Chapter 25
“We’re going to have to make a detour, I’m afraid,” Derek said as Rory’s heart pounded.
Derek had been to the Buzz? He’d been the one who had been following her. Oh, holy . . .
“Excuse me.” He reached across Rory, popped open the glove box, pulled out a handgun, set it gingerly in the side pocket beside him as he drove with one hand down the twisting roads of the West Hills. “It’s loaded. Yes, I know it’s unsafe, but I’m pretty careful . . . usually.”
Rory stared at him. The crumpled cup was still in her hands. The red cap was by her feet. Her mind was racing. So many thoughts. So many connections. She couldn’t think! “You’re the saboteur,” was what came out of her mouth, sounding as poleaxed as she felt.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
Run, Rory. Get out! Jump out of the truck before it picks up any more speed. This isn’t right.
He shrugged. Hit the gas. The truck sped around a corner and Rory’s seat belt snapped to attention. Holding her in place. There was something about him not only vile, but also careless and wild and oh, so dangerous.
“What do you think’s going to happen?” she asked.
“Dunno, really. I thought my life was going to be one way, and then it wasn’t, and now it’s something else.”
“But . . . that sabotage . . . Liam told me what awful things you wrote . . . against your family.”
“My family?” He made a deprecating noise as he took another corner. A Volkswagen van had to veer to the side of the road as Derek swung into the oncoming lane. The driver laid on his horn then flipped Derek off.
“Fuck you, too,” Derek yelled, as if the guy could hear him. Then, back to Rory. “I’m not a part of that family. You know that. You know what it’s like not to be part of a family. You’re not a Stemple.”
“Of course not.”
“Well, there you go. I never wanted to be a Bastian. You know how my father is. Dear old Dad. He divorced my mother for Stella. And you know what? My mom? She was more than happy to leave him and me. Get that. She left me with that miserable dickwad, left me in his care. And he cared for me, all right,” he said bitterly.
Rory felt herself go cold. She glanced out the window. They were traveling fast, but these were city streets. There was bound to be a stoplight, a traffic jam, a blockade of road construction. He wouldn’t shoot her. He wasn’t a killer, he was just a deeply angry man.
Except Teri Mulvaney was there during some of the sabotage.
No. No, no, no. “How did Teri Mulvaney die?” she whispered.
“What? You think I killed her?” he asked in horror.
Rory stared at him, her heart pounding so hard it hurt her chest. There was a little smile on his lips and they twitched a bit, proving that his horror was fake. His eyes darkened evilly.
“I didn’t know her last name until after she was dead and everyone was talking about her. I only knew her as Teri.”
“You did kill her.” She could barely get the words out. She reached for the door handle, but if she opened it now, at the speed they were going, she would be thrown out, down the hillside, surely breaking her neck. Think, Rory, think. Find a way to escape. You can . . . just try. “Why did you do it?”
“I just wanted to,” he said easily. “She was too easy. Wanted to have sex with me, no matter what I did. I took her to the top of Hallifax and showed her how to break out windows with a hammer. Then I swung it at her head and threw her over. I don’t know if the police even know I bludgeoned her first. I like that word, bludgeoned. You can feel it, y’know?”
“You’re lying!” she blurted out, hoping against hope. “You’re not this unfeeling. This cruel. Derek, my God. This isn’t real!” This madman, this homicidal maniac, if he was to be believed, was her brother-in-law, a man she’d known nearly as long as she’d known Liam.
He shot her an affectionate look. “Want to know why I picked her out? Little Teri who was panting for me?”
His eyes seemed to caress her and she thought she might be sick. What had she heard, that the dead woman had resembled Rory? Her skin crawled. No . . . it had nothing to do with her. Surely not. “No,” she whispered aloud and felt the crumpled cup in her hand. She was crushing it so hard it dug into her flesh. “You were there,” she realized, her brain engaging again. “You followed me to Point Roberts. You were the one stalking me. It was you!”
“Nah. Jacoby was following you. You were right on that. What a joke that Beth hired him first, then didn’t tell Liam what she’d done. Thought I would die when I heard. Had to pretend for my bro that I was as surprised as he was. Hah!”
She opened her hand. The crushed cup opened like a flower. “But you were there . . .”
“Just once. Okay? Yeah, guilty as charged. But only to see if you really were there. Everyone was so upset about you. I gotta admit, I wondered where you’d gone to. Didn’t know about Cal.”
They were slowing for a light and Rory gathered herself. She could get out of the truck. She could run. They weren’t anywhere near the route to the police station. He was taking her somewhere else.
“Don’t do anything,” Derek warned. He’d slipped the gun into his left hand and was pointing it at her, across his body. “I really don’t want to use this, but I will if you try to get away.”
“They’ll catch you . . . see you . . . if you fire it . . . they’ll get you!” Fear was making her nearly incoherent.
“If that happens I’ll kill myself, too,” he said matter-of-factly. “But you really should think about that. For your daughter. You don’t want to leave her.”
Charlotte. Her perfect baby. Who depended on her. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“Just reminding you that you’re a mother.”
“I know that.” The gun. If she could somehow get the gun and turn it on him. Could she? Would she have the nerve to shoot him? Think of Charlotte. “What are you going to do?” she asked, a catch in her throat. She stared at the gun, its barrel like a dark, soulless eye staring at her.
“You mean right now? Good question.”
They passed through the light. Rory was frozen. She believed him now. Believed he meant to do exactly what he said.
“You kind of caught me unawares, so I’m winging it. Not how I thought this would end between us.”
Between us . . . was there meaning there?
As if he read her mind, he said, “Go on. Ask me.” He wiggled the gun and every muscle in her body contracted as more cars surrounded them and he actually managed to merge onto the freeway.
Rory’s thoughts were moving at warp speed. She had to get away. Had to. She could barely follow the conversation. “Ask you what?”
“Why I chose Teri.”
“Didn’t you say because she was easy?”
“No, that’s why I killed her. That’s not why I picked her.” He was irritated now, driving faster again.
“Okay. Yeah. Why . . . why did you choose Teri?”
Another indulgent look her way, his gaze cresting to the top of her crown. “Because she had red hair . . .”
* * *
“We have video from a camera down the street from the Hallifax building the night Teri Mulvaney was killed,” Detective Grant was saying. “Here are stills from that video. You can see that we captured a number of vehicles that were parked in the area.” He laid the black-and-white photos in front of Liam. “We checked out the ones we had full license numbers for. Nearby residents. A couple we don’t have the full plate. This one . . .” He pointed to the tail end of a dark sports car with no license plate on the back. A Corvette.
Liam felt himself go cold inside. A Corvette? Like the one Derek drove? Still . . . it was nothing. Just a coincidence.
Mick Mickelson said, “Do you mind if I take a look at those?”
Grant looked at him askance and he explained, “Seattle PD’s got pictures of vehicles around the Nile the day DeGrere was murdered. I just want to compare.”
Shanice said, “Want me to call? And see if they’ll release them? If not, maybe we can upload these pictures to them.”
“There’s no connection between Teri Mulvaney and Pete DeGrere,” Liam heard himself say. He felt like he was in a vacuum. His voice sounded tinny and far away as if it belonged to someone else.
Mickelson turned to regard him soberly. “I just want to gather all material related to your family in one place. See what crops up.”
Your family has secrets . . . And I know about them.
Beth . . . Beth had thrown those words in his face.
And they know I know about them . . .
The detectives were talking all around him, buzzing, a hive of voices.
It’s not Derek, he told himself. It’s not. Can’t be. There are lots of Corvettes. This city, this state is crawling with them, and when you add in Washington . . .
One question kept scraping at his brain:
How long has he had that car?
* * *
“I liked Beth better when she became a redhead,” he said as they turned off the freeway to a surface street that wound east, away from the city center.
Beth? What does Beth have to do with . . . Her heart clutched. Beth was dead, too. “What do you mean? About Beth?”
“You know, don’t you?” he teased, then concentrated on the drive, as if he had the streetlights timed in his head. As luck would have it, he never had to stop for a red light. Not that she could have escaped anyway. The barrel of his pistol was too close.
Beth. Oh, God, did he kill her?
Through the dusty, bug-smeared windshield she looked for her chance of escape, prayed for it. But the opportunities were less as he drove expertly through a residential area that bled into suburbia and to a commercial section where there was more land between the buildings. Bigger lots. Older plots of land that had once been rural and were slowly becoming developed. She didn’t know the area well, but knew she was on the east side of the Willamette, far from the heart of the city.
“Where are we going?” she demanded. “Liam’s waiting for me.”
“He’ll just have to wait a little longer, won’t he?” Derek said as he slowed for a turnoff and Rory reached again for the door handle.
“Uh-uh-uh,” he said in a soft voice that was threaded with steel, as hard and cold as the barrel of the gun pointed on her. He drove down a winding drive to an older building surrounded by trees, a once-grand, multi-story home now in ruin, the roof collapsing, the siding rotting, decaying within a small copse of trees and brambles that separated it from other properties. Despite the heat of the summer and the fact that it was still morning, the day new, there was a darkness here, a sinister malevolence that seemed to emanate from the old house with its broken windows and teetering porch.
Who had lived here?
That thought was chased away quickly with another.
Who had died here?
She licked her lips. There had to be a way. Some way to get out of this. She stared at the house as if within its decrepit hallways she might find an answer. There were signs that someone had been here recently.
Graffiti in bright neon yellow and blood red had been scrawled across the mouldering walls, the same ugly phrases that had been sprayed on other buildings owned by the Bastians, though some of the vile words aimed at the Bastians had been painted over.
The graffiti had been painted by Derek. And aimed at his own family.
Why?
As if reading her mind, he said, “I blamed it all on your stepbrother, you know. Everett was such an easy target, and so I managed to lay the blame at his feet for years, for everything.” He chuckled. Satisfied and proud of himself. “But hell, it only works so long, right? Who would guess that he’d show up . . . a damned Bible thumper! And you looked so scared to meet him.” He was amused by how it had all worked out. The man was sick.
Still, she attempted to reason with him, all the while trying to plot her escape. If she could just reach her phone, tucked into her pocket, and call 9-1-1 or Liam or. . . first she had to get away. “Derek, you have to let me go. You’re right. I have a daughter. Your niece. I need to be with her.”
“And Liam? You need to be with Liam, too?”
Oh, God, yes!
He drove around to the back of the dilapidated house, then suddenly stood on the brakes. This was her chance! She reached for the door handle, pulled it back, but the damned seat belt.
“Shit!” he growled at the sight of another car parked in the sparse, weed-choked gravel.
Rory’s heart soared. Someone was here. He wouldn’t shoot her in front of whoever—
Oh, Lord. She recognized the white Lexus, dappled by sunlight, its engine running, that filled the space in front of a listing garage.
“Damn,” he said, then shook his head and began chuckling, slowly at first, then laughing hysterically, as Stella stepped out of the car.
“What? What’s she doing here?”
“Exactly.”
Stella was shading her eyes, squinting at them.
“Fuckin’ A. We’ve been caught!”
* * *
You should tell them. Tell them about Derek’s car.
How long has he had that car? Liam couldn’t remember. The interrogation room suddenly seemed airless. Confining.
Shanice was looking at him hard, taking the decision from him when she asked, “What kind of vehicle does your brother drive?”
She saw it in the driveway. Was that just yesterday?
“He has a Ford truck . . . and . . .”
All of their attention was on him. He was under the microscope, but it was a mistake. A coincidence.
“He has a new Corvette,” Liam admitted. “I’d never seen it before yesterday.”
“Does it have a plate on the back?” Grant asked him.
“I don’t know,” Liam admitted.
“Did he know Teri Mulvaney?” the mustached detective then posed.
“No!” Liam said quickly, defensively, then said, “I-I don’t know.”
“Does he have a beef against your family?” That was from Mickelson.
He’s thinking about the wedding shooting. That’s his deal. He wants to pin the wedding shooting on my brother!
“Mr. Bastian?” Shanice’s gaze was boring into him.
“It’s his family, too,” Liam said, but his mind caught on something that felt out of place. What was it? He thought, then twigged to it: the wedding photos that he’d stashed away but never been able to throw away. He’d just looked at them again with Rory this morning. Something about the wedding photos.
He looked at Mickelson. “I gave the police the pictures the photographer took at the wedding.”
“I have copies,” Mickelson admitted, pointing to the thick file he carried with him.
Liam felt as if he couldn’t breathe, but he managed to ask, “Could I see them?”
The two Portland detectives looked at each other, but neither stopped Mickelson from pulling out the photos and handing them over to Liam. Once again, there was Vivian in her bright yellow dress. Once again there was his father, moving down his row, intending to take matters into his own hands, angry at the delay. And once again there he was himself, hit by bullets, starting to fall.
And Derek was way off to the right side. Moments before he’d been standing by Liam. Now he was nearly to the edge of the seats, as far from the aisle as he could probably be in those few seconds.
* * *
“What are you doing here, Mommie dearest?” Derek asked Stella as he swung out of his truck. He was still training the gun on Rory, keeping the driver’s door of his truck open. “This is your stop,” he told Rory. “The Flavel apartments. Aren’t they nice?”
Why wasn’t Stella doing something? Why the hell was she here? Did she have any idea? Surely she could see the gun in her stepson’s hand, the way he was brandishing it.
When Rory didn’t move, he waggled the gun at her and she stiffly released the seat belt and opened the passenger door. Thinking about fleeing somehow, some way, she climbed out of the car.
“What is going on?” she asked her mother-in-law.
Stella was utterly rigid. She stared in disbelief at Rory. “What . . . what are you doing here?” Then pointing to the pistol, “For the love of God, Derek, are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t panic. Everything’s under control,” he said.
“What? Don’t panic? Is that what you said? Seriously. And everything’s under control? What planet do you live on?”
Rory took a step and Derek spun, aimed the gun straight at her face. “Don’t fuckin’ move. And if you scream, I’ll drop you, like that!” He snapped his fingers and she froze. Believed him. There was nothing between her and the madman with the gun.
He was nuts. Certifiable. And he would kill her in an instant, she knew it. And Stella . . . what was her part in all of this? But there was no time for conjecture. Not now. She forced her eyes on Derek, on the damned gun, but in her peripheral vision she was taking stock of her surroundings. Trees . . . bushes . . . cover, if she could get there. But Stella . . . could she just leave her with Derek?
“What are you doing here?” Derek asked her again, then inched up his chin a bit. “Ahh, you were looking for me. I said I was going to be here, didn’t I? Want a little quick one at the scene of my latest crime. That it?”
Latest crime? Did he kill someone else here? Rape them? What? Or was he talking about her?
“Oh, my God. You’re crazy!” Stella cried.
Derek’s smile was almost a rictus as he turned to Rory. “It’s all gone to shit, you know. Too bad. But to be truthful, it wasn’t a good plan to begin with. Not well thought out. I didn’t see it, you know. About Pete. Thought I’d just wind him up about fucking rich people. Get him to shoot dear old Dad. Saved a lot of little dollars over the years, didn’t we, lover?” This he threw at Stella, who had drained of all color.
She seemed about to faint, but caught herself. “You stupid, stupid, stupid boy . . .” She choked.
He laughed. “I wasn’t much more than a boy when we started. Well, okay, you didn’t make your move till I was of age. I’ll give you that.”
Stella moaned and covered her face with her hands.
Derek and Stella? Lovers?
Rory thought she’d be sick. Her stomach turned over and she had to fight the urge to wretch as she began to understand what had happened, how cruel the world had turned.
“Hate to break it to you, Aurora. But Mommie dearest never liked you.”
Rory didn’t respond. Didn’t care how Stella had felt about her. Right now, she had to think. To ignore anything other than to find a way to escape. He was a killer. Derek Bastian was a killer. He’d hired Pete DeGrere. And murdered Teri Mulvaney . . . oh, dear God. How many others? Beth? Panic grabbed her by the throat.
She moved ever so slightly away from him, inching her way, feeling sweat collect on her scalp and run down her back. All the while she focused on the gun. The damned gun.
“She wanted to take you out, too, you know. At the wedding? But you wouldn’t come down the aisle. And then DeGrere must’ve thought he had a good shot, and bam. Pulled the trigger and down goes Geoffrey Bastian. Stella wanted the money and to be rid of the bastard, and well, so did I. But she wanted you dead, too, and I guess Pete just thought, fuck it, might as well kill all the rich people I can.”
“Derek!” Stella yelled.
Rory inched a little closer to the bushes. Oh, Lord, could she get away from them? A few more feet and she could spring to scramble away. And go where? Two of them, one with a gun, would hunt her down like a wounded fawn.
Derek added to Rory in an aside, “Old Petey. He wasn’t the most stable, you know.”
“You were supposed to take care of this!” Stella’s fury increased to a fever pitch, but it only seemed to amuse Derek as he went on with his story.
“But dear old Dad didn’t die, did he? And then, Mommie dearest gets cold feet. Afraid we’ll be found out if there’s another attempt on his life.”
“You shot Liam, too!” Stella shrieked, her eyes wild.
“Not me.” He held up both his hands in a plea for amnesty. The pistol shifted a little. “Pete. I got nothing against my brother. Except maybe that he scored all the beautiful women.” His gaze caressed Rory as it took her in.
“Enough with all this ancient history,” Stella said, approaching her stepson finally. “What are we gonna do now? What’s your latest and greatest brilliant idea?”
“Well, we’ll have to get rid of her,” Derek said reasonably as a hot wind scattered some dry leaves across the ground. “She figured out it was me, and I had to bring her here before she told Liam.”
“She figured out it was you? What did you do! You’re such a careless fool. You want to get caught!”
“I took care of Beth, didn’t I?”
So it was confirmed—what Rory had suspected. She fought to keep her voice from quivering as she asked, “You killed Bethany?”
“She saw me with Stella. Caught us having a quick one in the back hallway of the house.”
Stella shrieked and grabbed her hair. “You pushed me up against the wall and I didn’t want it!”
“Oh, yes, you did. You were hot and wet as a sauna. You just didn’t want to get caught.”
“Now look what you’ve done!” She waved her arms at Rory as if she wanted to make her disappear.
“Fine! Let’s take care of it.” He leaped across the patchy dry grass separating himself from Rory and as she turned to run, he grabbed her, and holding her tight, jammed the barrel of the gun against her temple. “Want me to do it now?” he asked Stella silkily.
“What? God, no!” All of the starch left her and suddenly Liam’s mother sank onto her knees in the dry weeds and gravel. “No . . . no . . .”
“Maybe after Rory and I have a little time together . . . ?” he added.
With the gun pressed hard to her head, Derek leaned in and licked her face.
* * *
Beth . . . Beth . . . Someone killed Beth.
Derek killed Beth . . .
Liam felt like he was living in a dream. A nightmare.
Dully, he remembered, She called you . . . you didn’t pick up.
He pulled out his cell phone, stared at it, said to the room at large, “I think Beth left me a message.”
He pressed the buttons to access voice mail. Mickelson’s message was first, which he deleted. Then Beth’s voice: “Your brother sexually attacked your mother. I saw them in the back hallway of your parents’ house. I didn’t say anything because both of them begged me not to, especially Stella. Your brother’s sick, Liam. Sick. Maybe your whole family’s sick! I’m glad to be out of it!”
Liam’s stomach curled in a knot. All that he’d denied came crashing in on him as the truth was laid bare.
“We need to pick up Derek Bastian,” Grant stated firmly.
“I’ve got to call Rory,” Liam said, dazed.
* * *
Rory’s phone rang in her pocket.
Derek immediately whipped the gun away and patted her down, digging into her pockets. “Which one?” he demanded. “Where is it?”
“My . . . back pocket . . .”
He was frantic. He knocked Rory off her feet in his attempts to get it, and by the time he’d ripped the phone from her jeans she was scrambling backward on her hands and feet. Fast. Toward the woods.
Move, move, move!
“It’s Liam!” Derek shrieked almost gleefully, staring at the screen. “Should we answer, let him know what we’re doing?”
“You’re out of your mind,” Stella said in horror.
Derek laughed and threw down the phone. With his heavy construction boots, he stomped up and down, grinding the cell into the dust and pebbles. “Maybe I will have to kill him next, Mommie dearest,” he said, breathing hard from excitement.
“Over my dead body.”
He turned his razor-sharp attention on Stella. “You’re getting me hard.”
“Fuck you,” she said, daring him in a sexual way
Rory turned away from the perverse chemistry to find her cell. Her phone was there, inches from her hand. All he had to do was move a few feet toward Stella, and she could grab it, pray that it still worked.
“I’m leaving,” Stella rasped.
She turned toward her Lexus and Derek jumped forward, intent on stopping her. This was her chance. Sliding across the ground, Rory reached over and snatched up the phone, then she vaulted to her feet. Up and running, she took off for the thicket of trees—her only chance of escape.
Run, run, run! Faster, Rory, move it!
She was flying and heard Stella shriek, “Let go of me! Let go of me! Oh, hell, she’s getting away!”
Derek let out an echoing, furious roar.
Rory sped up. Adrenaline fired her blood, fear propelled her.
Bang!
Zzzpt! The bullet zipped past her. Rory stumbled, kept moving, fighting tears and fear. She zigged to the left, scrambling into berry vines.
Bang!
Another shot.
Another miss.
She pressed redial. Her arms and legs were on fire as thorns sliced into her exposed skin. She kept moving and rolled out of the blackberries, though their leafy vines clawed after her.
“Shit! What the hell?” Derek, too, had landed in the brambles.
Liam answered, sounding strange. “Rory, I—”
“I’m at Flavel! Derek’s trying to kill me. Your mother—”
Bang!
Rory screamed as the bullet zinged into the tree just to her right. She dived left and landed in bushes at the edge of the small grouping of Douglas firs. She scrambled quickly behind the trees, hazarding a glance backwards. Stella was clinging to Derek’s arm, making it difficult for him to aim.
Rory took off, charging into the trees, branches catching at her hair, as she hoped against hope that the copse was larger than it looked and that she wouldn’t be running into an open area. Pausing behind a tree, she realized the cell phone was still in her hand, but Liam was no longer there. With shaking fingers, she tried to call him back. Failed twice. Sobbed. It wouldn’t turn on. No lights, no apps. Derek’s stomping must have killed it.
* * *
Liam was at his Tahoe. The cops were behind him, yelling at him. He’d run out of the room and through the station. “Wait!” someone had yelled. Maybe Mickelson.
“Derek’s at the Flavel building with Rory!” he screamed. If they tried to stop him he didn’t know what he’d do. Fight them. Wrestle them all.
He drove fast with fierce concentration, trying repeatedly to call Rory back but she wasn’t answering. God, oh, God. Let her be all right.
His brother. His older brother.
It wasn’t real. None of this was real.
He heard sirens in the distance behind him.
The cavalry.
He couldn’t wait for them. He gripped the wheel, pressed his toe to the accelerator and swerved around a sedan moving at a snail’s pace.
* * *
“Rory?”
Derek’s voice, trying to soothe, too high with excitement to get the job done.
The bole of a tree was at her back. Ahead of her, thinning trees. Nowhere to go. If she ran he would shoot her in the back. No Stella to distract him.
“Aurora?” he said softly.
She tried to still her breathing.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve always liked you. Saw you in Point Roberts that time, and well, I’ve had a few dreams about you since then. Good dreams.”
He was growing closer. Thirty feet behind her? Twenty? Was the fir really hiding her? Could he see something? A scrap of her blue shirt? Her jeans?
“It’s that red hair. When I saw Teri, I saw you. You know what I mean?”
There was a fallen branch on the ground in front of her. Looked about the right circumference for her hand. Where was he? Ten feet?
She started counting in her head.
* * *
Traffic. Liam blasted his horn, running a red light. A chorus of angry horns blasted right back at him, but he made it through.
How far was he? How much time?
At least ten minutes.
“Shit!”
* * *
Rory stared at the branch. One, two—
“Gotcha!” Derek declared, jumping from behind the tree, gun leveled at her.
Rory emitted an aborted scream and then he was pinning her to the tree, rubbing up against her.
“Where’s . . . Stella?” she gasped. She needed time. Time for Liam to get here. If he got the message . . . If he heard her before the phone gave out.
“You shouldn’t care about her. She’s the one who wanted you dead. DeGrere was supposed to wait for you, then kill you, then dear old Dad. Stella signed off on that.”
“You killed DeGrere?”
“Had to. He was just too damn untrustworthy. Beth, too, as it turned out.”
“But Teri was because she had red hair.”
He picked up one of her curls, moving it between his fingers as somewhere overhead a crow let out an unworldly cackle. “True,” he said meditatively. “Didn’t know how much I liked it till Liam took up with you. It just seemed to grab me, you know? Recognizing those times in life when you’re made for something . . . you know what I mean?”
She shook her head.
“Those moments that matter. I knew I was supposed to be with someone like you. But Liam got there first. He was always the good boy. Always knew how to play that role. But did he ever tell you about the time he got me in trouble? Stole Dad’s liquor and I took the beating. Didn’t tell you, did he?”
“No.”
“I want you to kiss me. Do it like you mean it.”
“What about Stella?”
He sighed. “I think it might be over with Mommie dearest now. What do you think?”
“I—don’t know.”
“We stayed away from each other after the wedding. Really difficult for her. But it started up again, about the time Jacoby found you. Couldn’t keep my hands off her, and she’s just the same. Don’t let her fool you. But I wanted more.”
“What about—”
“Shhh.” He put his finger over her mouth. “You’re stalling.”
“No, I’m—”
He ground his mouth down on hers and pressed her into the tree, the bark hard against her. “Kiss me back, or pay the price,” he warned.
She didn’t have to ask what the price was. It was her life.
* * *
Liam bumped down the drive to Flavel with its traces of graffitti and broken windows. He drove around the back and there was his mother’s car. Stella was on the ground, kneeling forward, sobbing.
When she saw him she stared at him with a tearstained face. “It’s not my fault. I tried to save you.”
“Where’s Rory?” he clipped out.
She looked toward the stand of Douglas firs. “He’s got a gun,” she called after him as Liam raced away.
* * *
Derek pulled back, cocked his head. “Someone’s here.”
Rory saw her chance. Her subdued urge exploded and she let it rip, gouging and clawing and screaming. Her knee slammed into his crotch.
Derek howled and staggered and she pushed him away. In one swift movement she swept up the branch, leveled it at his head. He feinted at the last second and she got his shoulder, knocking the gun. They both reached for it. Rory got there first but he pulled it from her grasp.
He held it on her as they heard pounding footsteps and Liam yelling, “Derek! No! Derek!”
Then he turned the gun on himself and fired.