit," I hiss, looking away from the dead man. "Earlier today. I don't know everything that was said, but she mentioned him approaching her briefly. Shit just got busy with the weddin' and I haven't talked to her about it since."
"Tucker says he saw them outside the grocery earlier yesterday."
I glance in the direction he's pointing to see the younger police officer. He dips his chin but doesn't say anything.
"With all due respect, Sheriff, I hope you can understand how it slipped my mind, seein' that aside from us sayin' I do, there wasn't much time to talk about our day."
"I didn't mean anything by it, Clay. Just pointin' out that this clearly wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing if not even twenty-four hours after approaching your wife, he's here."
"What the hell was burnin' somethin' down in the middle of my property goin' to prove anyway? It doesn't make a lick of sense."
"I understand your wife's store in Wire Creek had some fire issues as well recently?"
I scoff. "You could say that. Someone tried to burn her inside of there the first time. Shit got tampered with while she was in the rebuildin' stage, and the second she put the place on the market, they came back and sparked it up real good. That wasn't long before when she officially moved in to the ranch."
Holden bobs his head, listening to me while one of the younger cops writes some notes down.
"Coroner's here," someone mumbles.
I glance up at Spencer Russell, the town's coroner, as he climbs down from his truck. The man's old as dirt but wise as hell. He walks toward our huddle and shakes hands with Holden and Mav before getting to me.
"Nice night for a barbecue?" he cryptically jokes, grunting out a belly laugh while walking toward John's body.
Mav snickers under his breath and I see the sheriff shake his head, a small grin on his lips. I keep my silence. It's not like John being behind all this isn't believable. But Caroline's words about how he wouldn't have hidden behind the fires echo through my mind. That's why I'm having a hard time believing this is clear-cut. Someone like John Lewis would have made his point in an irrefutable kind of way. He would have been in your face and proud, hungry to see the fear he had produced. What he wouldn't have done was spent months hiding behind fires and petty construction-site mischief.
"Well, well," Spencer mutters, using his gloved hands to turn John's head. "Y'all see a gun anywhere round here?"
Ice-cold dread fills my veins.
"No, sir. We checked the area real good when we got here, too."
"Linney," I wheeze, already turning and running back to the four-wheeler. I toss my leg over the seat and reach for the key. Before I can fire it up, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot echoes through the night. "Caroline!"
"Clay!" I hear bellowed at the same time my engine kicks over. Before I can get the four-wheeler into gear, my brother is jumping on the back rack with his legs hanging over one side. I don't spare him a glance, flipping my wrist and gunning it back to the ranch knowing he'll hold on but not giving a shit if he falls off. I need to get back to my wife.
"Kill it back behind the barn," Mav yells into my ear.
I nod, changing gears and picking up speed. When we come into the clearing that the house is in, I flip the lights off and drive to the back of the barn and turn off the four-wheeler, running toward the house not even a second later. I don't look to see if my brother is following; the only thing I care about is making sure Caroline's okay. My feet have just cleared the top step of the porch when I hear the second gunshot and all rational thoughts vanish. I lift my boot and kick the front door, the wood splintering as the lock gives. Shouldering the broken door out of the way, I stand in the doorway, my eyes searching and my heart praying.
"Clay," Mav whispers, pointing to the red smear that looks like someone dragged a body down the hall.
"Caroline!" I scream, rushing forward and following the trail, Mav hot on my heels. I hear more footsteps rushing up the porch and I have no doubt that Sheriff Holden didn't waste a second following me.
"No," I pant, coming into my office and seeing a nightmare coming to life. My world stops spinning a second later when I see through the cracked door of the office bathroom the delicate hand lying limp--the hand adorned with the rings I had put there.
"Holy hell," someone says behind me.
I jump over the very dead woman on the floor in the middle of my office, noticing that not only is her head missing, she's got a knife sticking out
of her chest, directly under her collarbone.
My girl fought.
"Linney, love?" I sob, pushing the door open enough to get into the bathroom. "God, darlin'." My knees slam into the floor and I reach out to check her pulse, feeling instant relief blast through the dark pit of dread that had settled over me when I find one, though it's weak. "Get an ambulance here, now!" I bellow out. "Stay with me, baby. You stay with me, Linney."
I rock her in my arms and pray, plead, and beg. My throat burns and my eyes sting. I bury my face in her neck, breathe her in. Her limp body is heavy in my arms, her face drained of color.
"Ambulance is five out," Mav says, his own voice betraying his calm outer appearance. He grabs a towel off the rack and presses it against her leg. "She's gonna be okay, Clay. Believe it. Ain't room for any other outcome."
I shake my head, my tears falling faster. I don't say a word. Not while my brother helps to stop the blood flowing from her leg, pulling my shirt she's wearing down to cover her underwear. When the paramedics burst through the door and take her from my arms, though, I break. Break into so many pieces that I know if something happens to her, I'll never put them back together again.
The stretcher makes her look even tinier than normal. The men work on her for only a second before rushing down the hall. I jump from the floor and sprint after them.
Mav grabs my arm, stopping me from getting to the ambulance. I turn and punch him in the face when the ambulance door shuts, one of the men yelling out that they're on the way to the hospital in Law Bone and taking off without me--taking my everything away from me.
"Get in the fuckin' truck," Mav demands, spitting and wiping his split lip with the back of his hand.
He stomps toward my truck, not looking to see if I'm following. We both climb in, and he punches the gas while I hunch forward to push my hands through my hair. Silence and the sound of my engine speeding through the night ring in my ears, the vision of Caroline lying in a pool of blood, lifeless, etched in my brain.
"She's gonna be okay, Clay."
"I'm nothin' without her," I mumble, feeling the pain of my words like a knife to the heart.
"Stay strong. She needs you fightin' too."