The Bone House (53 page)

    'Smell
what?' Reich asked.

    'Smoke.'

    Reich's
arm slowly sank, as if under a great weight. The gun slipped downward. He ran a
hand over his bottlebrush hair, and his eyes were wide. 'Jesus,' he whispered.

    'I
didn't tell anyone. I mean, by morning, I wondered if I'd dreamed it. Everyone
was saying Mr Bone was the one. I wanted to be wrong, you know? I did just what
Mr Bone did. I protected Jen. Even after what Glory told me.'

    'Glory?'
Bradley asked her. 'What about Glory?'

    Tresa
nestled closer to him. 'We were in the hospital. Glory and me. She told me what
she saw. It was Jen, through the window of the garage, lighting a cigarette.
That was the only thing she remembered. And I knew she'd seen her. She'd seen
Jen starting the fire.' The girl bowed her head and stared at her feet. 'I convinced
Glory she'd imagined the whole thing. We never talked about it again. Not ever.
Glory never talked about the fire or told anyone what she saw. It was like it
had never happened, you know?'

    'What
about Florida?' Cab asked.

    'Jen
must have been there,' Tresa said. 'I never thought that was possible. I mean,
she's not a dancer, you know? I never dreamed she would do something like that.
I still don't know why.'

    She
saw someone she knew,
Cab thought.

    Jen
Bone. Through the window at the hotel. The memories must have stormed back,
carrying Glory away like a tsunami. He felt sorry for the girl, coming face to
face with everything she'd spent six years trying to escape. Remembering what
had really happened at the Bone house.

    'When
Mark said Hilary was in Green Bay, I knew,' Tresa murmured, 'I just knew. Jen
goes to Green Bay. That man Gary Jensen, she wrote an article about him for the
school paper last year. Peter Hoffman sent it to me. He thought I'd want to see
it because it was about dancing. He told me Jen's roommate was a dancer just
like me. It must be this girl Amy. The one you said disappeared.'

    Bradley
picked up Tresa under her shoulders and lifted the girl away from him,
protecting her with his body. He was inches from Reich. 'Are you going to shoot
me, Sheriff? If so, you better do it now, because if not, I'm leaving. I have
to get the police to find my wife.'

    Reich
stared blankly at him and didn't move or raise the gun. He was in shock. Cab
waved at Bradley, telling him to go, and he took off limping through the
cemetery. Running for a phone. Cab beckoned to Tresa. He took her hand, and he
put out his other hand toward Felix Reich.

    'Bradley's
right,' Cab said. 'We need to call the Green Bay Police right now. We don't have
much time. Let's go, Sheriff.'

    Reich
said nothing at all. Cab gestured with his hand again.

    'Sheriff?
Come on, it's over. You're too honorable a man for more violence. It's time to
surrender.'

    'Take
the girl and go.' Reich murmured. 'What?'

    Reich
looked up, and his face was as dark and dreadful as a corpse. Their eyes met.
Cab saw that the sheriff wasn't staring down into the hole anymore. He was
inside it, consumed by the mold, dampness, worms, and stench of the burial
ground. Reich withdrew Cab's own gun from his pocket, the one he had stolen
when he assaulted Cab at Bradley's house, and threw it at his feet.

    'Take
Tresa with you, Detective,' he repeated.

    Cab
wrestled with his conscience. Stay or go. 'Sheriff?' he murmured, his voice a
question and a warning at the same time.

    'The
living are more important than the dead,' Reich told him.

    Cab
retrieved his gun. As he did, Reich deposited his flashlight on the flat stone
top of the headstone beside him. He turned his back on Cab and Tresa without
another word and marched away, heading back toward the thick curtain of the
forest. He still had Troy's gun in his hand. The night swallowed him in
seconds, and he disappeared, and so did the wet sucking noise of his boots in
the grass. Cab tugged at Tresa's hand.

    'We
have to hurry,' he said, pulling her toward the road.

    'Are
you just going to let him go?' Tresa asked. 'He'll escape.'

    'Nobody
escapes,' Cab said.

    Reich
was right. The living mattered now. Hilary Bradley. Cab hoped they were in
time. He grabbed the flashlight and ran, fighting down the waves of pain in his
skull, and Tresa ran beside him, her young body quick and graceful. She guided
him more than he guided her, urging him to go faster when he slowed down. They
fought through the pools of standing water toward the bay. From there, when
they could see the beach ahead of them, they followed in Mark Bradley's path on
the dirt road toward his house.

    That
was when Cab heard the single gunshot behind them.

    He'd
been waiting for it. Expecting it. The noise was loud and sharp as it pierced
the forest, growing softer with each successive echo. Tresa flinched and looked
in the direction of the shot, but he dragged her away. The waves of sound took
several seconds to fade completely away, which was long after the bullet had
traveled through Felix Reich's brain and long after the sheriff had fallen
where he stood, an old soldier dead in the jungle.

    'I
needed a cigarette,' Katie explained. 'I was on the patio with the Green Bay
team while Gary gave one of his rah-rah speeches, and I wandered over by the hotel
window and flicked my lighter. I heard a girl scream inside. Crazy. I knew
Tresa was at the hotel, and I'd been avoiding her, but I never thought Glory
would be there too. It must have triggered something when she saw me. The
brain's a funny thing.'

    Hilary
watched this pretty young girl talk clinically about her crimes, as if they had
sprung from someone else's hand.

    'I
never wanted this to happen,' she went on. 'I'm Katie Monroe now. I've spent
six years trying to forget that I was Jen Bone or that I ever lived in that
house.'

    'You
murdered your mother and your brothers,' Hilary said. 'You burned them all to
death.'

    Katie's
eyes flashed. 'Did you live there? Do you know what it was like? Do you have
any idea of the things they did to me? I wanted to erase them and that house
and everything in it. I wanted it to be like none of it had ever existed. I
didn't feel guilty. I still don't.'

    'But
you let your father take the blame.'

    Katie's
face went cloudy. That was the first real emotion Hilary had seen in her. 'Dad
got home while I was watching the place burn. He acted like he was
sorry.
Can you believe it? I was doing both of us a favor. With them out of the way,
it was finally going to be just the two of us, but Dad didn't understand. He
sent me back to Tresa's house, and he stayed there to wait for the sheriff.'

    'Has
he contacted you?'

    Katie
shook her head. 'He's dead. If he wasn't dead, he would have gotten in touch
with me. My aunt was always telling me I didn't have to be scared of my father
coming back. Like she knew something. Like it was a secret I should keep.'

    Hilary
wanted the girl to keep talking. She wanted time for the police to find them.
'So is Gary Jensen supposed to take your father's place?'

    'What
does that mean?' Katie retorted. 'Do you think I was sleeping with my father?
You think he was abusing me? Is that what you think?'

    'I
have no idea.'

    'You're
the one with the husband who screws teenage girls.'

    'That's
a lie.'

    'Oh, you
think so? You're like every wife, loyal and stupid. Gary's wife was the same
way, until she found pictures of me on his phone. He convinced her he'd dumped
me, but he dumped her instead. Off a cliff.'

    'Mark's
not Gary.'

    'Yeah?
I followed Glory out to the beach that night, but your husband got in the way.
They put on a hell of a show.'

    'Don't
play games with me,' Hilary snapped.

    'Glory
took off her top, and then she got on her knees. Do I need to spell it out for
you?'

    'Shut
up.'

    Katie
shrugged. 'You know I'm telling the truth.'

    Hilary
saw Gary Jensen reappear behind Katie. He had liter bottles of gin, tequila,
and vodka in his hands, but his jaw was clenched with dismay. He hovered in the
doorway, unwilling to enter the bedroom. Katie gestured at him, and her face
betrayed a growing agitation and impatience. She was losing control.

    'Pour
the alcohol around the room,' Katie told him. 'Quickly.'

    Gary
didn't move. 'We don't need to do this.'

    Katie
reached out and caressed his cheek. 'There's no going back now. It's too late.
If you'd gotten rid of Amy fast like I told you, then we would have been fine.
But you let the cat out of the bag, lover. We could have contained the damage
if it was just Amy, but not anymore. By the time the police sift through the
ashes, we'll be in Canada.'

    Jensen
opened his mouth but said nothing. He crouched down and laid two bottles at his
feet. He unscrewed the cap on a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya and hesitated over
the prone body of the girl on the floor.

    'Pour
it over Amy,' she instructed him. '
Do it
.'

    With
a long glance at Katie, Jensen turned the vodka bottle upside down, letting the
liquid spill out in spurts, covering Amy in strong- smelling alcohol. Her hair.
Her shirt. Her arms. Her jeans. Her feet. As the fumes gathered in her nose,
Amy began to stir. Hilary heard her moan, but the girl's eyes were still
closed.

    He
poured until the bottle was empty.

    'Now
the rest,' Katie told him. 'Do the whole room. The curtains. The carpet. And
don't forget Hilary here.'

    Jensen's
eyes awakened with a kind of shock. 'Jesus, how did this happen?'

    'Hurry.
We're running out of time.'

    'My
wife. That girl in Florida. Now we have to kill two more people?'

    Katie
picked up the bottle of Cuervo and shoved it into his hand. 'This is the only
way.'

    Jensen
slowly twisted the cap. When the bottle was open, he dropped the cap to the
floor and watched it bounce and roll. He took a stuttering step toward Hilary,
and then he stopped and shook his head.

    'No.'

    Katie
clenched her fist. 'Gary, please.'

    'I
won't do this.'

    'I
told you, this is the last time. Once it's done, we're free.'

    'You
said that about my wife. You said that about Glory.'

    'I
know. I never meant for any of this to happen.'

    'Let's
get out of here,' he said. 'You and me. Right now.'

    Katie
kissed his cheek and exhaled in a slow, sorrowful sigh. 'OK. You win. Sure.'

    'Really?'

    'Whatever
you want, Gary. You know I love you.'

    Katie
gently pried the bottle from his hands. She upended the neck to her lips and
took a long, burning swallow. When she was done, she wiped her mouth, pointed
the gun at Gary Jensen, and fired into the center of his forehead.

    Hilary
screamed. The explosion sounded like a bomb, rattling her head. Blood and brain
matter blew out the back of Jensen's skull in a chunky spray and painted the
wall. Jensen's body dropped straight down like an imploding building with its
columns knocked out. He crumpled into a dead pile. The smell of charred metal
was like sulfur in Hilary's nose.

    Katie
bit her lip unhappily, staring down at his body. She blinked rapidly, as if
even she was surprised at what she'd done. As if it was an impulse she couldn't
resist, like scratching an itch. The echo of the shot died, and in the terrible
silence, they all heard a rhythmic wailing, rising above the wind. In the
distance, sirens grew louder and closer.

    Multiple
sirens, overlapping, from police vehicles racing toward them.

    'It's
over, Katie,' Hilary said softly.