Gun Lake, page 7
She thought of their attempts to get Jared involved at church. Jared claimed the whole youth group consisted of “nerds” and “stuck-up kids.” And Michelle had to admit he didn’t really fit in with the kids at church. So many of them seemed smug, self-assured, like they knew the answers. And Jared—Jared was a walking question mark. Questioning where God was if he existed, why high school was so awful, what had forced him to move in the middle of his junior-high years, who had designated the cliques at school. When cornered, he was adept at protecting himself with questions.
But not recently. That was what worried Michelle most. Jared used to argue and yell and scream at her, at Ted, at the other kids. But not anymore. Now he simply shrugged. And disappeared.
God help me.
Those big-name speakers and authors made it sound so easy. The guys on the radio who talked about the right way to bring up your children, the correct way to love and discipline. She had to wonder if those “experts” had ever really had to deal with someone like Jared. She suspected they did, and they just didn’t talk about it. Sometimes, regardless of every bit of wisdom you managed to convey, your kids simply wanted to do their own stupid things.
Jared snorted, stirred in his sleep, flopped a long arm off the bed. Michelle started to put it back, then decided there was no point. She just watched him, feeling closer to him at that moment than she had in months. He was so beautiful, slim like her, that golden flawless skin he’d inherited from his father. But she could look at him and still see the baby she had carried for nine months and taken twenty-four hours to push out into the world. The tiny but feisty infant who had cried with strangled, unlearned vocal cords and waved his little fists in the air. The energetic little boy whose smiles and hugs had given her back her faith.
She had to laugh at the irony of that. But it was true. Back when Evan died, at a time when she had almost stopped believing God could be good, Jared had kept her going. He had reminded her that God is good and life is a precious gift.
Maybe that’s why, of all her three children, he had always been her favorite. She wouldn’t admit that to anyone else, but it was true. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe she was being punished for having a favorite. Mothers weren’t supposed to do that.
Is that why he’s being taken away from me? Father, you’ve got to help me here. I’m really stuck.
Michelle sat in his room looking around, thinking, praying. And then she saw the photo. It was tacked onto the corkboard on the wall, a board full of photos of old friends and distant memories, along with other miscellaneous postcards and stubs and quotes.
The photo had been taken two summers ago, the first summer after they had moved to Illinois. It had been their first family vacation in years, back to a vacation spot Ted remembered from being a child in Michigan.
Michelle remembered smiling while Ted snapped the picture. It was of Jared and Michelle, sitting by the lake’s edge, smiling after a day spent fishing and riding on the boat.
An idea came to her as she looked down at the Jared of two years ago. He was a different boy back then. How different, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. But maybe there was some of that boy left inside of him.
The idea was a good one. And it might just work.
She turned off the light and thanked God that tonight, at least, she knew where Jared was sleeping.
17
SEAN HUMMED A SONG in his head and heard the rumble of the SUV’s engine as he turned the key. He drove up to the Steer-house entrance to pick up Wes. They were going to make it out okay with enough cash to last them for several weeks and nobody hurt. This wasn’t a repeat of the Louisiana mess. Perhaps it was good that the other three weren’t there.
Except now Sean had to try and find the idiots.
The passenger door opened, and an out-of-breath Wes climbed into the vehicle. He kept the door open for a minute and just sat there, cursing over and over. Sean was thinking that for a big, dumb guy, Wes sure had a big vocabulary.
Then Sean noticed his pants.
“What is that?” he asked.
“What?”
“That. Right there. You just eat a hot dog or something? Spill a little ketchup?”
“Uh … no.”
This time it was Sean who ripped a curse in the Dodge. “Then what is it?”
“Well, I had a little problem.”
“A little problem? Who?”
“The bartender.”
“What’d you do?”
Wes shook his head, looked down, now just repeating the same curse word over.
“Wes, come on.” Sean shook his head. “How bad?”
“Couldn’t really get no worse, I guess.”
Sean again let out a curse, then laughed. “You are such a complete dimwit. You know that?”
“Hey, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want—it got a little out of control.”
“And those other two?”
“What?”
“Where are they?” Sean asked.
“They’re still in there. They ain’t gonna hurt no one.”
“Let me clue you in on a little something. They’re not going to tell the cops their friend just happened to get shot by some wandering thugs. Get it? They’re going to identify us.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Yeah, okay.” Sean gritted his teeth and tapped a hard finger against Wes’s head. “Think. Think hard. They got a good look at both of us. We’ve sorta been all over the news these last few days. They know exactly who we are, and it won’t take long for even the dumbest cop to figure it out.”
Wes just looked at him. “So … don’t we need to take off now?”
Something inside Sean began bubbling over, burning.
“We already got three MIAs and a dead broad in Louisiana, and now this,” Sean snapped. “You guys are trying to get us caught.”
“No, man—”
Sean turned off the ignition and opened his car door.
“Where’re you going?” Wes asked.
“To clean up after your mess.”
“What mess?”
“Just shut up and stay in here. Okay?”
“I can come—”
“No. Stay in here. You’re like a puppy or something. So sit. Stay. Good boy.”
“Sean, man—”
“What?” Sean hollered at the big guy who could snap his neck in a second. “What do you have to say?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right. You’ve done enough talking and thinking for one night. Keep it up, and you’ll be napping in your good ol’ cot back at Stag.”
Wes nodded and accepted Sean’s words.
Sean began walking back to the Steerhouse, looking up at the clear Texas night sky and wishing it didn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
But maybe this was the only thing he could do. The only way it could go down. Even though he hated it, something still felt strangely right.
Sean stared at the Glock 31 in his hand and held it up to profile the pistol. He’d studied sporting mags in the house and knew this gun well enough. Ten-shot magazine. Weighing about twenty-six ounces or so with grips on the butt. Used three-fifty-seven sig ammo.
He looked good brandishing it too. This wasn’t a cocky thought. It was the truth. He looked like the kind of guy who was born to hold that gun.
He wondered if they would give him a nickname. Something that would stick in the minds of the American public that they would remember for a lifetime. “Stagworth Five” had already been coined, but he wondered what they’d call him.
He didn’t want to be known as some sicko, some Jeffrey Dahmer freak. That wasn’t him. He didn’t kill for pleasure. But sometimes the killing just had to be done.
Yeah, that was it. He was the kind of guy who got things done when everybody else was running around messing up. He could see himself like the gladiator in that movie—just taking care of business. Or like Jim Morrison, the Lizard King himself, up there on that stage or living in Paris and daring to take things just a little further than anyone else was prepared to go …
Sean held the gun in his hand and made sure the safety was off. This would be quick, painless, and then they could get on the road. This was unfortunate. But if Wes had already shot one of them, he might as well dispose of the other two so the Stagworth Five couldn’t be blamed for this. Some might suspect them, but that’d be all. And it wouldn’t matter, because they’d be long gone.
He had to keep telling these other idiots he was with to remember Stag. Remember those nights and those hours of being able to do absolutely nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Nothing. Remember not being able to sleep or eat or go to the can without having someone watching and supervising and chaining you down. That wasn’t a life. And he wasn’t going back there. If a couple of unlucky people stood in his way, he’d do what any other intelligent person would do.
He opened the door to the Steerhouse, expecting to find the old guy and the steak eater huddled in a corner booth somewhere. The eruption of gunfire that sounded as he opened the door surprised him. The sound shocked him more than the round that ripped into his shoulder blade. For a moment he didn’t even know he was hit.
But then the pain came. Yeah, he was hit.
As he dove behind a wooden wall separating him from the restaurant and the place where someone had let go with a series of blaring shots, he knew it’d be easier now.
It won’t be murder, he thought amidst the deafening roar of gunfire. It’ll be self-defense.
18
A WHOLE UNIVERSE of stars rotated above them as they walked, and all Kurt could picture was jagged flecks of light
orange and yellow splashed on a black-and-white snapshot
and this was all he was able to remember. Sometimes he questioned those images, those memories, wondering if they really happened. He didn’t know.
The night sang with stillness. They left behind the subdivision with its neat curbs and street lamps and sprinkling systems going off on lawns.
You were a suburbanite once, remember?
Kurt led them over a stubby field toward the gas station in the distance, maybe a mile or so down the road. It glowed in the night sky. The farther they walked, the better Kurt felt about things. The more he could—breathe. Slow down his pulse.
These guys walking with him didn’t know him. They didn’t know his fears, his issues. He had just aimed a gun at Lonnie’s head! Who was he trying to fool? But he couldn’t appear weak to these guys. He had to try and play the part, just as he’d been doing since he arrived at Stagworth.
“Have you tried calling Sean?” Lonnie asked.
Kurt shook his head, then felt for the cell phone in his pocket. He took it out and remembered it was off. He found the button to turn it on, then heard the beep that said he had messages.
“Hold on,” he said, stopping, dialing in for the messages. He had three.
“Kurt, where are you guys? Give us a call.”
That had been Wes with his deep Georgia drawl, music blaring in the background.
The second message was from Sean.
“Hey, it’s me. Maybe sometime you’ll turn on your phone and decide to let us know what you’re doing.”
The third message was Wes again. This time his voice sounded frantic, loud, rushed. He cursed several times and asked where they were and what they were doing and then cursed more and said things had gotten bad and to call.
Kurt felt the perspiration pop out on his forehead at the thought of Sean and Wes arriving back at the house unexpected.
He hit redial, and the phone rang twice.
“What?” a voice yelled into the phone.
“Where are you guys?”
“Where are you?” the voice screamed back. It sounded like Sean, but he wasn’t sure.
“We’re walking toward—” Then Kurt backed up. “Things happened tonight.”
“Really?” the out-of-breath voice said. “That so? Boy, I’m feeling your pain.”
“What’s your problem?”
“My problem? Is this Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell you my problem,” he said, calling Kurt a nasty name. “I just took a bullet tonight because of THIS IDIOT. No, just drive, you ignorant piece. Look, we’re heading toward the house. I need to get—”
“Wait.”
“What?” Sean asked, his breathing heavy and erratic.
“That’s what I was trying to say. The people came home.”
“Who?”
“The family—the people Rita was house-sitting for.”
Sean let out a sigh, then laughed and called Rita a creative name.
“So, what happened?”
“We slipped out.”
“You slipped out? Just like that?”
“Yeah. We climbed out a basement window.”
“Nothing happened?” Sean asked.
“No.”
“What about Lonnie?”
“He’s fine. Nobody got hurt.”
“There’s a first. Wish I could say the same.”
“What happened?” Kurt asked, that sick feeling coming over him again.
“This big stupid ox that I allowed to tag along with us decided he’d shoot someone in the gut. Didn’t you, you———? Yeah, things got bad. I took a nice little round that needs some cleaning.”
“Were there—”
“Yeah,” Sean said, finishing his unaired thought.
“How many?”
“Three.”
no
“Kurt?”
Just keeps getting worse.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you guys?”
“We’ll meet you at the Texaco on the corner of—what? Southwest Highway and I don’t know. That street close to the house. Magnolia or Maple or something like that.”
“Yeah, okay. I think I can find you.”
“Three people?” Kurt asked.
“It’s done. Nothing we can do about it now.” Sean then told him in a frazzled order that they needed to get far away from the state of Texas.
“And Rita?” Kurt asked.
“She’ll probably realize in a couple more hours that we aren’t coming back.”
“What’ll she say?”
Sean laughed.
“That we’re heading to Cabo San Lucas.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere we’re not going. We’ll see you guys in a few minutes. Ditch the phone when you get a chance; we don’t want anybody tracing our calls. Buy me some stuff to clean this wound with. Alcohol, peroxide, or something. And a case of beer. I’m thirsty.”
19
HER RIGHT HAND TREMBLED. She shook it, balled it into a fist, leveled it out, and looked at it again. The shaking remained.
Any minute now, she expected another set of hands to grab her and turn her around. They would strike from the seat behind her, cupping over her eyes and forcing her to drive off the freeway.
Norah had checked a dozen times to make sure nobody was hiding in the backseat. It was stupid. Of course nobody was back there. But she couldn’t shut off her imagination.
The recently purchased Mazda was now two hundred miles away from the house Harlan slept in. She had been careful—parking the car blocks away from the house, stowing her suitcase in the trunk earlier that afternoon, leaving the blinds drawn and the alarm off when she left so he wouldn’t wake up early. But she didn’t know what exactly he would do or how resourceful he would be the coming morning. That was why she felt so twitchy, so out of control, and so compelled to drive forty miles over the speed limit.
Instead, she kept the car going at a steady seventy-five miles an hour down Interstate 90. She had just passed Syracuse and was headed toward Buffalo.
After picking up the car, Norah had watched the evening turn to a cold, deathly black, the storm blowing in. She had feared all evening that Harlan would find out about the car; now she feared it might break down for some unknown reason, stranding her on the edge of a highway with nothing to do and nobody to call.
And there was nobody to call.
She licked the gash on her lip. The part that hurt the worst was her inner gum, where the skin had torn against her teeth. It was amazing what a blow to the face could do, how the skin could bruise into a sickly purplish color no concealer could ever hide.
That hadn’t been the final straw, of course. There was no real, true final straw—just enough ordinary, everyday straws to fill a barn.
And now I’m setting it all on fire.
It sounded romantic enough, dropping everything and leaving and never looking back. Except Norah knew she would look back—not once, but many times. She’d miss her old life. She’d want to go back home—back to Bangor, at least. Back to her job as a manicurist, which she had kept even though she didn’t need the money when she was with him. Back to her secure life and the Mercedes she drove and the spacious house with its walk-in closet full of gorgeous clothes. Even back to Harlan, sometimes, the Harlan who could be sweet and gentle, the Harlan who was always sorry after the things he did—but never sorry enough not to do it the next time.
But she’d remember the stale alcohol on his breath as he mouthed words inches away from her face. The sudden rages, the verbal tirades, the claims that she was nothing without him, the slaps and pinches that had escalated into more.
She’d remember never to go back again. Ever.
Norah knew the road ahead wasn’t going to be pretty. She had no idea what to expect. And being alone, she had no one to confer with, no one to lean on. She’d been on her own a lot in her life, and she’d never learned to like it.
For now, she carried all the money she had squirreled away in her own savings account. It wasn’t much. Harlan didn’t care how she spent their money, or his money, but he wanted to make sure that she was spending it. The money she made from work went into their checking account, and Harlan kept well-organized accounts. It was a year ago that she had began putting all of her tips in a savings account, the same account she closed at ten o’clock yesterday morning.
The withdrawal slip read $5,349.38. She was proud of every cent because she had earned it. But the amount made her sad, because she knew this was everything she had to her name. Twenty-four years old and she was worth $5,349.38. That and a beat-up Mazda she’d purchased after pawning off several pieces of her jewelry.
