Sandra might have taken a moment to kiss him, but a wailing siren stopped her. A Garrett Island police car was heading their way, lights flashing along with the siren. It screeched to a halt out front of the Montrose home.
The door flew open and Joe Bridgeman leapt out. He said, “What the...”
He quickly took in the scene — the Caddy, the overturned Arrival, the ripped-up yards — before turning his attention to the unconscious man on the ground.
That was when Sandra knew.
As soon as Joe saw Kyle, there was something in his eyes. A nervous recognition. A quiver in his cheek.
A hint, Sandra thought, of fear.
But Joe recovered quickly and ran to Sandra, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re okay, oh God, you’re okay.”
“Yeah, we’re okay,” she said evenly.
When she wrested her way free of him, he saw the gun in her hand. “You want me to take that now?”
She looked him right in the eye. “No, I’ll hang on to it.” She started walking toward the Cadillac, saying, “I need to see how Katie’s friend is.”
Katie was leaning in through the window of the broken door, her hand on the back of Bruce’s neck. “I thought you were going to die,” she said, tears running down her face. “I was going to come back, honestly I was.”
Bruce, his face caked with dried blood, smiled weakly, and said, “Wanted to save you the trouble.”
“Are you hurt bad?” Katie asked.
“Well, I’m hurt,” he said. “Don’t know how bad, yet.”
“We’re going to get you fixed up, we are,” Katie said. She gave his bloody cheek a kiss. “You’re too cranky to die.”
Sandra came up to the window, smiled wryly, and said, “I understand you’ve been giving my daughter driving lessons behind my back.”
Bruce smiled, then winced. “I think she’s ready for her test.”
Sandra also put a hand out, touching Bruce’s shoulder. “Help has to be coming. The cars aren’t a threat anymore. It’s over.”
But then she glanced over at Joe.
“Almost,” she said.
Forty-Nine
Joe was standing at the back end of the Cadillac, straddling some fence boards from three properties down, when Sandra approached him.
“So,” she said.
Joe pointed to the unconscious Kyle. “Who’s that guy?”
Sandra smiled. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Just don’t,” Sandra said, slowly shaking her head.
“I don’t... Sandra, is something wrong?” Joe asked, trying his best to look sincerely baffled.
The gun at the end of Sandra’s arm trembled. Her free hand was shaking. She made a fist to stop it.
“I know that you know who that is,” she said.
“Sandra, look, whatever you may be thinking, whatever he may have told you, you have to believe that I would never want—”
“Stop,” Sandra said. “Don’t lie to me. I don’t want to hear any lies.”
Joe’s right hand was moving toward his holstered weapon. Quickly, Sandra raised the gun and pointed it at him.
“What are you doing?” Joe asked.
“What are you doing?” she shot back at him. “You were going for your gun. Why would you be doing that? You think I’m going to want to shoot you for some reason?”
Joe raised his palms, as if in surrender. “I just want to keep an eye on him,” he said, gesturing toward Kyle.
“Why? You think he’s some kind of threat? A second ago you asked who he was. Right now, he’s out cold. Why would you want to pull a gun on him?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Does he need to die, too? So there’s no one who can contradict your story? No one who can implicate you?”
“Sandra, what... what are you talking about? Look, these last few hours, they’ve been horrible for all of us. We’re all on edge, our minds going places they shouldn’t.” He extended a hand. “Why don’t you just give me that gun and—”
Sandra took a step back, careful not to step on a length of broken picket fence, and put her other hand on the gun. She wrapped both hands around it, keeping it steady.
“Put your gun on the ground,” she said. “Really, really slowly.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not—”
“Do it!” she screamed, keeping the gun trained on him.
With deliberate slowness, Joe lifted his weapon from his holster, bent at the knee, and dropped it carefully onto the ground.
“There. Happy?”
“You killed him,” she said, her voice nearly breaking as she said the words.
Joe quickly glanced at Kyle and back again. “He’s a liar. Whatever he told you, it’s a lie.”
“God, Joe, how... how could you...”
Joe rubbed a palm across his mouth, as though buying time, trying to figure out what to say.
Sandra repeated the accusation. “You killed him.”
“That’s not... that’s not really true, Sandra. I swear. He wasn’t going to make it. There wouldn’t have been anything the paramedics could have done, even if they’d been right there. I did call them. I did. But maybe... maybe I could have called sooner.”
Sandra blinked. Katie had moved away from Bruce, and Archie was standing a few feet away, both of them listening now.
“The thing is,” Joe continued, “I was crazy about you the first time I saw you. I felt... I felt there was something there. And yes, of course, you were married. I wasn’t going to try to break up a marriage. But when I came onto the accident, I guess... look, I love you. I do. I love you, and I love your kids, and I think we’ve really had a good thing. I know... I know not calling right away, I know that was wrong, but he was never right for you. I mean, he was a good man and all, I’m not saying he wasn’t. But I always knew I could offer you more.”
The color had drained from Sandra’s face.
“Oh my God,” she said. Then, in a whisper, as a tear ran down her cheek, she said, “Adam?”
“Like I said, I’m sorry, I truly am. I didn’t make him fall asleep at the wheel. I didn’t make him drive into that tree. That’s not on me. It’s not like I ran him off the road. I just... I just didn’t make the call.”
Sandra could barely get out the words. “You... watched him... die...”
Joe was starting to get the sense that Sandra was shocked by what he’d told her. He said, “I don’t know how Kyle figured it out. He was... resourceful.”
Sandra said, “He didn’t tell me you killed Adam. I was talking about Ruskin.”
Now it was Joe’s turn to be stunned. “But... how...”
“Kyle knew it wasn’t Ruskin that helped him. So there’d be no reason for Ruskin to confess.”
Katie and Archie were frozen to the ground where they stood, stunned by hearing what had really happened to their father.
Joe was slowly shaking his head. “I was... I was doing the right thing. If they’d tried to save him, he’d... he could have been in a coma for years. It was better... better to let him...”
Sandra brought the gun up higher and pointed it directly at his head.
“Christ, Sandra, you’re not going to shoot me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I might.”
“You can’t. You wouldn’t.” He chortled. “I’m a police officer! You can’t shoot a police officer! They’ll send you to jail.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Not when they find out what you helped Kyle do.”
“I did that for us! For us, Sandra! He... he made it possible for me to put my mother in... in a center, so we could move in—”
“Oh, Jesus, just stop!” she screamed at him. “Just shut the fuck up!”
“Sandra, put the gun down. I won’t go for mine. I’ll just... I’ll just walk away.”