Malice (3 page)

Her mother had explained it to her, so she wouldn't be frightened. It was something she could do for them, like a gift, she could help her dad be happy, and help her mom, it would be as though she was even more a part of them, and her dad would love her more than he ever had before. At first, Grace didn't understand, and then she cried … what would her friends think if they ever knew? How could she do
that
with her father? But her mother kept telling her how she had to help them, how she owed it to them, how her mother would die if someone didn't help her, and maybe he would leave them, and then they'd be alone, with no one to take care of them. She painted a terrifying picture, and put the leaden mantle of responsibility on Grace's shoulders. The girl sagged at the weight of it, and the horror of what was expected of her. But they didn't wait to hear her answer. That night, they came into her room, and her mother helped him. She held her down, and crooned to her, and told her what a good girl she was, and how much they loved her. And afterwards, when they went back to their room, John held Ellen in his arms and thanked her.

It was a lonely life for Grace after that. He didn't come to her every night, but almost. Sometimes she thought she would die of shame, and sometimes he really hurt her. She never told anyone, and eventually her mother stopped coming into the room with him. Grace knew what was expected of her, and that she had no choice except to do it. And when she argued with him, he'd hit her hard, and eventually she knew there was no way out, no choice. She did it for her, not for him. She submitted so he wouldn't beat her mother anymore, or leave them. But anytime Grace didn't cooperate with him, or do everything he asked, he went back to his own room and beat up her mother, no matter how sick she was, or how much pain she was in. It was a message that Grace always understood, and she would run shrieking into their room, and swear that she'd do anything he wanted. And over and over and over again, he made her prove it. For over four years now, he had done everything he could dream of with her, she was his very own love slave, his daughter. And the only thing her mother had done to protect Grace from him was get birth control pills for her so she wouldn't get pregnant.

She had no friends at all once he started sleeping with her. She had had few enough before, because she was always afraid that someone would find out he was beating her mother, and Grace knew she had to protect them. But once she started sleeping with him, it was impossible to talk to any of the kids in school, or even the teachers. She was always sure they'd know, that they'd see something on her face, or her body, like a sign, like a malignancy that, unlike her mother, she wore on the outside. The malignancy was his, but she never really understood that. Until now. Now she knew that with her mother gone, she didn't have to do this. It had to stop. She just couldn't now. Not even for her mother. It was too much … and especially in this room. He had always come to Grace's room, and forced her to let him in. He had never dared take her in his own room. But now it was as though he expected her to step right into her mother's shoes, and fill them in ways that even her mother never could. It was as though he expected her to be his bride now. Even the way he talked to her was different. It was all out in the open. He expected her to be his woman.

And as he looked at her body shimmering enticingly at him, her frantic pleas and arguments only served to arouse him further. He looked hard and ominous as he stood holding her in his powerful grip, and with a single gesture he threw her onto his bed, precisely where his invalid wife had lain until only two days before, and for all the empty years of their marriage.

But this time, Grace struggled with him, she had already decided that she wasn't going to submit again, and as she fought with him, she realized that she had been crazy to think she could stay under the same roof with him, and not have the same nightmare continue. She would have to run away, but first she had to resist, and survive what he was doing to her. She knew she couldn't let him do it to her again … she couldn't Even if her mother had wanted her to be good to him, she had been good enough. She couldn't do it anymore … never again … never … but as she flailed her arms helplessly, he pinned her down with his powerful arms, and the weight of his body. Her legs were swiftly parted by his own, and the familiarity of him forced his way through her with more pain than she had ever known or imagined. For a moment, she almost thought he might kill her. It had never been this way before, he had never hurt her as much as he did now. It was as though he were beating her with a fist from inside this time, and wanted to prove to her that he owned her and could do anything he wanted. It was almost beyond bearing and for an instant she thought she might faint, as the room swirled around her, and he hammered at her again and again, tearing at her breasts, chewing at her lips, forcing himself into her again and again, until she seemed to drift in a half state near death, wishing that finally, mercifully, he would kill her.

But even as he ravished her, she knew she couldn't do this again. He couldn't do it to her, she couldn't survive it, for him, or anyone. She knew that she was within an inch of falling off the edge of a dangerous ledge, and suddenly as she fought and clawed at him, she knew through the blur that she was fighting for her survival. And then, without even knowing how she had remembered it, she knew that they had rolled closer to her mother's night table. For years now, there had been neat rows of pills there and a glass and a pitcher of water. She could have poured the water over him, or hit him with the pitcher, but it was gone. There were no more pills, no water, no glass, and no one to take them. But without thinking, Grace groped her hand along the table, as he continued to pound at her, shouting and grunting. He had slapped her hard several times across the face, but now he was only interested in punishing her with his sexual force and not his hands. He was squeezing her breasts, and pressing her into the bed. He had almost knocked the wind out of her, and her vision was still blurred from when he had hit her, but she felt the drawer of the night table open as she pulled at it, and then she felt the sleek cool steel of the gun her mother had hidden there against intruders. Ellen would never have dared to use it on her husband, or even to threaten him. No matter what he had done to her, or Grace, Ellen had truly loved him.

Grace felt her fingers go around its smooth surfaces, and she got a grip on it, and brandished it above him, for an instant wanting to hit him with it, just to stop him. He was almost finished with her, but she couldn't let him do this to her again. She had to stop him, no matter what or how, she knew she had to stop him before it went any further. She couldn't survive this again. And tonight only told her that he intended this to be her fate for a lifetime. He wouldn't let her go anywhere, he would never let her leave or go to college, or do anything else. She would have no life except to service him, and she knew that whatever it took, she had to stop him. And as she held the gun in her shaking, flailing hand, he came with a huge shuddering shout that made her wince with pain and anguish and revulsion. Just hearing that again made her hate him. And as she pointed the gun at him, he looked up and saw it.

“You little bitch!” he shouted at her, still shaken by the strength of his orgasm. No one had ever aroused him as Grace did. He wanted to take her and turn her inside out, tear her limb from limb, and devour her. Nothing excited him more than his own flesh, it was deeply primeval. And he was outraged now that she was still going to fight him. He moved to grab the gun from her, and she could see what he was going to do to her. He was going to beat her again and beating her always aroused him further. She couldn't let him do it, couldn't let him take her ever again. She had to save herself from him. He was still inside her, as he reached over to grab the gun from her, and in panic she squeezed the trigger as he tried to take it. He looked stunned for just an instant as the gun went off with a sound that terrified her, his eyes bulged, and then he fell down on her with a crushing weight. She had shot him through the throat, and he was bleeding profusely, but he wasn't moving. She tried to fight her way out from under him, and free herself from him, but she couldn't do it. He was too heavy, and she couldn't breathe, and there was blood in her eyes and her mouth now. She was gasping for air, and then with all the strength she had, she forced him from her. He rolled over on his back on the bed, and made a terrifying gurgling sound as he looked at her, but nothing moved and his eyes were open.

“Oh my God … oh my God …” she said, still gasping for air, and clutching her own throat now as she stared at him. She could still taste his blood on her tongue, and she didn't want to touch him. There was blood all over her and the bed, and all she could think of were her mother's words … “Be good to Daddy, Grace … be good to him … take care of him … always take care of your father …” And she had. She had shot him. His eyes moved around the room, but he seemed to be paralyzed, nothing moved, as he stared at her in terror. She backed into the corner then, and looked at him, and as she did, her whole body shook violently and she threw up on the carpet. When she stopped, she forced herself to go to the phone, and dial the operator.

“I need … an ambulance … ambulance … my father's been shot … I shot my father. …” She was gasping for air, and she gave them the address, and then she stood staring at him. He hadn't moved since he'd fallen back on the bed, and his organ was limp now. The thing that had so terrified her, that had tortured her for so long, looked suddenly so small and harmless, as did he. He looked terrifying and pathetic, blood was bubbling from his throat, and he moaned from time to time. She knew she had done a terrible thing, but she couldn't help it. The gun was still in her hand, and she was cowering naked in the corner when the police came. And she was gasping from her asthma.

“My God …” the first officer into the room said softly, and then he saw her and took the gun from her as the others walked into the room behind him. The youngest of them thought to wrap her in a blanket, but he had seen the marks on her, the blood smeared everywhere, and the look in her eyes. She seemed crazy. She had been to hell and only halfway back.

Her father was still alive when the ambulance and the paramedics came, but barely. She had severed his spinal cord and the paramedics suspected that the bullet had gone into his lung after that. He was completely paralyzed, and couldn't speak to them. But he didn't even see Grace as he left. His eyes were closed, and they were giving him oxygen. He was barely breathing.

“Is he gonna make it?” the senior policeman asked the paramedics as they put him into the ambulance and turned the siren on in a hurry.

“Hard to say,” they answered, and then in an undertone, “Not likely.” They left the scene then, and the older officer shook his head. He had known John Adams since he was in high school. John had handled his divorce for him. Hell of a guy, and why in God's name had the kid shot him? He'd seen the scene when they'd arrived, and he'd noticed that neither of them was dressed, but that could mean anything. Obviously, it had happened after they went to bed in their own rooms, and John probably didn't sleep in pajamas. Why the girl was naked was another thing. She was obviously unbalanced, and maybe her mom's death had been too much for her. Maybe she blamed her father for the mother's death. Whatever it was, they'd find it out in the investigation.

“How is she?” he asked one of his junior officers. There were a dozen officers on the scene by then. It was the biggest thing that had happened in Watseka since the minister's son had taken LSD and committed suicide ten years before. That had been a tragedy, but this was going to be a scandal. For a man like John Adams to be shot by his own kid, that was a real crime, and a loss for the whole town. No one was going to believe it. “Is she on drugs?” he asked as a photographer took pictures of the bedroom. The gun was already in a plastic bag in the squad car.

“She doesn't look like it,” the young cop said. “Not obviously, at least. She looks kind of out of it, and very scared. She has asthma, and she's having a hard time breathing.”

“I'm sorry to hear it,” the senior officer said sarcastically as he glanced around the neat living room. He had been there only hours before, after the funeral. It was hard to believe why he was back now. Maybe the kid was just plain crazy. “Her father's got a lot worse than asthma.”

“What did they say?” The junior officer looked concerned. “Is he gonna make it?”

“It doesn't look great. Seems like our little shooter here did quite a job on her old man. Spinal cord, maybe a lung, God only knows what else, or why.”

“Think he was doing her?” the younger man asked, intrigued by the situation, but the older man looked outraged.

“John Adams? Are you nuts? Do you know who he is? He's the best lawyer in town. And the most decent guy you'd ever want to meet. You think a guy like him would do his own kid? You're as crazy as she is and not much of a cop if you can come to a conclusion like that.”

“I don't know … it kind of looked like it, they were both naked … and she looks so scared … there's a bruise coming up on her arm … and …” He hesitated, given the senior man's reaction, but he couldn't conceal evidence, no matter who the guy was. Evidence was evidence. “There was come on the sheets, it looked like …” There had been a lot of blood, but there were other spots too. And the young cop had seen them.

“I don't give a damn what it looked like, O'Byrne. There's more than one way for come to get on a man's sheets. The guy's wife just died, maybe he was lonely, maybe he was playing with himself when she came in with the gun, maybe she didn't know what he was doing and it scared her. But there's no way in hell you're gonna come in here and tell me that John Adams was doing it to his kid. Forget it.”

“Sorry, sir.” The other officers were already rolling up the sheets as evidence anyway and putting them in plastic bags too, and another officer was talking to Grace in her bedroom. She was sitting on the bed, still wearing the blanket they had given her when they got there. She had found her inhaler and she was breathing more easily now, but she looked deathly pale, and the officer questioning her wondered how clear she was on what had happened. She seemed so dazed that he almost wondered if she understood him. She said she didn't remember finding the gun, it was suddenly just in her hand, and it went off. She remembered the noise, and then her father bleeding all over her. And that was all she remembered.