Racing the Devil (33 page)

A shadow by the window shifted, and a woman emerged from the darkness as if she had been formed from it. A sheet of cornsilk hair fell across her shoulders like Christmas tree icicles.

I had never met her, but I would have known her anywhere. Her daughter wore her face.

“Mrs. Harwell,” I said.

She gave me a wan smile. “Not anymore. Not for a long time. I’m Shirleen Roystan now.”

“Jared McKean.”

“You’re the one who saved her.” She stepped forward, touched my sleeve. “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what to say.
Aw, shucks, Ma’am. It was nothing
. Nothing seemed quite like enough. Instead, I said, “How is she?”

“Stable. Or so they say. There’s brain damage, but no one can tell me how much.”

“Hard to tell with head injuries sometimes. Sometimes there’s less damage than it seems at first.”

“And sometimes there’s more.” She stepped to the bed and laid a hand on Katrina’s forehead. “I’ve been standing here for hours. Just watching. Thinking about what it would be like to take her home, take care of her.”

“My son has Down syndrome,” I said. “It gets easier with time.”

“I was a terrible mother,” she said. “I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. I was never any good with kids, how am I supposed to handle a handicapped child?”

“You grieve, you go on, that’s all. You love her.”

She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And the expense. The medical bills alone would break us.”

“Us?”

“I remarried. He doesn’t want children at all. How am I supposed to plop a brain-damaged child in his lap?”

A sharp pain started in the back of my neck. I thought of Caleb Wilford, knife to his little girl’s throat, and knew there was more than one way to break a child’s heart. “She’s your daughter, for God’s sake.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”

She brushed past me, a sheen of tears on her cheeks. I should have felt sorry for her. Instead, I just felt a leaden sorrow for the daughter she was leaving behind.

I glanced toward Katrina. Her eyes were open, one skewed to the side, the other fixed on the door that was just swinging shut behind her mother.

I sank into the chair beside the bed. “It’s okay, kiddo,” I said. “You’re gonna be all right.”

She lifted one thin hand. In the light from the window, I saw a smear of blood beneath the tape holding the IV needle in place.

Such a small hand. I reached through the bars of the bed rail and slipped my hand beneath her palm. Her fingers closed over mine.

I sat beside her in the dark until her breathing became even and her grip loosened. Then I carefully slipped my hand from hers and limped back to my own room.

THE DAY I WAS RELEASED
, Jay helped me hook up the horse trailer, loaded my crutches into the passenger seat, and drove to ValeSong Stables.

An auction had been scheduled for the following week, the proceeds of which would go to Valerie’s estate. Dakota, unbroke and blind in one eye, was probably destined for the killer market. Instead, I left a thousand dollars in an envelope on Valerie’s desk, loaded him into the trailer and hauled him back to Jay’s place.

Some might have called it stealing, despite the thousand bucks, but I figured she owed both of us.

Sonny Vanderhaus survived and was sentenced to life in prison. In his house, the police found the tapes he’d made of his “live” show, as well as the ones he’d used to splice together the message on Amy’s voice mail.

Ashleigh was persona non grata for a while, but nothing came of it. Apparently, she has friends in high places.

My first test came back negative, but I still don’t know for sure if Heather gave me HIV.

I try not to think about the woman I killed, the sudden brilliance of her smile, the warmth of her body, how she fiddled with her braid, how she rolled her lower lip under her teeth.

And I try not to think about the early morning hours when Cal Hartwell was awakened by his sister-in-law and her lover. I wasn’t there, but I can see it in my mind as clearly as if I had been.

This is how it happened.

Sonny, for all his expertise in picking locks, hadn’t needed any of it. Valerie had a key. In his jacket pocket, Sonny had the Beretta and the Browning, and Valerie had a little snub-nosed .22.

Valerie hauled Katrina out of bed at gunpoint, while Sonny went for Tara. Both girls were told in whispers that if they made a sound, their father would be killed. Tears streaming down their cheeks, the girls were led into their father’s room, where Sonny shook Calvin awake, showed him the guns they had pointed at the girls, and ordered him to get up and get dressed.

Hands trembling, Cal complied.

When Cal was dressed and ready, the little group trooped downstairs to the living room, Sonny behind Cal with the Beretta to Tara’s head, Valerie behind Sonny with the .22 at Katrina’s.

“Get on the couch,” Sonny ordered Cal. “Sit there where I can see your hands.”

Unarmed, with guns to both his children’s temples, Cal arranged himself on the couch according to Sonny’s instructions.

“There’s a piece of paper and a pen on the end table. Take it and write what I tell you. Write ‘God forgive me.’ Slowly now. No sudden moves.”

Obediently, Cal wrote, then turned the paper for Sonny to approve.

“Good. You’re doing real well.” Still pressing the barrel of the Beretta to Tara’s temple, Sonny pulled the Browning, fitted with a suppressor and wrapped in a handkerchief, from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the sofa beside Cal.

“If you think you can kill us both before we blow your babies’ brains out, go ahead and try.” He grinned. “I don’t think you can.”

Cal’s chest hitched with what might have been a sob, but there were no tears in his eyes. He made no move to touch the gun. The girls were silent, except for little gasps and sniffles that told their captors they were choking back tears.

“Good boy,” Sonny said. “Now, I want you to pick it up, very slowly, and place the barrel under your chin.”

Cal hesitated, and Sonny lifted Tara off the ground by her throat. She gasped and sputtered, kicking and clawing.

“Daddy,” she whimpered.

Behind her, with Valerie’s arm around her chest and the .22 pressing into the soft place beneath her jaw, Katrina whispered, “Daddy, no.”

“Ten,” Sonny said, tapping the barrel of the Beretta against Tara’s temple. “Nine. Eight. Seven . . .”

Calvin placed the Browning under his chin.

Sonny smiled and set Tara’s feet back on the ground. “Now,” he said. “Pull the trigger.”

“No,” Katrina said. “Daddy, don’t.”

Tara cried harder.

“Do it, Cal,” Valerie said. “Or don’t you believe we’ll really kill them?”

“If I do,” said Cal, “will you let them go?”

“Cal,” she said. “I promise you, we’ll let them go.”

He had to know they wouldn’t, that they couldn’t. Not after the girls had seen their faces.

But his choices were to do it and hope the woman he had loved and betrayed would have mercy on his children—or refuse and watch his daughters die. His third choice, to fire the Beretta at one of his attackers and pray he didn’t hit a hostage, was a death sentence for at least one of his girls.

How could he choose which one?

“Swear,” he said. His eyes filled and overflowed, but his voice was steady. “Swear by all you hold sacred that you’ll keep my daughters safe.”

“I swear,” Valerie said. “I’ll look after them as if they were my own.”

I have replayed this scene over and over in my mind, only I am there instead of Cal, and it is Paulie and Maria with the guns to their heads. In my fantasy, I disarm one opponent with a roundhouse kick and place a bullet squarely in the middle of the other’s forehead. My wife and son are spared, the bad guys brought to justice. I think maybe, on a perfect day, I could possibly have pulled it off.

Calvin didn’t have a prayer.

“Girls, I love you,” said Cal. His eyes squeezed shut. “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation. I will not be afraid.”

He pulled the trigger.

Both girls screamed, but the hands that clamped over their mouths muffled the sound.

“All right,” Valerie said, as Sonny retrieved the Browning from Cal’s lifeless hand. “I promised your daddy you’d be all right, so you just get on up to bed now and tuck yourselves in. Katrina, you first.”

I don’t know what was going through Katrina’s mind as she climbed the long stairs to her bedroom, climbed into her bed, and pulled the white lace and satin bedspread up to cover herself. Maybe she believed she and her sister would live.

Her aunt straightened the covers—no need to worry about fingerprints in a house that surely had her prints all over it—and bent to kiss the top of her niece’s head. Sonny passed her the Browning, and she pressed it to Katrina’s temple.

And fired.

Tara, Sonny’s hand clamped over her mouth, squealed and struggled, kicked and squirmed and bit and clawed. He dragged her into her bedroom and flung her onto the bed, where Valerie fired a quick shot into the side of her head.

She fell back, limp as a rag doll, this child who had stolen Calvin away, this bastard begotten by two Judases.

“Good night, sweetheart,” Valerie said, and emptied the magazine into the child’s chest.

Then they unscrewed the suppressor, wiped their prints from the gun, and pressed it back into Calvin’s hand.

I HADN’T LIKED CAL HARTWELL
.

He was a cheater and a hypocrite. His religion made a mockery of Christianity, and his arrogance had made Amy’s life a misery.

A bad husband, Ben had said, and I couldn’t disagree. But a bad man? The jury was still out on that one.

After all, King David had Bathsheba, and Jacob cheated Esau of his birthright. The Bible was full of flawed, yet faithful, men. Who was I to say Calvin Hartwell wasn’t one of them?

People were complicated.

Sitting in my brother’s backyard, sipping Heinekens and watching our kids play a bastardization of touch football, I thought of family, and of Amy Hartwell. If it was true that people were murdered because they got too close to evil, how could Amy have avoided her fate?

She had been born too close to evil.

“So,” Randall said. “That little girl going to be all right?”

I took a swallow of my beer. “Too soon to tell. They think she may be blind in one eye, maybe have some motor damage. They don’t know how much of her intellect might be affected. But at least she’ll live.”

On the playing field, Caitlin swept her arms around her brother. “Get Josh, Paulie!” she squealed, and my son plunged into the fray. They called their version of the game Tickle football, because instead of tackling, the ball carrier was tickled to the ground. Paulie loves it.

It’s hard with only three
, I thought, remembering Cal and his daughters playing softball.

Caitlin wore blue jeans and a Marvin the Martian T-shirt, while Josh wore black jeans and a black shirt with a tie-dyed circle on the front. I took the splash of color for a good sign. His hair was still dyed black, but he was sans makeup, which I thought was an improvement. He was seeing a counselor every Tuesday. On Fridays, the whole family went together.

There were no quick fixes.

Jay stood at the picnic table, helping Wendy and Maria with the lemonade, while D.W. picked at the deviled eggs. It was a sort of welcome home party, a freedom party, so to speak, celebrating my exoneration.

“What happens to the little girl now?” Randall asked, drawing my attention back to the matter at hand. “Where does she go?”

“I don’t know. Frank reached the mother. I saw her at the hospital. So sorry, she says. She’s not good with handicapped kids, her new husband doesn’t want the responsibility, they can’t afford the medical expenses. Katrina will probably end up in foster care. There’s no one left to take her.”

He ran a callused hand through his hair. “Sad story.”

“Yeah.”

“Josh thinks we should take her. We’re thinking about it.”

I considered it. “Big responsibility.”

“Yeah. But he’s good with kids like that. Look at Paulie.”

“He is good with Paul. But it would be you and Wendy with all the headaches.”

“I know. We’ve talked about it, and neither of us likes the thought of that poor kid being stuck in some institution, or bounced from foster home to foster home.”

“Things are okay, then? With you and Wendy?”

His shoulders hunched. “We went through a patch. We’ll get past it.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I took a swig of beer to wash it down. “I think it would be great,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

We sipped in silence. Then I asked, “How’s the knee?”

“I’ll live.” I knew the subject was closed.

A maroon Monte Carlo pulled into the drive, and Josh broke free of the game and sauntered over to greet it.

“Hey, Uncle Jared,” he called. “Somebody wants to see you.”

Randall handed me my crutches, and I hopped over to greet her.

“Miss Casale.”

“Back to that, Mr. McKean? I thought we were on a first-name basis.”

Josh laughed. It was a beautiful sound. “Jared and Elisha, sittin’ in a tree.” He darted away, dodging as I swatted at him with a crutch, and went to talk with Jay.

“I don’t usually invite myself to other people’s parties,” she said, “but Josh said you were shy.”

“Gun-shy might be a better word. Join us for a beer? Tea? Watermelon?”

We walked back to the picnic table, where the football players, hot and drenched with sweat, clamored for lemonade.

Paulie trotted over to us and flung his arms around me. I winced as he pressed against my calf. “Hey, Daddy,” he said. “I win.”

“Everybody wins.” I propped my crutches against the table and scooped him into my arms.

“Is that your son?” Elisha asked. “He’s beautiful.”

Behind her, Randall winked, and I suddenly had the feeling that my streak of bad luck with women might be coming to an end. At least, I’d be more careful this time. Take it slow. Maybe ask for references.

“This is Paul,” I told her. “Paulie, this is Miss Casale.”

“Oh, no.” She laughed. “Not Miss Casale. At least let’s make it Miss Elisha.” She held out her hand and Paulie, still in my arms, solemnly shook it.