A Rush to Violence (35 page)

“Frankly, it wasn’t. It was a joke. I deserved more. Twenty million was nothing to Kenneth—it was like twenty dollars to you and me. I found it insulting. I always was there for him, and yet he put me last in his will. For a ten-year relationship, it was unacceptable.”

“It pissed you off.”

“It did.”

“So, who approached who to have him murdered?”

“Laura.”

“And all of you agreed to take him out?”

“Not all of us.”

“Who resisted?”

“Shut up, Pamela.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, Philip. Ever. And what does it matter anymore, anyway? We’re finished. The police are outside. It’s only a matter of time before they come through that door. Have you even noticed? It’s hanging open. They’re going to run straight through it.”

“We still could get off.”

“Do you really believe that? Let’s just close the books on this. If we go down those stairs, Spellman will kill us. If we don’t, the police will collect us, we’ll be hauled out and our faces and our rotten stories will be media fodder for weeks if not months. You know that. I need you to think about the humiliation that comes with that. On every possible level, it’s over for us. So, let’s set the record straight and get on with it.”

“Anything you say is admissible in court.”

“Philip. Baby. Don’t you get it? We’re cooked. And we don’t have to go to prison or to trial. There are other ways out and I suggest we take them. You know what I’m suggesting. But before we do that, I need to tell the truth because Spellman is right. For the most part, Kenneth was good to me. He gave me this house, bought me my penthouse on Park, told me every day that he loved me. And he meant it. We took fabulous trips together and ate at some of the best restaurants. He was kind to me. He wanted me to practice law again, but I got too complacent being taken care of, so I didn’t. My mistake. I’m the one who fucked up. So, here it is, Marty. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening, Pamela.”

“From the start, Grace and Michael wanted nothing to do with this, but Laura is Laura. What she wanted, she got. So, she led the charge. She’s the one who organized it and saw it through. Tyler was behind her. Sophia and Scott helped, but not with the same urgency as Laura. They sort of just went along for the ride, not that that excuses them from any of it. I was brought in because I had connections with Philip, who you know as Carr. His real name is Philip Carp, by the way, just to wrap this mother in a bow for you.”

There was a moment when she didn’t speak. Marty heard something that sounded like a slap, then a struggle, then the click of a gun, a footfall on the staircase. “Stand the hell down, Philip. I’m finishing this.”

“You’re a fool.”

“No, I’m not. If I was a fool at any point, it’s when Laura talked me into this. Can you hear me, Marty?”

“I can hear you.”

“Philip guaranteed me that through you, we could bring in Camille and her daughter. I brought that promise to Laura in exchange for a healthy cut of their inheritance. Plans were put into place, which you’re now familiar with. Should I have done it? No. Did I make a mistake? Yes. A terrible one. Kenneth treated me well throughout our time together and yet I was screwing someone else behind his back. Now this. I don’t know what I was thinking. I regret it. It was pure greed. And it’s greed that ruins so many of us in the end. I’m a shining example of it.”

Marty could hear his family behind him. Heaving. Struggling. Using everything they had within them to get Brian Moore to the first floor. They were almost to the door, which was open. He looked behind him and could see Jack’s back. It wouldn’t be long now before all of them were in the kitchen. What worried him is that he knew that Pamela, Philip and whoever else was with them—
if
anyone was left—also could hear it. Were Jack and the others still armed or did they need to drop those arms to get Brian up here? Marty wasn’t sure. If they came unarmed and if Pamela and Philip tried anything, he alone would have to protect them.

“Are the canaries free, Spellman? We can hear them fluttering.”

“Free and armed,” Marty said. “If you come down those stairs,
Philip
, I will shoot you. I have a feeling a few others would like to join me. In fact, I know they will.”

“I wonder how skilled they are with a gun?”

“They killed two of your men. I’d say they’re very skilled. As for me, you won’t find much better.”

Marty looked over his shoulder as they brought Brian Moore through the door. He looked at his old friend, whose head was hanging slack. His skin was turning blue and his tongue was purple and bulging out of the right side of his mouth. His eyes were open and fixed. He was covered in blood. It was as troubling a sight as Marty could remember. They’d been close friends since college, when Gloria and Barbara brought them together. For the past two decades, they shared a beer each Sunday at dive bars throughout the city. They shot the shit. Had a laugh. Talked about life. Talked about women. Their kids. What was he to do without his friend now?

He closed his eyes. Rage was an animal that raced through him, and with it came clarity. He directed everyone behind him, so they couldn’t be seen from the staircase in the entryway. As they went past him, everyone hugged him but Jack and Barbara Moore, the latter of whom knelt beside her husband of over twenty years and held his hand while she whispered to him.

Where are the police?

“Here,” Pamela said. “Take the gun. Shoot me. Then shoot yourself. That’s our only way out of this. You know it as well as I do.”

“I’m not shooting you.”

“Then I’ll shoot myself. You can do whatever the hell you want. Give me back the gun.”

“No.”

“Give me the fucking gun, Philip.”

“I won’t.”

“Fine. I’ll see you in hell.”

And Marty heard her heels on the stairs. They weren’t coming slowly and quietly. Instead, they were coming aggressively, as if they were on a suicide mission. With his back to the stove, he looked over his shoulder and waited for her to come into view. First, he saw her hand on the banister. Then her legs—she was wearing fitted dark blue jeans. Red heels.

Then he saw all of her.

White silk blouse tucked into her jeans. Her right hand lifted high so he could see she wasn’t carrying. She was shorter than he imagined, but beautiful. Raven-colored hair pulled back into a neat ponytail that bounced as she descended the stairs. Pale skin. Dark red lips that enhanced the disappointment on her face.

She turned to look at him and when she did, a shot rang out into the room. Her blouse puffed open at her breasts and she staggered forward.  Her legs sagged beneath her and she reached out to hug the newel post for support. Blood blossomed on her blouse. She turned to look accusingly up the stairs.

There was another shot.

Marty heard a gasp come from behind him.

He turned and found Beth standing in the open, a gun poised in front of her and pointed at Decker.

He tried to push her back so she was in the clear but then came another shot, only it wasn’t Beth doing the shooting. It was Philip. He started to come down the stairs and as he did, he continued to shoot Pamela Decker until she slipped off the newel post, fell over the last few stairs and hit the floor. Dead.

When he was finished, he stood there for a moment, a crazed look on his face as he stared down at her. Then he placed the gun to his own head and fired.

Tried to fire.

Instead, the gun clicked hollowly in the room.

He pulled the trigger again, but the gun was out of bullets. He spent the lot of them on Decker, who was folded at his feet, her body lying in a way that was unnatural. He looked across the room at Marty and Beth just as Beth lifted her gun and took aim.

“So, what?” he said. “You’re going to shoot me? From there? You’re just a kid, for Christ’s sake. What the fuck do you know about a gun?”

Beth cocked her head at him.

They were his last words.

EPILOGUE

TWO MONTHS LATER

GRINDSTONE NECK, MAINE

September

From the third-story balcony off the master bedroom, Camille Miller sat in an Adirondack chair looking out at the Maine ocean and stared into the depths of all its complexities. She was lost to them.

It was afternoon, it was overcast, the salty air had a bone-chilling bite to it, and some of the trees were starting to sway in the rising breeze. Forecasters were predicting storms to hit later that night, which Camille didn’t doubt. She felt them coming. She could see them on the darkening horizon.

Below her, the ocean was writhing and intense, as gray as gun metal and just as lethal. Nothing about it was calm. Looking at it swell and plunge, roil and rise, she felt at one with it and, for a moment, almost thought she understood it.

That’s where she stopped. That’s where she knew better and corrected herself.

Nothing here could be understood. That was the thing about Maine. As beautiful as its infamous coastline was, the undercurrents didn’t end here. They actually began here and stretched inland, touching the roots of a complicated state one would be a fool to trust for a wealth of reasons few could put into words.

Maine was about what you sensed, not about what you saw. It was about what you overheard, not what you were told. It was deceptive, perhaps as cutthroat and as misleading as any state or country in which Camille had spent a significant amount of time, and for that reason, its mystery was likely why she enjoyed coming here. It appealed to her.

It was the end of summer and, for two months, she’d been at her family’s estate, which now belonged to her. She’d been sitting here for an hour, thinking about her father, thinking about Emma, thinking about Sam, thinking about her brothers and sisters.

Too much thinking.

But the ghosts weren’t done with her. They wouldn’t leave.

She reached for the pack of Gitanes cigarettes on the table beside her, lit one and decided it was time to let the ghosts in. She’d pushed them away long enough. She’d be paralyzed here if she didn’t face them. Time to go forward. Paris wanted her back and it was time to go back to Paris. But going back meant going
back
, which her nightmares had been happy to do, but which she herself hadn’t done on her own.

Emma lived for eight days before she died in her private room at New York Presbyterian. Seven of those days were spent in a coma, but Camille did have one day with her daughter before she went to sleep. Emma was weak, but she also was restless. She wanted answers. She was determined to have them before she let go. She knew she was dying, she was aware of the infection they were unable to control, but there were questions she wanted answers to before she went.

She wanted to know about Rotterdam. She wanted to know about the forty-three orphans who were burned alive along with their abuser, Willem Lassooy. She wanted to know if her mother had anything to do with it. She needed to know before she was gone. “Tell me,” she said. “And please tell me the truth. Don’t lie to me now. I need to know.”

Camille told her the truth. An unidentified group of men and women hired her and Sam to take out Lassooy. But before they could act, someone else stepped in. News reports suggested that one of Lassooy’s former charges, likely an adult at that point, burned down the orphanage out of rage. Camille and Sam were prepared to take out Lassooy when they cornered him alone, but they didn’t have the chance. The night before they planned to kill him, someone started a fire that destroyed the orphanage and everyone in it, from the children to Lassooy.

“Did you think I’d do that?” Camille asked.

“My aunts and uncles thought so.”

Of course, they did.
“But did you?”

“No. I knew you didn’t do it. I told them so. But I wanted to hear you say that you didn’t do it. I needed to hear that. I hope you understand.”

“I understand.”

“One more question.”

“Your eyes are getting sleepy, Emma. You need to rest.”

“Is Sam my father?”

Camille hesitated for a moment, but then she nodded.

“Why did you leave him?”

“In a way, he left us, Emma.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me.”

“When you’re well, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

She closed her eyes. “But he’s back now.”

“So, he is.”

For a moment, Camille thought Emma had gone to sleep, but she hadn’t. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was working. She reached out for her mother’s hand and held it. “Does that mean anything to you? That he’s here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I wish I had a father.” She started to drift. Her grip on her mother’s hand started to weaken. “I do. I wish I had one. I think he’d like Paris. Has Sam ever been to Paris? Paris is beautiful. I miss Paris. I miss my friends.”

Camille wasn’t expecting to cry because she never cried. But she did that day. She cried more than she thought she was capable of crying. It came from her gut, from her heart and from the knowledge that her little girl was failing. The idea of it overwhelmed her to the point that she couldn’t talk. What could she do? She had all the money in the world to help her daughter. The hospital knew that. She’d pay any amount to save Emma, so why wasn’t the treatment working? It was just an infection. Surely, they could contain it and eradicate it.

“Don’t cry.”

“You’re very brave, Emma.”

“I did bad things.”

“No, you didn’t. You can’t think that way.”

“I know what I did.” A silence passed. Her breathing became deeper. Camille squeezed her daughter’s hand and was surprised when Emma’s eyes parted. “I did what you did,” she said. “I was just like you.”

“Emma—”

“I don’t regret it. They deserved it. I was just like you. Think about that. I was just like you. That makes me happy.”

When they cremated Emma, Camille and Sam sprinkled her ashes over Kenneth Miller’s grave. It’s where she’d want to be. Not in Paris, but with the grandfather who meant everything to her. They put Emma’s favorite flower—yellow roses—around the plot, sprinkled the ashes and because neither was religious, they decided it was best just to remember Emma as she was. Fearless, intelligent, shrewd and determined. She was kind and—not unlike them—she also was deadly.