October Snow (46 page)

I could never take a life, Max. That includes my own
.

And Max knew that was true. She closed her eyes as the thoughts and the memories came in rapid succession: Jo’s strange affect in recent months; the back-and-forth of her emotions, as if she truly wanted to hang on but just couldn’t anymore. Her obvious pain over her boys, the harassment of Keith and his wife. Her serenity after Daisy died. The anguish in her eyes that day at the ocean, as she gave Max a primer on the fact that there are no heroes left.

Her resolution that Jack would not be allowed to destroy her friends.

“She’s going to go out a hero.”

“Maxine–I can’t hear you.”

“She’s setting him up, all right. But she’s not going to kill
him
. She’s…” She rolled her head, her eyes heavenward, her mouth hanging open. “Dear God,
no
.”

“Maxine! Tell me!”

“It’s suicide, Dave.”

“Suicide?
What
?”

She was breaking into a cold sweat. “But she’s getting Jack to do it
for
her, and that takes him out, too.”

“That’s not…I don’t understand.”

“It solves every problem, as far as she can see–which isn’t too far ahead these days…”

“Call the police, Max.”

“They’re probably at Barley’s right now. Wait…” She was only a minute from the city precinct. “Hold on, Dave.” She sprinted the last fifty yards to the station.

At the front desk, she breathlessly asked the woman there if Joey Derosa was on duty that night.

“He is. May
I
help you?”

“Please, it’s an emergency. Tell him Maxine Allen is here to see him. Tell him I’m a friend of Josie Kane’s.” She got back on with Dave. “Still there?”

“Yeah. How long ago do you figure they left Barley’s?”

“Maybe…I guess, ten minutes?”

Damn it
. He hit the steering wheel in his frustration, and pushed the car up to ninety. “There’s probably still time.”

“How far away are you?”

“Twenty minutes.”

She looked up as an officer approached. “Miss Allen?”

“Hold on, Dave.”

She shook his hand quickly, then pulled him to a corner and explained the situation to him.

He let her finish the entire story before he spoke. “Yeah, we sent a cruiser over to Barley’s just a few minutes ago. But she ran off, and he followed her, you said?” He took a set of keys from the desk. “Let’s head over to his house. If she managed to lose him, he’d likely head home. The guy’s a real head case, assaulted one of our officers a few weeks ago. So you stay in the car.”

“Dave, meet us at Jack’s house.”

Jo ran as fast as she could. She needed to get to Jack’s perfect little house, leave the evidence there. It had to happen there.

Her legs trembled from the effort, but she was calm: she felt completely detached from herself, like some force was pushing her from the inside out. It was the right thing to do, the only thing that could be done–and it was the first time in years that she felt genuinely alive.

She rounded the corner where she and Max had left the truck running, not even a month earlier when they took Sam away from Jack. It seemed impossible to her that it was such a short time ago.

As she got to the corner near his house, she stopped at the edge of his yard, crouching behind the hedges with her hands on her knees. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears; her thoughts ran rhythmic with it.

You won’t win this one. Not this one
.

She straightened then, looking up.
Please
.

His arm came around her neck from behind, and he hissed into her ear.

“You said there’s more I don’t know.”

“Go to hell.”

He punched her hard in the side, and her breath left her again as the pain cramped in her back. Her neck was at an odd angle, and with his hand now pressing on the back of her head, her spine tingled as he jerked her to the side. “We’re going inside now. Make a sound and I’ll snap your neck.”

He walked her to the back of the house, keeping his hold on her as he opened the door. “Get in there.” He shoved her hard, and she tumbled over one of the kitchen chairs, landing in the doorway to the dining room.

He didn’t turn on a light, and she squinted as she looked up, trying to get her bearings. His hand came down on the top of her head, grabbing a handful of her hair to pull her to her feet.

“
What else
?” he screamed, directly into her ear.

She finally managed a deep breath. “Let me get my phone and I’ll
show
you, you
prick,
” she yelled into his face, and he backhanded her.

“
Hurry up
.” He loosened his grip enough that she was able to dig her phone out of her pocket.

“You think you can screw with Sammy, huh? Use the baby?” She brought up the texts as she spoke.

“Screw with her?” His face was almost touching hers. “I plan on making her wish she was
dead
.” He shoved her again, and she almost dropped the phone as her back hit the doorway.

She felt as though she truly could kill him. She pushed off the wall, fully connecting a sidekick to his stomach. He doubled over, but came back up quickly: the uppercut to her jaw caught her tongue, and she felt blood gush into her mouth.

“Take a look,” she mumbled, spitting blood on the floor, trying not to choke on it as she thrust the phone at him. “No baby. Dead. Gone. Get it? The only kid in play here is the one she has
with the guy she just married
.”

He backed her up against the wall and held her there with his body, and she watched him, waiting until he met her eyes.

He was pouring over the texts. Jo could see his face clearly in the light from the phone–first going pale, and then bright red as he realized what had happened. The phone slid from his hands and clattered onto the floor.

“
You
did this?
You did this
?”

It was the moment she had lived for. Blood ran down her chin, and in the dim light, she appeared ghoulish as she spat a mouthful of her blood into his face.

Grinning, she hissed, “
You
lose
.”

She shoved him away and turned to run as he exploded into screams of incoherent babbling, maneuvering her way around the shadowy obstacles in the darkened house as she bolted for the front door.

As he took off after her, he grabbed a knife from the block on the kitchen counter.

She made it to the front door, whirling to swing at him as he grabbed her hair from behind. She raked her fingernails down the left side of his face, and from there, she knew it was done; then, she felt the tearing, searing agony of the eight-inch blade penetrating her left side.

She managed to kick him in the stomach again. As he fell back onto the stairs, she ran through the front door, asking God to please not let it hurt too much.

Max stiffened as the voice came over the patrol car’s radio.

“All units in the vicinity of one-four-six-one-five Plymouth Street, respond to a disturbance. Man and woman at front of property. Man has a large knife. Repeat, man is armed with a large knife. Code Three.”

“
That’s Jack’s address
,” Max whispered, choking the words out over the panicked tightness in her throat.

“I know.” He hit the lights and the siren. Max’s vision grew blurry as he answered the dispatcher.

“One William Twenty-Two, responding to one-four-six-one-five Plymouth Street.”

In the days that followed, Max would sometimes remember it in a torturous kind of slow motion. Other times, her mind would race through it, like fanning a deck of picture cards: strobe-like images of pulling up to the house, of jumping from the car before it came to a stop, of Derosa calling her back. She heard him shouting, “
One William Twenty-Two, requesting immediate backup and EMS at one-four-six-one-five Plymouth Street
.”

For months after, every time she tried to sleep, she would see Jack standing over Jo with the dripping knife in his hand. Derosa had parked his car in such a way that Jack was bathed in the glare of the headlights. He looked enraged, but not at all insane–he appeared to be completely lucid. Jo was a small, crumpled form, curled up in a fetal position on the lawn by the driveway.

He took a step toward Max, his eyes darting back and forth, poised to strike out at anyone. Everyone. He was screaming about death, and murderers, and dyke bitches who killed babies.

She heard Dave calling her name; then, he was scooping her into his arms as she stood transfixed at the edge of the lawn, and as the police shouted for him to get back.

He ran to the street, carrying her there as more cruisers pulled up with lights flashing and rotating. Guns drawn, the police were screaming in unison for Jack to drop his weapon.

Dave placed her gently on her feet, putting his arm out to keep her behind him. “Stay
there
, Maxine.” His voice was ragged, breaking with grief.

She looked past him to see if maybe, Jo would move, make a sound, anything at all; then, she witnessed what would be her most vivid memory, the one she carried with her every day for the rest of her life.

Jack returned to Jo. He stood over her, tossing the knife to the driveway. He shrieked, “
How does it feel to be aborted, bitch
?”

And then he kicked her in the face.

As his foot connected, Max screamed the pain of it for her.

Dave groaned as he moved in front of her and pulled her to him, blocking it, talking to her softly.

Joey Derosa took Jack down hard, with a faceplant on the cement of his walkway, cuffing him quickly and dragging him up from behind by his wrists. The paramedics were already with Jo.

Someone shouted, “Got a pulse!”

It was then that Max squirmed away from Dave, slapping at him as he tried to pull her back, and ran up onto the lawn to be with her.

She ignored the EMS workers telling her to stand back. Jo’s pale green eyes were open wide, but unseeing, glazed over. Her face and hair were covered with blood–what he had done to her was grotesque, beyond comprehension.

Max knelt at her head, smoothing the blood-soaked hair from her face, taking her hand.

“Get her out of here!” one of the paramedics yelled.

She felt Dave’s hand on her shoulder. His voice trembled and then broke as he pulled at her, telling her to come with him.

Then he kneeled beside her. He understood, looking at Jo, that she was almost gone–and he wouldn’t let her die that way. Not bleeding to death on Jack’s lawn, with no one loving her.

Jo’s eyes focused for a moment on the two of them. The electric aura surrounded them, reflecting off of the periphery of her fading vision, but it was beautiful. Not at all frightening–it was soothing, a comfort. She understood that it was her place of refuge, and she reached for it, joyous, looking for him; but now, left with just a remnant of her ability to think, she knew that she couldn’t leave her friends with words of despair–words that would haunt them forever.

Her heart fluttered, then it thudded hard a few times. In the last moment of her life, she squeezed Max’s hand twice.

.

chapter 21

“I
’M ON
E
LM
Street. Where’s the house?”