What was she trying to say?
“Spread your legs.” Paula roughly patted down Laura with her hands, clapping up and down her body. “Take off the sling.”
Laura didn’t move.
“Now,” Paula said, an edge to her voice that Andy had never heard before.
Was Paula afraid? Was the fearless bitch really scared of Laura?
“Take it off,” Paula repeated. Her body was tense. She was shifting her weight back and forth between her feet. “Now, Dumb Bitch.”
Laura sighed as she rested the cane against the bed. She reached up to her neck. She found the Velcro closure and carefully pulled away the sling. She held her wrapped hand away from her body. “I’m not wearing a wire.”
Paula lifted Laura’s shirt, ran her finger around the waistband.
Laura’s eyes found Andy. She shook her head again, just once.
Why?
Paula said, “Sit on the bed.”
“You have what you asked for.” Laura’s voice was calm, almost cold. “Let us go and no one else will get hurt.”
Paula jammed the gun into Laura’s face. “You’re the only one who’s going to get hurt.”
Laura nodded at Andy, as if this was exactly what she had expected. She finally looked at Paula. “I’ll stay. Let her go.”
No! The word got caught in Andy’s throat. She worked furiously to spit out the scarf. No!
“Sit down.” Paula shoved her mother back onto the bed. There was no way for Laura to catch herself with one arm. She fell on her side. Andy watched her mother’s expression contort in pain.
Anger seized Andy like a fever. She started groaning, snorting, making every noise she could manage.
Paula kicked away the aluminum cane. “Your daughter’s going to watch you die.”
Laura said nothing.
“Take this.” Paula tossed the spool of clothesline at Laura.
She caught it with one hand. Her eyes went to Andy. Then she looked back at Paula.
What? Andy wanted to scream. What am I supposed to do?
Laura held up the spool. “Is this supposed to make me feel sad?”
“It’s supposed to tie you up like a pig so I can gut you.”
Gut you?
Andy started pulling at the handcuffs. She pressed her chest into the edge of the table. The pain was almost unbearable, but she had to do something.
“Penny, stop this.” Laura slid toward the edge of the bed. “Nick wouldn’t want—”
“What the fuck do you know about what Nick wants?” Paula gripped the gun with both hands. She was shaking with fury. “You fucking cold bitch.”
“I was his lover for six years. I gave birth to his child.” Laura’s feet went flat to the ground. “Do you think he’d want his daughter to witness her mother’s brutal murder?”
“I should just shoot you,” Paula said. “Do you see my eye? Do you see what you did to me?”
“I’m actually quite proud of that.”
Paula swung the gun into Laura’s face.
Smack.
Andy felt her stomach clench as Laura struggled to stay upright.
Paula raised the gun again.
Andy squeezed her eyes closed, but she heard the horrible crunching sound of metal hitting bone. She was back at the farmhouse. Edwin was dead. Clara had screamed her first scream, then— Click-click-click-click.
The cylinder spinning in the revolver.
Andy’s eyes opened.
“Fucking bitch.” Paula struck Laura across the face again. The skin had opened. Her mouth was bleeding.
Mom! Andy’s yell came out like a grunt. Mom!
“It’s gonna get worse,” Paula told Andy. “Pace yourself.”
Mom! Andy yelled. She looked at Laura, then looked at the gun, then looked back at Laura.
Think about it!
Why was Paula threatening to gut her? Why hadn’t she shot Clara at the farmhouse? Why wasn’t she shooting Laura and Andy right now?
The clicking back at the farmhouse was the sound of Paula checking to see if all of the cartridges in the revolver were spent.
She didn’t have any bullets left in the gun.
Mom! Andy shook the chair so hard that fresh blood oozed out of her side. The table bumped into her chest. She twisted her wrists, trying to hold up her hands so that Laura could see them.
Look! Andy groaned, straining her vocal cords, begging her mother for attention.
Laura took another blow from the gun. Her head rolled to the side. She was dazed from the beating.
Mom! Andy shook the table harder. Her wrists were raw. She waved her hands, furiously trying to get Laura’s attention.
“Come on, kid,” Paula said. “All you’re gonna do is knock yourself over.”
Andy grunted, shaking her hands in the air so hard that the cuffs cut into her skin.
Look!
With painful slowness, Laura’s eyes finally focused on Andy’s hands.
Four fingers raised on the left. One finger raised on the right.
The same number of fingers Laura had shown Jonah Helsinger at the diner.
It’s why you haven’t pulled the trigger yet. There’s only one bullet left.
While Laura watched, Andy raised the thumb of her left hand.
Six fingers.
Six bullets.
The gun was empty.
Laura sat up on the bed.
Paula was thrown by her sudden recovery from the beating, which was exactly what Laura needed.
She grabbed the gun with her right hand. Her left hand corkscrewed through the air, punching Paula square in the throat.
Everything stopped.
Neither woman moved.
Laura’s fist was pressed to the front of Paula’s neck.
Paula’s hand was wrapped around Laura’s arm.
A clock was ticking somewhere in the room.
Andy heard a gurgling sound.
Laura wrested away her injured hand.
A ribbon of red sagged into the collar of Paula’s shirt. Her throat had been sliced open, the skin gaping in a crescent-shaped wound.
Blood dripped from the razorblade Laura held between her fingers.
I will slice open your fucking throat if you hurt my daughter.
That was why Laura wasn’t wearing the splint. She needed her fingers free so that she could hold onto the blade and punch it into Paula’s neck.
Paula coughed a spray of blood. She was shaking—not from fear this time, but from white hot fury.
Laura leaned in. She whispered something into Paula’s ear.
Rage flickered like a candle in her eyes. Paula coughed again. Her lips trembled. Her fingers. Her eyelids.
Andy pressed her forehead down to the table.
She found herself feeling detached from the carnage. She wasn’t shocked by sudden violence anymore. She finally understood the serenity on her mother’s face when she had killed Jonah Helsinger.
She had seen it all before.
ONE MONTH LATER
I felt a cleaving in my Mind—
As if my Brain had split—
I tried to match it—Seam by Seam— But could not make them fit.
The thought behind, I strove to join Unto the thought before— But Sequence ravelled out of Sound Like Balls—upon a Floor.
—Emily Dickinson
EPILOGUE
Laura Oliver sat on a wooden bench outside the Federal Corrections Institute in Maryland. The complex resembled a large high school. The adjacent satellite facility was more akin to a boys’ summer camp. Minimum security, mostly white-collar criminals who’d skimmed from hedge funds or forgotten to pay decades of taxes. There were tennis and basketball courts and two running tracks. The perimeter fence felt cursory. The guard towers were sparse. Many of the inmates were allowed to leave during the day to work at the nearby factories.