Another small noise from the bed. He lifted his head and saw that her eyes were open.
“Britta, Britta, my darling…”
She was trying to whisper something. He put his ear close to her mouth and heard her say “So I’m alive?”
“Yes, you’re going to be fine, you’ve had a terrible… a terrible…” he jabbered.
“My God. Alive.” Her chest heaved. She was trying to laugh. “… I remember everything…”
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I…”
“… David?”
He began stroking her forehead, trying to calm her. She still gazed at him with such open eyes, as if she had never seen him before.
“… Take… me away.”
“Oh, yes. Where shall we go?”
“I… don’t know. My wonderful… idiot…” Her eyes fluttered and closed. For a moment he thought she was dead.
But she had only gone to sleep. She will live, he thought in wonder, and he ran out into the hall, calling for the nurse passing by.
Debbie was pouring out margaritas for the four of them, her hand shaking so it made the crushed ice rattle in the frosted pitcher. The sun beat down right through the canvas umbrella onto Jolene’s frosted hair and worried expression. Tory had moved under the eave of the house for the shade.
“Sit down, now,” Megan said. She pulled out a chair with padded blue patio cushions and Debbie sank into it. Under her makeup her face was distraught.
“You said it was important,” Megan reminded her.
“Oh, yeah, it’s important.”
“Well?”
“Don’t push her, Megan,” Tory said. “You always push too hard. It’s something awful bad, isn’t it, Debs?”
“Yes,” Debbie said, and tears began to flow.
“We’re gonna help, whatever it is,” Jolene said. “Is George involved in this trouble?”
Debbie nodded tearfully.
“Is Ted part of this?” Megan said sharply, taking her cue from Jolene.
Another nod. Megan sat back in consternation. Debbie took crushed ice out of her glass and rubbed it into her forehead. “So’s Sam. And David.” She took Tory’s hand. “So’s Darryl.”
“Well, lay it down for us,” Jolene said in her practical way.
“They met last night. At Kasey’s parking lot. Around the side, away from the Valley Road. They gave you all some excuse like Sam gave me.”
“They met? Why didn’t they just get together at one of our houses?” Tory said.
“Just wait. I followed them. I wanted to know what they were doing.”
Jolene said, “Why, you sly thing.” She was holding her glass tightly.
“And I heard-”
“Uh huh, uh huh-”
“Listen.” So she told them what she’d heard from the bushes.
“… in,” somebody said. Maybe David.
“We turn him in, we’re turning ourselves in.”
“I don’t care, Sam. He almost killed my wife. I can’t let him get away with that.” That was David for sure.
“He’s taking us on one by one,” Sam said. “You guys have that figured out yet? Ted, who you think that fire on Robles Ridge was aimed at?”
“Megan and me?” Ted said. “Our house site? Really? He could have burned down half of Southbank Road!”
“He told me forty-eight hours to pay up or he’s gonna do something worse,” Sam said.
“Well, I’m not paying a thing.” David again.
“That’s fine, you turn us all in. Then when Britta gets out of the hospital, who’s going to take care of her?” George said. “I got my family, you got Britta: Darryl, he’s got four little ones. Think about that before you go running off-” David made a strangled noise.
“If we pay him off, will he go away?” Darryl had started talking now.
“If we’d paid him way back after the second fire we wouldn’t be in this fix,” George said.
“We all agreed,” Sam said. “He had no right. All he was supposed to do was set a little brushfire, scorch up the model home a little-he could have hurt somebody burnin’ down the cafe. That was right in the heart of town! We couldn’t pay him after that!”
“We can’t pay him now either,” David said. “It’s just piling another crime on all of us.”
“But he’ll go away if we do,” Darryl said.
“He’s only hanging around out there waiting to collect. He doesn’t want to be here, he’s hot. We’re keeping him here,” Ted said.
“We have another problem,” Darryl said. “Tory asked me why I withdrew the first twelve-fifty.” The other men groaned. “She knows something.”
George said, “So that’s what Jolene’s been up to! I thought the kids were playing with my desk. It’s her. I’ll be damned.”
“Look. We have to pay him,” Sam said. “You should have heard him on the phone. He’s not reasonable. He said forty-eight hours and that’s it.”
“But, Jolene-”
“Be quiet a second, George. I want to ask David here a question. Now, David. You could pay out the twenty thousand balance we still owe him right now, end all this, save us all. It’s the simplest way, right?”
“That’s good. That’s good,” Darryl said.
David said in a tight voice, “He hurts my wife like that and I’m supposed to pay for all of you? No. No.”
“David, listen-”
“Hey, don’t go-”
“David!”
Debbie heard a car door slam and the car peeled out of the lot.
There was a long silence. Then Darryl said in a disbelieving voice, “He had my car keys. That was my car he drove off in.”
“Great. Now we’re totally in the crapper,” Ted said.
“Ted-”
“Don’t look at me, man, Megan knows all our finances and most of it’s her money and she’d figure it out in ten seconds.”
Darryl said, “Sam, what are we gonna do?” He sounded desperate.
“Keep your shirt on, Darryl, I’ll think of something. I’ll call him and tell him we need more time to get the money together.”
“He’ll do something else to us.”
“I said, I’ll take care of it. Now listen, all of you. The women can’t know about this. Don’t say anything or we’re all going to prison. Darryl, you hear me? Huh? Darryl?”
“What’d you bring that gun for anyway, Sam?”
Sam said, “I don’t know. I just feel like killing somebody.” Debbie had forgotten about the gun. She held on to a branch and closed her eyes and said a little prayer.
“Don’t scare him, you jerk,” Ted said. “I have to get home.”
“I’ll call you. Stay cool,” Sam said.
Megan said, “Is that everything, Debbie? All you can remember?” Maybe she spoke too sharply, because Debbie put the pitcher down and propped herself against the table and started blubbering again.
“Now, honey,” Jolene told her, “stitch yourself back together, because we need your help. Not a one of us can afford to have a nervous breakdown right now.”
“I’ll start,” Megan said. “They’re a bunch of selfish little boys. I checked our books. Twelve hundred fifty dollars withdrawn by Ted two months ago.”
Jolene said, “Mmm-hmm. George did the same. Tory?”
“Yes. He told me it was for something else.”
“Debbie?”
“Yeah.” A big tear fell into Debbie’s salt-rimmed glass. Her mascara was streaked all the way down to her lips.
“I think we can figure that David paid too. Serve ’em right to go to jail,” Jolene said. She looked around the table. “I know, I know. Now, George, he’ll die in jail. He’s sick.”
“I don’t know where to start. All the harm they’ve caused,” Tory said. “I decided to have the baby after all, and now this. Who’s going to buy the food for five kids?”
“None of us wants to turn them in, but what else can we do? There’s a man killing people left and right out there, it’s all their fault, and-”
“We could urge them to turn themselves in,” Tory said.
“I am not able to raise this with Sam, not alone,” Debbie said, still sniffling. “He won’t listen.”
“We could all meet with all of them-” Tory was still trying.
“They’ve already made up their minds what they want to do,” Megan said. “But they’re going to fart around until somebody else gets hurt. I could just pay the money.”
“After how he hurt Britta? How he-he sneaked up on poor Ruthie-”
The women were silent. Debbie poured them all another round.
“No way,” Tory said, and they all nodded.
“But-the kids? What about them?” Tory said. “What if-”
Jolene looked at her watch and said, “The girls get off that bus at two-thirty, and I’m going to be right there to meet them. So we better make a decision.”
“He gave the men until tomorrow,” Debbie said fearfully. “I think.”
“And then you know what he threatened to do. Take the children. I’m sure as hell not taking any chances. Now I have two more minutes, girls. Callie’s got her soccer practice after this and I’ll be right there on the field. Here’s what I think. I’m as mad at the men as anybody. But I’m not calling the police. I won’t do it to George.”
“We can’t trust the men to handle this,” Tory said.
