lighter than it looked, only a few pounds. “There’s about six thousand dollars back here, sort of an emergency fund. It’s yours. Just take it and
All at once, Stephanie scurried toward the front door.
The young man turned his gun on her.
He didn’t see that behind the mirror frame, there was nothing. He didn’t see George swinging the mirror at him with all his might.
A shot rang out. The young man howled in pain as George hit him in the face with the mirror. There was an explosion of glass.
Squeezing his eyes shut, George turned his head away for a second.
When he opened his eyes again, Stephanie was gone, and the front door was open. The.45 lay on the carpet amid shards of reflective glass.
In a stupor, the young man stared at George. His sunglasses had been knocked off his face. His eyes were listless. Blood dripped from several little bits of broken mirrored glass embedded in his face. One large piece was stuck in his neck. In a daze, he pried it out. Blood gushed from the fatal wound, cascading down the front of his white shirt, tie, and the shiny black jacket.
He remained standing, looking stunned.
George heard the sirens from police cars coming up the street. He realized Jody’s friend, Brad, must have called the police. The searchlights and beams from the red strobes poured through the windows. For a few seconds, the same light danced off the mirrored fragments in the young man’s face.
Then he collapsed dead on the floor.
Through the sheer window curtains, George could see four police cars pulling in front of the house. One policeman ran across the yard and scooped up Stephanie.
George started toward the kitchen, and stopped dead.
His forehead still bleeding, Jody stood near the kitchen counter with a tired smile on his face. He staggered toward his father, and threw his arms around him.
Dazed, George embraced his son. He glanced over at Jessie, a bit unsteady on her feet, slowly making her way into the living room. George realized Jody must have untied her. He kissed the top of Jody’s head. “God, you- you sure had me fooled,” he murmured. “I thought you were practically dead.”
“Me, too,” Jody said, with a weak laugh.
“We still need to get you to a doctor,” George said. With an arm around his son, George dug the cell phone out of his pocket. He checked for messages. There were two Jessie had left on the home phone and two more from that sheriff in Salem. No one else.
“Are you calling Karen?” Jessie asked.
He nodded. “It’s been nearly two hours.”
It rang and rang. No one picked up. It didn’t even go to her voice mail.
Jessie gave him an apprehensive look. He just shook his head at her.
When he’d last talked to Karen, she’d been on her way to meet Amelia at the restaurant near the lake house.
George stayed on the line. He didn’t want to hang up just yet, not even as the three of them started toward the front door.
Jessie paused for a moment and looked down at something on the carpet amid the mirrored fragments. Frowning, she kicked it out of her way and then moved on.
The bent, broken sunglasses skittered across the floor.
Chapter Twenty-five
Breathless, Karen ran along the water’s edge.
Her head was still throbbing, and her lungs burned, but she pressed on toward Helene Sumner’s house. She could see the lights on inside her cottage farther up the beach.
She’d left Annabelle Schlessinger in that grimy, little fallout shelter with a bullet in her stomach. Annabelle’s black knit top had been soaked with blood by the time Amelia had staggered back down to the cellar with several dishtowels from the kitchen. They’d managed to move Annabelle to the cot, and pulled off her blood-sodden sweater. Karen had told her to lie still and keep the towels pressed against the wound.
But Annabelle wouldn’t stop screaming and squirming. Her shrill cries echoed off the walls of the little gray chamber. Her legs were curled up toward her stomach as if some shifting in her organs had locked them there. Pale and trembling, she seemed very afraid. “Don’t let me die in here!” she cried several times. She’d lost a lot of blood, and Karen noticed her breathing was shallow. She wasn’t sure about her chances. At the same time, she couldn’t help wondering if Annabelle was stronger than she let on. Was it an act to throw them off guard?
Karen remembered something Naomi Rankin had told her about Annabelle always being the weaker twin. Amelia was the stronger one.
The cut across the palm of Amelia’s hand wasn’t too deep. Karen wrapped a wet dishtowel around her hand to slow the bleeding. Amelia admitted the searing pain in her stomach-exactly where her sister had been shot-was far more severe.
She promised to look after her twin sister. “Helene Sumner’s house is closer than Danny’s Diner,” she told Karen, catching her breath as they paused in the fallout shelter’s doorway. “You’re better off calling the paramedics from there.”
Furtively, Karen tried to pass the revolver to her, but Amelia shook her head. “I won’t need it,” Amelia whispered. “She won’t try anything.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because,” she said with a pale smile, “I can
“Just the same,” Karen murmured. “I’ll leave this upstairs on the kitchen counter. You haven’t been through the living room yet, have you?”
Amelia shook her head. “No, why?”
“Don’t go in there if you can help it,” Karen said. “I’ll explain later.”
Coiled up on the bed, Annabelle let out another shriek. “Hurry, goddamn it! I’m bleeding to death!”
“Watch her like a hawk,” Karen whispered, giving Amelia’s shoulder a pat. She raced up the basement stairs. She left the revolver on the kitchen counter, and then ran out of the lake house.
That had been only five minutes ago, and yet it seemed like forever.
Helene’s dog started barking as Karen banged on the front door of her cottage. “Ms. Sumner!” Karen cried. “Ms. Sumner, I need to use your phone! Please! It’s an emergency!”
The old woman answered the door with a robe on and a rifle in her hand. It took her a moment before she seemed to recognize Karen from that afternoon. She held her collie by the collar while Karen, frazzled and out of breath, asked if she could use her phone to call the police. “There’s been a shooting at the Faradays’ cabin,” she explained. “Somebody’s hurt.”
“My goodness,” Helene murmured. She pulled her dog aside and cleared the doorway. “C’mon, Abby, move it. Come in, come in. I thought I heard a shot about fifteen minutes ago. The phone’s right there in the kitchen….”
Helene’s kitchen had a huge old-fashioned stove, a blue Formica-top breakfast table with three mismatched chairs, and the only working telephone in about a mile. It was a yellow, wall-mounted phone with a dial instead of a touch-tone pad. Karen called the police on it.
The 911 operator said they’d be at the Faradays’ house with the paramedics in fifteen minutes.
“Is it Amelia who was hurt?” Helene asked, once Karen hung up.
With a hand still on the receiver, Karen shook her head. “No, it’s-a relative of Amelia’s. Could I make another call? It’s long distance, but I’ll pay you back.”
Helene nodded. “Go ahead.”
Karen dialed George’s cell phone number. She nervously tugged at the phone cord and counted the ring tones. On the fourth ring, he picked up: “Hello?”
