Love Lies Dying (37 page)

Thirty-four

“From the beginning…” she repeated, as if to herself, as a way of getting her thoughts in order.

Her eyes unfocussed as she played with her hair.

She stared past him, out through the windows and into the sunlight.

“I left here and drove up the road to Redlingford. It didn’t take me much time at all, maybe a few minutes. But I stopped on the way to make sure the gun was ready to use, that the safety was off, and that I knew what I was going to do once I got there.”

John nodded at her, but she wasn’t watching him. She continued to stare out of the church and to play with her hair. Her left braid was beginning to form.

“When I got there, Ricky was already waiting for me. But that didn’t surprise me. I expected that. He’s probably been at the farmhouse for days already, working on his plan and getting his henchmen to do the dirty work of  tracking me down.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor and she stopped talking.

John waited a few seconds for her to continue.

She didn’t.

“Go on,” he prompted her.

She looked him in the eye. “Johnny, it all happened so fast. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Just tell me how it happened.”

“I really don’t know. It was all so quick. I was taken off guard and I was out of my depth. I shouldn’t really have gone. You were right. I should’ve taken you with me, or we should’ve called the cops or something, like you said.”

John nodded, “It’s too late now for those thoughts.”

“I know,” she whispered, closing her eyes tight as sadness swept across her face. “I know.”

“Tell me,” he prompted her. “Please.”

She slipped off the table and began to pace up and down in front of him, her hands still braiding her hair while her eyes stared at the wooden floor.

“My God, Johnny,” she began. “He killed her…right in front of me…killed her!”

Huh? Who? Killed? Killed who?

“What?”

“I’m sorry Johnny, I don’t know what to say. He killed her.”

“
Helen?
”

She turned to look at him, “Yes.”

No,
was all he could think.
No! Not Helen! No!

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” Zoe walked over and kissed him on the lips. Her mouth was wet and warm and soft, compared to his. “So sorry,” she whispered.

“But…” John didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know where to begin. His mind was spinning. Suddenly the situation he was in just got much, much worse. Until then, Fox has been some faceless threat. John knew he was out there and was capable of doing violence, but he was still just a threat. Nothing more. Now he had acted, now he had struck.

My God, poor Helen! No!

Fox was a threat no longer.

He was
real
.

“But, how…?” John continued, trying to find the truth in Zoe’s eyes while his thoughts spun away from him. “
Why?
”

She turned from him and continued pacing.

“He said his pain would be yours and that if he were to lose someone, so should you. My God…” she shook her head again. “I’ve never seen him so mad, Johnny. Ever!”

This is crazy!

“Lose someone…?” John whispered. It wasn’t making sense to him.

“I told Ricky I had come back to him. I
told
him that, Johnny. But he wouldn’t believe me. I said that if he let Helen go, I’d stay with him. But he said I’d already made up my mind and that I’d left him for good and that we were having sex and…”

“Hey, hang on,” John interrupted. “Having sex?”

Zoe shook her head as she paced, her footsteps echoing around the church. “I don’t know either. He was raving, I just don’t know. Maybe some of his men were watching us at your house. Maybe they saw me naked on your bed in the spare room and they just assumed we were doing it together. I have no idea. But I
tried
to tell him, Johnny. I really did. I tried. I said I was here, I was ready to go back with him, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

“This can’t be happening,” John whispered and shook his head in disbelief.

“I know, I know, I thought the same thing,” Zoe continued, her hands working on her right braid now. “I thought that as I drove up the driveway. Like I told you I would, I stopped a good distance from the farmhouse. Ricky was already on the veranda waiting for me. I could see some of his men standing back in the fields on both sides of the driveway. They were all armed and I was scared, Johnny. But I stood my ground. I got out of the Jeep and stood in the driveway and yelled at him to bring out Helen.”

This game has gone too far. It’s out of control!

“Poor Helen,” John said in a soft voice. “She didn’t deserve any of this.”

“One of Ricky’s men brought her out from inside the farmhouse. She was in a bad way, Johnny, she looked really beaten up and terrible. She could hardly stand. He’d done her over, I could tell. Just like he used to do to me.”

“Bastard.”

“I yelled to him to leave her alone and to let her go. I said that I’d leave the Jeep where it was and that I would take Helen’s place. I said I’d walk up the driveway and that he should let Helen walk towards me. I’d give her the keys and she could drive out of here and leave and we could go back home and he could do anything he wanted to me.”

“He didn’t believe you,” John whispered as he stared hard at the floor, noticing for the first time the patterns in the wood, as if it were the most important thing to look at right at that moment.

Zoe continued pacing, “No, I don’t think he did. He called me a good for nothing piece of shit and said that whores like me didn’t deserve to live. He called me a lot of other things too. I told him I was sorry and would do anything for him and then he…”

She trailed off.

John looked up at her. She was leaning against the stove, her arms crossed in front of her as her right braid slowly unravelled. Her eyes were shut as tears fell from them, and her bottom lip was quivering.

“Zoe?”

He watched her, and his heart broke. She’d been through so much. Too much. Things she should not have gone through alone.

I could’ve helped her more.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She shook her head and tried to control her emotions.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I really am.”

He let her cry it out.

Her deep sobs echoed around the church. And they continued for a long time.

John watched her, powerless to do anything.

When she was finished, she wiped the tears from her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued.

“Anyway, I said I was sorry and would do anything for him and then he…he began to tell me exactly what he would do to me…”

She fell silent as she began to pace again, reworking her right braid.

John watched her struggle with the memories of what had happened to her.

“…and how…and with what…”

“I’m sorry,” John whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” she continued. “I should’ve seen what he was trying to do. Damn it, I’ve
lived
with his fucking mind games long enough that I should have known what he was trying to do. But seeing Helen in the state she was in and not knowing what I should do next, I fell for it.”

John nodded.

She should never have taken him on alone.

“He was taunting me, making me mad. And I ate it up like the brainless piece of shit I am.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true though. He knew what buttons to push, and how to get me angry. And it worked. He stood there on the verandah taunting me, describing how he was going to hurt me when we got home, what he was going to insert in me, how he was going to rip me in half, stretch me until I tore and bled, then have some of his friends over to rip me more.”

“He’s a bastard, a sick
fucking bastard
.”

“I know,” Zoe nodded as she paced. “But I fell for it anyway. I lost it. I screamed at him, I called him a fucking murderous sick fuck…”

“Good.”

“And I pulled the gun out. And then I started firing.”

John stared at her, unbelieving.

Zoe stopped talking, but continued pacing in front of him. He watched her intently, waiting for her to continue, not wanting to force her until she was ready.

The silence stretched between them for quite a while.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Zoe continued eventually. “I just fired in his direction. I emptied the whole gun. I fired and fired and fired and even when the bullets stopped coming I continued pulling the trigger.”

“Did you hit him?”

She shook her head, “I didn’t hit anyone. Everyone hit the ground when I started shooting. I don’t even know if I was aiming anywhere near them, I just fired blindly and wasted my best chance. I should’ve got closer, I should’ve waited until Helen had driven off in the Jeep. But he got under my skin, he said those dirty awful things and I just lost it.”

John nodded, “I understand.”

He noticed her hands were shaking now, as they continued to play with her braids.

She’d done her best, and that was all he could ask of her.

“And that’s when Ricky picked himself up and said that I’d just come here to kill him and that I was no longer his. That’s when he said that if I was going to pick you over him, you would have to lose someone too. That was the deal if he was going to lose me.”

John nodded. It was all starting to make sense now.

“I didn’t know if he meant it or not. I didn’t know if he was bluffing or telling the truth. I just stood there. There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t have any other weapon; the gun was useless to me now. I just dropped it in front of me and yelled to him that I was sorry. And he smiled at me then. The sick fucking bastard
smiled
at me and I thought I had a chance. I thought maybe an apology was all that he wanted. I’m such a
stupid
fucking bitch. I thought I’d won him over and I even smiled back at him.”

“It wouldn’t be that easy…”

“It wasn’t. He helped Helen up off the verandah and pushed her down the front stairs. He told her to get out of there and go home and I really thought that I’d won! I began to walk towards her. She was having trouble walking and fell to her knees. I started to run to her, but Ricky yelled at me to stay where I was. That was the first moment that I thought something was wrong. Helen struggled back to her feet and smiled at me. She
actually smiled
at me through all the pain and bruises on her face. And she staggered towards me.”

Silence again.

My poor Helen…

John knew he had to hear the rest of the story, but he didn’t want to be the one to force her to tell it. He knew it was coming, and he would dread every word.

Zoe finished her right braid and ran her hands over her hair. John could see the shaking had spread to her whole body as she paced.

“She would have been about thirty feet from me…” Zoe continued. “And that’s when they opened fire.”

“
What?
” John stared at her, but her back was to him. She wouldn’t turn around and face him.

“They opened fire, all his men, from all around her. They shot her Johnny, they cut her down in front of me. Like some kind of animal.”

John watched Zoe’s shoulders hunch over and her hands go to her face.

“There was nothing I could do other than watch as the bullets tore into her,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.

My God,
John thought.
Helen! No! My poor girl… You never deserved anything like that. Ever!

John’s head was spinning. He felt sick. The numbness in his body could not override the sickness in his stomach and the pains in his chest. He let his head drop forward as he closed his eyes.

He tried to picture Helen’s face.

Tried so hard.

He was ashamed of himself when he couldn’t.

Oh, Helen,
he thought.
There was so much left unsaid between us. So much I needed to say to you…

“This can’t be happening,” he said as he stared back at Zoe.

Zoe turned to face him, her tears had created red-stained rivers on her cheeks. “I ran to her, Johnny. I ran to her and picked her up from the ground. She was bleeding so much…”

Zoe walked to him and held her arms out to him, “This is all her blood.”

John nodded and closed his eyes once more, letting his head fall on his chest.