A Murder of Magpies (35 page)

In the sharp light of the sunset, Emory climbed out of a green Buick and climbed the
front steps with Rain right behind him.

Vayda

The front door squealed as it opened. Dad moved slowly, an arthritic gait, the same
that plagued him after moving furniture. The smell of furniture polish and coffee
came off his shirt as he put his arms around me, and I listened to his heart’s thudding.
Jonah and Ward had hidden the attic ladder, and while Dad was good at keeping secrets,
I wasn’t so much.

Before my godfather entered the house, I blurted, “
Dati
, I think Rain’s—”

“Shh.” My father held the back of my head. “I know, Magpie.”

I scanned his thoughts. He didn’t think of Rain or Mom. Instead, I saw the jail cell
with an unforgiving metal bench. Jonah cracked his knuckles, and his hands sparked
and died, sparked and died, until Dad reached to hug him.

“Makes a mighty nice picture, don’t it?” Rain lugged in his suitcase. He wore khakis
and a red sweater. Good enough to negotiate his client’s release from police custody
on a Saturday evening. He moved to shake my brother’s hand, but Jonah recoiled and
bumped into Ward.

“You got a green face, boy,” Rain remarked, pointing to Ward. “You okay?”

“I smelled something rotten, thought maybe it was coming from inside the attic.”

Rain’s mouth pursed. “Vayda, be a dear and wrestle up some coffee. Gonna be a long
evening.”

I steadied my hands enough to concoct a potent brew of coffee beans and water. As
I brought out his mug, his fingers brushed mine and transferred a hate as black and
sticky as tar.

“What happens next?” Jonah asked.

“Well, old Em’s in a heap of trouble.” Rain withdrew his cigarettes from his pocket,
tapped one on his hand, and lit it. “He’s been slow to learn you never trust the man
whose girl you stole to make your own.”

My hands cramped, currents stunted. To hear the words spoken hurt more than merely
knowing. Dad’s face rippled between anger and despair. “Lorna’s dead, Rain. I lost
her, too.”

“You took her from me,” Rain corrected him. “By all rights, your life should’ve been
mine.”

Jonah stepped forward, but Ward barricaded the path, shaking his head. Not a good
idea to rush a demented man.

Dad massaged his temples and asked, “If you’ve held a grudge for twenty-odd years,
why didn’t you leave my ass to rot in jail?”

“’Cause, frankly, jail’s too good for you.” Rain propped one foot on the coffee table.
“You did good enough by Lorna, but after y’all returned to Georgia, I’d had enough.
You had a wife, kids, everything I wanted, and you rubbed it in my face. Lorna and
I were close, but she’d never leave you.”

I locked eyes with Dad who glanced to my brother, thoughts fast.
Jonah, get your sister out of here. Take Ward with you.

I wanted to scream that we weren’t leaving without him, but my father couldn’t hear
me.

As if sensing my reluctance, he ordered,
Do what I say!

Jonah drew his finger along the side of a lamp on an end table. With a flick of his
wrist, the lamp careened off the table, shattering. His fist met the side of Rain’s
face, forcing him back, head bobbing, but Rain reached into his waistband. A glint
of metal. The butt of a pistol caught Jonah in the temple. He dropped to the floor,
cradling his head.

I dove to help him, but Dad pulled me back. “I have to get to Jonah!”

Against my struggling, Dad tightened his grip. “Vayda, don’t think for a second he
wouldn’t shoot you!”

I stopped squirming and yet I wanted to break out of his arms to take care of my brother.
My twin.

Ward crouched beside Jonah and raised his hands in defense as the safety on the gun
clicked. Rain stood over them, aiming. “Are you sure your Mind Games are faster than
a bullet?”

Dad angled himself between Rain and the boys. I leaned against my father and yelled,
“Rain, are you out of your head? Mom wouldn’t want you to hurt anyone.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Rain cracked his neck. “As your daddy said, Lorna’s dead.”

He shoved Ward, and his shoe drove into Jonah’s left side. My brother howled, and
my ribs reacted to the crunch of his bones still healing from Marty’s attack two months
before. My lungs fought to suck in breath. Rain whipped around with the gun and aimed
at Dad.

A putrid fog came off my godfather, spoiled like a corpse in a marsh under the July
sun. I retched and grabbed the wall for support. Breathing in through my nose, out
through my mouth.

Ward put his arm around me. “She’s sick. Let me take her to the restroom.”

Rain considered the clamminess of my brow. “Hurry on up. We’ve got important matters
to discuss.”

In the bathroom, I could breathe. My skin was cool, and my mouth tasted of metal,
though my head was clear. Ward shut the door and climbed on the sink to work on the
lock on the half-sized window above.

“I’ll open this window, and you’ll go for help,” he whispered. He exaggerated his
cough as he banged against the corners of the window. The heel of his palm slammed
the lock, and he muttered, “I hate old houses. Between the ghosts and the bad plumbing,
nothing works.”

A fist thumped on the door.

Ward scuttled off the sink. “Vayda’s still sick.”

“Too bad,” Rain’s voice came through the door. “Wash up and come out.”

Again on the sink, Ward jimmied the window while I mocked the sounds of cleaning up.
Time. We needed more time. Another bang on the door, the old hinges yielded to the
force of my godfather’s shoulder, and Rain rushed into the bathroom. He yanked Ward’s
shirt, toppling him from the sink.

“Leave him alone!” I chased after them as Rain nudged the gun into Ward’s spine and
marched him down the hall.

“Boy, you’re a hassle!” he scolded and shoved Ward beside my father on the couch.

Queasy again, my head lolled. Too many people in the room, too much emotion sliding
from their minds. I sensed Jonah probing my thoughts as he lay on the floor, but neither
of us could focus. Between Dad’s concern and Ward’s leapfrogging from escape plan,
discard, escape plan, all I had was hissing static in my brain.

If only I could bear down and heave away the energy barreling over me.

“I’m done messing around.” Rain grabbed Dad and steered him toward the front door,
stopping to pull up Ward from the couch. “Everybody outside.”

Energy scorched my palms as I touched Jonah’s back. He coddled his ribs while I helped
him stand. The pain he was in—overwhelming and brain-blinding. He couldn’t be much
help.

“My ribs are broken.” He cringed. A sputtered groan. “I can’t breathe.”

Rain opened the front door. “Come on now, darlin’. I’m waiting on you.”

I scowled as my shoulders took as much of Jonah’s weight as I could. We lurched down
the steps onto the gravel drive. Winter’s dusk shaded our faces. The snow had begun
to blue. Rain cursed below his breath and hauled Ward by the arm, prodding Dad’s shoulder
with the barrel of the gun. “Woods. Now.”

Dad set a long glance on Jonah and me and lumbered around the barn into the woods.
The snow was over two feet deep even fifty yards in the trees. The cuffs of my jeans
and shoes were soaked, and the cold burned my skin. There had to be a way out.

Ward abruptly threw his entire weight into Rain, knocking him to the ground. I darted
toward them, but Jonah snagged my sweater. His teeth ground tight as he fought against
pain.

“Let go!” I slapped my hands against his, but he wouldn’t release me.

Ward and Rain wrestled in the snow until a sharp echo of gunfire cracked against the
sky. I screamed, and everything sounded muffled. No one moved. I wasn’t sure if my
heart even beat. Rain climbed off Ward, who was on his hands and knees in the snow.
My godfather’s hand shook as he aimed the pistol at Ward. “Next time you take me on,
you’re dead.”

Ward wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, and Dad held out his hand to help him
stand. My ears were still ringing from gunfire.

Tracking Dad through the woods, Rain mused, “Lorna made trouble for herself as I reckoned
she would. I whittled down those charges against her and wanted y’all good and relaxed.”

Dad stepped over a fallen branch. “Then you succeeded. We honestly thought we’d go
to Vermont and start over again.”

Rain paused as he waited for Jonah and me to catch up, his face warmed by the pink
lemonade-tones of the lowering sun, and gold rays reflected off his hair.

“Lorna confided in me that your marriage was in a thorny patch and she’d been sleeping
on the veranda.” He tilted his head from side to side. “Easy enough to start a fire
in your bedroom. Pour in some gas around that window that never locked too well. You
know, the one you were supposed to fix but never got around to since you worked all
the time. I lit a match, walked away, and waited. My only fault was that you, Em,
were supposed to be in that bed.”

Dad staggered. “You hated me that much? My wife is dead because of you. My children
lost their mother because you messed up. You’ve already hurt me worse than if you’d
killed me.”

I stumbled on a tree branch. The nerves in my hands were filaments waiting for an
electrical arc. All this time we’d been so afraid of someone exposing us, and yet
the one person we trusted most to keep our identities hidden was our greatest threat.

Jonah stopped to catch his breath. “You could’ve killed us all.”

Rain released Ward and approached my brother. He slipped the hand not holding the
gun under Jonah’s arm to give me a break from holding up my brother’s bones and said,
“Son, losing you was fairer than seeing your mama with your daddy. Still, should’ve
been your mama with you kids on my porch.”

My brain blinked, thoughts muted, followed by the crushing of my heart. He was right.
Mom never would have ruined her marriage, but Rain knew her secrets. For good and
bad, we were comfortable with him.

An owl circled overhead, and the wind picked up as the sun skulked lower. Rain leered
at Dad, rambling, “Watching your face when I sent that newspaper with Lorna’s photo
your way was priceless. Oh, how you squirmed.”

Dad trudged twenty more feet into the woods and rested in a clearing. “If this is
about you and me, why don’t you let the kids go? They aren’t part of this.”

Rain licked his lip. I didn’t like that crooked gleam in his eye.

“Here’s the deal, Em. I’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll say it was questionable ethics
but I’m banned from practicing law down south. Something needs to change, and I’ve
got unfinished business.” He appraised me from head to toe. “Vayda, I saw you and
your brother out in the woods. You could work Mind Games in my favor like your mama
did.” He half-smiled. “Maybe you can pass for your mama in other ways, too.”

“Stay away from my daughter!” Dad roared.

Ward peeled away from walking with Dad, fist ready, and Rain slapped him. “Boy, you
gonna stop me? I’ve reviewed your past, how your daddy preferred drugs to you. You
got a criminal record that’ll fuck up your life. No one would give a shit if you disappeared.”

Rain aimed the gun at Ward’s chest and backed him up near Dad. Ward shut his eyes
and his mouth moved in a voiceless prayer.

“On your knees, Em!” Rain shouted.

I fell on my knees.

Dad knelt, his voice vibrating as he begged, “Rain, these kids have no one without
me. They need me.”

Rain twisted Ward’s arm and held the back of his shirt, forcing the gun into his hand
and focused it on Dad’s chest. “Too late, Em. You’re already dead.”

I grabbed my head, peeking through my splayed fingers as I waited for gunfire. Dad
shared a glance with Ward, his chin trembling. My hands tingled with sorrow seeping
from broken hearts, broken souls. Ward struggled to balk even with Rain pushing the
gun in his hand to Dad’s head.

The wind froze the tears streaming down my cheeks. There had to be some way to stop
more death, more destruction.

“Come on, Rain,” Jonah yelled, holding his ribs. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Rain shook his head, intoning behind Ward’s ear. “Kid, you’re gonna shoot this man
and never know daylight again.”

I whipped around to stop the sickness rising in my gullet. My eyes drew skyward to
the peaks of the evergreens. The hair on my arms and back of my neck prickled as new
static snaked around my body. I rotated in a circle, bouncing from one treetop to
the next.

A clearing marked by seven pine trees.

Jonah’s spot.

I checked with Dad who almost imperceptibly nodded. Somehow, he knew Jonah had been
here before.

“Come on, boy,” Rain urged. His hand squeezed Ward’s over the gun.

“I can’t,” Ward protested and jerked backward, the gun wobbling in his grasp.

“Sometimes you gotta put an animal outta its misery,” Rain muttered. He shoved Ward
and set his finger on the trigger.

“No!” I howled over the blast of gunfire.

Ward hit the ground. I dashed toward him through the snowdrifts. Scarlet drops speckled
the snow. He grasped his left arm around the bicep, and dark blood seeped through
the cracks between his fingers.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

He couldn’t answer, whimper-breathing through his teeth. Frantic, I shredded apart
his flannel sleeve. A deep gouge traced his muscle’s curve where the bullet carved
his skin. Dad broke away from Rain and clasped Ward’s arm in his hands, putting on
pressure to stop the blood loss.

Jonah yelled, spilling out the pain of his fractured ribs. His hand pushed through
the snow, sinking to touch the earth. My hands were red with Ward’s blood. Tears stung
my eyes, and numbness, burning and frozen, zipped through my fingers and hands, into
my wrists and to my elbows. The lines in my palms, my fingerprints, all quivered as
a storm brewed. I took a breath and rested my hands on Ward’s shoulders, my back arching
as the current moving through him collided with my cold.