The Cabin, page 23
“Why? You have money.” The question was useless, but she needed to connect with him, to get him away from Caleb. “You beat the roadblocks. Why didn’t you head for the border?”
His glittering gaze dropped to the floor, and he became a shadow sitting on the edge of her son’s bed. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me.”
“Who? Who wouldn’t let you?”
The obsidian glint returned. “You know who.”
“Chuck?”
“That’s right.”
“He’s dead.”
A growl came from across the room. Her heart raced, pumping adrenaline through her limbs. Why hadn’t she brought her gun? Her gaze skittered around her seeking a weapon, but quickly returned to his shadow in confusion. He was laughing, not growling. A deep rumbling laugh. “That’s a good one,” he said.
“He is,” Fiona insisted. “The police told me. His body is at the morgue.”
“Oh, I know. I was the one who put him there.”
“Let’s talk about this in another room,” she pleaded with him. All she could think about was putting distance between him and her son. If Devon heard them and brought the gun in here... No, that couldn’t happen. He didn’t know how to shoot. Caleb could be hurt.
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll go. Just come away from Caleb.”
He didn’t move. After a long pause, he said, “There was something evil in Chuck.”
Fiona’s fear became frustration. “You think I don’t know that? He murdered at least two women, maybe more.”
Rico continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “The thing left him for a time. I guess it couldn’t use him while he was in San Quentin.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about and struggled for a response that would get him to walk out of the room with her. Before she could think of anything, he spoke again.
“He was different on the inside. Smaller. Sadder. But it came back when we broke out. He looked at me with the same eyes as Hal.”
“Who’s Hal?”
“My mother’s boyfriend.” Rico turned his head to the window, and the eyes flickered out. “The evil thing... you can’t kill it. It just moves on to somebody else if you kill the person it’s living in.”
The conversation had taken a turn Fiona didn’t understand with her mind, but a more primitive part of her understood just fine. The primitive part of her screamed, Run.
She couldn’t run, though, not while Rico sat on her son’s bed.
“Can we talk about this in the kitchen? I’ll get you coffee or something to eat.” Her voice sounded like a stranger’s, calm and hostess-y. Not like her at all.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.
“I want to know about the evil thing.” She didn’t, not even a little bit.
“You’ll know more about it than you want to know very soon.” He stood.
It’s what she’d wanted. She’d wanted him to stand, to walk out of this room, to leave her little one behind, but suddenly he seemed so tall. He was a childhood boogie man. A terror. It took all of her self-control to turn her back to him and walk slowly into the hallway.
She heard the creak of floorboards and knew he was following her. She didn’t turn, didn’t look behind her. She continued forward, one foot in front of the other. When Fiona reached the kitchen doorway, she made a right. His hand stopped her. “No. We’re leaving,” he said.
She flinched away from his touch but didn’t turn. “You still haven’t told me why you need me.” Fiona allowed her voice to rise to normal decibels. Now she wanted Devon to hear her, wanted him to wake, to understand what was happening.
Rico sighed. It was an unexpected sound. It made him seem vulnerable and human. “The evil needs a new person. It’s going to take me if I don’t give it someone else.”
So that was it. He was insane. Certifiably insane. She’d thought it was the case when he spoke with someone who wasn’t there at the car that night, but she’d thought maybe it had been his guilt talking, that maybe he’d hoped killing her would resolve his remorse over Chuck’s death.
“If you kill me, won’t it need someone new?” She played his game in a loud voice. Devon, get the gun. She sent a silent plea to the bedroom.
Rico tapped something against his leg as he thought about her question. It glinted like his eyes had done earlier. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t believe so.”
The knife. It was so close. If Rico heard Devon coming, if he knew they had a gun, he’d put it to her throat. She had to keep him talking, find logic where there was none.
“Why?” she asked. “You say it left Chuck when he was in prison because it couldn’t use him there. It left him again when he died for the same reason. If I’m dead, it can’t use me either.”
He grabbed her arm again. “Listen,” he hissed. “I’ve seen this thing my whole life. I saw it in jail. I saw it on the outside. There are different ways to make it happy. I’m hoping killing you will satisfy it.”
Fiona forced herself to gaze into his eyes instead of down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Then you’ll be just like Chuck.”
“What do you mean?”
She decided to play his game, enter the delusion with him. “It used him. He killed to make it happy, but it didn’t work. He had to kill again and again, and in the end, it trapped him.” She spoke as loudly as she could without making him suspicious. “Killing me won’t help you escape from it. You’ll play right into its hands.”
Light from the front door’s sidelights shone into the foyer, and she could see him clearly for the first time that night. He looked terrible.
His skin, always pale, was now gray. A purple bruise covered his left cheek. His hair was crusted and tangled and there was panic in his eyes. He was as terrified as she was, maybe more so. His fear gave her hope.
“Don’t let it use you. Resist it,” she said.
“Resist it?” He asked the question as if it had never occurred to him.
Her hope grew bolder. “I can help you fight it,” she said. “Turn yourself in. They have doctors—”
“No.” He almost shouted the word.
She’d gone too far. She shouldn’t have mentioned turning himself in. “Okay. Okay.” She raised her voice as high as his. Devon, wake up. Devon, get the gun. “Don’t turn yourself in. Run. Get away from the cops. Get away from it.”
He tossed his head back in frustration. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
“I have,” Fiona said. “Leave, and it’ll stay with me. I’m Chuck’s sister, right?”
He brought his head down slowly and met her eyes, but he didn’t speak.
“I saw it, too,” she lied. “When Chuck was on trial for the murders. It looked at me through his eyes. I think it wanted me then, wanted me alive.”
He inhaled and exhaled deeply, the sound whistling through his nose. “I don’t want to kill you,” he finally said.
Something jumped inside her, but she tamped it down. Maybe they wouldn’t have to shoot Rico, add another death to the number her family had already accumulated. Maybe he’d just go away. She had to be calm, sympathetic. “I know you don’t. You’re not like Chuck, not like—” What was his mother’s friend’s name? Hal, that was it. “Hal,” she said.
“I’m not. I never hurt a woman.”
“I could tell that about you.” God help her, she put a hand on his arm. She’d learned the power of touch through her years of teaching Pilates. He seemed to melt under its warmth. “I have some cash, not a lot, but a few hundred. I’ll get it for you.”
She began to move away, but he grabbed her hand. “I got money.”
“What do you need then? You want to take one of our cars?”
“No.” He didn’t release her hand.
Her heart began to thud again. What did he want? She thought she’d convinced him to go. Why didn’t he do it?
“Did you really see it?” he finally said.
Fiona nodded slowly, not trusting herself to lie again. She’d never been a good liar, although it seemed she was getting better.
“So you know I’m not crazy?” he continued.
“You’re not crazy,” she said.
He dropped her hand, and she rubbed hers on her pajama bottoms as if she could rub the insanity off. He moved to the front door but paused and turned with his hand on the knob. “I hate to leave you with it.”
She forced a smile. “It’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
He turned toward the door again, and a shot rang out.
7.7.4
DEVON
Rico dropped to the floor, gripping his leg. Fiona’s head snapped toward Devon, who stood at the far end of the living room, her gun in his hand.
“What did you do?” she said in a hushed voice.
What did he do? He’d saved her, that’s what he’d done.
“He was leaving,” she said.
Devon looked at the gun in his hand. “I didn’t know.”
Fiona rushed to the bedroom and returned with a phone pressed to her ear. “Yes. Yes. Please hurry.” She disconnected.
They stood there staring at Rico, not moving, for a long moment. Blood was gushing from the wound in his leg, the pool growing beneath him. A vision of Bob, the nice neighbor, lying in a puddle of red injected itself into Devon’s mind. Rico deserved this.
Fiona spun, ran down the hallway, and returned a moment later with a bath towel. She dropped to the floor next to Rico and began to wrap his leg. Devon could see she was attempting to create a tourniquet, to stanch the flow. He didn’t help her. He didn’t understand why she was doing it. Wasn’t it better to let him die? They’d never have to fear him again if he was dead.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She repeated the words over and over.
Devon walked to the couch and sank onto it, his thighs suddenly weak. He set the gun on the coffee table and watched his wife cry over the wounded man on his foyer floor.
Sometime later, Devon was unsure how long it actually was, a siren howled in the distance. Within moments, it screamed on the street outside. He roused himself from the couch, walked to the front door and opened it to the paramedics and the police.
Fiona backed away from Rico and let the professionals take over. She was covered in blood. His blood, not hers, so that was okay. Small arms wrapped themselves around Devon’s leg. He looked down to see Caleb’s wide eyes peeking around him at the scene on the floor.
He turned his body to block Caleb’s view. “Let’s go back to your room, buddy.”
When Fiona found him, he was sitting on the side of his son’s bed. Caleb had crawled beneath the blankets with a teddy bear, and Devon had stroked his back until he’d fallen asleep again. “The police want to talk to you,” she said.
“Who’s going to stay with Caleb?”
“I can.”
Devon left his son’s room and marched into the living room to face a long stream of questions that ran into the river of endless inquiry he’d experienced since Rico had come into his life.
The sun was up by the time Devon returned from the police station. The house was quiet. Fiona must have cleaned up because the blood was gone from the foyer floor.
He was exhausted but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not yet. Instead of heading to the bedroom, he walked to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. He wasn’t done answering questions, he knew that. He’d seen them in his wife’s eyes and knew she’d seen the betrayal he’d felt in his. He poured a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.
His mug was half empty by the time she appeared in the doorway. She was wrapped in a terry bathrobe and rubbed her wet hair with a towel. Her eyes were red and ringed with dark circles. Her face was drawn, and she had a large bruise on her clavicle. They were war wounds, and he thought she’d never been more beautiful.
Fiona moved to the cupboard, took out a mug and filled it from the coffee pot, then she took the chair opposite him. She cradled the warm cup in her hands. Neither spoke.
After a long silence, Devon cleared his throat. “I heard him from the bedroom. Heard his voice.”
Fiona gazed at him and sipped her coffee, inviting him to continue with her eyes.
“I didn’t think. I reacted. I got the gun. I saw him. I fired.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She nodded. “He’s insane, you know that?”
Devon blinked. “You’d have to be to do the things he did.”
Fiona shook her head. “No. That’s not what I mean. He was delusional. He believed Chuck had an evil spirit living inside him, and since Chuck was dead, it needed a new host.”
“At what point did that particular delusion occur to him?” Devon couldn’t keep the hint of sarcasm from his voice. “He seemed pretty sane when he forced me to try to clean out the bank accounts. Bob’s death, albeit terrible, had a certain logic to it.”
Fiona leaned away from him. “I don’t know when. Before he took me out to the woods, I guess.”
“So you’re saying the devil made him do it?” Sarcasm saturated Devon’s tone now.
“He thought so.”
Devon rose and refilled his cup. “So you feel bad for him? You think I shouldn’t have shot him?”
“Yes and no. Yes, I feel badly for him. No, I don’t think you did the wrong thing. I prayed you’d get the gun and come.”
He returned to the table with a full mug. “Thank goodness.”
“Why are you angry at me?” Fiona asked in that disconcerting way she had of changing the subject.
“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at Rico, at the fact that he forced me to resort to violence.”
“It sounds like you’re angry at me.”
He stared at her, emotions pinging around inside him like a pinball, lighting things up and ringing bells. He struggled to make sense of it. “I guess I expected gratitude. I expected to feel like a hero. Instead, I feel like I put down a sick dog everybody loved.”
Fiona rose from her chair and pushed herself past his resistant arms into his lap. “Sorry.”
Sorry. The simple word dropped like an ember into his cold gut. Its warmth spread through his body. He lifted his good arm and wrapped it around her. “I hope he makes it.”
“I think he will. I think they got here in time.” She rested her cheek on his head. “You know, when we were standing there watching him bleed out after you shot him?”
“Yeah.”
“I wanted him to die.”
“You did?”
“I thought about killing him a hundred times when he was in the cabin with you and Caleb.”
“So why did you try to save him?”
“He said the thing that had my brother, the thing that made him kill people, wanted me.”
“Dead? Or alive?”
“He thought it was dead at first, but I convinced him it wanted me alive so it could use me.”
“You believe that?”
“Not in the same way he did, but I did think maybe I was like him.”
“Who? Chuck?”
“Yeah. We shared half our DNA. There is a genetic component to psychopathic behavior. I’ve worried about it for a long time.”
Devon pulled away so he could look at her. “That’s not you, Fiona. You’re filled with light, with goodness.”
Her lip lifted on one side, and he saw Caleb in her face—their son’s crooked frown, upside down. “You don’t know what goes on in my head sometimes.”
“I don’t know a lot of things about you.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted. “My fault, not yours. I learned something through all this: I need you. Not just to take care of our kid and help me impress people. I need you to be my friend.”
She frowned. “I am your friend.”
“Then I need to be yours.” He pulled her close again, and they sat that way until fatigue dropped onto his eyelids, weighing them down.
Fiona stood. “Let’s get some sleep while we can.”
He let her lead him into their bedroom.
MOLLY: And so it ends. Chuck is dead. Rico is in custody. Fiona, Devon, and Caleb can truly begin the healing process.
Let’s pick up their story a month later. You’ll find out how they’re doing, and you’ll get to meet Abby again. You’ll even hear about the early days of this podcast from her point of view.
7.7.5
DEVON
One Month Later
Devon entered the kitchen and glanced at the wall clock—5:25. He’d been home early every night for the past month. It had to be some kind of record. Fiona didn’t even seem surprised anymore. “Hey, babe.” She lifted her face for a kiss. He obliged.
She and Gwen sat at the kitchen table, half empty glasses of iced tea and a plate of cookies in front of them. He walked to the cupboard and grabbed a clean glass. “What are you up to, Gwen?”
“She’s trying to talk me into telling our story to a woman who’s writing a true crime novel about recent crimes in our area,” Fiona said.
“No, I’m not.” Gwen turned her gaze on Devon. “I’m simply saying that I learned the hazards of giving the press complete control over the information the first time around. It almost broke up my marriage.”
Devon poured a glass of tea and leaned against the counter. “How’s that?”
“As far as the press is concerned, the more lurid the better. Abby isn’t like that,” Gwen said. “She has her own story.”
Fiona lifted a cookie from the plate. “Then why doesn’t she write that?”
“She is.” Gwen gazed out the window as if collecting her thoughts. “However, while she was doing background research, she discovered a link between several crimes that have occurred in our area over the past few years.”
“That’s the part that bothers me.” Fiona waved her cookie between Gwen and herself. “Our stories are connected, but I don’t see what any of the other crimes have to do with us.”
