“What’d you need it for?” Paul asked, his steps receding down the stairs now that he had found an easier prey. In her head, Lena was screaming for him to come back, but a few seconds later she heard his shoes hit the tile in the foyer with a loud bang as if he had jumped down the last steps in glee. “What’d you need it for, whore?” Terri didn’t respond and he slapped her again, the noise pounding in Lena ’s ears. “Answer me, whore.”
Terri’s voice was weak. “I used it to pay the hospital bills.”
“You used it to carve out that baby inside you.”
Terri made a wheezing noise. Lena dropped the gun to her side, her eyes squeezing shut at the sound of the other woman’s grief.
“Abby told me,” he said. “She told me everything.”
“No.”
“She was real worried about her cousin Terri,” he continued. “Didn’t want her to go to hell for what she was going to do. I promised her I’d talk to you about it.” Terri said something and Paul laughed. Lena pivoted around the corner, gun raised, aiming at Paul’s back as he struck Terri across the cheek again, this time so hard that she fell to the floor. He grabbed her up, spinning her around just as Lena hid herself back behind the corner.
Lena closed her eyes again, her head playing back in slow motion what she had just seen. He had reached down to grab Terri, yanking her up as he spun toward the stairs. There was a bulge under his jacket. Was he carrying a gun? Did he have a weapon on him?
Paul’s tone was one of disgust. “Get up, you whore.”
“You killed her,” Terri accused. “I know you killed Abby.”
“Watch your mouth,” he warned.
“Why?” Terri begged. “Why would you hurt Abby?”
“She did it to herself,” he said. “Y’all should know better by now than to piss off ol’ Cole.” Lena waited for Terri to say something, to tell him that he was worse than Cole, that he had directed everything, put the idea in Cole’s head that the girls needed to be punished.
Terri was silent, though, and the only thing Lena heard was the refrigerator kicking on in the kitchen. She peered around the corner just as Terri found her voice.
“I know what you did to her,” she said, and Lena cursed the woman’s brazenness. Of all the times for Terri to develop a backbone, this was not it. Jeffrey would be here soon, maybe in another five minutes.
Terri said, “I know you gave her the cyanide. Dale told you how to use it.”
“So?”
“Why?” Terri asked. “Why would you kill Abby? She never did anything to you. All she ever did was love you.”
“She was a bad girl,” he said, as if that was reason enough. “Cole knew that.”
“You told Cole,” Terri said. “Don’t think I don’t know how that works.”
“How what works?”
“How you tell him we’re bad,” she said. “You put all these terrible ideas into his head, and he goes out and punishes us.” Her laugh was caustic. “Funny how God never tells him to punish the boys. You ever been in that box, Paul? You ever get buried for seeing your whores in Savannah and snorting your coke?”
Paul’s tone was a snarl. “‘Go, see now this cursed woman and bury her- ’ ”
“Don’t you dare throw the scriptures at me.”
“‘She hath rebelled against her God,’ ” he quoted. “‘They shall fall by the sword.’ ”
Terri obviously knew the verse. Her anger curdled the air. “Shut up, Paul.”
“‘Their infants shall be dashed in pieces… Their women with child shall be ripped up.’ ”
“‘Even the Devil can quote scripture for his cause.’ ”
He laughed, as if she had scored a point off him.
She said, “You lost your religion a million years ago.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I don’t go around pretending it ain’t true,” she retorted, her tone getting stronger, sharper. This was the woman who had hit Dale back. This was the woman who had dared to defend herself. “Why did you kill her, Paul?” She waited, then asked, “Was it because of the insurance policies?”
Paul’s back stiffened. He hadn’t been threatened by Terri’s mention of the cyanide, but Lena guessed that the insurance policies added a whole new level to the equation.
He asked, “What do you know about that?”
“Abby told me about them, Paul. The police know.”
“What do they know?” He grabbed her arm, twisting it. Lena felt her body tense. She raised her Glock again, waiting for the right moment. “What did you tell them, you little idiot?”
“Let go of me.”
“I’ll take your head off, you stupid bitch. Tell me what you told the police.”
Lena startled as Tim came out of nowhere, running past her, nearly tumbling down the stairs to get to his mother. Lena reached for the boy and missed, pulling herself back at the last minute so that Paul wouldn’t see her.
“Mama!” the child screamed.
Terri made a surprised sound, then Lena heard her say, “Tim, go back upstairs. Mama’s talking to Uncle Paul.”
“Come here, Tim,” Paul said, and Lena ’s stomach lurched as his little feet tapped their way down the stairs.
“No-” Terri protested; then: “Tim, come away from him.”
“Come on, big guy,” Paul said, and Lena chanced a quick look. Paul was holding Tim in his arms, the child’s legs wrapped around his waist. Lena pulled back, knowing if Paul turned around he would see her. She mouthed “Fuck,” cursing herself for not taking the shot when she could. Across the hall, she glimpsed Rebecca in the nursery, reaching out to pull the closet door shut. In Lena ’s mind, she cursed even harder, damning the girl for her inability to hold on to the boy.
Lena glanced into the foyer, trying to assess the situation. Paul’s back was still to her, but Tim clung tightly to him, his spindly little arm hooked around Paul’s shoulders as he watched his mother. At this distance, there was no telling what kind of damage her nine-millimeter would do. The bullet could rip through Paul’s body and go right into Tim’s. She could kill the child instantly.
“Please,” Terri said, and Paul could have been holding her own life in his hands the way she was acting. “Let him go.”
“Tell me what you told the police,” Paul said.
“Nothing. I didn’t tell them anything.”
Paul didn’t buy it. “Did Abby leave those policies with you, Terri? Is that what she did?”
“Yes,” Terri said, her voice trembling. “I’ll give them to you. Please, just let him go.”
“You get them now and then we’ll talk.”
“Please, Paul. Let him go.”
“Go get the policies.”
Terri was obviously not a practiced liar. When she said, “They’re in the garage,” Lena knew Paul saw right through her. Still, he said, “Go get them. I’ll watch Tim.”
Terri must have hesitated, because Paul raised his voice, saying, “Now!” so loudly that Terri screamed. When he spoke again, his tone was back to normal, and somehow to Lena it was more frightening. “You’ve got thirty seconds, Terri.”
“I don’t-”
“Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…”
The front door slammed open and she was gone. Lena stood utterly still, her heart thumping like a drum.
Downstairs, Paul spoke as if he was talking to Tim, but made sure his voice was loud enough to carry. “You think your aunt Rebecca’s upstairs, Tim?” he asked, cheerful, almost teasing. “Why don’t we go see if your aunt Rebecca’s up there, huh? See if she’s hiding out like the little rat she is…”
Tim made a noise Lena couldn’t understand.
“That’s right, Tim,” Paul said, like they were playing a game. “We’ll go up and talk to her, and then we’ll beat her face. You like that, Tim? We’ll beat her face until her bones crack. We’ll make sure Aunt Becca’s pretty little face is so broken that no one ever wants to look at it again.”
Lena listened, waiting for him to climb the stairs so that she could blow his head off his shoulders. He did not. Obviously, this taunting was part of the game for him. Even knowing this, the dread that filled her at the sound of his voice could not be stopped. She wanted so badly to hurt him, to shut him up forever. No one should ever have to hear him again.