KIN (29 page)

Red was still alive, and wailing like a child with a cut knee, though of course his injuries were a lot worse than that. He was on his back on the floor, rolling over and back. Louise stood by the couch, a trembling hand to her mouth, alternating horrified glances from the writhing form of Red to Pete, who watched her, eyes wide, his whole body shaking violently.

Get it together
, she told herself, but for most of her life, that secret, inner voice had tried to guide her and she had seldom heeded its advice.
Don't go with Wayne,
it had said
, or believe for one second what he's promisin' you. You're smarter than that. Don't leave the boy. Don't leave Jack, the only man who didn't hit you and never would for one who probably will
. Again and again, she had refused to listen to reason, opting instead for spontaneity and gut instinct to lead her to greener pastures and ultimately, the fulfillment of ambitions she'd harbored since childhood. And not a single one of those gambles had paid off. Now, she intended to pay attention, and to do what good sense was telling her.

"Pete," she said. "We've got to get out of here."

He simply stared dumbly at her.

Quickly, she stepped around the fallen man. The end of the shard jutted from his ruined eye, his hands weaving around it as if desperate to pull it out but afraid what might happen if he did. Occasionally the heel of one palm would bump the shard and he would convulse and cry out. His right cheek was drenched in blood.

"Pete," she said, louder now as she came to him. He continued to stare at her. The boy had saved them both from certain death. For now. But he was young, and the guilt and horror of what he'd just done to another human being would no doubt override all others. All he would see was that shard, slicing through a man's eyeball, over and over again.

She clamped her hands on his shoulder and brought her face close to his. "Thank you," she told him. "Thank you for helpin' me. He would have hurt us both before he was through. You know that, don't you?"

He didn't answer.

"Look...I know you feel bad, but we've got to get out of here. We've got to run, and I can't do that on my own. I'm gonna need your help. Are you with me, Pete?"

Expressionless now, his eyes on hers, lips parted slightly, she feared she might have lost him again, this time to himself and not as a casualty of her selfishness, though both incidences were, at the back of it all, her fault. Had she not left him in the first place, he wouldn't have had to track her down, and wouldn't have—

Stop it
, she chided herself.
Just stop. This is gettin' you nowhere. You start thinkin' about blame and in a few minutes both of you are goin' to be walkin' out of here in handcuffs because you lost the will to move.

"Shit." She struggled against tears. "Will you do this with me? Will you do this for your Momma?"

At that, a small light reentered his eyes. He blinked but his expression remained the same.

"He was goin' to rape me, Pete. You had to stop him. And now we gotta get goin' or they'll throw us both in jail."

He wouldn't, or couldn't speak.

With rising urgency, Louise noted the faintest strains of red peering through the buildings beyond her window like blood in the cracks between tiles. They were out of time.

On the floor, Red was muttering curses. "Fuggin'....
kill
youuu....they'll...."

"C'mon," Louise said, and clumsily guided Pete toward the door, shielding him with her body as best she could from the sight of the wounded man. At the apartment door, she put her hand to his cheek. "I want you to wait for me outside."

He looked at her.

"I want you to wait outside," she repeated. "Don't talk to no one. Don't go nowhere. I'm just goin' to be a few minutes. Gotta get dressed, okay?"

She didn't wait for a response, doubted he had one, so she opened the door and gently pushed him over the threshold. A quick check showed no one in the hall. Satisfied, she stepped back into the apartment, leaving him alone. "Wait," she told him, with a look of pleading, and closed the door behind her.

*

"Fuggin...bitch...My
eye
...." Red moaned. He was up on one elbow, struggling to get up. Louise watched him from the door, her hummingbird heart threatening to stall under the weight of panic.

You can't leave him like this. You know that.

Red dug his heels into the carpet and after a moment, managed to get to his knees. He swallowed, and glared at her, the ruined eye only adding to the malevolence. "Gonna kill you," he said hoarsely. "Wasn't gonna, but now..." He sneered, blood trickling over his lips, streaking his cheeks. Breath rattled from his lungs.

"I'm sorry," Louise said, and meant it. This was not part of any plan. No one had promised her this. It had happened all on its own, and now it would have to continue.

"Bitch," Red said, swaying slightly.

Louise took a deep breath and in three short strides was across the room and standing before him. She saw him tense to strike her despite the extent of his injuries, but he never had the chance. She was crouching down and in his face, one hand grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking his head back before he could even draw back a fist. Then, eyes narrowed so she might be spared the full extent of her actions when the memory of them came back to haunt her, opened her free hand and drove her palm against the shard, slicing her own skin and forcing the thick glass into Red's brain.

He was dead in an instant, his remaining eye wide in surprise as he fell awkwardly back on his legs. As his lungs expelled a breath meant for a scream, or a plea he had not lived to deliver, she reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the pouch Red had retrieved from the guts of the destroyed television. It felt heavy in her hand, and when she opened it and angled it toward the light, she saw what was inside and her own breath left her.

Diamonds.

Swallowing back the terror, she hurried into the bathroom, quickly washed the gash on her hand and bandaged it, then moved to the bedroom where she tugged on whatever clothes she could find, and checked her face in the closet mirror for blood, or any evidence of what had happened here tonight. Satisfied that she did not look too conspicuous, she hurried out to join Pete.

Diamonds
, she thought, stunned by the implications of everything that had just transpired in her roach-ridden fleapit of an apartment. But there would be time to think later, if they weren't apprehended before they even reached the front door of the building. In the forefront of her mind for now, was the fear that Pete had already fled, that his own turmoil had propelled him away from her and she would never find him. His guilt might lead him directly to the police.

But he was there, waiting where she'd left him, and she couldn't restrain a heavy sigh of relief.

She led him out of the apartment into the cold street, where she was stunned to see that though there was plenty of blood on the pavement amid the stubbed out cigarette butts and beer bottles, there was no body. The grief too, would come later, she knew, but was now glad that there was nothing to see here, nothing to distract her from what she planned to do.

As she hailed a cab and waited for it to slow, Pete finally spoke.

"Where we goin'?" he asked quietly.

Bolstered by this small sign that he was returning to himself, she brushed a hand against his cheek and summoned a smile.

"Home," she told him.

*

Finch's alarm clock showed 8:55 a.m. He sat up, groaning at the immediate assault of pain in his skull, and rubbed his eyes. The phone had dragged him from sleep without consideration for the amount of alcohol he had put away mere hours before, and he was not pleased with the interruption.

Grumbling, he blinked a few times and reached across the bed to the phone and snatched it up, muscles aching.

"What?" he snapped into the receiver.

The voice that came back at him did not alleviate his suffering, but it chased away all thought of sleep.

"Finch?"

He smiled, despite the shock. "Claire?"

"Hi."

"Where are you?" he asked. Her voice was low, as if fearing she might be overheard.

"Out in the yard. Told them I was going for some air. I'm stuck behind a goddamn bush right now in my pajamas."

"Well, I'm glad you called."

"Me too. I wasn't sure what to do."

"About what?"

"Ted Craddick told me you're visiting all the families."

"Trying to at least," he admitted.

"Why?"

"To talk about what happened."

"Is that all?"

"No. No, it's not all. I told them what I planned to do."

"And what are you planning to do?"

"I'm going back down there, Claire. To Elkwood."

"Why?" The tone of her voice told him she already knew, and just wanted to hear him say it.

"To stop the men who did this from ever doing it again."

"How do you know it was them and not the doctor? Everybody else seems to think he did it."

"Did he?"

"No," Claire said. "No, he helped get me out of there. I'd be dead if not for him."

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, there was no emotion in her voice. "I can't stay long. I'll try to call back later if I can. We need to find some way to meet."

"You're a grown woman, Claire. They can't keep you a prisoner in that house."

"Yeah. Tell
them
that." Her sigh rumbled over the phone. "When are you going?"

"Friday."

"Okay."

"Why did you call, Claire?"

"Because I can help you. I think I have a way of finding out where they are."

Finch experienced something akin to a jolt of nervous excitement in his guts. Since making his decision to go after the killers, he had dreaded the notion that maybe he would get there and they'd have vanished underground, or hidden themselves away in a place not found on any map. The chance that someone in Elkwood would know where the Merrill family had gone was a slim one. Getting them to tell him even if they did know would be even harder. But it was all he had. That, and whatever Claire was willing to share. But now she was offering him more than he had dared expect.

"How about tonight?" he asked.

"Sure, but how?"

"I'll call you. You can tell them it's Ted Craddick, and that he wants to see you to reminisce about his boy. If they object, throw a fit. Accuse them of smothering you with their attention. Say you're old enough to make your own decisions. Call your sister a bitch or something."

"You would say that."

He smiled. "Head for Ted's house. I'll be parked outside."

"Okay. But I gotta go now. Kara's calling me."

"Sure. I'll call later."

She was gone. Finch stared at the phone in his hand for a long time before hanging it up. Though his hangover was severe, it almost didn't matter. He was elated. As he headed for the shower, he felt that same nervous excitement course through him like adrenaline, diluted by the slightest undercurrent of fear.

In the bathroom he paused before the mirror and studied his wan, unshaven face. His eyes were like ice chips anchored in place by dark red threads.

We're coming for you
.

He was readying himself for war against a foe he'd never seen, in a place he'd never been.

It would not be the first time.

-26-

Kara lit a cigarette and through the smoke and the rain-speckled windshield, watched her sister cross the street, her progress slowing as she scanned the other cars parked alongside the curb for the occupied one. Finch was parked somewhere among them, Kara knew, so Claire was unlikely to look down the row of vehicles far enough to spot her. She watched, fiery anger demanding she put a stop to this immediately, before any further damage was done. But for the moment, she resisted and dragged deeply on her cigarette—a habit she had managed to keep secret from her mother for ten years until the night they'd brought Claire home. Even then, it had been her mother lighting up first that had triggered her confession.

"I didn't know you smoked," she admitted to her mother, aghast. Her mother had shrugged. "Didn't know you did either." And they'd smiled weakly and lit up. It had helped eased the tension that had existed between them ever since the night her father had died and Kara, in an inexplicable and uncharacteristic moment of frightening rage, had struck her mother, when it was clear the woman wanted nothing more than to join her husband in death. They hadn't exactly been friends since, and her mother's contention that what had happened to Claire in Alabama was their fault, the result of not being caring or vigilant enough with her, hadn't helped. Throughout their vigils, sitting in antiseptic-smelling waiting rooms, corridors, and starkly furnished hotel rooms waiting to see how much the ordeal had affected Claire, Kara had had to listen silently to her mother's allocation of blame, the self-flagellation, the expressions of guilt, and it had almost driven her out of her mind.
We should have known
, her mother had said, though of course there had been no way of knowing.
I felt it in my gut.
I just knew something had happened to her
.
A mother knows
. Kara had recognized this last for what it was—misremembered maternal instinct fabricated to perpetuate the self-punishment her mother seemed to need, so she'd ignored it and gritted her teeth and tried not to be infected by it.