Sterling's Reasons (26 page)
When Jessica had called him and requested that she meet him at the cabin and had declined his offer to simply come to her house and talk, the pieces had begun to fall together. This lady wasn’t handling things too well, that maybe, just 204
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maybe, she had gone off the deep end. Suspecting a real hood of doing any of the things at the beach just didn’t fit. If one of them wanted to off him, they would simply have done it.
Joe held his hands up in the air. “Jessica, put the gun down. You might just blow a big hole in me. Put it down.”
“No. You don’t give the orders anymore. I want you to suffer. I want you to die. Why should you be alive and my Red dead? It should have been you.” Her eyes were wild and her lips curled back with every word. The dangerous hissing sound was replaced by a voice not at all like her own.
Sterling wasn’t breathing. She forced herself to take one small step at a time while keeping her eyes glued to the woman with the gun. One wrong move and it would all be over. Just a little bit too much pressure on the trigger and her Joe and her whole life would go away right in front of her eyes. Again.
If she could get Jessica’s attention away from Joe, if she could get her to point the gun at her, Joe could grab it away from her and maybe…
Sterling could hear the blood pounding through her head. She heard Joe talking to Jessica. Heard his even tone and wondered how he could sound so calm. Sterling felt as if she were being held under water. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see clearly.
Jessica began again, in a singsong voice that floated eerily on the fresh, clean mountain air. Sterling realized how isolated and alone they were here. That woman could kill both of them and they might not be found for years. Sterling moved closer to the cabin. She saw Joe flash her a look that meant for her to stop.
She did.
Birds flew overhead, singing and chirping greetings to one another.
Something, to her right, bounded through the trees and the undergrowth. God, how could this be happening?
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Jessica’s hands shook slightly as they supported the gun. Joe moved slowly and easily to lean back against the railing. He kept his hands where she could see them.
Mustering his commanding voice to full tilt, he said, “I know how you feel, but killing me…that would only take you away from your kids. They need you.”
“Never find you up here.” She laughed. “Not until you’re a skeleton. I don’t care anyway. Red is dead. You should be dead.” She began to shake and then, as if suddenly remembering Sterling, she directed the next sentence to her without taking her eyes off Joe. “Get up here, girlie. Stand next to your boyfriend here and maybe some of his blood will splash on you as he goes down.”
Sterling found her voice. “I’m coming. Jessica, I stopped by and saw your kids before I came up. They were playing a board game and Joshua was winning.” Normalcy. Maybe that’s what she needed. It was sure what Sterling needed. Craved.
She saw Jessica waver, as if part of her brain was trying to get through to her, and then a steeliness crept into her eyes. “Get on up here. Stand by your man.”
That made Jessica laugh even harder, a high-pitched, frenzied sound that hurt Sterling’s ears.
Joe made a move forward and Jessica steadied the gun, aiming right between his eyes. “No. Don’t move. I’m not going to kill you right now. Don’t make me. I want you to be scared. I want you to suffer. I want you to beg me. Did Red beg you to help him?”
A stab of guilt pierced Joe’s heart. Maybe it was divine justice. Maybe he would end up an unidentified corpse in the woods, but now Sterling was here.
He couldn’t let anything happen to her. He could take a chance…make a swing for the weapon. He could jump Jessica. Chances were he could make the move before she squeezed off a shot. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Not just yet.
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Sterling walked up the steps slowly. They creaked and gave under her slight weight. “You have a beautiful house. The kitchen is decorated very nicely.” That her voice sounded almost normal surprised her. She forced herself to continue.
“The boys are handsome, too. And that apple pie you baked this morning. It smelled good.”
Jessica seemed to calm, but her grip on the gun remained. She didn’t take her eyes off Joe. “I make good pies. Crust is flaky. Red likes it that way. He’s a big man and needs lots of food. Later, we’ll have some after the kids go to bed and Sam is settled in his room. Later…” She began to wail, a shrieking, mourning sound. “There’s no later. He’s not coming home.”
Sterling looked at Joe. There was pain in his eyes, not fear. He was sick. He was blaming himself for the loss of another human being. The one standing so unsteadily, yet strongly, in front of him. She had been almost sane until she saw Sterling. Maybe he could let her calm down, talk her out of it.
Sterling reached Joe and flung both arms around his waist. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. Now that Sterling was holding Joe, the reality of the trouble they were in finally struck her. She trembled as she looked down the barrel of the gun.
“Isn’t that cute,” the deranged woman leered at them. “Yeah, I saw you on the beach. I spied on you through the window. You two were so wrapped up in each other you didn’t even see me. I was quiet.” Her voice changed to a whimper. “It isn’t fair. You can make love and I can’t.”
She’s going to pull the trigger without even meaning to.
The thought struck Sterling to her very core. Jessica would pop off a round and it would all be over and she’d be sorry and put away. No. It couldn’t happen.
Sterling looked directly at Jessica instead of the gun. Pushing her all-consuming fear aside, she straightened. “Jessica. Joshua, how old is he now?”
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Jessica was silent. She was straining to keep the gun up and pointed at Joe.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Sterling could tell the wheels of memory were turning, trying to get through the blockage. “Seven. He likes school.”
Steeling herself against her own words, Sterling began. “My little boy, Timmy, would have been nine this year. I lost him, Jessica. I lost him in a plane crash along with his daddy.”
Jessica’s eyes went to Sterling and so did the point of the gun. Sterling pulled in her breath and waited. She watched as Jessica warred with her thoughts. “So what. You want me to feel sorry. You want
me
to be sorry?”
“I want you to realize that you can go on without the people you love. Red can never be replaced, but you can be happy again. Red would want that for you.
He loved you. And those two little boys love you.”
The whining began again, and for a moment Sterling thought the bullet was coming. “They do. He did. He was good to me. He was good to everybody.”
Joe spoke up authoritatively. “Then put the gun down. Let’s talk.”
Jessica giggled. “No way. Go in the house. Both of you. And don’t come too close to me or I’ll do it now. I’ll give you some time together before I kill you, Joe.
A little bit of time. Just enough to make you wish I would get it over with. Now, move.”
Jessica stepped to the side, following Joe with the gun as they moved into the house.
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Chapter Fifteen
The inside of the cabin was dim but Sterling could make out the braided rugs and heavy pine furniture. The floor that was once bright had dulled. Deer heads were mounted on the walls. Rifles hung over the fireplace. Empty, no doubt. A round table sat in the kitchen area. After demanding that Joe and Sterling take a seat on the couch, Jessica sat on a chair behind the table and laid the gun down…making sure she kept a finger on the trigger and the barrel pointed at them. She glowered at Joe with bloodshot eyes.
Sterling rested her head on Joe’s shoulder. She heard him whisper, “I love you.”
Tears wanted to fall. She yearned to jump up and scream. She ached to throw something at her. Anything. This all had to stop before it went too far. And now he says he loves her. It should be the happiest time, the best of times. He said the words. At the point of a gun. Her temples throbbed.
Beside her, Joe’s body was rigid. His muscles were tense. Sterling sensed that the wheels in his brain were turning furiously.
A lousy mistake, one damn lousy mistake and this woman could be shooting. Shooting him. Shooting Sterling. He knew that she couldn’t possibly realize the power of the weapon she held so tenuously under her hand. He knew she didn’t realize that once she squeezed the trigger, she couldn’t call back the bullet. She couldn’t simply say whoops and I’m sorry. And now Sterling was here. Despite all his efforts to keep her clear of this mess, she was right in the middle of it. It made it harder for him. He could have taken his chances making a
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dive for the gun at some point, but now…now she could be in the line of fire. If and when they got out of this ordeal, he was going to be sure she understood the word “no.”
He felt for her hand and took her slim fingers with his square ones.
Squeezing, she held on for dear life.
Down at the bottom of the path to the cabin, Sam looked up at what he had to scale. He must be as crazy as the rest of this bunch, he thought to himself.
Hitching his trousers higher around his waist and tightening his belt, he began the climb. Praying he was wrong.
Jessica was tiring. Joe could see it. His dry sense of humor made its way over everything else. It must be very draining to be crazy. Now what? They could sit here and be at the mercy of this poor sick woman? He didn’t think so.
Engaging his priestly tone of voice, Joe spoke in quiet, even tones. “You’re tired, Jessica. Why don’t you forget all this and I’ll drive you home. Your children need you. Sam needs you.”
“I am tired, Joe. Sometimes so tired I can’t get out of bed.”
Sterling wondered why it seemed that right now, at this very moment, they were all having a Sunday morning conversation over coffee and doughnuts. She wriggled in her seat, and Joe tightened his grip on her hand to warn her not to move too much.
Suddenly, Jessica jumped up from the table, taking the gun with her as if filled with new energy. “Remember the time we were all up here and got snowed in. God, that was a week. You two ran out of beer after the first three days. You flipped a coin to see who was going to hike down to the store and carry a case back. You lost, Joe, and Lord did you look silly with icicles hanging off your ears and two cases of beer on that damn American Flyer.”
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Joe pretended to be relaxed. He slung his arm across the back of the sofa and laughed. “Well, why go down for one when you can haul two.”
Jessica moved to stand in front of the window and leaned back against the sill. “Yeah, but we didn’t even have rolls for the hot dogs. You forgot those. So we ate them plain, dipped in ketchup, like french fries.”
If he could get her mind flowing with memories, maybe he could wander over close and simply lift the gun from her hand. “And we went out and built the snow animals. What was it? A big rabbit and a bear, I think.”
She shook her head, laughing but never lowering the gun beyond her waist.
“And then the snow forts went up and we had a snowball battle to beat all. We were frozen and hungry when we finished that up. God, what a time we had.”
“Good thing the kids weren’t with us that time. It would have been hard to keep them occupied. It was hard enough for us to find things to do.” Joe moved, only a little, away from Sterling, and dropped her hand.
“Played poker till we had nothing left to lose. And then you two began making up songs on that old guitar.” She dragged one hand through her hair, the gun weighing down the other.
Sterling felt Joe begin to get up. He made it to a standing position before Jessica looked directly at him again. She seemed to have forgotten why they were all there. She looked up at him, eyes shining with the good feeling the memories brought her.
Joe lit a cigarette, drawing deeply, and wished desperately for a drink. He carefully and slowly moved to the stereo and punched the button. The room was filled with country music. Willie Nelson was punishing himself with “You Were Always on My Mind.”
Sterling watched as Jessica followed him with her eyes. And the gun. Joe was talking. A light tone, one of fond remembrance. Jessica answered him with a
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pretty smile. He made his way cautiously across the room. “How about the time we took the kids to the lake and we all fell in when you stood up in the rowboat?”
She laughed hard then, not paying any attention to the gun. As Joe closed the gap between them, she skidded near the edge again. Her head flew up and her eyes sparked with fire. She put both hands around the gun and fired it at the floor exactly between where Joe stood and Sterling sat on the couch. The shot echoed around the room and deafened Sterling. Joe froze. Wood split and splinters flew. He didn’t look at the floor. He knew what the hole would look like.
“No, no, no!” she shrieked. “Sit back down, Joe. Or the next hole is in you.
Don’t you want some time to say good-bye to that cupie doll over there?”
“As a matter of fact, I would.” Joe walked over and sat down, trying to keep his eyes off the hole ripped in the floor. He directed his attention to Sterling.
Jessica had to sleep sometime, he decided. He would have to wait until then.
He looked at his precious Sterling. She had brought him alive again and might just be around to watch him die once more. It was her own fault. If she’d just gone home like he told her to. There was fear in her eyes along with something that could only be described as an energy of protection when someone you loved was in danger. He prayed she didn’t make a stupid move.
