The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8) (55 page)

‘Anthony,’ Reuben ordered. ‘Get over here, boy.’

Faith said, ‘Anthony, sweetheart. Come to me. It’s okay.’

Will slid over a little bit more. His finger tensed on the trigger.

Reuben screamed, ‘Now, God dammit!’

Anthony stepped back.

Will took his finger off the trigger.

Reuben wrapped his injured arm around his son. Anthony fell into him, his head blocking his father’s face. The Sig pressed at the boy’s temple. Anthony didn’t struggle. He didn’t speak. He had learned to be still when his father was angry. All of his fear channeled into his lip, that quivered like his adoptive grandmother’s,
and the look of resignation in his eyes that he’d inherited from Angie.

When she talked to Will about the abuse, she never talked about it. She only gave advice:
All you have to do is wait until it’s over.

Anthony was waiting for the inevitable. The screaming. The hitting. The black eye. The split lip. The sleepless nights as he waited for the door to open.

‘Back away.’ Reuben had to rest the side of his hand on his son’s shoulder. He was panting hard. Blood poured from the bullet hole just below his clavicle. They were at the same impasse as the one upstairs, only now, Reuben was even more desperate.

Will said, ‘Put down the gun. You don’t want to do this.’

‘Shit.’ Reuben’s hand started shaking. Blood slipped down his other arm. The muscles were spasming, tensing his chest and shoulders. ‘What’d you hit me with?’

‘Hornaday sixty-grain TAP URBAN.’

‘Tactical Application for Police.’ Reuben’s eyelids were heavy. His face was slick with sweat. ‘Reduced penetration for urban environments.’

Will used his back foot to push his knee forward. He couldn’t come from the side. He had to get closer. ‘Sounds like you know your ammo.’

‘You see that Snake Slayer that bitch pulled?’

‘Probably had .410 Bonds in the chamber.’

‘Lucky I stopped her.’ Reuben blinked sweat out of his eyes. Will wondered if the man’s vision was blurring. There were a lot of important things near the clavicle. Subclavian arteries. Subclavian veins. Sara would know. She would record the
damage in Reuben Figaroa’s autopsy, because if the man hurt Angie’s grandson, he would not walk out of here alive.

‘Let’s talk this out,’ Will said. ‘You’re gonna need surgery. I can help you.’

‘No more surgery.’ Reuben shook his head. He was blinking more slowly now. His arm was not so tight around Anthony. The muzzle of the Sig had tilted upward, but he could still put a bullet in his son’s brain.

Will moved closer.

Faith made a noise. Anthony looked at her. Will did not. He knew she was trying to wave the boy over.

‘Don’t.’ Reuben straightened the gun.

Will asked, ‘What’s the trigger pull on that Sig? Five and a half pounds? Six?’

Reuben nodded.

‘Why don’t you move your finger? You don’t want to make a mistake.’

‘I don’t make mistakes.’

Will slid closer. Ten feet. If Reuben moved just a little to the side, Will was close enough for the head shot. To make one. To receive one. Will couldn’t trust the gun in Reuben’s hand. It was upstairs all over again. Reuben could flick it out and kill Will. He could flick it back and kill Anthony.

Will said, ‘You’re not doing too well, man.’

‘I’m not,’ he agreed. The arm around Anthony started to relax again. The boy could pull away, but Reuben could still shoot the gun. At Anthony. At Will.

‘Let’s talk this out,’ Will repeated. He pushed a few inches closer. The rifle was out in front of him. Thirty-nine inches of
weapon. One hand on the grip, the other on the stock. Will slid his hand farther down the barrel. His shoulder would dislocate if the gun went off. He curved his back, buying the illusion of extra space.

Reuben said, ‘I can’t leave my boy alone.’

Will couldn’t look at the kid. He couldn’t see Angie’s eyes looking back at him. ‘You don’t have to take Anthony with you.’

‘There’s nothing left for him,’ Reuben said. ‘Jo’s gone. My career is gone. That video gets out, and my freedom is gone.’

Will said, ‘Do you see how close I am?’

Reuben’s eyelids fluttered. He straightened the Sig.

Will said, ‘I can pull the trigger right now.’

‘So can I.’ Reuben’s breathing was shallow. His skin had no color. Will could see every single pore in his face, every single follicle of hair. ‘I’m not going to leave my boy alone.’ He swallowed. ‘Jo wouldn’t want that. Her real mother left her. She would never leave her son.’

Will pushed himself closer. He thought about why Reuben was doing this, how the loss of control had spun out his life. He asked, ‘How do I stop this, Reuben? Tell me how to save your son.’

‘Who killed her?’

Will tried to think of the best lie to tell him, the one that would keep him from murdering his son. That Jo was still alive, that Reuben had something to live for? That Jo was dead, but the woman behind her murder was in police custody? That she was Jo’s mother? That she had tried to ransom her own grandson?

Reuben was out of patience. ‘Who, man? Who killed Jo?’

‘The woman upstairs.’ He couldn’t tell if he’d made the right choice, but he had to keep going. ‘Her name is Virginia Souza. She’s a prostitute who met Jo in jail. They argued. Souza took out her revenge.’

To Will’s great relief, Reuben started nodding, like that made sense. ‘Was it over drugs? What they fought over?’

‘Yes.’ Will moved another millimeter, then another. His hand slid farther down the barrel. Too far to safely hold on to the stock. There was no way he could safely fire the rifle now. ‘Souza knew that Jo was rich, that she had money. She followed her to the party. She kidnapped her. She took Anthony.’

Reuben nodded again. The reason was obvious. His wife had hidden her addiction. She would hide other things. ‘Bitch is dead now.’

‘That’s right,’ Will said.

‘Jo too.’ He stopped to swallow. ‘She betrayed me. Betrayed everything we had. She didn’t listen to me.’

‘That’s what women do.’

‘They just take and take and spit you out like you’re nothing.’

The muzzle of the Sig had tilted up again, but again not enough to clear Anthony’s head. Reuben was faltering. His muscles were twitching. His nerves were in disarray. His finger could pull the trigger by mistake or by design. Whether it was pointing at Will or at Anthony when it happened was going to be a delicate dance.

‘Stop moving,’ Reuben said.

‘I’m not moving.’ Will moved up.

Reuben’s throat flexed as he swallowed. ‘She kept it from me. The pills. She stole that video. I know she’s the one who stole it. Ruined my life. My son’s.’ He swallowed again. ‘My son.’

Will was close enough now. He could only grab one thing: the gun or Anthony.

Anthony or Will.

All it came down to was which direction the gun was pointing.

‘It’s okay.’ Reuben was looking at Will now, a flatness to his eyes. His mouth gaped open. His lips were blue. He was having trouble getting air. He blinked, slow. He blinked again, even slower. He blinked a third time and Will lunged forward, his arm swinging through the air, backhanding Anthony out of the way.

Reuben’s head exploded.

Hot blood splattered Will’s face and neck. Bone was inside his mouth, up his nose. His eyes were on fire. He fell back, dropped the rifle. He clawed at his face. Strings of muscle and tissue caught in his fingers. He sneezed. Blood sprayed onto the floor. He could barely see it. He was standing, walking backward like he could get away from the carnage, but the carnage was all over him.

‘Will!’ Amanda yanked him forward by his arm. He stumbled, tripping over his own feet. She kept pulling him, then dragging him across the atrium, down a corridor, where he bounced off the wall. He was completely blind. Carpet was under his feet. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. Splinters were ripping apart his eyeballs—shards of Reuben Figaroa’s bone and teeth and cartilage.

‘Lean over.’ Amanda pushed him down.

Cold water streamed into his mouth, his face. Chunks of gray matter slid down his skin. He saw light. He blinked. He saw white porcelain, a tall faucet. They were in the bathroom. He was leaning over the sink. Will reached for the soap dispenser. It ripped off the wall. The bag burst. He took handfuls of soap and scrubbed
his face and neck. He ripped off his shirt. He scrubbed his chest until the skin was raw.

‘Stop,’ Amanda said. ‘You’re going to hurt yourself.’ She grabbed his hands. She made him stop before he peeled the skin off his body. ‘You’re okay,’ she told him. ‘Take a breath.’

Will didn’t want to take a breath. He was sick of people telling him to take a breath. He stuck his head under a different faucet in a clean sink. He rinsed out his mouth. The water was pink when he spat it into the bowl. He rubbed his face, scratching the skin, making sure there were no more pieces of Reuben Figaroa in his eyes and hair.

‘Drink some more water.’

He picked something out of his ear. Red grit, part of a molar.

Will threw the tooth against the wall. He leaned his hands on the basin. His breath was like fire in his lungs. His skin burned. Phantom drops of blood slid down his face and neck.

‘It’s all right,’ Amanda said.

‘I know it’s all right.’ He closed his eyes. It wasn’t all right. Blood was everywhere. In the sinks. Pooling onto the floor. The bathroom was freezing. He was shaking from the cold.

‘Anthony?’ He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

‘He’s safe. Faith has him.’

‘Jesus,’ Will mumbled. He tried to regulate his breathing, to get back some sense of control over his body. He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘I wasn’t sure Faith had a line.’

‘She did. I did. All of us did. But he beat us to it.’ Amanda started pulling paper towels from the dispenser. ‘Reuben Figaroa killed himself.’

Will’s head jerked up in surprise.

‘The second Anthony was gone, Reuben put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.’

Will stared at her in disbelief.

She nodded. ‘He killed himself.’

Will tried to play it back in his head, but all he remembered was the fleeting concern as he shoved Anthony out of the way that the kid would fall and hurt himself.

Amanda said, ‘You did everything right, Will. Reuben Figaroa made a choice.’

‘I could’ve saved him.’ Will wiped his face with a paper towel. The rough paper was like a cat’s tongue. He looked down expecting to see blood but finding only the dark stain of water.

Was Faith wiping Anthony’s face in another bathroom?

When the gun had gone off, the boy had been standing as close to Reuben as Will had been. For how many years would Reuben’s son feel the slick fibers of his father’s brain dripping down the side of his face? How many nights would he wake up screaming, scared that he was suffocating on the gray matter and bone that he’d sniffed up into his nose?

‘Will,’ Amanda said. ‘How could you have saved him?’

Will shook his head. He had made the wrong choice. He’d felt it in his gut even as the lie had come out of his mouth. ‘Reuben would’ve put down the gun if I’d told him the truth about Jo. That she was alive. That he had something to live for.’ He wadded up the paper towel into a ball. ‘You heard what he said about not leaving Anthony alone, that Jo wouldn’t want that. No way he would’ve pulled the trigger if he’d thought there was still a chance that his family was intact.’

‘Or he would’ve shot you instead. Or been shot by any one of us, because he stabbed a woman to death two floors above us. He shot another woman in the head. He beat his wife for nearly a decade. He threatened to murder his own son. Where are you getting this notion that there was some romantic bond between Reuben Figaroa and his wife that you could magically invoke and make everything better?’

Will chucked the paper towel into the trash.

‘If you love someone, you don’t go out of your way to hurt them. You don’t torture them. You don’t terrify them or make them live in constant fear. That’s not how love works. It’s not how normal people work.’

Will didn’t need Amanda to point out that there wasn’t much daylight between Angie and Reuben. ‘Thanks, but I think I’m going to pass on today’s parable.’

Amanda didn’t respond. She was looking at his bare chest. The round, perfect
O
s that the cigarettes had seared into his flesh. The black tattooing left by the electrical burns. The Frankenstein stitches around the skin graft from when a wound refused to close.

Before Sara, he would’ve scrambled to cover himself. Now, he was just intensely uncomfortable.

Amanda unzipped her jacket. ‘I used to come watch you on visitation days.’

Visitation days. She meant at the children’s home. Will had always looked forward to the visits, until he started dreading them. All the kids were bathed and trotted out for prospective parents. And then the kids like Will were trotted back in.

‘I couldn’t adopt you. I was a single woman. A career gal. Obviously I was unfit to take care of anything more than a pet rock.’ She wrapped her jacket around his shoulders. Her hands stayed there. She looked at him in the mirror. ‘I stopped visiting because I couldn’t stand the longing. Not my own, which was hard enough, but
your
longing broke my heart. You wanted so badly for someone to pick you.’

Will stared down at his hands. There was blood crusted into his cuticles.

‘I picked you. Faith picked you. Sara picked you. Let that be enough. Let yourself accept that you’re worth it.’

He used his thumbnail to scrape out the blood. His skin was still pink. He shivered again from the cold. ‘She’s going to be alone.’

Amanda helped him into the jacket. ‘Wilbur, women like Angie are always going to be alone. No matter how many people surround them, they will always be alone.’

He knew that. He had seen it all of his life. Even when Angie was with him, she still held herself apart. ‘Do you think we have a case against her for letting Delilah die in the trunk of her car?’

‘With Jane Doe as our only witness? No security footage, no DNA, no incriminating fingerprints, no smoking gun, no corroborating testimony, no confession?’ Amanda laughed at the futility. ‘It’s Denny who’s going to suffer. I can keep him out of jail, but he’ll lose his job, his pension, his benefits.’