Indefensible (17 page)

Monday, 12:48 a.m.

N
ick sat on the bed in his father's house, his iPhone plugged in his ears, dressed in a black T-shirt and black track pants. The stretchy kind, not the nylon ones that crinkled when you moved.

He hit the bat in rhythm to the music. Every time the wood smacked his palm, his fingers curved around it, feeling the cool, smooth wood. The weight of it.

Earlier this evening he'd practiced swinging it until the motion came naturally. Then he'd pounded the bat against his pillow. Again. And again until the pillow had given way at the seams. Then Nick had thrown himself onto the bed, sweat slicking the bat in his hand.

He took a shower. Ate supper in his room. His father had not protested. He seemed to want to play nice, going out of his way to please Nick, as if he was trying to prove how glad he was Nick had done an about-face and decided to stay with him. But every time Nick looked at him, all he could think was,
You know I saw you. You make me sick.

He stood. He stretched his muscles, warming them up. He played the song on his iPhone one final time. Cranked it up even louder. The drums stirred a primeval instinct, the electric whine of the guitar screeching through his muscles. His adrenaline pumped higher.

The moment of reckoning had come. Nick whacked the bat against his palm. Those visualization techniques he'd been taught over the years were finally worth something. He pictured his father's head on its king-size pillow.

It's like a melon.

It's like a melon.

A bloody, bursting melon.

The song ended. He turned it off quickly, before the next song could begin. He didn't want anything to break the rhythm of rage coursing through his blood.

He needed to do it.

Right now. Before his brain could think.

Monday, 12:49 a.m.

K
ate leaned her head against the screen of her bedroom window. A breeze stirred the damp hair on her neck.

She closed her eyes. Then opened them wide, not even daring to blink. Craig Peters crept behind her eyelids, skulked deep in her mind, lurked in the blood that flowed through her veins. She could not get him away from her.

Her fingers gripped the window ledge. In a few moments, when the air had sufficiently cooled her sweat-drenched body, she would close the window and lock it. The air in her room would become stifling. Again.

But she had no choice. She could not sleep with the window unlocked. Nor could she sleep with the staircase that Finn had unboarded. Because in her dream, Craig Peters had crept up those stairs.

Tears of frustration sprang behind her eyelids. She hated being held hostage to this nighttime terror. It was eating her up.

Sometimes when Kate lay awake at night, trying
to calm her racing heart after another terror-inducing dream of Craig Peters, she thought of Ethan. He'd told her once that he'd killed a man in self-defense.

She'd been sympathetic, stroking his chest, murmuring her condolences. But she'd never understood. Never truly comprehended what it was like to end another human's life. To see that person's life force drain in front of your eyes. To know that it would stain your soul for the rest of your life.

Sometimes, in the very deepest part of the night, she was tempted to call Ethan. He would know what to say to her.

But then her conscience would demand: Did he still harbor feelings for her? Or was that declaration of love in May simply miscategorized relief that she had survived the Body Butcher's final—and most brutal—attack?

She'd never know. She didn't want to know.

She wanted it to be a chapter in her life that wasn't dog-eared from return visits. She didn't run the same route in the park anymore. She avoided Ethan's favorite coffee shops.

So every time her hand crept toward the phone, toward reassurance and maybe just a hint of salvation, she would snatch it back under the sheets. She couldn't ask that of Ethan.

Then she would cry. Not because she regretted her decision to end the purgatory they'd been in since New Year's Eve, but because she knew she was completely alone. Just her and her pathetic memories.

She locked her window and returned to her bed. The bottle of sleeping pills sat beside her bedside light, the two objects lined up like sentinels against the terrors of
the night. The light guarded her against her fears; the pills warded off insomnia.

Her fingers trembled—just once—as she slipped the pill between her lips, washing it down with a sip from the glass of lukewarm water on her bedside table.

Monday, 12:52 a.m.

N
ick glanced to his left. Lucy's door was still closed. He'd checked an hour ago, and she'd been asleep. She was a sound sleeper, so he was positive he didn't have to worry about her.

His father's bedroom loomed at the end of the hallway, the door open. Just in case any of his grieving children needed nighttime solace.

He stopped in the doorway. Through the blood pounding in his ears, Nick heard the sound of his father's heavy breathing, punctuated by Charlie's snores.

It was dark. He couldn't make out his father's form on the bed.

But Charlie heard him. Her snoring stopped.

There was a jingle of her dog tags as she lifted her head.

Shit
.

She was going to wake up his father.

He edged toward the bed. His heart began pounding crazily. He tried holding his breath, to be soundless, but
he couldn't hear anything, the blood was pounding so hard in his head.

His father lay on his back, an arm flung over the pillow next to him.

Nick watched the even rise and fall of his father's chest.

The hand that was curled over the sheet.

The hand that had pushed him in a swing, that had held his own small hand until Nick was ready to let go and skate by himself.

He swallowed. He was about to make that hand lifeless. His fingers trembled. Then tightened on the bat.

Charlie watched him, still lying down. But every muscle was tensed.

Bile rose in the back of his throat.
Come on, you can do it.

It was the same hand that had smashed a club on the side of his mother's head. The same hand that had dropped her over the balcony rail.

He killed Mum.

The bastard killed Mum.

He whacked her on the head and dumped her like a sack of potatoes.

He felt his strength returning.

It filled all his muscles, fired his blood.

He glanced at Charlie. He could see her confusion in the tilt of her head. He was her friend.

But she could sense his vibes. She knew he was threatening her owner. Her ears went back.

Shit. Was she going to attack him?

His father's hand spasmed reflexively. Nick practically jumped out of his skin. His own hands were
slippery with sweat. He couldn't control his breathing anymore. He was going to wake up his father.

He had to do it.

Now.

Now
.

He stared at his father's head.

It's a melon.

It's a fucking melon.

Do it, you fucking coward!

He raised the bat. It brushed the edge of his father's bed.

DO IT, YOU FUCKING COWARD!

Charlie growled low in her throat.

Nick swung the bat with all the strength of his fifteen-year-old hockey-honed body, closing his eyes.

His mother toppled over the balcony rail. Her staring gaze met his.

He heard the smash of breaking glass, the sound of an eighty-pound Labrador retriever leaping off the bed, his father reacting in a blur of sheets and blankets, as he swung again, his bat connecting with a satisfying thud.

A dog yelped in anguish.

He opened his eyes. He saw the broken bedside light hanging by a chord from the side table. Charlie lying on her side at the opposite edge of the bed. His father scrambling over to the dog while looking back at Nick in confusion.

Then anger.

Nick's jaw dropped. He'd hit the dog.

He'd hit the fucking dog.

She was panting heavily.

“Charlie!” His father picked up the dog and cradled her in his arms. He didn't seem to know what to say. He looked at Nick. At the bat.

A whimper escaped from Charlie's throat.

“What the fuck were you trying to do?” his father spat, scooping up the Lab and rushing across the room. Charlie's head hung heavily over Randall's arm.

“What the fuck did this dog ever do to you?” His father pushed past Nick, tears glistening in his eyes.

He heard his father running down the hallway, calling for Lucy. It took three tries before Lucy responded. She didn't answer with her usual sleep-drenched voice. Instead, her voice was panicky, wobbly.
That's what happens when your mother is killed by your father in the middle of the night.

Nick's fingers slowly unclenched around the bat. It fell to the floor with a sharp crack, then rolled under the bed. He walked on the balls of his feet down the hallway, so lightly that he couldn't hear himself move.

Like death walking. Never knowing when it's going to approach and then boom! It hits you.

Or your mother.

Why the fuck hadn't it hit his father?

He'd fucked up. Big time. Big fucking time. He gripped his cheek with his hand and dug his fingers in, feeling the skin stretch against his cheekbone.

The lights had been switched on downstairs. They illuminated the stairwell. He stood in the shadow of a wall, listening.

Lucy's distress was loud and hysterical. “What happened to Charlie? Is she okay? We need to go to the vet, Daddy!”

He couldn't hear what his father said to her.

Then his sister said, “But why can't we take her? I want to go!”

His father spoke a bit more sharply.

He made a phone call. It was brief. He hung up, spoke to Lucy again. She said, “Can I go with her, too?”

His father must have said yes, because then Lucy said, “I'll go get my stuff.”

He heard his sister come up the stairs. He ran as softly as he could back to his room and closed the door.

He could not face her.

He began to shiver. He could not face her.

And he hadn't even killed his father yet.

Lucy's footsteps hesitated outside his door.

But then they moved on.

She couldn't face him, either.

It was his father's fault.

He'd make him pay.
His fingers clenched into fists.

He'd finish the job he'd fucked up.

He'd do it right this time.

The doorbell rang. Nick heard a woman's voice, a soft exclamation of dismay. Within seconds the car had left.

Nick heard the front door close.

Silence.

Then he heard his father's footsteps.

They were coming up the stairs.

Monday, 1:21 a.m.

E
ven at one in the morning, with no traffic, the drive to the vet hospital seemed interminable. Kate knew she shouldn't be driving, not after taking the sleeping pill, but adrenaline pumped through her. She locked her gaze on the road, willing her brain to bypass the chemicals in her bloodstream, willing the car to get to the emergency clinic before Charlie gave up on them.

When Randall phoned her twenty minutes ago, she'd just fallen back asleep. Exhausted, she'd been reluctant to pull herself out of her dreamless state and answer the phone.

But the phone had been insistent, so she groped for the receiver, part of her wondering who it was, but part of her already knowing. Only a few people would call her in the middle of the night. She wasn't sure how it had happened, but for some reason Randall Barrett had decided she was his go-to girl.

“Kate,” he'd said, his voice so raw and tight and heavy
and angry that her sleeping-pill-induced grogginess had dissolved instantly like sugar in hot water. “What's wrong?”

“It's Charlie.” His voice choked off. He cleared his throat. “She's been hit by a baseball bat. Can you take her to the vet hospital for me?”

The way he said it, Kate knew that whatever had hurt Charlie hadn't been an accident. “Of course.” She flung back the covers, forcing her leaden muscles to move, flipping on all the lights. Alaska leaped to the floor and watched her. “I'll be there in ten minutes.” She'd thrown on some clothes, mixing some instant coffee with hot tap water and downing it in a gulp that almost made her retch the disgusting brew. Then she had driven to Randall's house with her heart in her bile-laced mouth.

When Randall opened the door, the look of desolation on his face was so absolute that she wanted to throw her arms around him and comfort him. But then she saw his daughter.

And his dog.

Randall carried Charlie in her crate to Kate's car. He lowered the crate gently, carefully, onto the backseat. “Hang in there, girl,” he said. “Please.”

He straightened and looked at Kate, a sheen of tears in his bloodshot eyes. “Take care of her for me.”

He hugged Lucy, a brief, fierce hug, then pushed her into the car, closing the door. Kate pushed the gear into Drive, her foot hitting the accelerator so hard that the rubber squealed.

Charlie, in her crate on the backseat, did not react.

Don't die,
Kate begged the dog in her head.
Please don't die.

Lucy sat in the backseat, her arm draped over Charlie's crate. She murmured words of comfort to her. Occasionally, the words were choked off by her sobs.

“When are we going to get there?” Lucy asked. She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“Just five more minutes.” They were on the MacKay Bridge now, one of two bridges connecting the city to its twin, Dartmouth. Beneath them, the harbor stretched out, black and still. Kate glanced in the rearview mirror at Lucy.

The girl's face was white and scared. “Her breathing is getting heavier.” They drove the rest of the way in silence. The car hit a pothole. Charlie let out a low whimper. Kate flinched. Finally, they saw the lights of the vet hospital. She hit the gas, speeding into the parking lot. Three other cars were there. She and Lucy carried each end of Charlie's crate inside, placing her gently on the floor.

The technician at the counter took one look at the injured dog and said, “Follow me.” They carried her into an examining room in the back. The technician helped Kate lift Charlie out of her crate. She lay on the cold examining table, her mouth open, her chest heaving. Brokenly. Unevenly. Lucy hovered over her, stroking her head. “It's okay, Charlie,” she whispered. “You're gonna be okay.” But her voice lacked conviction.

In less than two minutes, the vet hurried in. Instead of the usual introductions, she went to work right away on Charlie, placing her stethoscope on the dog's chest. Kate glanced at the name written on her white lab coat. Dr. Chung.

The vet looked up at Kate, frowning. “What happened to her?”

This was the hard part. Randall had given Kate a terse explanation, which wasn't an explanation at all because it didn't explain anything. “She was hit by a baseball bat.”

The vet's eyes narrowed. “Deliberately?” Her fingers began probing the Lab's abdomen. The dog tried to escape her fingers. “Please hold her head,” the vet said to Kate.

Kate grasped the dog's skull, gazing straight into her glazed eyes. Dr. Chung's question still hung in the air. It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess that something very wrong had happened. She glanced at Lucy. Tears slid down her cheeks, racing one another to be the first to reveal the truth to the vet.

Dr. Chung felt the dog's lower abdomen. “Who hit her?” This time she looked at Lucy.

Lucy's eyes were huge. Stricken. “My brother,” she whispered.

“How many times?” The vet's voice was brisk, but Kate could not miss the tension in her shoulders.

Lucy shook her head. A tear wobbled on her chin. “I think just once,” she whispered. And then covered her face because she knew just once was too much for this broken dog.

Dr. Chung looked at Kate. “She's in bad shape. Her pelvis is fractured. That we can fix. I'm worried about her liver.” She turned to the technician. “Get an IV in her. And prep her for surgery.”

Kate stroked the dog's head. Charlie's eyes had
closed. Her whole body seemed limp. “Don't give up, Charlie. Please.”

The vet was furiously writing in the dog's file. “The owner is Randall Barrett, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You do understand I have to notify Animal Cruelty Services.”

“Yes.”

“She may be put up for adoption if she survives the surgery.” With those final words, Dr. Chung left the room. Kate glanced at Lucy. Her face quivered. She was trying as hard as a girl who'd lost her mother and is about to lose her dog could to control her distress. Kate edged closer to her. Would she allow Kate to comfort her?

The technician waved toward the door. “Charlie needs to be taken in for X-rays now.”

Kate gave the dog a final pat. Lucy kissed Charlie on the muzzle, her tears dampening the dog's nose. Kate put her arm on the girl's shoulders and gently drew her away. “We have to leave her now, Lucy.”

Lucy nodded, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “I'll see you when you wake up, Charlie.”

They walked into the waiting room.

“Do we wait here?” Lucy asked.

The technician at the desk shook her head. “No. We'll call you when she comes out of the O.R.”

Lucy opened her mouth to protest, but the technician said, “We'll call you the minute she wakes up, promise.”

Kate led Lucy to the parking lot. The night air was soft. Lucy shivered.

Kate's heart thudded against her chest, protesting the sleeping pill/caffeine combo she had ingested.

She headed onto the main highway leading to the bridge. Her vision blurred. She blinked furiously, trying to clear her vision, trying to loosen the clutches of an old terror. She'd been in a car accident before. A fatal one. A car accident where she'd been driving—and her sister hadn't survived.

She gripped the wheel with clammy hands, furious with herself for forgetting a fifteen-year-old vow to never drive under the influence, wishing she'd never taken that stupid pill. And praying she would get to Randall's house before she hurt someone.

 

The top stair creaked. Signifying his father's imminent arrival. It was about time. Nick had been waiting for over half an hour. Right after the woman had come to take Charlie to the vet, his father had started up the stairs. Then turned around and went back downstairs.

Nick felt awful about Charlie, but he couldn't let it stop him. He'd made a promise.

A pledge.

No, a vow.

But how could he be so stupid to leave the bat under his father's bed? He'd waited in his room in agony, wondering if he could steal into his father's master bedroom to retrieve it. After waiting what seemed like forever, he decided his father was not going to come upstairs after all and it was safe to sneak into the master bedroom. His hand was on the doorknob to his bedroom when he heard his father come up the stairs. Within a minute, his father had yanked open the door.

The hall light threw a shadow across his face. But Nick could see his father's anger in the way he stood, smell it in the scotch that wafted off him in caustic, furious waves.

Now his father knew how Nick felt.

“You coward,” his father said. His lip curled. “I thought you had more courage than that.”

Nick's chin rose.

His father saw the movement. His nostrils flared. “Charlie was just a defenseless animal. She loved you—”

Don't say that. Don't say that. Don't say that.

He tried to block his father's words. He did not want to hear about the fucking dog. If he allowed himself to think of her in pain, he wouldn't be able to do what he needed to do.

He pressed his hands over his ears.

His father shouted, “You attacked an innocent animal, Nick! What is wrong with you?”

There was nothing
wrong
with him. It was his father who was wrong.

Nick hadn't wanted to.

He hadn't wanted to do any of it.

It was his father who made him.

His father stared at him, challenging him.

He would not let his father win this time.

Not this time.

Rage propelled him forward.

His father staggered back under Nick's weight. He'd caught his father by surprise.

Triumph flashed through him.

He could do this. He could fucking do this.

His father crashed onto his back, his head striking the floor. Nick planted himself on his father's chest. His father stared at him, dazed.

He could win this. He could do this.

He scrambled to pin his father's arms down with his knees. He wasn't going to fuck up killing his father again.

He wrapped his hands around his father's throat.

When his palms began to press against the tendons of his father's neck, understanding finally dawned in those damn blue eyes that used to be able to pin him to the spot.

He watched his father's eyes change. Horror, disbelief. Then anger.

All the while Nick squeezed his father's throat.

All the while Nick saw his mother's body, sprawled on the concrete. Her head, turned toward him. Her face no longer the face of his mother.

His father got an arm free.

No!

Nick squeezed harder, his strength fueled by panic. His father was bulky with muscle. He couldn't let him go.

His father swung a fist at Nick's head before he could duck.

He hit Nick square on the temple. Black spots spun in front of Nick's eyes.

Those two seconds cost him his hold on his father's neck. His father yanked Nick's hands off his neck, and then, before Nick knew what was happening, flipped him over.

Shit! Fucking bastard.
His father panted over
him, his fist pulled back and ready to punch Nick in the face.

Then his father lowered his arm.

And turned away.

Don't you underestimate me anymore, you bastard! Don't you dare think I won't do it!

Nick grabbed his father by the shoulder and slammed his fist into his father's face.

Randall's head snapped back.

Nick punched him again. The power of his skin and bone smashing into his father's skin and bone exhilarated him. His head buzzed.

Blood spouted through a slice in his father's cheek.

Yes.

He wanted his father's head to bleed like his mother's. He smashed his fist into the opened skin. Blood spattered his face. His father's blood. Warmth trickled through his closed fingers.

Randall scrambled back into the hallway. “Nick, stop it.”

Nick lunged forward, his fist raised. Blood ran down his wrist. With all his might, he slammed his fist into Randall's ear. His father crashed against the wall. He crumpled down.

Through the roar in his own ears, he heard Lucy shouting.

But nothing could stop him now. Nothing.

He grabbed his father's throat and began to squeeze. His father's eyelids—one almost swollen shut—fluttered. “You fucking bastard.” He spat the words. Every one of them gave him strength. He was close, so close. He could feel his father losing the fight.

Lucy threw herself at him. “Nick, stop it, please, Nicky, stop!”

He closed his eyes, shutting out his sister's desperate face.

And squeezed as hard as he could.

His mother's body drifted down from the balcony, white, fluttering. Like a snowflake.

He never saw the bottle coming at his head.