One Last Scream

worrying. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

Speeding along I-90 in her boyfriend’s car, Amelia clicked off the cell phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands, and started to cry.

Uncle George had said everything would be fine. But he didn’t know what she knew. Amelia hadn’t told him the whole story. She’d failed to mention that, in all likelihood, she’d killed her parents and Ina.

Amelia had also lied about where she had been. After waking up at the deserted Wiener World parking lot, she’d driven around for ten minutes until she’d found the freeway entrance. Then she finally saw a sign telling her where she was: Easton, Washington-a little city ninety miles east of Seattle. It was also about halfway to Wenatchee-and from Wenatchee. Had she been there last night? Had Easton been a stopover so she could sleep a few hours on her way back from murdering her parents and aunt?

Shane had left three messages on her cell, wanting to know where she’d taken his car. Amelia was driving past Snoqualmie when she called him back. She lied and said she’d had a sudden urge to see the Snoqualmie Falls last night. Yes, she’d gotten a little drunk, and decided to sleep it off in the car in the Snoqualmie Lodge parking lot. Yes, she was all right. She just felt awful for taking his car and for the way she’d acted at the party last night.

She couldn’t tell Shane the truth. The only person she could really talk to was her therapist, Karen.

Funny, the two people in whom she confided the most were both women in their thirties. They weren’t alike at all. Karen, with her wavy, shoulder-length chestnut hair and brown eyes, had the kind of natural beauty other women admired, but only the most discerning men noticed. She was very down to earth, but still had a certain class to her. She could look elegant in just a pair of jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. Meanwhile, Amelia’s Aunt Ina was very flashy and fun, sometimes even over the top. All eyes went to her whenever she walked into a room. She was Prada to Karen’s Banana Republic.

Amelia remembered how lucky she’d felt when her cool Aunt Ina had decided to spend more time with her. They went to art galleries, the theater, and all these terrific, hip restaurants. But then Amelia had started seeing Karen, who was so compassionate and kind. After a while, she stopped confiding in Ina, who wasn’t a very good listener, anyway. Amelia realized her favorite aunt could be pretty selfish. Sometimes she felt like Ina’s pet-just this silly, admiring college girl who tagged along in her frivolous aunt’s shadow.

Selfish, manipulative bitch, Amelia remembered thinking last night as she’d aimed the hunting rifle at her Aunt Ina. Amelia’s not your fucking pet.

It was as if someone else were speaking for her-and killing for her. Yet Amelia remembered pulling the trigger. She remembered the jolt from the gun-and the loud blast.

God, please, please, don’t let me have done that. Make it not be true. Let them be all right.

She pressed harder on the accelerator.

Watching the road ahead, Amelia wiped her eyes, and then reached for the cell phone on the passenger seat.

She had Karen on speed dial.

“Frank, you need to put down the knife,” Karen said in a firm, unruffled tone.

Everyone else around her was going berserk, but she tried to remain calm and keep eye contact with the 73- year-old Alzheimer’s patient. The unshaven man had greasy, long gray hair and a ruddy complexion. His T-shirt was inside out, with food stains down the front. The pale green pajama bottoms were filthy, too. In his shaky hand he held a butcher’s knife. He looked more terrified than anyone else in the nursing home cafeteria. Just moments ago, he’d accidentally knocked over a stack of dirty trays from the bus table. He’d bumped into the table, backing away from an overly aggressive kitchen worker.

“Drop the goddamn knife,” growled the short, thirty-something man. He wore a T-shirt and chinos under his apron. Tattoos covered his skinny arms. He kept inching toward the desperately confused patient. “C’mon, drop it! I don’t have all day here!” He kicked a chair and it toppled across the floor, just missing the old man. “You hear me, Pops? Drop it!”

“Get away from him!” Karen barked. “For God’s sake, can’t you see he’s scared?”

Two orderlies hovered behind her, along with a few elderly residents wanting to see what all the fuss was about. The rest home’s manager, a handsome, white-haired woman in her sixties named Roseann, had managed to herd everyone else out of the cafeteria. She stood at Karen’s side. “Did you hear her, Earl?” Roseann yelled at the kitchen worker. “Let Karen handle this. She knows what she’s doing!”

But Earl wasn’t listening. He closed in on the man, looking ready to pounce. “You shouldn’t steal knives out of my kitchen, Pops….”

“No-no…get!” the Alzheimer’s patient cried, waving the knife at him.

Wincing, Karen watched the frightened old man shrink back toward the pile of trays. He was barefoot, and there were shards of broken glass on the floor.

Roseann gasped. “Earl, don’t-”

He lunged at the man, who reeled back. But the knife grazed Earl’s tattooed arm. A few of the residents behind Karen gasped.

The little man let out a howl, and recoiled. “Son of a bitch!”

One of the orderlies rushed to his aid. Grumbling obscenities, Earl held on to his arm, as the blood oozed between his fingers.

“No…get!” the old man repeated.

“It’s okay!” the orderly called, checking Earl’s wound, and pulling him toward the cafeteria exit. “Doesn’t look too deep….”

“Fuck you ‘it’s okay’,” he shot back. “I’m bleeding here.”

Shushing him, the orderly quickly led Earl out the door.

Karen was still looking into the old man’s eyes. “That was an accident, Frank,” she said steadily. “We all saw it. No one’s mad at you. But you should put down the knife, okay?”

Wide-eyed, he kept shaking his head at her. He took another step back toward the glass on the floor.

“Frank, how do you think the Cubs are going to do this season?” Karen suddenly asked.

She remembered how during her last visit with him, he’d chatted nonstop about the Chicago Cubs. But he’d talked as if it were 1968, back when he’d been a hotshot, 33-year-old attorney in Arlington Heights, Illinois with a beautiful wife, Elaine, and two children, Frank Junior and Sheila. The old man in the stained T-shirt and pajama bottoms used to dress in Brooks Brothers suits. The family moved to Seattle in 1971, where they added a third child to the brood, a baby girl. Frank started his own law firm, and did quite well in Mariner town. But he’d always remained a Cubs fan.

Though she knew it was typical of Alzheimer’s patients, Karen still thought it was kind of funny that Frank often couldn’t remember the name of his dead wife or the names of his three children and seven grandchildren. But he still recalled the Cubs’ star lineup from 1968.

“How do you think Ernie Banks is going to do, Frank?” she asked.

He stopped, and his milky blue eyes narrowed at her for a moment. “Um…you need-you need to keep your eye on Ron Santo. This is-this is going to be his year.” He lowered the knife. He suddenly seemed to forget he was holding it.

“I thought you were an Ernie Banks fan, Frank,” she said. “You know, there’s some glass on the floor behind you. Be careful.”

He turned and glanced down at the floor. “Yeah, you got to love Ernie. Who doesn’t?”

Karen felt her cell phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans, but she ignored it. She took a few steps toward him. “You know, you ought to put down that knife. Should we get some ice cream?”

He frowned at the knife in his hand, and then set it on one of the cafeteria tables.

“Does ice cream sound good to you, Frank?” Roseann piped in. “I think Karen has a good idea there. You recognize Karen, don’t you?”

The second orderly carefully reached for the knife and took it away. A few of the residents behind Karen sighed, and one elderly man clapped.

Karen put her arm around Frank. Between his breath and his body odor, he smelled awful. But she smiled at him. “You recognize me, don’t you, Poppy?”