Ruthless (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I RUN FOR THE FRONT
door and don't bother to knock
.
Grabbing the handle, I'm hoping by some miracle they've left the door unlocked. They haven't. The glass is thick. I look around for a brick or a rock or something to smash it with, anything to get inside, to get the alarm to ring.

At my feet is a fake rock with a grinning frog on it that says
WELCOME
.

It looks exactly like the fake rock my Nana hides her key in. I've always thought it was a stupid place to keep a key. Now I think it's the best thing I've ever seen.

With fumbling fingers, I turn over the fake rock to find the key waiting for me.

I glance back. The Wolfman is in the drive, but his rifle rests at his side. He's not hurrying. Instead, he walks slowly toward me.

The key slides smoothly into the lock, twists easily, and in a less than a breath I'm inside. It's not until the door is locked and dead bolted behind me that I realize the alarm never sounded.

“Hello!” I scream. “Is anybody home?”

Nobody answers. Checking the walls near the entrance, I see no alarm system. That sign out front was a fraud.

I look back through the door. Wolfman's image is warped by the pane of glass, but it's clear to see he's still taking his time. That slow walk scares me. I know what it means. If he wanted to kill me, he would've. He doesn't want to kill me. He wants something else.

“Hello?”

Nothing. I need to find a phone. I look around. The house is huge, with high, vaulted ceilings. To my right, the kitchen seems to form an island, surrounded by vast, open living areas. To the left, there is a hallway, presumably leading to bedrooms, and stairs to the second floor.

I go to the right first, flipping on a light as I run toward the kitchen. The living room glows in a blaze of light, and I regret what I've done. Turning on lights tells him exactly where I am. I hesitate, almost going back for the light, but what's done is done. Best to keep going forward. I search for the phone, expecting to hear him at the front door, but there is nothing but silence. Silence and no phone.

The master bedroom seems like the next best bet for a landline. I race toward the other side of the house, turning off the light and checking the front door as I go. He has disappeared. It's even worse than knowing where he is.

I scan the rooms. They all seem too small to be the master and
none have a phone. It's dark, and the place is so big I get turned around, enter the same room twice.

No, no mistakes
.
No time for mistakes.

I hate the silence. I feel like I'm missing something. Just like I'm missing the phone. I head back toward the kitchen. There has to be a phone. I refuse to believe these people get good enough cell reception that they can go without a landline. What about emergencies? Don't these rich bastards care about emergencies?

Then I see something. It's like stars. But it's not stars; it's lights. Through the enormous wall of windows in the great room I can see lights. This house overlooks a town, a town that looks like it's a million miles away.

Still no sound from Wolfman. Where is he? What is he doing?

Without much hope, I do another sweep for a phone. I decide not to go upstairs. Upstairs feels like a trap. The ground floor is safer.

Searching, I stumble into the master bath. For the briefest of seconds I see myself in the mirror, white moonlight revealing a horrible sight.

Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .

I turn away. There's no time to absorb it. But that split-second glimpse stays with me. The gash in my head, the wound that started it all. Oh, it's bad; it's really, really bad. I had no idea. I wish I still had no idea.

Needing to get further away from myself, I stagger out of the bath and into the adjoining room. It's a walk-in closet, the size of most people's bedrooms. For a moment I try to breathe through the shock of my appearance.

The blur of adrenaline subsides, and I take in what's right in front of me. There's a gun safe in the master closet. It's wide open. There's a jumble of guns and accessories inside, but all I see are hunting rifles. They're enormous.

I try to pick one up, but it's too heavy for me and my jacked-up arms.

There's a shotgun. Caleb told me shotguns are the best thing for self-defense. I pick it up and almost cry. Even the shotgun is too heavy. The weight of it pulls on my injured arms, and looking down at it, I'm not sure exactly how it works. Where's the safety on a shotgun? I have no idea anymore. Caleb told me they were easy, but I look at this thing now, and it's like some foreign object from space, some alien tool I don't know what to do with.

I let it drop into the mess, and the gleam of a handgun is revealed.

It's tangled up in a giant camouflage jacket on the floor of the safe. I pick it up and find it's a Colt Python revolver. It's what Grandpapa carries. It's a gun I know, a gun that's easy to use. I sling on the enormous jacket, then put the empty revolver in one of the millions of pockets.

There are boxes and boxes of bullets in the safe door. I need to get out of here, but I also need ammo. I try to read the labels, try to figure out which bullets go with my gun. A mistake here could kill me, but it's almost impossible to take in the words.

That's when I hear him.

He's on stairs.

But not the stairs above me.

There are stairs
below
me.

There must be a basement. I didn't know there was a basement. This surprise undermines me like nothing else.

He's on his way up. The sight of him walking slowly toward me flashes before my eyes, and it's like I've forgotten, after dealing with the incompetent Mr. Logan, just how horrible the Wolfman is. Seeing him again made me remember. Made me remember the panties on the end table. Made me remember the hose-down behind the cabin. Now I remember what it is to look into the empty eyes of a monster.

He's trudging up those steps. Even worse, I can hear his hand, his fingernails, sliding along the wall as he goes. He's being loud on purpose, announcing his arrival.

His tactic is working.

I know enough to know I'm hyperventilating, but can't stop it. My body is out of control.

The right ammo must be here, but I can't find it.

A door opens.

He's on the ground floor with me.

Now's the time to shoot him dead. Figure out the bullets already and shoot him dead. Get the bullets, load the gun, lie in wait, then shoot him dead.

But there are no bullets for the Colt Python. Every box of ammo is for the hunting rifles. What's the point of having a gun if you don't have any ammo for it? I want to scream at the idiot who owns this house and has all this money but apparently not enough to buy a simple box of bullets for his revolver. It seems to me I must
be missing them, but for the life of me I can't find the right box. For the life of me.

My hands are shaking.
It's okay to run,
I tell myself.
It's okay to escape and regroup.
Okay, then. Run and regroup.

Decision made, I calm down enough to listen.

Nothing but silence for a few seconds, then something wonderful. He's heading upstairs. He thinks I hid upstairs? Upstairs is a trap, and I'm not an idiot. All the same, I'm glad he's misjudged me. Edging out to the ground-floor hallway, I wait until he's at the far end of the house.

Sliding out into the open, I'm convinced he can hear my heartbeat. It's pounding against my ribs so hard.

A door right next to the kitchen is open that wasn't open before. There's nothing to see beyond it but blackness. That's the basement. I'd thought it was a pantry closet. It must open out to a back door, which will put me straight into the woods, headed straight toward that little town below.

Walking as quietly as I've ever walked in my life, I ease over to the basement door. Trying to be fast, trying to be silent. Into the black hole of the basement, I discover the stairs are carpeted.

Glancing behind me, I hear Wolfman open a door upstairs and continue walking. He's taking his time, surveying the rooms up there.

He won't find me there, because I'm on my way out.

I'm ninja quiet on the basement stairs. It's dark down here, but not so dark I can't see the back door is right in front of me.

Home free
.

I turn the handle, but the door goes nowhere. He's locked the dead bolt. Smoothly it turns in my hand. I try the door again, but it's frozen. The handle is moving—why isn't the door opening? Each time I turn it, there's a click. I can't have these clicks. These clicks are giving me away. But I can't get out without them. Why won't this damned door open already?

Then two things happen in the same split second. In the rela­tive darkness of the basement I see the Wolfman has wedged a doorstop into the tiny crack at the bottom of the exit. At the same time I hear the door at the top of the stairs creak. Wolfman is here. The clicks have called him, and he has answered their call.

I dart away, thankful for the carpet, and search the basement for another door. I see an expensive pool table, a second kitchen, but I see no other door out in this daylight basement. The windows are at ground level.

Could I get out a window? I want to check, but then there he is. He's right there. I do the only thing I can think to do, hide in the kitchen. But this is no hiding spot. If I was a kid playing hide-and-seek, I'd be the first one found.

He's going to find me.

It isn't a question; it's a fact.

He's in the room with me.

I can see him.

He walks past, his back to me. He doesn't know where I am in this darkness. All he has to do is flip a light switch. He must know this. I dread the light, but instinct tells me this won't happen—Wolfman is having too much fun for the game to end so soon.
Better to feel for me in the dark, find me with his hands.

The evilness of him fills me with a new rage.

He's close now. So close. All he has to do is turn around, and he's going to. He's going to turn around.

I'm not going to be raped. I'm not going to be murdered. I'm going to bring him to justice so this never happens to anyone else. I'm not going to think like a victim. I'm going to think like a winner. Because that's what I am. I'm Ruthless, by God, and I need to act like it.

I reach into my pocket, grab the empty revolver, and in one breathlessly fast motion I ram the muzzle up against the back of his skull and yell, “You move one fraction of an inch and I blow your brains to kingdom come.”

Sixteen Months Ago

“SUSAN, YOU'RE A GOOD WOMAN. You know that?” And
the man means it. He means it with every fiber of his being. He met her at an AA meeting. She is half Native American, which he finds alluring, and she is soft, quiet, naturally obedient. There isn't a mean bone in her body, nor a selfish one. She is what a woman should be.

She smiles at the compliment. Not a lot of people think she is a good woman. An alcoholic, she's been sober for one year, but every day is a fight. She looks up to the man, sees him as a mentor. He's been clean for several years. She isn't quite sure from what, as she's never heard him say. Sometimes she wonders if it's something else altogether, like sex addiction. He always uses the word “vice” to describe it, which makes her question exactly the nature of the thing.

Whatever it is, it doesn't matter now. He is a leader in their cobbled-together community of broken souls. He never misses a meeting, never misses
a church service. He credits God with pulling him back into alignment. She follows his lead with perfect attendance. It makes sense to her when he says every day is a struggle, one way or the other. You can either live a hard life controlled by the disease, or you can live a hard life sober. He feels the sober life is the better path, and she does too.

He has thick dark hair and a full beard, which she likes, and she also likes how he is big, the way a man should be. She feels he gives the impression of being strong, powerful, fully capable of doing any physical task you put before him. She likes all of that, which is why she's been thinking about this moment for a long time before it arrived.

They are sitting in his old red truck after a night of bowling with the folks from AA. He gave her a ride there, which featured nothing more than casual conversation, and now he'd given her a ride home. The talk on the way home has been much more satisfying.

“I think you're a good man, Jerry,” she says.

He smiles. The idea that someone, especially someone like Susan, would think he was a good man fills him with light. It feels like it could come ­shining out of his pores.

“Could I take you out to dinner sometime?” he asks.

They were like days out of someone else's life. He moved out of his apartment and into her trailer. They worked on the yard and made a wonderful little garden. After a long time of unemployment, he found a job. It even paid well and it was on a farm. His years working in hellholes were finally over. He was back in the country, working with beef cattle. All the dairy farms had long been turned into houses, but interest in organic, sustainable beef made small livestock herds viable again. It excited him, this new way of
farming. Every day he came home and told her everything he had learned.

The longer he lived with her, the less he felt the tug of his addiction. The thing was, he told himself, everyone, or at least almost everyone, struggled with addiction. He'd come to understand it, forgive himself, and work on living sober one day at a time. Every day it got easier to live clean.

This new, unimaginable life is all so good. Which is why his heart falls when she comes in the door one Monday afternoon. Her face is all wrong. She'd gone out to run some errands. Or at least that's what she said she was going to do. He doesn't understand how running errands could make her face go all wrong like that.

“What is it?” He sees her hands shaking.

They sit down at the kitchen table, and she puts her hands in his. He tries to quiet their trembling with the weight of his massive paws, but it doesn't work.

She knows. Somehow she knows, and she is going to leave me.

“What is it?” he asks again.

“I'm pregnant.” She starts to cry.

It is an enormous relief. So much so he laughs.

“Why are you laughing?” She's stung, bewildered.

“I thought you were going to leave me.”

“Of course not. But, Jerry, this isn't good news. I'm too old to have a first child. I don't have a job. You've only had yours for three weeks. We don't have enough money for this. I'm only a year sober. What if I fall off again? This isn't good news. I don't think we should—”

“No,” he says firmly, almost forcefully. “This child is a blessing from God.” He believes it, knows it to be true, but at the same time, he's terrified.
What if he's like his own father? Or worse, like his own mother? But he feels that with Susan he can be better. In fact, he can right the wrongs of his own childhood.

“No,” he says again. “We can do this.”

She is amazed at his confidence and finds it contagious. A tentative smile replaces her tears, but she whispers one last time, “This isn't good news.”

The next day at work he sees
her
for the first time. She is a summation of it all. She is almost identical to the first girl in appearance. She is almost identical to his mother in personality. She is like meth being force-fed into his veins. It is immediate and overwhelming. He forgets the Steps. He forgets to ask for help from a higher power. Instead he remembers that she is dangerous. He remembers the importance of vigilance.

He finds reasons to leave the cattle side of the operation, showing up at the horse barn. He must keep tabs on her. It is even worse than he feared. She is evil. He doesn't use that word lightly. There were some he killed who he will admit were only bad. This goes far beyond bad. This goes all the way to hell. It's vital that records be kept so that there is proof of her sins.

Worst of all, she's too smart for her own good. She has seen him and she knows. She knows who he is. He saw it in her copper-colored eyes.