pinned down in the dark while Abigail stalked us with a gun.
“But then I saw you,” my aunt was trying to explain to Abigail, her voice carrying through the dark. “And I didn’t know what to do. I told Chrissy she was sick. Demanded that she turn herself in. I offered to take you, Abigail, raise you just as I’d been doing with Charlene. Except Chrissy wouldn’t hear it. She told me I was wrong, had gotten everything confused. There’d been a boyfriend in New York. That’s who had stabbed Charlie, who’d murdered the babies. She’d been on the run from him ever since that night, which is why she’d grabbed you, Abigail, and fled from the police. So this ‘boyfriend’ wouldn’t find her.”
Across the room, I saw Abigail pause. She’d been moving steadily closer to the sound of my aunt’s voice, seeking a target. Now, however, I saw her hesitate. I used the opportunity to ease off my first heavy winter boot.
“For a moment, I almost believed her,” my aunt whispered. “Then Chrissy started to laugh. She looked me in the eye and told me that’s exactly what she’d explain to the police. They, of course, would start looking for the boyfriend, and in the meantime, she’d demand full custody of Charlie again. She’d take both of you and disappear. I couldn’t believe she’d do such a thing, but of course she would. Drama and intrigue. Everything she liked best. Who cared if it hurt you, Abigail, or you, Charlie, or me. All that mattered was that it served Christine.
“I asked her what she wanted and she offered me a deal. If I never told the police I’d found her, then I could keep Charlie. She’d never contact me, I’d never contact her. We’d go our separate ways, each one of us with one child. She made it sound generous, as if she was doing me a favor. And I…
“I couldn’t let her have you again, Charlie. You were doing so well. You had friends and you were happy, and I…I loved you too much to send you back to her. So I made the devil’s bargain. I agreed to her terms, Abigail. I sacrificed you, so I could save your sister. And I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that one day, you would forgive me for that.”
My aunt’s voice changed, became resolute. Too late, I realized what she was going to do. Too late, I stood up behind the wingback chair, all the way at the other end of the long, shadowed family room.
As my aunt rose up from behind the sofa and peered straight at Abigail.
“I hoped,” my aunt whispered bravely, “that as a sister, you’d be grateful that at least one of you got away.”
Abigail stared my aunt in the eye. For one second, I thought we just might make it. I thought Abigail-
She pulled the trigger. Her Sig Sauer exploded. My aunt made a funny hissing sound, spun slightly left, reaching out a hand as if for balance. Abigail took aim a second time and I hurtled my boot at her head.
It connected just as she squeezed the trigger. Another gasping sound from my aunt, then Abigail spun around, pointing her gun toward me. I flipped off my second heavy-soled boot and hurtled that one as well.
I caught her shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt her. But it threw her off balance. She had to take a second to adjust her stance, during which time I grabbed three sofa pillows and started winging them through the air.
She ducked reflexively. Left. Right. Left. I used the opportunity to spring across the room.
Not away from her.
But toward her. Bounding over the coffee table, pivoting around the camelback sofa. Ducking and weaving straight into the firing zone.
Her eyes opened. Her face shone, pale and shocked in the dark, and I suffered a fresh fissure of memory. Another time, another pale face. Another person I loved and just wanted to make happy.
But it wouldn’t be enough. It was never enough. She would hurt me instead.
I drew to a halt twelve inches in front of my baby sister and stood stock-still as Abigail leveled her Sig Sauer at my chest, hot barrel touching my sternum, point-blank range.
“You should’ve saved me,” she whispered hoarsely.
“I did. I sacrificed myself for you. Time and time again. It just wasn’t enough. I loved you, Abby. And if you loved me, then you should’ve been happy for me, just like Aunt Nancy said.”
“I fucking hate-”
“Shhh…”
My little sister’s hand shook. Then her finger moved on the trigger. Just as I whipped the plastic ballpoint pen from the back of my ponytail, and, holding it horizontally between my two hands, brought it down like a steel bar against the top of her forearm, right below her wrist.
An old bartender’s trick. Sounds like nothing. Looks like nothing. Hurts like hell, right before the hard pen cuts off blood flow to the forearm and the entire hand goes numb, rendering your opponent’s fist slack and unresponsive.
Abigail’s right hand opened reflexively. She couldn’t help herself, her mouth forming a silent O of pain as her Sig Sauer clattered to the floor. I kicked it away. She caught me in the side of the head with her left fist.
Then she was battering at me, and I was doing my best to defend as the back door burst open and a dog came racing into the house, barking frantically, while a female voice rang out, “Boston PD, hands where I can see them!”
I couldn’t put my hands where Detective D. D. Warren could see them. Abigail had given up on her gun, and now had her fingers locked tight around my throat. She was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, the dark room going even darker. My hands on hers, clawing, grappling for purchase, trying to find her fingers, force them off, as lights began to explode inside my skull.
She had such tremendous hand strength. She wasn’t just wringing the breath from my body. She was doing her best to crush my neck.
Staggering back into the low coffee table. Losing my balance. Falling sideways to the floor.
“Stop, police!”
My little sister looming above me, still holding tight, her eyes filled with almost unholy glee. Until the lines blurred, and she wasn’t my sister anymore. Instead, I peered up into my mother’s face.
I gave up on clawing her hands and started fighting in earnest. Jab, jab, jab to her kidneys. Uppercut to her chin, right punch to the side of her face, again and again. Hitting and hitting and hitting. A year’s worth of training, the fight of my life.
The world growing dark as my insane sister absorbed blow after blow, her resolution never wavering, her fingers never falling from my throat.
“Abigail Grant! Detective O. Step away right now. Hands where I can see them!”
Shoot, I willed Detective Warren. Just shoot. But, of course, she couldn’t. Abigail and I were tangled into each other, her hands on my throat, my fists buried into her stomach, two desperate women, one hulking form.
Then, out of nowhere, a white-and-tan rocket, as Tulip scrabbled down the hardwood hall and launched herself, snarling and yipping into Abigail’s exposed side.
White fangs sinking. Abigail screaming. Finally, my sister releasing my throat, staggering back and straightening as she grabbed Tulip’s small, lunging body and hurtled her against the far wall.
A yelp. Then silence.
Me, rolling onto my side. Trying to get up. Trying to get away. Crawling. Kind of. Sort of. Couldn’t get my arms under me. Couldn’t draw air into my lungs.
“Abigail Grant. Hands up. This is your last warning. Stop or I’ll shoot!”
My sister turned toward D.D. There was something in her hand, something that hadn’t been there before. The knife. From my ankle sheath. It must’ve fallen out when we were fighting.
Her gaze fell to my exposed side and I couldn’t help myself. I stilled, waited for her to strike the blow. Blood and fire. Maybe this was what we’d both been waiting for. Twenty years of unfinished business.
I didn’t put my hands up in self-defense. I just stared at my baby sister. Willed her to look at me. Willed her to see the big sister who’d genuinely loved her.
“Don’t.” D. D. Warren’s voice. Closer. But also softer, as if she could feel the turning point. “Put down the knife, Abigail. You’re a cop, remember?
“My mother was right,” Abigail whispered, to her, to me. “The monsters are everywhere. Coming in the dark of the night to hurt small children. On the Internet, on the streets. I see them everywhere. I tried using my badge, I tried using my gun. None of it works. The monsters. Our mother. They are all inside my head.”
