Secondhand Sinners (28 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Emily

With Alan’s hands on hers, Emily closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger to the gun. Nothing happened. There was no loud pop, no whiff of sulphur, no blood. It didn’t work. How much time did she have until the lady on the other end of the phone injected Jack with bleach? She squeezed the trigger again. Again, nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” she said, and squeezed it over and over. Each time she tried to shoot, Hoyt flinched.

“That’s because it’s not loaded,” Alan whispered in her ear as he took the gun out of her hand.

“What?” She twirled around and pushed on Alan’s chest. “No!” she screamed. “You can’t hurt him!” She struggled to remain standing through the dizziness of a head rush. She gripped Alan’s arms for stability as her legs started to give out. “Tell her not to hurt him. Tell her. She can’t hurt him.”

“Shhh.” Alan wrapped his arms around her and held her tight around her waist.

“I did what you asked. I tried. Tell her not to hurt Jack. Please,” Emily begged.

“She’s not going to hurt him. She doesn’t even have him.”

“She sent you pictures.”

“Which I sent to her an hour ago.”

“Why? I don’t understand.” The whole experience had drained her of every ounce of strength, which was probably what Alan wanted. He won. She couldn’t take anymore. “Why did you do that? Where is my son?”

He held her tighter. “I have a story to tell you.”

“Let me go. Tell me where Jack is and let me go to him.” She tried to break free from his grasp, but he was too strong for her.

“Shhh. Listen.” He put his hand on the back of her head and braced her cheek to his shoulder. “Hoyt made up a game he called Oklahoma Roulette. I thought it would be appropriate for you to play that game with him at least once before he died, seeing as how
you’re
his treasure.”

“What?”

He ignored her and continued with his story. “He’d hand us a gun and tell one of his drinking buddies to pick a body part. They’d laugh and say something like ‘foot’ or ‘pecker,’ usually. Sometimes they’d say ‘head.’ Couple of times they said ‘arm.’ They didn’t think we’d actually squeeze the trigger, but the look on their faces when we did? Man, Hoyt got off on that.

“He made us all do it—me, Daniel, Mother. If we didn’t, he said he’d beat up Mom or kill one of us in our sleep. He would have too. We all knew he’d kill us if we made him mad enough and if he was drunk enough or high enough. The gun was only loaded once. It was during my turn, Hoyt gave me the gun and told me to shoot myself in the leg. I had the angle wrong, so it only grazed me. That one time was all it took because there was that moment when I’d start to squeeze the trigger that I’d wonder if it was loaded this time. I don’t guess Daniel ever talked about that, did he?”

She shook her head as best she could with Alan’s hand holding it still. Daniel had never told her Hoyt did that to him. He must’ve been afraid she wouldn’t come around if she knew.

“One night I came home, thinking I was about to get my ass kicked for being so late. Lucky for me Hoyt and Daniel were arguing over that damn key. Hoyt couldn’t find it, and he accused Daniel of stealing it. Daniel admitted taking it, but he wouldn’t give it back because he caught Hoyt stashing something of yours in the drawer of the table by his bed. Daniel called Hoyt a pervert and told him he was going to stop inviting you over. Hoyt didn’t like that, so he made me go get his gun for him. I got it, but I didn’t take it to him right away because I had this brilliant idea. I put a bullet in the chamber because I thought it would be funny to watch Daniel shoot himself in the foot.”

Emily gasped. Her stomach had been gradually sinking as Alan told his story, and now she realized what he was telling her.

“I handed Daniel the gun, and when Hoyt told him to hold it to his own neck, I knew my stepbrother was about to die and that all I had to do was say something. I didn’t want to say anything because I thought if he was gone, then I’d have a shot with you. Next thing I knew, Hoyt was screaming, Momma was crying, and Daniel was on the floor with blood pouring out of his neck and that gun in his hand. I killed him. I killed him for you. It’s finally worked because now I’ve got you all to myself.”

So Daniel hadn’t wanted to die, Jack was alone, and Abby was missing. Alan had stolen everything from her. She couldn’t stand to be in his arms another second.

“Let go of me,” she demanded, struggling against his grasp, although the more she fought, the rougher he got. She managed to get an arm free, so she balled her hand in a fist and hit him in the chest as hard as she could. She only got three or four hits in because he seized her arm, twisted it behind her back, and pulled her close to him again.

The tears Emily had been holding back all day started to come, and she was too weak to stop them. They were like their own force of gravity, pulling her down with them and causing her knees to buckle.

Alan released his hold on her and let her slide down to the floor. He put his gun back in his waistband and his phone back in his pocket, then patted Hoyt on the shoulder. “Now you know how it feels, old bastard.”

He squatted in front of her and lifted her chin. “Let’s go home, Emily. We have a big night ahead of us.”

***

When they got to Alan’s house, he pulled around to the back and ushered Emily in through the back door. She sat at the dining table while Alan gathered up a dozen yellow pads and tossed them into the trashcan.

“Don’t need these anymore,” he said as he threw the final one away. “This thing here, though,” he picked up the blue notebook with the red stickers, “I do believe I’m going to keep this.”

“You planned everything down to the last detail, didn’t you?”

“I planned contingencies. All along I was preparing for when your grandmother died and you came to town for her funeral. When your brother bashed your father’s skull in, I was ready. I thought getting Hoyt’s money was the most important thing, then when I learned there was no money, I decided having you was better. Because you have money, right? You said you had money from your divorce.”

“I have some money; it’s not a lot. Nothing like what you were hoping to get from Hoyt’s box.”

“It’s enough to get us started, though.”

“When can I see Jack?”

“Later.”

“Is Abby okay?”

“Last I heard.”

“Why did you make me do that back there at the nursing home?”

“You’re his treasure.”

“I don’t understand.”

He tossed the book on the table in front of her. “See for yourself. You have makeup in your purse? You need to get cleaned up.”

Emily opened the book and saw pictures of herself, some candids she remembered taking with Daniel. Some of the pictures, though, were from when she was younger, before Daniel even moved to town. Those were odd because someone from her family would have had to have given them to Hoyt. The lock of hair was creepy.

“This must’ve been what Daniel and Hoyt were arguing over the night he killed…the night he was murdered.”

Alan frowned, causing the deep line between his eyebrows to appear again. “You’re going to have to get over that.”

Emily opened to a page close to the end of the book and gasped. “Oh God. How did…” She pulled the charm that was held down by masking tape off the page. It was the missing charm from her bracelet. Her family tree. There was only one person who could have given that to Hoyt and then hid the bracelet to keep her from asking questions about it. Her mother.

I can’t look at you without seeing him. Go. Before you find out what kind of a monster your father really is.

Emily closed her eyes, knowing that when she opened them, everything would be different. She was right. It was like a darkened film had been ripped off her life and blanched everything. She wasn’t who she thought she was. She was Hoyt’s daughter.

She closed the book. She should have felt something. Her whole life—her mother’s and grandmother’s absolute panic over her relationship with Daniel and Hoyt, her father’s inability to see any good in her, her special bond with Daniel—was finally explained by the presence of her tarnished tree in Hoyt’s blue notebook with the heart stickers.

She was numb.

“When can I see Jack?”

“I said later. Is this makeup?” He held up her makeup bag.

“Yeah.”

He unzipped the bag, looked it in briefly, and zipped it back up. “Go to the bathroom and make yourself look presentable.”

She took the bag and went to the bathroom. Obedience to Alan was the only strategy she had left. Whatever he had planned for them, whatever their “big night” entailed, she wanted to get it over with. Even then, she had a terrible feeling that she wasn’t going to see Jack for a long time. She washed her face and combed her hair. Was Hoyt really her father? She looked in the mirror and studied her features. Was he in there somewhere?

She left the bathroom and went back to the table where the notebook was. She opened it to one of the pages at the back that had a picture of her, Daniel, and Miller. They were all smiling at the camera. She stared at the three of them, and then she saw it. Abby. In all three of them. She was in the hands Emily had folded in her lap, in Daniel's jawline, and in Miller’s smile. Abby
was
hers and Miller’s daughter. She was Daniel's niece. That was why she didn’t know her own daughter when she met her. Emily didn’t even know who
she
was.

She put the book down and looked for Alan. The front door was ajar. Assuming Alan was out in his front yard, she opened the door only to have it ripped out of her hand and slammed shut.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Alan’s sharp tone hit her like darts.

“The door was open. I thought you went outside.”

“I was changing.” He glared at her for what must have been a whole minute then inspected the door. “Damn thing’s busted. What the hell did you do to it?”

“Nothing. It was already like that.”

He opened the door farther and looked out. Then he closed it and took her by the elbow. “Come with me.” He pulled her to his bedroom in the back of the house and shut her in. Without saying another word, he wedged something under the door so she couldn’t get out.

“I wasn’t trying to leave!” she called out. “You’re the only one who knows where my son is! Hey!” She banged on the door. “I wasn’t trying to leave!” When he didn’t answer, she gave up and sat on the side of the bed next to a suitcase. The pounding in her head was back. She lost all hope at the sight the two airline tickets on top of a pile of neatly folded clothes. Two tickets. She picked them up to see where Alan was planning to take her. Her vision was too blurry to see.

He walked in and looked at the tickets in her hand. “I guess my little surprise is out.”

“There are only two tickets here, Alan. What about Jack?”

“We’re driving to Dallas tonight. When we get there, I’ll call Owens and tell him where the kid is.”

“Why?”

“Please,” he scoffed. “You were right when you said I’d never get away with this. I got what I want. Now it’s time to go.”

“You’ve been lying to me all day.”

“You got that right. Once we get to Colorado, things will be better. You’ll get settled in, and we’ll start our own family.”

“Jack is my family. Who’s supposed to take care of him?”

“He has a dad, doesn’t he? Let him deal with him.”

Jack’s dad didn’t want him. “I have to throw up.” She ran across the hall to the bathroom and retched into the toilet while Alan stood in the doorway watching her.

When she was finished, he took a towel from the cabinet and dropped it on the floor next to her. “Clean yourself up. Don’t forget the makeup.”

She stood, washed her mouth with some Scope she found in the medicine cabinet, and stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t leave Jack. Alan would have to kill her to get her away from her son. How was she going to get away from Alan? How was she going to find Jack?

She opened her makeup bag to pull some foundation out when her hand hit on something skinny and round. Jack’s B12 shots. She’d put the shots in her makeup bag to keep them from getting lost in her suitcase and forgot to put them in Levi’s refrigerator when she got to town. If she did it fast and did it right, she could make Alan think it was a syringe of bleach.

Perfect
.

She pulled it out, uncapped it, and positioned it in her hand with her thumb on the plunger. She took a deep breath and put her hand behind her back, ready to walk out of the bathroom with a new resolve. She wasn’t just going to get Alan to tell her where Jack and Abby were, she was going to make him pay. Or she was going to die trying.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

Miller

Miller pulled up to the house of the address Jenny Abernathy had given him. Except it wasn’t really a house. It was a trailer. He’d taken forever to get there because he couldn’t find Lilac Street. Had he known Lilac Street was one of the many gravel roads made up by the owners of the trailer park, he wouldn’t have verbally abused the GPS on his phone for not knowing where the hell it was. Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure if anyone even lived in the rusted metal building with the sagging middle, which was at the end of the row of more rusted metal buildings.

His phone vibrated, altering him to a text message with Jenny’s address. Miller shoved his phone back into his pocket.
Too little, too late, Capricorn.

He got out of his truck and knocked on the door. There was no answer.

He checked the door. The knob gave a little resistance so it might have been locked, but it was so old it didn’t take much to turn. While there wasn’t a single light on in the place, the setting sun was at exactly the right angle to fill the room with a soft light. He resisted the urge to call out for Abby because he had no idea who was there, if anyone, or what he was walking into. The room looked like something he’d imagined once when he was reading a true crime novel about a woman who disappeared from her home. Neighbors knew something was wrong because her house was a wreck. Signs of a struggle. That’s what they called it in the book, and that’s what this room looked like. Only he wasn’t Jenny Abernathy’s neighbor, so he had no idea if this was normal or not.

From the outside, it looked like the trailer couldn’t have more than one bedroom. The only thing Miller knew to do was go through that closed door on his left and see for himself. There was no knob on the door, so he pushed it ajar and stuck his head in. “Hello?” he asked softly. “Is anyone there?”

There was no answer.

“Hello?” He opened the door farther and stepped inside the room, which was dark with only a few slivers of light coming through the curtains. After his eyes adjusted, he could see the outline of what may have been a person in the corner. “Is anyone here?”

He found the light switch on the wall and flipped it on. There was no one in the room. The sight of all the used needles, bongs, and empty coke bags sickened him. Had they kept Abby in here? Did they do drugs in front of her? He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the room. Owens might like to get a look at the drug den of Alan’s girlfriend.

After checking the rest of the trailer, including the tiniest, most disgusting bathroom he’d ever seen, he stepped out of the crumbling metal house completely deflated. Where was his daughter? He walked around the sad excuse for a building, and stared out into prairie, which ended at a thicket of trees.

His eyes hit on a bump in the ground, the telltale sign of a storm cellar. Of
course
there was a storm cellar. With all the tornados, most everyone in Oklahoma had one or knew someone who had one. In a trailer park, it was an absolute necessity.

He jogged over to it, lifted up the aluminum door, and stepped down into its darkness. “Hello?” he called out when he was halfway down the steps. “Is anyone down here?”

Though there was no response, he could swear a shape in the corner shifted.

He didn’t want to call Abby’s name. He actually hoped it wasn’t her because if it was her, why was she hiding in the dark corner of the dark cellar? And why wouldn’t she answer him? He steeled his resolve, swallowed hard and asked, “Anyone in here?”

The only response was the slow dragging sound of metal sliding against metal, which ended with a distinctive click. Someone had cocked a gun. He didn’t have to see it to know it was aimed at him. Instinctively, his hands went up in front of him to reason with the unseen threat.

“Get out of here, or I’ll blow your head off,” a female voice said.

“I’m sorry,” Miller said. “I must be in the wrong place. I was looking for my daughter, Abby.”

“Daddy?” Abby’s voice came from somewhere in the dark. “Daddy is that you?”

“Abigail?” Miller’s heart wanted to feel the relief his brain was telling him was okay to feel. He needed to see his daughter. “I can’t see you. Where are you?”

A light in corner with the shape flicked on, revealing Jenny Abernathy with red-rimmed eyes and smudged makeup holding a flashlight. She swung the beam of light into another corner where Abby was standing, sporting that same hopeful smile she wore when she was three and asked to ride the automated horse outside the Piggly Wiggly.

“Oh, Abby.”

There she was, and she might as well have been three years old again because he was not going to let her out of his sight for the foreseeable future. He rushed down the stairs, wrapped her up in his arms, and relished in the relief his heart had been longing for since Alan answered her cell phone. Miller could feel her relief too as she buried her head in his chest and cried.

“Are you okay?” He tried to hold her away from him so he could look at her, but she wouldn’t let go of the death grip she had around his waist. He held her tighter and leaned down to whisper, “Are you okay?”

She nodded and looked up at him. “I didn’t think you’d find me. How did you find me?”

He kissed her forehead and tried to smile. “I’ll always find you.”

Miller glared at Jenny. “I’m taking my daughter home with me.”

Jenny handed him the flashlight. “Go.”

That was too easy. “Just like that? What’s Alan going to say?”

“There was no money.”

“I heard.”

“Alan said he figured out a way to get something better, then when he terrorized that poor lady, I—”

“Wait. Are you talking about Emily?”

“Yeah. That’s her name.”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“Not anymore. He went and got her after he dropped your daughter off with me. He said he was going to get money from her, but he took her to the home and made her shoot that old man.”

“What old man?”

“Hoyt. He made her think I’d kill her son if she didn’t shoot him.”

“Where is Jack?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t want to tell me, wanted it to be his secret.”

“I have to go.”

“That’s probably best. Alan’s coming. He’s going to kill me for letting your daughter go. You don’t wanna get hurt too.”

“He’s not coming.” Miller shrugged her off. “That was me, using his Facebook to get your address.”

“Good.” She let out a sigh of relief. “I have time to pack up and get out of here.”

“No,” Miller said, pulling out his cell phone to show her the picture of her trailer he had taken. “You go to the police and tell them about Alan’s plan. Tell them everything, or I’m going to show this to Sheriff Owens.”

“Alan will kill me.”

“You tell them everything or I’ll hunt you down myself and have you arrested for kidnapping.” Then he led Abby up the stairs and to his truck. When he tried to buckle her into the passenger seat, she scooted to the middle.

“Can I sit next to you?”

“I’d love that.”

After he got himself buckled in, she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “So you haven’t found Jack yet?”

“No.”

“He must be so scared. Is Emily okay?”

“That’s a good question.” He called the hospital and asked a nurse to have someone check on Emily. When the nurse came back and told him Emily and the new policeman on duty were gone, Miller told her to call the police.

Alan had come back for her and taken her, and whatever he had done to her must have been pretty bad.

The five miles back to Bokchito stretched in front of him like some kind of cruel joke. His daughter was safe, though neither of them would be happy until they found Jack and got Emily away from Alan. When he left her in the hospital, he knew his accusations about sleeping with Alan had hurt her. After he found the blue notebook and Alan’s stash of yellow pads, all he wanted to do was apologize. Had he known Alan was so hell-bent on taking control of her, he wouldn’t have been so self-righteous.

Abby wrapped her arms around Miller’s and asked, “Are we going to find Emily?”

“No. We’re going to find Jack.”

“It sounds like Emily’s really in danger.”

“I know.” It was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever have to do, but he had to find Jack. It was what Emily wanted. He knew that because that was exactly what he would want. Emily had asked him to find her son, and he’d failed. He’d failed her all day long. No, he’d failed her for the last fourteen years.

He tightened his grip on the wheel. “Hey, Abs?”

“Yeah, Daddy?”

“I need to tell you something. It’s very important. Emily and I were seeing each other in high school.”

“I knew it.”

“I loved her. A lot.”

“You still do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. When I told you that story about her running away, I left something out. She was pregnant with
my
baby.”

Abby sat up.

Miller looked at her, curious to see the look on her face.

She raised an eyebrow. “Go Dad.”

“She wanted to put you up for adoption, so without her knowing, her grandfather offered you to me. When you were diagnosed with Wilson’s, I assumed you weren’t mine. I guess I could’ve had a DNA test done. I didn’t see the need to, though, since you were diagnosed with a disease no one in my family had. Well, I found out today, that…I mean it’s not official or anything, but I’m pretty sure you got your Wilson’s from Emily.”

Abby was quiet. Miller waited. He wanted to give her time to process what he’d told. After a few minutes passed without her saying anything, though, he couldn’t wait any longer. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“You had sex before you were married.”

“That’s what you got from all that?”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said. “Emily’s my mom.”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“And you’re my dad.”

“Yes.”

“So Jack is my half-brother.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“If the two of you were in love, why’d she run away?”

“Her family didn’t want her to have you. She ran to protect you.”

“Can you go a little faster? We need to save our family.”