Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (38 page)

“How do you know?”

“He admitted it, the bastard, and he laughed.”
 

He continued chain smoking, sucking hard and making each one disappear faster than the one before.
 

“Said how stupid I was all those years to think Daddy’d be back, when he was right by the trailer all that time. But old Mac’s dead now, just like Daddy, so he won’t be laughing no more. It’s going to be okay. Brooke’ll see. We’ll still be together.”

“You and Brooke?”

“Yep. She never wanted Mac, only me.” He spit out the window. “At least, once I took her to the river.”

He leered at me, and I turned away. Somehow, I didn’t picture this story having a “happily ever after.” I unzipped my windbreaker a little, as if I might pull the gun, but doubted my own resolve to do it. Something told me to keep him talking even though I knew the more he told me, the more he’d have to kill me.
 

“Did you tell your mother about finding your daddy?”

He shook his head and muttered, “My mother. What a joke.”

“What’d your mother do wrong?”

“I guess I could answer that if I knew her.”

His laugh had a brittle, bitter tenor that tugged at my heart for a moment. But I couldn’t let him get by my defenses even if we did share a common hurt.
 

“That woman—Helen—is not my mother. She told me last Friday when I went to tell her about Daddy. She married him right after I was born. My real mother died having me.”

I closed my eyes and began to feel thankful for my parents. They might have abandoned me, but they were still alive. There was always a chance of…I don’t know what, in the future. I hadn’t realized until right then how desperately I clung to that hope.

JJ’d had everything he knew ripped from him, including hope for that chance of his father walking in the door someday. No doubt it had been a lot to absorb. Then, he’d tried to cap off his day by raping me, but Malcolm stopped him, and JJ ended up in jail.
 

“That was a bad day,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said and lit another cigarette. “I wanted to kill somebody. So I went to the one place where I’d felt good, where I hooked up with Brooke. But you weren’t home.”

“Did hurting me make you feel better?”

“You would have come around once you got used to me. Brooke did. I needed to make you mine, take you before Mac did. That’s our way.”

“Your way, maybe. I doubt it was what Malcolm wanted.”

“He wanted you, I could see it in his eyes. That’s all that mattered.”

What I could see in JJ’s eyes scared me. How I’d managed to avoid the crazies lingering at every turn in New York only to find myself in the middle of nowhere with the local wacko was beyond me. The bucolic scenery and quiet had lulled me into a false sense of security. I’d let down my guard.

“You cut the brakes in Malcolm’s truck?”

“Did you like your little ride?”

“Was it meant for me?”

“You, Malcolm, same difference.”

Not to my mind, but mine was still sane, I think.

“What about Norman? What’d he do wrong?” I asked.

He gave me a little smile of acknowledgement that I’d figured that out. “He saw me and Brooke together. Threatened to tell Mac.”

“So, you drugged him and buried him alive?”

“He was takin’ that stuff anyway. Sandy got it for him from the vet. I just made sure he had a little extra.” JJ stared at me. “Then you had to go and mess everything up with your spring cleaning.”

“Yeah, well, the place needed cleaning.”

“Yeah, well,” he mimicked, “when this is over, you can clean for me.”

Not likely.
 

“And Sandy?” I asked. A strange feeling rose up inside, like I could say whatever I wanted. If I had to be dead, I’d have answers, first. “How’d she get in your way?”

“How do you know she did?”

I touched the sore spot at my hairline. “You have a distinctive style.” He liked that, I could tell.

“That there’s a cow should go to the sale barn,” he said. “She thought she knew what was going on, was going to avenge Norman. I showed her how’d it’d be better if she kept her big mouth shut.”

Movement at the other end of the loft caught my eye. Nicky sat up. She was awake? How much had she heard?

“Vi?” She saw JJ, curled into a ball and covered her eyes.

“It’s okay honey.” I stood, started to move toward her.

JJ pointed the rifle at me. “Where you think you’re goin’ now? You think I care if she’s scared?”

I froze, all the hair standing up on my neck, my breath coming in little puffs. Breathe, I told myself. Slow. “No,” I said, “but I do.”

He motioned with the gun barrel and turned back to the window. I ran to Nicky, using the moment of gathering her onto my lap to retrieve my phone, but I couldn’t find it. She put her arms around my neck and buried her face against my shoulder.
 

“Where’s your cell phone?” I whispered in her ear, keeping my eyes on JJ. If I could call Dex or Malcolm—

She shrugged. “Don’t know. I might have left it at that place.”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I told her. “Your daddy’s coming as fast as he can, I promise. If I tell you to run, you can do it, right?”

She shook her head. “Not without you.”

“You have to. There’s a tree outside the back window. If I get JJ distracted, you climb down and hide, okay?”

She nodded against my chest. “Where?”

Good question.

“Shut up over there,” JJ groused from his post.

“You shut up. I’m just comforting her, okay?”

He swung the rifle up and put a bullet through the roof. I nearly jumped through the roof myself, and squeezed Nicky against me, one hand over her eyes, keeping my own closed tight. The roar made my ears ring, and dust filled the air. Gaston gave a nervous snort below, and Nicky started screaming. Maybe I couldn’t say whatever I wanted.

“It’s not okay,” JJ said when Nicky quieted. “Got it?”

I nodded.
 

After a few more minutes, JJ spoke again. “She has it all figured out. We just needed them out of the way so she gets the ground.”

By
them
, I gathered he meant the Malcolms. And then what? JJ and Brooke set up housekeeping at Winterlight? She didn’t like the country. She must have figured if they killed Malcolm senior, Malcolm would inherit. Then, if they killed Malcolm—or he died trying to rescue them—before the divorce was final, she would get the land. But live there with JJ? She’d probably ditch him the moment she had the deed in her hot little hands. Or better yet, turn him in for the kidnapping. God, they deserved each other.
 

It could still work out if Malcolm and JJ both died. The thought of Malcolm dead sent such a shard of pain through my heart, I almost cried out.

“What happened in Chicago?” I asked.

He hesitated just long enough before answering for me to know that whatever came next would be a lie.

“We decided it made more sense to split up.”

“I see. Then, why’d you hit her?”

“All you bitches need to be put in your place. Just like Daddy always said. None of you can be trusted.”

- 42 -

JJ tossed his last cigarette butt out the window and stood. “Show time, Slick. Come ‘ere.”

I froze. I couldn’t make myself go near him.
 

His lips curled into a snarl. “Have it your way,” he said, walking toward us.

I shoved Nicky off my lap and stood.

“That’s more like it,” he said.
 

He shifted the rifle to his left hand, put his other arm around my shoulders, and pulled me against his chest. I couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through me.

“Now, don’t be like that. Look what I have.”

He opened his hand. My cell phone gleamed against his palm.

“Call Mac. Say ‘Muller’s old hay barn. Come alone.’
 
That’s it. Don’t try to get fancy. Got it?”

“Do it yourself.”

He spun me hard into the wall and grabbed Nicky in one smooth movement. She screamed and started crying. JJ didn’t say a word, just held the phone out to me. I took it and punched in Malcolm’s number.

He picked up on half a ring. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

He was in a car. Hearing his voice sent thoughts of our almost future tumbling through my mind, and all I wanted to do was cry.
 

“Daddy!” Nicky yelled.

“Nicky—” Malcolm shouted.

“Muller’s old hay barn. Come alone,” I said. “Nicky’s okay.”

JJ smacked me. The phone flew from my hand, skidded across the floor and right out the front opening. I sank to my knees. JJ shoved Nicky at me and strode to his post. A new lump began to rise on my head, right next to the old one.

“Don’t ever disobey me again,” JJ said.

Nicky sat next to me on the floor. I put my arm around her.

“I want my daddy,” she sobbed.

“Me, too.”

“Shut up!”

We did, and I listened for anything—car-truck-tractor—that might mean someone was coming.

Ten minutes later I heard something—maybe. It was faint and stopped before I could be sure. But it must have been.

“Bring the girl over here,” JJ said, returning to his earlier, eerie cool.

My own voice shook when I spoke. “You don’t need her,” I said. “Let her go. Take me.”

“Don’t tempt me, Slick.” His voice turned hard again, and he aimed the rifle at my head. “Bring her over, then step back.”

All I could do when that weapon came my way was freeze like a deer in headlights.

“JJ?” I heard Malcolm call from outside. “I’m here.”

“Daddy!” Nicky got up and went to the window willingly. “Daddy!” she said again when she reached it.

JJ grabbed her ponytail and forced her head back. She squirmed and kicked at him.

“Let me go, you meanie.”

I started toward them, but he jerked her hair and put the gun barrel to her temple and stayed just inside, where all that could be seen from outside was Nicky with a gun to her head.
 

She howled, “Ow!” and went at him with her fingernails, scratching his arms.

“Let her go,” Malcolm said. He sounded calmer than he should.

“I will,” JJ said. “As soon as you give me what I want.” He released her hair and clamped his arm around her, pressing her arms against her sides. She kept trying to kick him.

“What do you want?”

“Sign the farm over to me, and you can have her.”

Sign the farm over? I hadn’t thought of that.
 

“Is Vi up there?” Malcolm asked.

“Hell yeah,” JJ said. “We been goin’ at it all morning. She loves it.”

“Let me see her.”

JJ jerked Nicky back and motioned me forward with his head. Could I shoot him? Not with the Springfield pointing at Nicky’s head. I could kick him through the opening, but he’d probably take her with him. It wasn’t far to ground. He’d survive. She’d get hurt.

I went to the window and looked out. Malcolm stood thirty yards away, wearing the same clothes he’d been in the last time I’d seen him. He might sound calm, but the emotions seething just beneath the surface were evident in the tense stance of his body, the set of his jaw.

“I’m fine,” I said. “He’s lying.”

JJ smashed the rifle into my shoulder. I landed flat on my back at the edge of the drop off into the side shed.
 

Nicky bawled, “Daddy.”

“Let them both go,” Malcolm yelled. By the tone of his voice, his composure had just shredded. “Then we’ll talk.”

JJ laughed. “Not a chance, Mac. Bring me the deed. We’ll wait.”

“I want my daddy.”

“Let her go,” Brooke’s voice screamed from outside. “JJ, please.”

“Mommy!”

Malcolm growled something at Brooke that sounded like, “Get back to the truck.”

“Go away, Brooke,” JJ yelled to be heard over everyone else. “I’ll handle this.”

“No,” she said. “Let her go.”

I got to my hands and knees and started toward JJ. He shifted his grip on Nicky—put his arm around her waist and held her out in thin air. She screamed and kicked.

“Bring me the deed.”

“Stay calm. We can work this out,” Malcolm said.

JJ shook Nicky, and she slipped lower, but I didn’t think he would drop her accidentally. He was too strong. Still, I was afraid to move, afraid to startle him.

“No!” Brooke said, clearly near hysteria.
 

Through a slit between pieces of siding, I could see Brooke and Malcolm. He held her around the waist, just like JJ had Nicky. Brooke was flailing, trying to get away.