The One I Trust (27 page)

Do I really even need to describe what she looked like?

DID I KNOW where Emily had been the night of the fire?

Home. In bed with me.

Was it possible that she had left our bed in the middle of the night without my knowledge?

Maybe.

I glanced at Hale. There was no “maybe” about it. Both of us knew that I could sleep through anything.

Was there any way I could get her to come in for questioning?

Not likely, but I told them I’d try.

I called Emily again and left her a message.

“Emily,” I said carefully. “I just talked with the police and they think that maybe the person who’s been breaking into the house is the same one who started the fire at Hale’s beach house. I told them about the private eye you hired and they said they wanted to ask you some questions so they can figure things out. So, uh, if you’ll call me I’ll go in with you and we can talk to them together. Everything will be all right. Please call me. I love you.”

I hung up and looked at Hale.

He didn’t say a word to me; he just stood up and shook hands with the investigators who had been talking to us and thanked them for their time. He promised them that we’d be in touch if we heard anything from Emily, and then he headed out the door.

I followed along to the parking lot and I got in when he unlocked the door. He started up the car and backed out of his parking spot—still without looking at me. Still without speaking.

“Hale,” I finally said after he got on the road. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m really sorry—”

He interrupted me.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he said.

Hale continued to drive in absolute silence. I tried to remember if he had ever
not
spoken to me before. If he had ever been
mad
at me before. I couldn’t remember a single time.

Twelve years. I’d known him for
twelve years
. . . almost half of my life. And now he wasn’t speaking to me.

How had this happened? A week earlier I had promised God that I was going to love Emily, and everything that I had done since then I’d done because I was trying to honor that promise . . . I was
trying
to do what I thought God wanted me to do.

Was I directing my own steps again? Or had I misunderstood what God wanted me to do?

No. I was sure that God had let me know plain and clear that what He wanted me to do was to love Emily, no matter what.

So what was going on? Was I being tested?

Was God testing me to see if I was really committed to Him? Or was Satan trying to drive me away from Him?

I thought about all that, and I decided—even though nothing was making sense right now, and even though everything in my life was falling apart again—I still wanted to trust God.

Hale pulled the car into the driveway and I turned to see if he could talk to me yet. Apparently he could.

“I
told
you,” he said, biting off each word with barely suppressed anger. “I told you not to wait until next week to get her in somewhere.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

He looked at me and opened his mouth like he was going to say something more, but then he shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

He just shook his head once more and then repeated what he’d said before.

“I can’t talk to you right now.”

After I got in the house, I tried to call Emily again and then I started cleaning up.

The first thing I did was to go into the backyard and dig a German shepherd-sized hole. I was sweating and filthy by the time I finished burying Gracie, but I didn’t shower. Instead, I went inside and moved all of the living room furniture into the kitchen, ripped up the carpet and padding, rolled them both up and finally dragged them into the carport. After that I moved the furniture back into the living room and put a frozen pizza in the oven to cook before heading into the bathroom to take a shower.

After I cleaned up and put on a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, I tried Emily again and then I tried Hale. Neither one answered.

I checked the house and made sure the front door was locked, the carport door was locked, and the bar was in the sliding glass door leading out to the deck. I checked every window in the house. I went back into the bathroom where my clothes were lying on the floor in a heap. I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the keys to my gun safe. I opened it up and made sure everything was in there and then I locked it back carefully. I put the keys into a pocket of my sweatpants before I opened the walk-in closet, turned on the light, and looked all around. I even looked under the bed.

Finally I lay down on the bed with the keys to the gun safe still in my pocket, absolutely exhausted.

I’m pretty sure I was sound asleep in less than a minute.

DUCT TAPE.

That’s what was over my eyes when I woke up, but I didn’t exactly know that at the time. All I knew was that something was covering both of my eyes and I couldn’t see anything, and when I reached up to figure out why, suddenly my hand was duct-taped to my face. Naturally my instinct was to reach up with my other hand and that one got taped, too.

Brilliant.

Fully awake now, I started straining against the tape when I heard the unmistakable sound of the slide of a gun being pulled backward and, slamming forward, and then I felt the cold metal of a barrel press against my neck. After that, I didn’t move. (I might be stupid enough to allow both of my hands to be duct-taped to my face, but I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the fact that a gun was being pushed into my carotid artery.)

How did she get a gun?

My mouth was taped next, followed by my feet. She removed the tape from my hands after she bound my wrists together, and then she ripped off the tape that was covering my eyes.

Ow.

I opened my eyes.

It only took a few seconds to focus on a Browning 9mm that was pointed at my head, and then at the person holding it.

It was Tori.

I’M GOING TO make a terrible PI.

That was my first thought. But my second was of Noah . . .

If Tori is still alive, is he?

My heart—already pounding—sped up at the hope that he might not actually be dead.

And if he is still alive, where is he?

Not that I was ever going to see him again. If I knew only one thing, it was that Tori was going to kill me. She was going to kill me as certain as I was lying there all bound up in duct tape and she was going to frame Emily for my murder. I was never going to see Noah again, but I still really wanted to know if my little boy was alive or not.

Tori smiled slyly.

“Hey there, lover boy,” she purred. “Surprised to see me?”

I tried to talk.

“Want that tape off your mouth?”

I nodded vigorously.

“No,” she said thoughtfully, running the barrel of the gun over her lips. “I don’t think so.” Then the smile disappeared. “I’ve heard quite enough of you over the past few months.”

She pointed the gun at my head again and there was nothing I could do but close my eyes and wait.

I waited for what seemed like a long time. Finally I opened my eyes again and found that Tori still standing there pointing the gun at me with her finger on the trigger. Another big smile spread across her face.

“Don’t worry,” she said, lowering the gun. She walked over to the nightstand and set it down. “I can’t
shoot
you, can I? I mean, after your little call to the sheriff the other day, everyone’s going to know that there’s no way Emily could have gotten hold of a
gun
. . .”

Tori picked up a knife from the nightstand and twirled it slowly in front of my eyes. It was the knife out of the sink—the same one she’d used to kill Gracie. Tori sat down next to me on the bed and put the tip of the knife against my collarbone.

“What do you think would be most in line with Emily’s character?” Tori mused, running the knife lightly across my throat, just hard enough to bite into the skin. “This?”

I forced myself not to flinch.

“Or this?” She used the tip of the knife to move my T-shirt out of the way before running the blade along my stomach, slowly etching another light line in my skin. It was then that I realized she was going to make this as slow and painful as possible.

I prayed.

If he’s alive, God, please take care of Noah. Please take care of Emily. Please take care of—

My prayers were suddenly interrupted . . . or answered . . . by a loud
thwump
followed by a burning pain in my hip.

Tori gasped, and we both looked down at the same time. There was a broadhead arrow sticking out of my hip. I looked back up at Tori. She was holding her side, blood oozing through her fingers, and I realized that the arrow that was stuck
in
me had gone
through
her
first. Tori must have put all this together too because she whirled around to see who was behind her, shooting arrows.

I didn’t need to look—I already knew—but I looked anyway just in time to see Emily step out of the closet, drop my compound bow to the floor, and head straight for Tori.

Tori didn’t even have time to think about reacting. Emily drew her knee up to her chest and with a swift, high kick hit Tori in the face.

With one of her Poconos boots.

Tori crumpled to the floor. Emily whirled around, grabbed the gun from the nightstand, and pointed it directly at Tori.

“Don’t move!” she ordered.

“You wouldn’t kill me,” Tori hissed, struggling to prop herself up. “You don’t have the—” Before she could finish her sentence, an explosion filled the air.

Tori had been right—Emily wouldn’t kill her—but she would definitely maim her. That’s why the arrow Emily had shot moments earlier had gone through Tori’s abdomen instead of through her heart, and that’s why the bullet she’d fired just now had ripped through something non-vital: Tori’s kneecap. When Tori continued to struggle and tried to get up, Emily put another round into her other leg.

Amazingly, however, Tori still didn’t quit . . . she kept struggling. Her legs weren’t working now and her side was bleeding, but she didn’t seem to be in any pain whatsoever. I’d seen people on drugs before who were oblivious to pain. That’s how Tori was acting now, but I was fairly certain that she wasn’t on drugs . . . she seemed to be possessed by something else entirely and she kept clawing at the floor, trying to drag herself toward Emily.

When Emily realized that Tori wasn’t about to stop, she put another bullet in one of Tori’s hands, and—when that didn’t work—she shot her in the other hand as well.

Tori’s arms and legs may not have been working properly, but it soon became apparent that as long as Tori could move, she was not going to give up. She reminded me of the head of a snake that’s been severed from its body, still trying to deliver a lethal bite. Emily must have realized this, too, because she finally threw the gun on the bed and ripped the tape from my mouth before heading back to Tori.

“Watch out!” I yelled at Emily, panicked because I was certain that Tori would somehow grab her if she got too close.

Tori did indeed try, but each time she reached out for Emily, her hand would flop uselessly to the floor. She kept struggling, refusing to give up, as Emily took a page from Tori’s book and pressed the tape over her eyes.

Tori raised her worthless and bloodied hands to her face in an effort to pry the tape away but had no luck. Emily was then able to grab the roll of duct tape and bind both of Tori’s hands together, and when Tori started spewing every vile word she could think of, Emily slapped another piece across her mouth.

“No!” I cried, and Emily looked at me in surprise.

“I need her to tell me about Noah,” I said. “I want to know if he’s still alive.”

Emily held my gaze for a moment but then nodded. She turned around, bent down, and removed the tape from Tori’s mouth.

“Where’s Noah?” Emily asked.

The evil smile returned to Tori’s lips.

“Shark bait,” she said, and then—even though she couldn’t see—she turned her head directly toward me and added, “The last thing he did was call for you. He said, ‘Daddy! Help me, Da—’”

Emily put the tape back over Tori’s mouth and came to me. She picked up the knife that Tori had dropped and used it to cut the tape around my wrists.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

I was hurt, but not by the knife and not by the arrow.

“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“I didn’t know it would go all the way through her,” Emily said, looking at the arrow that was still sticking out of my hip.

“It’s okay.”

She worked to peel off the duct tape while I craned my neck to keep an eye on Tori, fully expecting her to somehow rise up off the floor and attack us like the bad guys always do in horror movies. She was busy trying to remove the tape from her mouth with her wounded bound hands.

“Your neck is bleeding pretty bad,” Emily said calmly as she moved to cut the tape from my feet. “She cut you.”

“It’s okay,” I said again in a reassuring voice—even though Emily didn’t seem to need much reassuring. “It’s not deep at all.”

My legs and hands were both free now and Emily looked at the arrow.

“Pull it out,” I said.

“You’re not supposed to remove impaled objects.”

“I know,” I agreed, “but it didn’t hit anything major—I can tell. Just pull it out.”

I could have probably gotten it out myself, but it was going to be a whole lot less painful (hopefully) if it got pulled straight out.

Emily pulled the shaft and the arrow slipped out so easily that I could tell it hadn’t even gone in past the end of the blades. The relief was almost instantaneous. I sat up and looked at Tori again. She had somehow almost managed to remove the tape from her mouth. I reached for my phone and called 911.

“911. What is your emergency?”

“I need to report an intruder . . .”

“Are you at your home, sir?”

“Yes,” I said. “I—”

“I’ll tell you where Noah is,” I heard Tori say. I froze and looked at her again. Her mouth was free now as the bloody strip of duct tape hung from her cheek. “He’s alive. I’ll tell you where he is . . .”