WIDOW (48 page)

No, she thought, admonishing the memories and sweeping them away into corners where they belonged. She would not remember. Not anything.

All you had to do was slip off from the real world and leave it behind. When the world was too painful to endure, too threatening to your sanity, you just turned aside from it and embraced the peace and quiet that could be found in the narrow sanctuary of the mind.

Son held himself rigid in deep shadow next to the wall facing the catwalk. He watched with trepidation as the man came across the walk toward him. He could see there was a gun in the man's hand. He had to be a cop. He might not be in uniform, but he was a cop nevertheless. Why he had come alone, Son could not fathom, though he was glad.

The man paused along the way, turning his head, looking over the railing both right and left as he came. Once he looked behind him and, sure he was not being followed, came forward again.

Come on! Come to me before it's too late.

The man neared. He reached the end of the walkway, hesitating again before stepping out onto the landing. Son barely breathed. He still could not see the man's face. He could tell that he was larger than he had hoped for. A man taller than Son, broader in the shoulders, in better shape.

Not that it made any difference. Surprise was the lever that could tip the scales and put the bigger man at a disadvantage. That's what Son counted on. It's what he had always had going for him.

He pressed his back into the wall and waited, willing the other man to come forward just a bit more. A few steps, that's all, and he could lurch from the darkness of the wall, and be at the man's back, taking him down.

Samson made it without mishap across the long open length of the catwalk. He could hear nothing moving in the house. There was a vast silence that lay a pall over the rooms, the swimming pool and atrium maze below. Where were they? He fought the urge to call out to Shadow, to find out if she was all right. He must be careful and not make the mistake of firing at phantoms. He might accidentally hit her and he'd never forgive himself.

He moved stealthily toward the open landing, wondering briefly if they were in Shadow's bedroom with the cast-iron bed. Could they be lovers, rolling and tumbling on the mattress, sharing a sexual abandon he had thought belonged only to him? Oh God, he couldn't bear it if they were. Such an unholy alliance all but made him go crazy on the spot. Jealousy and fury combined to make him open his mouth to call out to her.

A jolt from behind took him so off-guard that he thought he must be imagining it at first. An arm snaked around his throat and took him backwards onto his heels. Someone chopped at his gun hand and made him drop the weapon to the floor. He reached up instinctively to grip at the arm squeezing the air from his throat. He meant to grip the hand, tear it away, turn and flip the attacker. He meant to make short work of a deadly situation, but he was being wrestled so expertly backward that he found himself on the catwalk again, flung against the rail. His remaining breath was knocked from his lungs as his stomach connected with the iron rail and he was tipping forward, dizzy, disoriented, unknowing of up from down. And then someone grasped his legs and heaved. He went over and down, head over heels, falling, falling, falling.

 

Forty

 

She didn't know if it was the landing of the body on the concrete floor in front of her or Son's wild piercing shriek of victory, but Shadow came back from her mental retreat to stare in horrified fascination at Mitchell Samson lying before her, not inches away. She went onto her knees and crawled to him, frantic with the thought he might be dead.

“Mitch, oh, Mitch,” she whispered. She draped herself over him where he lay unmoving on his side. She felt along his chest to his neck, sliding her fingers up his face, feeling his mouth and nose and eyes as if she were blind. He was breathing, though shallowly. His eyes were closed.

She moved down his body until her face was near his. She felt all over him in the dark, her hands mechanical in the way they searched for protruding broken bones and blood flow. She could not find anything outwardly wrong with him, but he was undeniably hurt after falling so far. She arched her neck and looked up at the catwalk. Son was gone.

The son of a bitch! He might have killed Mitch. He meant to, she knew that. There was no telling what damage Mitch suffered. Internal hemorrhaging. A concussion. A broken back. Paralyzation. Dear Jesus, it was all her fault.

“Shadow?”

She flinched. She hadn't expected him to regain consciousness. His voice was whispery and unsteady. “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

“Leg . . . I can't move it, think I broke it.”

“I'm sorry for everything,” she said, bending over to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

“Stay . . . stay away from him. He'll kill you.”

“No, he won't. I'm not afraid.”

She stood, uncaring if Son saw her now in the maze's depths. She began walking, taking turns, keeping her eyes on the front of the house where she knew Son waited. She had to get out of here and kill him.

There was nothing that could stop her now.

“It's just you and me,” Son called.

He stood close to the entrance of the concrete passageway that had been built beneath the catwalk. He was in the shadow, but she could see the outline of his body.

She came from the maze and moved toward him, the gun leveled. She wanted to pull the trigger, but she might miss again. This time she would take no chances. She turned on the flashlight and shined it directly into his face. He squinted and put up a hand against the light. She lowered the beam so it was on the lower half of his face.

“Yes,” she said, not recognizing her own voice. It sounded rusty and unused, it sounded like someone else speaking through her. “It's you and me, Son. It's time to end it.”

“We don't have to,” he said. “I still have poison. We could make him drink it, if he's still alive—he's still alive, isn't he? We could pour it down him and take him out together in the boat. When the police arrive, they won't find us. We'll put in to land somewhere south of here.”

“You think I want him dead? Mitch? I cared about him. Everyone I've ever cared about died, did you know that?”

He turned his head to the side and put up his hands. “You have a gun. But you don't want to kill me, Shadow. I'm closer to you than the cop ever could be. He'd put you in jail. I'd never do that. He'd turn on you. I wouldn't.”

“You're not my friend or my partner. What I've done I had reasons to do.” She hated him with such bright malice that, had he been able to see her eyes, he would have run for his life. The cold cunning so useful to her when she murdered the men she had brought to this house was still alive in her heart. She saw Son as nothing more than human excrement, something stinking and vile she must immediately remove from her presence.

“You are exactly like me,” he said in a high old-womanish voice.

This change made her stop and consider him. “Who are you? What kind of lunatic are you?”

His voice changed again to the one he had used on the phone, the one with the light British accent. “I'm no one and everyone. My name is Son, progeny of Mother and a father I never knew.”

“If you think I'm going to feel sorry for you, forget it. I don't give a goddamn about your life. I don't care what your name is. You're Frank, you're Son, you can hide behind a million names, a million faces, but I know you. You tried to kill Mitch. You'd kill me if I let you.”

Now his voice changed again and it was one of a child, a lonely sad little child. “I can mimic anyone, isn't that something?” he said. “I'm very gifted. I have great talent.”

For a long moment she was afraid. She couldn't kill a child. She could not pull the trigger on a small helpless baby. Then she knew it was a trick. And she hated him even more for trying to confuse her. “You're a sick, twisted, heartless bastard. I might be sick. I might be twisted. But I'm not like you, nothing like you. I didn't kill anyone who was innocent.”

She stepped closer and his hands came down to reach out for her as if to take her gently into the circle of his arms.

She squeezed the trigger of the gun in her fist and the sound of the shot reverberated from the catwalk overhead, it echoed through the hallways and the floors and the dome of green glass that graced the center section of the mansion.

Son stood in place, the flashlight full in his face. He had a look of utter shock and disbelief in his eyes. She squeezed the trigger again. A second shot rang out loud as a sonic boom and Son slumped now to the floor, falling to his knees, his face still turned up to her.

She pulled the trigger again and again, but the hammer clicked against empty cylinders. She did not stop pulling the trigger until Son fell forward, grasping her knees before sliding to the marble floor.

She stepped back, dropped the gun beside him.

There was nothing left in this world that she had to do. She had committed all the wrongs and suffered all the wrongs she could stand for one lifetime.

There was still the motor boat, tied to the pier. It would take her away from the dead man at her feet, away from making any excuses for her actions, away from Mitch who had loved her and who ultimately had been betrayed by that love.

 

Forty-One

 

In the far distance on the shore she saw lights swarming the Shoreville mansion. As she watched, mesmerized by the twinkling, the house windows glowed, one by one, until all the floors blazed like a fiery multi-faceted diamond.

She felt nothing, but a small regret that she could not have said goodbye to Charlene. She knew Mitch would look after her and keep her safe, but she would have liked to tell her how much she'd meant to her, how much her friendship had been valued. How much she had truly loved her.

The waves in the bay were gentle swells that came from out of the open sea. The small outboard motor hummed, pushing the boat away from land, from the lights, the dark and jumbled past.

She looked to the sky for signal of morning. It seemed she had lived for days in the mansion, hiding, searching, alternately afraid and fearsome. It had been but hours. The sky to the east changed from unpolished silver to pearl gray as she watched it. By the time the sun rose, she would be deep into the Gulf of Mexico. Soon after, the motor would run out of gas. She'd drift, carried by ocean current, past the shipping lanes, and into the vast open empty sea.

There, when she had worked up her nerve, she would slip over the side of the boat and let the sea take her down. She knew by then the Coastguard would have been called to either capture or rescue her, but all they'd find was the empty vessel floating aimlessly over the waves.

She settled back against the ribs of the boat and guided the handle of the motor so that her course would not be altered.

The wake trailed behind her, picked at by flashing divers, seagulls hunting breakfast. She saw a sleek gray dolphin leaping. It came alongside for a time, pacing the boat, accompanying her to sea.

When the sun was just over the horizon, she had cleared Galveston Island and was leaving it too behind. She saw a shrimp boat ahead of her, but too far for the men on board to notice, and she trailed it. Far to the right was a freighter that looked as small as a toy boat in a bathtub. Isolated, it steamed toward a foreign destination.

When the sun had fully moved up the eastern horizon and she could no longer see the Seabrook or Galveston shorelines, when there was no land at all in sight and deep cobalt waters surrounded her. When the shrimp boat and freighter were lost in dawn mist in another part of the Gulf, she waited for the little motor to splutter and die. It obliged her minutes afterward while she spent her last moments immersed in pleasant reverie of her time with Mitch, loving him as she had loved no other man, even Scott.

When she came to herself and realized the motor was dead and that the bow of the boat was turning, drifting on its own, she looked once at the sun, once at the shadows racing across the water. Shadows fell from fat, blue-bottomed clouds hanging low overhead. She crawled to the side, and lowered herself into the cold, rippling body of blue, hoping, hoping sincerely, that God lived, and that He safely held the souls of all little children in the palm of His hand.

Even her.

THE END

Thank You For Reading!

 

If you have enjoyed this digital book, please visit Billie Sue Mosiman’s website at
http://www.peculiarwriter.blogspot.com
or her Kindle store for other titles by this Edgar and Stoker Nominated author.