Blood Brothers (22 page)

“Hello Michael,” she said. Her voice was
merely a whisper, but it carried plenty.

Stephanie, still looking unhinged and raving,
spoke, “Carrie and I here, have had us a little talk this morning.
A long talk. I’ve learned a lot.”

Michael’s face was hot, searing. Even his
eyeballs were heating up. This was not his idea of a pleasant
morning at the office.

“I told her everything,” Carrie said.
“Everything.”

Michael swallowed hard.

“Even about how you offered to pay to have
the baby scraped from her womb, you bastard.” Stephanie was back at
him again, but only half-heartedly. She came close, looking as if
she were about to rip out his eyes, but stopped short and buried
her face in her hands. Sobbing began anew.

“How do you think that made me feel,
Michael?” Carrie asked. “To tell me that after all this time? You
didn’t care enough about me to even pretend to care.”

“Stop it. Stop it right now, you bitch!”
Michael found he could face this woman much easier than his wife.
Whatever there was left between them, whatever wasn’t
disintegrating at this very moment, was something strong enough to
make him hold his tongue. Carrie, however, was another matter
entirely. There was no way that Stephanie would have approached
Carrie. It was a stretch for her to even know about her. Sure, she
knew something, but nothing precise. It had to be Carrie. Sniveling
little tramp. “You barge in here. Into my office. And think you’re
queen of the world. That’s your problem; you think you have to have
your way every time.”

Carrie recoiled at that. Hers was a simmering
anger, the polar opposite of Stephanie’s volcanic rage. Like the
way Jack Nicholson goes a little crazy in the movies, silent and
freaking scary, so silent you wished he’d go the hell ahead and
curse and shout. Carrie didn’t have a golden heart—hell, she didn’t
even own a heart locket. Her heart was vengeful, spiteful, and even
cruel when the mood took her. If that evil muscle had been
surrounded by the body of an old crone instead of tender,
delectable flesh, it wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful a
weapon. But when she struck, she drew blood.

“Me, Michael? How about fucking me and her,”
she pointed at Stephanie. “Talking about having your cake and
eating it too. I am not the attacker here, I’m a victim.”

“Like hell.”

“You shut your mouth, you son of a bitch.”
That was Stephanie coming back for another round. “You. I can’t
believe you. You leave me and your daughter alone until all hours
of the night. Whenever you feel like it. You go out and do God only
knows what and when one of your mistresses tries to do the right
thing, you attack her like street trash. You’ve got some
nerve.”

“Try to do right? Are you serious? How many
pills did you take today? God damn, you can see this for what it
is. Can’t you? Revenge. Plain and simple. Who the hell knows if
she’s even pregnant, woman? Did you go to the doctor with her? Huh,
did you?”

“I—” Stephanie started to speak but was cut
off. She was looking at Carrie, her eyes growing large. Michael
looked to see what could possibly have cut her off from her
tirade.

He did see. And wish he hadn’t.

Carrie was in the process of extending her
arms. In her hands was something very shocking. A gun. Not that
guns themselves are shocking, but he just could not fathom one in
the hands of Carrie. It was ludicrous. But no one, especially not
Michael, was laughing. It looked to be a 9 millimeter or maybe even
a .45. It was hard to tell from this angle. This was the second
time in a week he’d had a gun pointed towards him in his very own
office. Michael didn’t like that. Not one little bit. Survival,
rather than pride, thankfully ruled his actions now.

“Carrie? What…what are you doing? Put that
away.” Michael tried to sound assertive, but he believed he was
more afraid of a gun in this woman’s hands than in Jerry’s. At
least Jerry knew how to handle one. Of that much Michael was
certain. But Carrie? Who knew? She looked comfortable with it in
her hands, but with all the violence on-screen and in the media
these days, a two-year-old child could easily display a proper
shooting stance.

“Stay where you are, dear,” Carrie said as he
leaned toward her just a bit. He wasn’t even aware he was doing so
until she’d stopped him. What was he, crazy? It took only three
pounds of pressure to pull that trigger and fire a round down the
barrel, out the muzzle and into his, or Stephanie’s, body. However,
at the moment, the gun was aimed directly between them. If only he
could move fast enough…

“Carrie. Stop it. We didn’t talk about this,”
Stephanie pleaded. Reason had apparently retaken her. From his
periphery, Michael could slowly see anger melting into grave
concern.

“We? We, you hoity-toity bitch? What do you
think, we’re a tag team? You’re as crazy as he said you were.”

Stephanie looked to Michael then. It was in
that look, in that tiny moment of time, which something died that
could never be replaced. Michael knew it and despite the gun
wavering in his direction, he regretted it deeply.

“Oh, don’t look so hurt. He’s a supreme
jackass. There’s no way you could be married to him and not have
figured that out by now. Where do you think he was on your last
anniversary? You know, the one when he gave you the diamond
pendant? He bought me one just like it. And I straddled him like he
was a stallion and fucked him until his eyes rolled back into his
head.”

Stephanie’s lips parted slightly.

“Only my diamonds were bigger.”

A knock at the door. Sallie shouted through
the door, “Mr. Cole. Is everything okay?”

Before Michael could even formulate anything
close to a coherent response, a male voice boomed, “Police, Mr.
Cole. Do you need assistance?” There were many benefits to being
both well-respected and rich in a small town. When you needed the
assistance, it came, as long as, of course, it wouldn’t make anyone
look too bad. Money was a powerful motivator, but rarely did it
surpass the best interests of those who didn’t have to get
involved. When it came to law enforcement cooperation, it was
pretty much a given that except for a high speed chase or a hostage
situation, someone like Michael would be top on the cops’ list.

Panic sparked, for the first time, in
Carrie’s eyes. A loaded handgun and anxiety were not the ideal
combination. The idea of rushing her came suddenly to him, but
before Michael could act on it, it fled, dismissed as a false
stimulant for his already wounded ego. An ego that was already
distressed at the notion that perhaps, he wasn’t the king of the
land.

“Carrie,” he said slowly. True emotion found
its way into his voice. “That’s the law out there. If they bust
through there,” he pointed at the door, “and find you with a gun,
it’s not going to look real good.” He wasn’t patronizing. In fact,
he didn’t want her to be carted away and thrown into a jail cell.
While he was angry with her, enraged actually, he didn’t wish to
see her toppled so completely. “Put down the gun, or give it to me,
and we can all move past this.”

A cruel laugh. Then, “Move…past this.” Carrie
waved the gun over her belly, where deep down inside a life had
begun. “How in the hell do you see us, us three—aren’t we
something? How do you see any of us moving past this Michael?
Because I don’t see how. The best thing is to end it all here.
Right here, right now.”

The courage to act came from somewhere, he
just wasn’t sure where. Michael stepped up, and in front of
Stephanie. “Give me the gun and we’ll talk. All of us,” he glanced
back at Stephanie who nodded but didn’t seem to be looking forward
to that suggestion. Still, it beat death, and they both knew
it.

Carrie, whose eyes hadn’t been all that
focused since entering the room—looking much like Stephanie’s on a
bad day—alarmed Michael when they grew even larger than they
already were.

Softly, almost like silk rustling in a gentle
wind, Carrie said, “This, Michael Cole, is all your fault.”

And then the gun roared, and things got much,
much worse.

Now

“Holy fuck!” Michael shouted.

Stephanie cried out.

The door was kicked open. Two men in uniform
swarmed in. Guns drawn. Benedict’s finest.

But it was all for naught. The time for
action was passed. Things now could not be changed.

The stink of cordite filled the office.

Carrie’s young body fell to the floor.
Ruined. Blood spatters covered walls, rugs, furniture, and a good
portion of both Stephanie and Michael.

It took Michael a scant flicker of time to
comprehend what he had just seen. Smoke still wisped from the
barrel. Carrie’s body had fallen awkwardly; face up, one leg was
twisted wrong, her head lolled to the left. One hand still held the
suicide weapon, the other reaching out, as if for a savior.

One policeman, a tall, stout-looking young
man, rushed towards Michael and Stephanie. He began asking if they
were okay. Michael wasn’t sure what it was that Stephanie said, it
sounded like mere mumbling. For that matter, he wasn’t sure what
he’d said either. Michael looked into the kid’s face. He figured
the boy had come to them to spare himself from dealing with Carrie,
with the body.

Michael recognized the greenhorn’s partner as
Hank Bale, a career beat cop with salt-and-pepper hair cut low. His
face was wrinkled and his gut stuck out and hung over his gun belt.
But he was competent enough, or so Michael thought. Hell, what was
there to do now? Carrie wouldn’t be hurting anyone else,
anymore.

The attack set in slowly but when it came it
crashed over Michael Cole. All the air was suddenly sucked from the
room so completely that Michael’s office was as airless and
oppressive as the dark vacuum between the planets.

The kiddy cop was still talking, but the
words were now a dull droll, no distinct language, Greek to an
Irishman, or so people sometimes said. The room began to spin,
slowly, at first. But with each revolution the speed increased.
Michael feared it just may do so exponentially.

“Excuse me,” he managed, only barely.

He pushed past the cop; past Bale squatted
down at Carrie’s body. Feeling for a pulse. He was stepping to the
door when Carrie’s hand reached out and grabbed his ankle, almost
tripping him.

Michael could say nothing. He began
hyperventilating. He looked down and the hate that filled his
mistress’s eyes was as deep and as deadly as the River Styx. When
she coughed, blood sprayed.

He couldn’t believe she was still alive. If
not for Officer Bale reaching out and pulling her hand free of
Michael’s socked ankle, he would have thought himself careening
down the slippery slope into madness.

What could you expect after shooting yourself
in the stomach? Yes, it could be fatal, but not always quickly.
But, Carrie hadn’t really put a bullet through her stomach had she.
No, she’d put one right into her womb.

That had to say a lot about a person.

When he was freed, Michael shot through the
broken office door. The cops shouted behind him as he passed Sallie
and Vaughn, who was apparently awaiting his appointment with the
boss. They all called for him to stop. Pleading almost. He paid
them no mind. Reaching the stairs, he took them down two and even
three at a time.

Until he was snug in the Porsche, his
frustration building due to the too-busy street, he didn’t even
look back. The streets downtown were unusually wide. Wider even
than a four-lane, but the congestion was horrible.

A mile away, using the rearview, he wiped the
blood from his face as best he could with his hand and a little
saliva.

He didn’t know where he was going, and he
didn’t really care. He just wanted to go. And he was going now.

***

Stephanie just stared after her husband. He
was leaving, then, he was gone. And she was left alone.

Yes, people were around. Excited, scared,
someone was screaming. Outside the door, Sallie, Michael’s personal
assistant, was sobbing. The cops inside the office were trying
their best to appear professional, but it wasn’t every day that a
Benedict municipal officer handled a case of suicide, especially in
this…manner. But it wasn’t a suicide, not yet. Carrie was still
alive, though just barely.

While the older officer spoke into a cell,
the younger stood away from the dying girl, scribbling in a
notepad. It seemed so very sad to Stephanie. Here was this woman,
this girl, this human being, taking the very last breaths of her
all too brief life and everyone around was doing something else to
avoid having to watch her die. They should be doing CPR, First Aid,
something. Did it matter that it would be useless? Stephanie didn’t
think so, didn’t know how anyone else could. She had more reason to
hate her than anyone else her. She had made love to her husband,
perhaps countless times. She had shared intimate moments that
should only be shared between her and him.

But that didn’t make it any less painful for
Stephanie to watch the life leaking slowly away, the light of her
soul fading into nothing.

Stephanie really wished she had a pill.
Something that would knock her on her ass. Instead, she had to face
this with her mind so clear and her perception so alert and alive
that she found anxiety weighting her down like a tunic of
concrete.

Kneeling, Stephanie reached out and took the
same hand that Carrie had used to reach out for Michael. That fact
was not lost on her. In light of Carrie’s condition, however, that
little snippet of knowledge was relegated to the back of her mind.
The younger woman’s hand was cold, ice cold in her own. Already,
the warmth of her lifeblood was cooling. Speaking slowly, softly,
like hushed velvet, Stephanie asked, “Are you hurting?”