Secondhand Sinners (20 page)

“Did she follow you out?” she asked.

“Gail?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I didn’t see her.”

The woman pressed her fisted hand to her forehead. “Oh no.”

“What happened?”

“She’s missing. She kept trying to make coffee. The reservoir in the pot was empty, so I went to the sink for water. When I got back to the waiting room she was gone. I’ve checked the men’s and women’s bathrooms. I called the nursery—people like to go look at the babies—they haven’t seen her.”

“Did you look in her husband’s room?”

“Who’s her husband?”

“I’ll show you.” Miller gestured for her to follow him through the sliding doors. “I’m sure she wandered into his room.”

She wasn’t in Norman’s room. Any other day Miller wouldn’t care where she was. Today was different and not only because he had witnessed the advanced state of her deterioration twice now. He had a terrible feeling they were being played somehow.

The young lady threw her hands up and let them drop to her sides. “I’m going to go check the bathroom again.”

Miller stepped further into the room, closing the distance between Norman and himself. He wasn’t sure what to think of the man in the bed. If it was anyone else, he’d feel sorry for him, even say a little prayer. He felt no urge to pray for this man. However, he did notice something on the rolling tray beside the bed. Between a box of tissues and a tube of Vaseline was a syringe. Surely that wasn’t supposed to be there. No doctor or nurse would ever leave a syringe lying around like that.

“She wasn’t in there,” the nurse said, coming back in.

“What’s that doing there?”

“What?”

Miller pointed to the tray. “That.”

“I don’t…Oh. How did that…” She pulled a glove out of the box on the wall, put it on, and picked up the syringe. She studied it. “Looks like one of ours, and it’s been used. There’s something still in there.” She lifted it to her nose and sniffed it. “Oh God.” She grimaced as she pulled it away from her face.

“What?” Miller asked.

“It’s bleach.”

The knot that had been in Miller’s stomach all morning jumped into his throat. He swallowed hard. “Did you say bleach?”

“Yeah. Why would anyone fill a syringe with bleach? What’d they do with it? And why leave it in
here
?”

“She kept talking about bleach. She asked where it was. I told her it was probably in the cleaning closet. Where is the cleaning closet?”

“A few doors down. Where would she…” She patted the front pockets of her top and then cringed. “They’re gone. I had four syringes in my pocket. I was taking them back to the supply closet when Ms. Collins started screaming. Why did she want syringes?”

“She wanted syringes and bleach so she could clean his blood.”

Her eyes widened and she gasped. “No.”

“I don’t know for sure, but shouldn’t you give him something?”

“There’s nothing to give,” she said, reaching for the call button. “If she injected bleach into his IV, he’ll die. All his organs will be damaged. His heart will fail.”

“You can’t do anything?”

“No. She’s killed him.” She pressed the call button again. “Why would she do that?”

Miller’s first instinct was to find Emily so he could tell her about her father. Rocky relationship or not, she needed to know her father was about to die. She needed a chance to make peace with him and say goodbye.

“How long does he have?”

“I don’t know.” She pushed the call button again, pounded it, actually. “Why isn’t anyone out there answering?”

“What’s that on his forehead?”

The nurse wiped at the orange smudge with her gloved thumb and then studied it. “Looks like lipstick.” She sniffed it. “Old lipstick.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

Emily

Alan was about to break the door down with all the pounding, so Emily pushed the basket full of make-up back into the cabinet and closed the door. She was shoving the bottle of perfume into her pocket when he kicked the door in.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” he asked, looking at her hand in her pocket.

She pulled her hand out quickly and moved to turn the water off, like she was finishing washing her hands. “Nothing.”

“What is that?”

“What?”

“In your pocket.”

“It’s nothing.”

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the hallway. He pushed her up against the wall and flipped her around to face it, holding her there with his hand on her hip while his other hand slid under her shirt, around her waist and into her pocket to pull the perfume bottle out. “What the hell is this?”

“I’ve always admired Elizabeth Taylor,” she answered.

“Like hell you have.” He tossed the bottle back into the bathroom so hard it hit the opposite wall, fell into the bathtub, and broke. “I’m a policeman, Em. I teach self-defense every other week at the VFW, and I know what you’re thinking. My advice to you is to stop thinking it. You don’t want me to tell your little boy the Easter Bunny is dead, do you?”

“He doesn’t believe in the Easter Bunny.”

He put his mouth to her ear. “Then I’ll tell him the fucking Tooth Fairy committed suicide. Then I’ll call the school and talk to Abby.”

There were so many things she wanted to say, most of which included a threat to his manhood. He had proved his point, though. She was at his mercy. “Fine. You win. Let’s go look for your damn treasure.”

When they got back to her room, Alan leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Start at the beginning of that night, when you first saw him.”

“He came in through the window and we talked a little. Then I went to get Levi. I was only gone for a second. We all sat around and talked. Then he left.”

“You were with him the whole time? You didn’t step out to give them time to do…whatever?”

“I always stayed in my room. Sometimes I’d put on my earphones and do my homework so they could talk in private, but they never did ‘whatever.’ If my parents thought for a second that Levi was in my room while I was out of it, they would have gotten suspicious.”

“How did Daniel seem to you? Was he acting weird?”

“No more than he usually did when he’d gone over a week without his medicine. That’s why I asked him to come over that night. I had stolen some of Ma'am's jewelry to give him to pawn for his medicine. So he came over. I gave him a ring. We all hung out for a while, and then he left.”

“Then you didn’t see him again until the hospital?”

“Yeah.” The whole exercise was really starting to hurt. It had taken Emily forever to push down those flashes of Daniel's bloody face that once came at her every five minutes. This was bringing them all back.

“Did he say anything to you at the hospital?”

“He said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Alan leaned against the wall and eyed her. “What was he sorry about?”

She shrugged. “He died before he could tell me.”

“That’s all he said?”

“Yeah.”

“And he didn’t give you anything?”

“Nothing. I swear. Do you honestly think Hoyt was stashing money in a safe-deposit box the whole time Daniel was going weeks at a time without his medicine?”

“Yeah. I know you’re only worried about what Daniel endured, but I was only eating one meal a day—the free lunch I got at school—while Hoyt was hoarding cash. Then when I got out of school and got a job, Hoyt stole most of my paycheck. Hell, I had to join the Air Force to get away from the bastard.”

“Are you’re sure it was money?”

“He called it his ‘treasure’. What else would it be? May not have been money. It’s something of value, coins or something like that. I need it.”

Emily knew Daniel had it bad being Hoyt’s son. She never thought about how badly Alan had it too. It was only natural that he thought he was entitled to anything Hoyt had. Hoyt did owe him something.
Hoyt.
Not
her
, and definitely not Miller.

“What makes you think Daniel put it in here?”

“I’ve looked all over this shit hole of a town. He had to have given it to you. It has to be in this house.”

“What if he never had it?”

“Oh he had it, all right.”

“I’m done,” Jack announced. “What else can I do?”

“Go look in my closet. Maybe there’s something in there for you to play with.”

Jack got out of the chair and stomped to the closet. “Oh cool!” he said after only being in there for a few seconds. “I found something!”

“That’s good.”

“You gotta see this, Mom. It’s awesome.”

“Come on out and show me.”

Jack walked out of the room wearing a pair of her old cowboy boots. “Look! I’m Woody! Howdy, howdy, howdy.”

Emily’s heart ached at the sight of him. Jack really was her reward. What would she do without him? She’d die, without a doubt. Like Miller would die without Abby.

“Your kid is making me so crazy I can’t think.”

“You’re the one who decided to kidnap us. Let’s go. I got some money in my divorce. I’ll give you some of it.”

“No. I want Hoyt’s treasure. The key has to be somewhere in this house.” Alan moved around the room, lifting the mattress to look under it and opening the drawers. “This was the only place Daniel came the night he died.”

“Your mom could have taken the key, cleaned out the box, and spent the money on her pills. She was always as high as Hoyt was drunk.”

Alan gripped her by the arms and pulled her to him. His tense jaw and bulging neck veins told Emily she’d crossed a line. He put his hands on both sides of her head and squeezed. “God, I wanna hit you sometimes.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I might…later. I can’t have you walking into the bank with a busted lip or a black eye, now can I?”

“No. I guess bruised arms are okay though.”

He let go of her and took a step back. So that’s why he hadn’t hit her yet. For some reason, he needed her to go to the bank with him. She’d certainly made him angry a few times, and she knew he’d probably hit his share of women over the years. He may not have had Hoyt’s blood, but there was a lot of Hoyt in him. She wouldn’t be surprised if his refrigerator had nothing except beer in it and the drawer of his nightstand was full of liquor and pill bottles.

“Get the kid and let’s go.”

She poked her head into the closet where Jack was. He was sitting in the back corner counting on his fingers again. “Whatchya doing?”

“I don’t like him. He’s mean.”

“I know. We have to go with him, though. He needs me to do something for him.”

“Why can’t I stay with Miller?”

“Because you can’t right now.”

“What if he goes fishing without me?”

“He won’t. I promise. Come on, buddy, let’s go.”

“Can I still be Woody?”

“Absolutely.”

Jack stood up and hobbled to her. She picked him up and whispered the lyrics to “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” as she carried him out of the house with Alan right behind them. She put him in the back seat of the car and told him to buckle himself in. When she closed the door and turned around, Alan was standing right behind her.

“Jesus, Alan. You ever heard of personal space?”

“I don’t like what your kid said.”

“So?”

“He thinks I’m mean.”

“You
are
mean, just like Hoyt.”

He pushed her up against the car with his body. “I am not Hoyt.”

“Yes you are. Deal with it.”

He squeezed her arm so hard her muscles crushed under the pressure. “I told you. You don’t call the shots. You don’t tell me what to do.”

“Let go of me!”

Alan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her, exposing suspicion. Of what, she didn’t know. “What were you doing in the bathroom?” he asked.

“What people normally do in the bathroom.”

“You found it, didn’t you?”

“Found what?”

“The key.”

“I keep telling you. There is no key.”

“It was somewhere in your bathroom, and you knew that all along.”

“There was no key in the bathroom.”

He let go of her arms. “What’s in your pockets?”

“What?”

“Let me see what’s in your pockets.”

Emily shoved her hand into her pockets, panicking when she felt Levi’s loose house key. “Okay. I have a key in here, but it’s not what you think.”

“I knew it. I knew you were lying to me!”

“No. I…I found Levi’s keys under the passenger seat of your car. I took off his house key so you couldn’t get in, and it’s here in my pocket.”

“That’s my money, bitch.” Alan pulled her off the car and tossed her to the ground, causing her to scrape her knees and palms.

“Mommy!” Jack cried and pounded on the car window. “Mommy!”

“Shut him up.”

Emily stood up. “I can’t shut him up, Alan. He’s upset, and you’re only making it worse.”

“If you don’t shut him up, I will. I swear to God I will.”

“He’s a kid, Alan. You can’t hurt me and think he won’t be bothered by it.”

“And you can’t lie to me and think I won’t beat you for it.” Alan put his hand on the holster of his belt and pulled his gun out. He aimed it at Jack through the window. “If I take care of him now, I can hit you all I want.”

Emily stepped in front of the gun with her back to the window and put her hands out like a negotiator. “Alan,” she said calmly, “I’ll get him to be quiet. I’ll show you the key in my pocket. If you want, we can go to Levi’s and I can show you it’s to his door. I’ll do whatever you ask. Please put the gun away.”

He looked at her with one side of his lip curved up and raised the gun to her head. She held her breath, too scared to talk. Talking was only making him angrier.

“You think I’m a rotten bastard, don’t you?” he asked.

“No. I think you were hurt. Really bad.”

“You know what they say, don’t you?” Emily shook her head. “They say, ‘Hurting people hurt people.’ I wanna hurt you, Emily. And I wanna hurt that damn kid of yours who won’t shut the hell up. Which one of you should I hurt?”

“Me. Hurt me.”

He stepped so close his body pressed to hers and held her chin with the hand that wasn’t pressing a gun to her temple. The longer he stared, the better, she thought. It put more time between him and whatever had made him snap. It took everything she had to not recoil when he pressed his lips to hers, forcing her mouth open with his. When he ran his hand that was holding the gun down her neck to caress her breast, she dared not resist. One twitch and she’d be dead.

He pulled his lips away and whispered, “Why do you have to make me so crazy?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back. “I’ll get Jack to be quiet. I’ll stop telling you what to do. You can have the key. If you look at it you’d see it’s a house key.” That was the trick to getting him to calm down, she realized. Apologize for everything. She’d apologize all day long if he kept him calm.

“I didn’t just want something from you, you know? I came to Levi’s to help you. I was even worried when I realized you were gone. I drove out to Miller’s thinking,
Surely she’s not dumb enough to be out there.
That’s before I knew you were fucking him in high school.” He closed his eyes tight and looked at her again. The anger seemed to be subsiding. “You shouldn’t have walked out on me. You should’ve treated me better than that.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Mommy!” Jack called out as he pounded the window. “Mommy!”

Anger flared in Alan’s eyes again. “I thought you said you were going to shut him up.”

“I will. I promise.”

“You’re just like the rest of them.” He pulled her away from the car and shoved her to the ground. Then he opened the car door, yanked Jack out, and chucked him to the ground as well. “Shut up, kid! Shut the hell up!” he yelled, though Jack probably couldn’t hear him over his own loud wails and Emily’s pleas. He aimed his gun at Jack and said it again. “Shut the hell up!” Jack was still screaming when Alan took another step closer and pulled the trigger.

Emily screamed and rushed to Jack, who was still crying. There was no blood on him anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t even a pop or a bang when Alan squeezed the trigger, just a click. Alan was smiling.

“You bastard!” she yelled as she stood and lunged for him.