Grave Apparel (83 page)

“They
found Anna
Mai’s
body.”

“Yeah,
yeah, I
saw
you with that big cop. I
knew
I had to
take
care of the brats before you got to them. Thought I could do it without you
even
being here.
Never
a good idea to
screw

with a
reporter.
You
figured
out a
few
things, Smithsonian, I
give
you that. Cassandra said you
would.”

“But
not
the
sweater,
Wilcox.
Why
did
you
put
the
sweater
on her?”

He laughed. “I
knew
she hated the whole Christmas thing. She
even
managed to start in on the big candy cane I
was
car rying, right there in the
alley.
It
was
just a prop for a skit at the Christmas party for
God’s
sake,
but
she goes berserk on
me.”

“What happened with Anna Mai?”

“A
druggie! Clingy needy bitch. I defended her pro bono,
they
assigned her to me,
but
she
wanted
more, she
wanted
to be
with
me.
A
common
drug
addict?
With
me,
a
Wilcox?
She
would
have
ruined me. But she
wouldn’t
go
away.
She
wouldn’t
let
go.”

A
theme,
Lacey
thought. “So you had to kill her?”

“All
I’m trying to
do,”
he said with a dramatic sigh, “is to change my life for the
better.
Stop being a
screwup.
Live
up to being a
Wilcox.
That’s
a good thing,
isn’t
it?” She thought he
was
almost crying. His shoulders were shaking; with rage or re morse?
Is he
having a
breakdown
?
Lacey wondered.
His
voice
became quiet, almost reasonable. “I just
want
to get out of the
sewer,
out of the
backwater,
out of the stinking
nonprofits
with those
screwy
tree huggers. A lousy sixty grand a year!
For
a
Wilcox!
Who are
they
kidding? Damn it, a chance for K Street, is that too much to ask?”

Lacey’s
arms were aching from holding the
shepherd’s
staff
so
tightly.
Say
something,
she told herself.
Just
say
anything.
Just
keep
him
talking!

“So you
want
to be
like
your brother?”

“I am
like
my brother! I
deserve
to be! I’m a
Wilcox!”
he roared. “But you and people
like
you
keep
getting in my
way.”

“What about the
woman
back in that apartment?”

“She
wouldn’t
give
me those brats. I had to do something,
didn’t
I?
Didn’t
I? I had to! And a
Wilcox
does what he has to do!
Now
give
me those damn kids!”

The
breakdown
was
over.
His
voice
had turned from reason to rage.
Wilcox
lifted the Maglite and took a step
forward
into the stable.
Lacey
held her breath. She crouched
down
behind the hay bales. He took another step and
another,
and then
Lacey
sprang up and leaned into the hay bales with all her might, top pling them
over
onto him. She
saw
the surprise in his eyes.

Wilcox
took a startled step back and slipped on the
straw,
slick
with
shampoo.
He
fell
flat
on
his
back
underneath
the
hay
bales.

“Damn you, you meddling bitch! Damn it, I’m going to kill you
first
and
make
the brats
watch!”
Wilcox
scrambled furi ously in the slippery
straw
with one hand, trying to get to his feet without dropping his
heavy
flashlight. He
kept
sliding and
falling
in the sodden mess, flailing around
like
a
large
and dan gerous walrus. He got to his knees
but
then slid back
down
again,
banging
his
head
against the
wooden
manger
in the
cen
ter of the stable.
Lacey
fled out the
actor’s
entrance with the
staff
in her hands. She
looked
around, looking for
Vic
or Mac,
wondering
which
way
to run, when she felt a tug on her coat.

“Are
you okay?” Jasmine
asked.

“Jasmine! I told you to run!
To
go get help!
Where’s
your
sister?”

“We
stayed
here
to
help
you.”
Jasmine
pointed
to
a
tree
whose
lower
bows
dipped to the ground.
Lacey
saw
a flash of Lily
Rose’s
pink coat.
“We
hid behind that big
tree.”

“Go get your
sister.
Go get help. Run.
Now!”

“You
all die
first!”
Wilcox
emerged
from the front of the sta ble
covered
with shampoo and
sticky
straw.
He staggered to
ward
them.
He’d
lost his big flashlight
somewhere
in the stable. He lunged at
Lacey
with both hands.

She swung her
shepherd’s
staff
like
a baseball bat and hit
him
hard
right
in
his
gut.
Wilcox
gasped
for
air
and
doubled
over.
A
snowball
came out of the
shadows
by the tree and hit him in the
face.
Lacey
spun around and
saw
Lily Rose making
snowballs
and Jasmine ready to
throw
another.
She ran
toward
him, arm
cocked
to
throw.

“Jasmine, Lily Rose, no! Get out of
here,”
Lacey
yelled at them. “Run
away!”

They
paid no attention to
her.
The
next
snowball
hit
Wilcox
in his open mouth as he screamed curses at them. He straight ened up and wiped the
snow
from his
face
and made a lunge for Jasmine. She
ducked.
He leaned
over
and reached for
her,
and she shot
Stella’s
hairspray directly in his
eyes.

Wilcox
howled
and
clawed
at his
face.
Lacey
smacked
him
again
in
the
gut.
He
yelled
something
and
blindly
grabbed
the
end of the
staff
and pulled her
toward
him. She held on, tugging
back
on
it.
Jasmine
sprayed
him
again
and
then
retreated
to
her

sister,
who
was
still piling up
snowballs.
Lacey
pulled her
staff
away
from him.

“I’ll
kill you all!
You
and the brats, just
like
their mother!
I’ll
kill you!”

Lacey
whacked him
again, as
hard as
she could,
first
across
his stomach, then across his back at
kidney
level.
He sank to
one knee
and
howled
again.
Lacey
yelled
right
back
at
him.

“Go to hell,
Wilcox,
you monster!”

“Monster! Monster!” the girls cried.
They
rained
snowballs
on him as he struggled to his feet.
Wilcox
grabbed
Lacey’s
staff
and
gave
it
a
vicious
pull,
knocking
her
off
balance.
She
let
go
and fell in the
snow.
She tried to roll
away,
but
Wilcox
was
right on top of
her.
She
looked
up and
saw
him lift the
staff
high
over
her head to
strike.
Another
snowball
pasted him in the
face
and he shook his head. The girls were screaming and
Wilcox
was
growling and Lacey was scrabbling to get to her feet in
the
muck, and suddenly there
was
Vic
Donovan,
diving
at
Wilcox
in a flying leap and
bowling
him
over
backward
into the dirty
snow.

Lacey
grabbed the girls. She
retrieved
the
staff,
ready to use it if she had to, and
they
huddled under the tree and
watched.
Wilcox
snarled
like
a rabid animal and the
two
men wrestled and grappled and slid around in the slick churnedup
snow.
She
couldn’t
tell who had the
advantage.
But as soon as
Vic
got one arm free, he put his
fist
into the other
man’s
face
twice and then rolled him
over
onto his belly and jammed his face into
the
snow.
Vic
stood up and put one boot on
Wilcox’s
neck and bore
down.
He pulled
Wilcox’s
right arm up behind his back until something popped and the man on the ground
bellowed
in pain.
Lacey
caught her breath.
Vic
pulled the other arm back to meet the
first
and
cuffed
them together and then
looked
around for
Lacey.
The boot
never
left
Wilcox’s
neck until the cops
arrived.
“Nice timing,
Vic.”
Lacey
threw
herself at
Vic.
“Glad you could
make
it.”
Jasmine and Lily Rose jumped up and
down
and hugged each
other.
“Very
glad.”

“I’m so
sorry,
Lacey.”
He hugged her hard. “I
didn’t
get your message right
away.
What the
hell’s
wrong with your phone? I got here as soon as I could. What the hell happened?”

“We
hid,”
Jasmine said.

“And
I
sneezed,”
Lily Rose said, with an
exaggerated
shrug. “I
couldn’t
stop. It just came.
It’s
my hay
fever.”

“And
Lacey
hit him and hit him and tired him
out,”
Jasmine said.
“We
helped
her.”