“This is the last time. Put it down on the floor,” said Tyler. “If she’s lying and I sense it, you can have it back.”
Everyone looked back and forth between them as if they were watching a tennis match. Tyler’s hand wavered and Diane thought his grandfather was going to shoot him. Tyler steadied his hand.
“I could shoot you, boy,” said Everett.
“I could shoot you, old man,” said Tyler.
“It looks like we got ourselves a Mexican standoff,” said Everett.
Wendy jumped suddenly with astonishing speed and tackled Everett, knocking him over in the chair.
Diane heard the gun fall but didn’t see where it went. She started to rise.
“If anybody moves, I’ll shoot,” said Tyler. “You people better start taking me seriously.”
Diane relaxed back in her seat.
Tyler’s voice was high-pitched and strained, but his words weren’t slurred. And although his skin was pale, his eyes were bright. For the short term, he was okay. For the long term, if they couldn’t end this soon, he would pass out, which would be fine if Everett was disarmed.
Diane knew Everett had planned to kill them all and blame it on Tyler. She heard it in his talk, saw it in his eyes. He was thinking that all the evidence pointed to Tyler. He didn’t quite believe the boot prints implicated him-or he thought he could get around it-perhaps by saying he gave them to one of Tyler’s friends, some guy he didn’t know-maybe Ray-Ray or his cousin. Diane needed Everett to see that his plan wouldn’t get him off the hook. She needed to tell him how deep in alligators he really was. She didn’t think Everett knew about the discoveries in the well. She doubted seriously he knew about their visit to his sister. It was time he knew.
The scuffle hadn’t lasted long. From the look on Everett’s face, it surprised him that a mere woman could overpower him. But he hadn’t counted on the anger that the much-younger Wendy had toward him. Diane saw the gun. She saw Everett start to reach for it right before Wendy kicked it under the couch.
Now, instead of being in the clutches of both a madman and a wounded, intoxicated kid with no moral center, they were in the clutches of only the kid. Diane thought that was better. She thought Tyler could be reached.
“Now, Granddad, pick up the chair and sit down. I can shoot you before you make it to the door, and I will. Mother, thanks. You sit down too,” said Tyler. “I want to hear more about my innocence. So that means I want all of you to put your hands in your lap and keep them there. If you so much as scratch, I’ll shoot. I don’t have a lot of options anymore and damn little patience.”
“You do have options,” said Diane. “We know that you were present at all the crime scenes, but not that you killed Stacy Dance or Mary Lassiter, or that you attacked Marcella Payden.”
“What?” said Wendy. “Tyler, who are these people? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Shut up, Mother.” Tyler rubbed his eyes. “God, there’s so much you don’t know,” he mumbled. “You and Dad are so clueless.”
His grandfather was watching him, waiting for a chance. Diane stared at him a moment. He moved his right leg forward a fraction.
“Your grandfather has a gun strapped around his ankle,” said Diane.
“I know,” said Tyler, “but if he keeps his hands in his lap, it won’t be a problem.” He held out his gun toward his grandfather and took another drink of vodka.
“Very well, then, Tyler,” said Diane. “Please, let me tell you what we have. You have a way out of this.”
“That little creep doesn’t deserve a way out,” spat Marsha.
Diane locked gazes with her. “If he isn’t at fault, he does deserve a way out,” said Diane.
She hoped she could telegraph to Marsha to keep her mouth shut and not infuriate the little creep holding the gun on all of them. Her husband seemed to get the message. He reached over to her.
“I said not to move,” said Tyler.
“I’m just holding my wife’s hand,” said Samuel evenly.
Diane saw him squeeze it and put his own back in his lap. Kathy Nicholson glared at her. She and Colton kept quiet.
“You see what they’re doing, don’t you, boy?” said Everett.
“Would you stop calling me boy? I’ve always hated that. Yes. They all want to live, with the possible exception of Marsha.” He took another drink of vodka. “But that doesn’t mean Fallon doesn’t have interesting things to say. I’m a lawyer, almost, and I can evaluate it. You’ve never given me any credit. Now shut up.” He coughed.
“Why would Granddad have killed El?” said Tyler, not taking his eyes off Everett. “Not to save me.”
“Did your grandfather tell you why he wanted to kill Marcella Payden or Mary Lassiter? I’m sure you thought his killing Stacy was to hide what the two of you did to frame her brother. Stacy had Ellie Rose’s diary pages and she was beginning to decipher them. But the other two must have mystified you.”
Diane was careful to accuse Everett Walters of the killings, although she thought that it was Tyler who choked Stacy to death. That conclusion was based, weakly perhaps, on the fact that he had done it before, and that his overlapping boot prints were lifted from the spot where Stacy actually died. But right now, she wanted Tyler to believe that he could clear himself.
“Ellie’s diary?” said Marsha. “She had Ellie’s diary?”
“Yes. She was a musician and good at math,” said Diane. Like Frank, she thought. “Stacy was probably translating the parts that told her how Ellie was afraid of Tyler and his grandfather. Did Stacy call you, threaten you?”
“She called Granddad,” said Tyler. “Stupid thing to do.”
“What about Lassiter and Payden?” asked Diane. “Weren’t you curious why they had to die?”
“He said it needed to be done,” said Tyler. “You haven’t answered my question. Why would he kill Ellie Rose?”
Diane eyed Everett. He looked smug. He didn’t know she knew about his sister. Showtime.
“Some killers get off on the terror of their victims,” said Diane, not taking her eyes off Everett. “Sometimes it’s a sexual-control thing. Is that right, Ross?”
“Often,” he said.
“But not you,” said Diane. “It was a god-control thing with you. I imagine as a boy staying over at your big sister’s, playing among all the statues of fauns, gargoyles, and dragons, it was like a little kingdom, a little Olympus. And what you really liked to do, what really made you feel powerful and in control, was to sneak up behind the unsuspecting prey and strike them dead, like a god in his dark realm. They never knew it was coming. You had the power to snuff out their life, and just like that, they were no more.”
Everett’s face slowly dropped its smug expression. He looked worried. Finally.
“What?” said Tyler. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” said Diane. “Your grandfather is a serial killer from way back. Not the ordinary kind, I don’t think. He had more control than others of his kind. He prided himself in that.”
“Not all serial killers lack control or feel a compulsion to constantly seek out victims,” said Kingsley. “Some are opportunistic killers. I suspect your grandfather is one of those.” Kingsley looked Everett in the eyes. “You can go for years without killing, can’t you? You’re like the smoker who can just stop and not look back and not obsess about having another cigarette.”
“But I’ll bet Everett couldn’t resist the possibility of killing Ellie Rose,” said Diane. “It was an opportunity presented to him, so he brought the hatchet. It’s not that easy for a fourteen-year-old, like you were, to strangle someone. He knew there was a possibility she was still alive. And the pull of nostalgia was just too great, even for a man of his control.”