But nobody crossed the warden.
He took his aim off Adrian, but Jacks was faster, gun dropping low, then swinging up and going level. Olivet saw the little girl go still when the gun started coming her way. For a microsecond she seemed to slump; but it was not a slump. She dropped into a perfect stance and snapped off three shots as crisp and clean as anything Olivet had ever seen. Jacks’s head sprayed blood, as did Woods’s and the warden’s. Two seconds. Three shots. Olivet’s gun was on her, but he hesitated. She was fast and sure, and so like his own little girl. His last thought was to be impressed with whatever daddy taught her to shoot like that, then bright light appeared at the end of her barrel, and the world, entire, went dark.
When it was done, Adrian stood in disbelief. The warden’s head had been a bare foot above Gideon’s, and one of the guards had stood directly behind Adrian, so close that Adrian felt the bullet split air as it passed his ear. Now they were gone, all of them, and the church was graveyard still, the girl quietly crying. Adrian’s first instinct was to check the bodies, then see to Liz and the boy. Yet, he did none of those things, choosing instead to pick his way through the bodies until the girl appeared, small, beneath him. He took the gun from her fingers and placed it on the altar.
“I killed them,” she said.
“I know.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
There were no words beyond the obvious, so Adrian said them: “You saved our lives,” he said, then spread his arms and wrapped her up as she fell.
It took time, after that, to know what to do. Liz was out when he uncuffed her, and when she woke, they argued. “Charlie needs immediate medical attention,” she said. “So does Gideon.”
“I’m not arguing that.”
“I won’t leave until they’re safe.”
Even in the carnage, she was fiercely protective and certain of what was right. Channing wanted to come with them, and Adrian thought that was just fine. But, Liz would not leave until an ambulance was at the church.
“I can’t be here when the cops come,” Adrian said. “Neither can you. It means prison for both of us. Murder. Accessory to murder. The warrants haven’t gone away.”
“Beckett’s shot through the spine,” Elizabeth said. “We can’t move him.”
“I know, yes. And the boy may be bleeding inside. But, you and I can go. So can the girl.”
Elizabeth turned to Channing, who was so small and rolled inward she looked no more than ten. Liz took her hand and knelt. “No one will blame you for what you did, sweetheart. You’re the victim. You can stay.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“This is your home-”
“Why would I stay?” Emptiness thinned the girl’s voice. “To be pointed at for life? To be the freak who was raped for a day and half, the dangerous, fucked-in-the-head little girl who killed two men and then four more?” She broke, and the sight dissolved every hard edge in Adrian’s soul. “I want to stay with you. You’re my friend. You understand.”
“What about your parents?”
“I’m eighteen. I’m not a child.”
Adrian saw Liz accept it, the way she leaned in and placed her forehead against the girl’s. “How do we handle it?” he asked.
Liz told them what she wanted to do. When it was agreed and understood, she stood one last time above her father’s body. Adrian had no idea what she was thinking, but she didn’t linger or touch her father or say a single word. Instead, she called 911 and said the words that would make everything happen: “Officer down,” she said, then knelt by Beckett and touched his forehead. “I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I ever will. But I hope you’re alive when they get here, and that one day you can explain.”
Maybe Beckett heard her, and maybe he didn’t. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow.
“Liz.”
“I know,” she said. “Clock’s ticking.”
But Gideon was harder. He wanted to go, too. He begged. “Please, Liz. Please don’t leave me.”
“You need a doctor.”
“But I want to go with you! Please don’t leave me! Please!”
“Just tell the truth about what happened. You’ve done nothing wrong.” She kissed his face, and kissed it hard. “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
They left him calling her name; and Adrian realized then that he might never have a hard edge again.
So much love.
Such heartbreak.
Outside, in the dusk, the sirens were drawing near. “They’ll be okay,” Liz said, but nobody answered. She was talking to herself.
“We need to move.”
She nodded to tell Adrian he was right and she knew it. “Will you drive?”
“Of course.”
She put Channing in the back and took the front seat for herself. “We’ll be okay,” she said, and no one responded to that, either. Adrian kept the lights off as he felt his way down the drive. “Wait here,” Liz said; and they waited until lights crested a far hill, and they were certain. Ambulances. Cop cars. Gideon would be okay, and even Beckett might make it. “Okay,” she said. “We can go now.”
Adrian turned the car away from the sirens and the lights. When they were clear, he clicked on his headlights. “Where are we going?”
“West,” Elizabeth said. “Very west.”
Adrian nodded, and so did the girl.
“We have to make one stop,” he said; and when the first chance came, he turned the car east.
EPILOGUE
Seven Months Later
The view from the desert hilltop was extraordinary. Mountains rose all around, as brown and splintered as old bone. The house was the same color, ninety-year-old adobe that blended like a tortoise into the saguaro and eucalyptus and paloverde. The walls were two feet thick, the floors Spanish tile. In back was a walled courtyard with a swimming pool. The front was all about the covered porch and long views and morning coffee. Elizabeth was on her second cup when Adrian stepped through the door to join her. He wore no shoes, and jeans that were faded nearly white. The scars were white against the tan, but so were his teeth. “Where’s Channing?”
He took the second rocking chair as Elizabeth pointed. Channing was a smudge on the valley floor, the horse beneath her dapple gray. They were picking their way along the arroyo that flooded when rains fell in the mountains to the north. Liz couldn’t see her face, but guessed she was smiling. That was the thing about the gray.
“How’s she doing?” Adrian asked.
“She’s strong.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“The therapy helps.”
Adrian glanced at the truck that sat, dusty, in the drive. Twice a week Elizabeth and Channing took it into town. They never discussed particulars with Adrian, but they both thought the therapist there was good. They were looser when they came back; the smiles came easier.
“You should go sometime,” Elizabeth said. “It helps to talk to someone.”
“I do that, already.”
“Eli doesn’t count.”
He smiled and sipped the coffee. She was wrong about Eli, but he didn’t expect her to understand. “And, how are you?” he asked.
“Same answer,” she said, but he knew better. She woke screaming at times, and he often found her outside at three in the morning. He never bothered her, but watched to make sure she was safe from coyote or mountain lion or the dreams that came with such fierce predictability. She’d find her way to the same place at the edge of the arroyo, a flat, narrow stone that held the heat of the day. She’d stand straight in a thin gown or under a blanket, and always she looked at the stars, thinking of her mother or Gideon or the horrors inflicted by her father. Adrian didn’t know and never asked. His job was to be there on the porch, to nod quietly as she returned to the house and trailed a finger across his shoulder as if to say thanks.