left out.
He opened his eyes and turned. His eyes were fixed now on the dusty ivory keys, watching them move up and down, up and down, all by themselves, like some fucking ghost was playing the damn thing.
“Stop it!” he shouted.
The music stopped, and silence filled the room. He felt like he’d gone deaf.
“I’m just having some fun, Owen.”
Margi’s white face wavered in front of him.
“Why can’t I have a little fun? There ain’t nothing else to do in this crappy place.”
“This is my
She turned back to the piano. “Ain’t no wonder she left you if you made her live here,” she whispered.
Margi didn’t move.
He was at her side in one step. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face forward into the keyboard.
“She didn’t leave me!” he shouted.
He yanked Margi off the stool and, still clutching her hair, dragged her toward the kitchen. Margi clawed at his hands and started to kick.
“Stop it!” she screamed.
He shoved through the kitchen door, holding her by the hair as he started searching drawers. Empty. Empty. Damn it.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Margi whimpered.
“You’re not leaving me!” Brandt shouted. “No one leaves me!”
“I won’t!” Margi cried. “I won’t ever!”
That was the same thing Jean had said. But Jean had lied.
He threw the last drawer across the room. It crashed and splintered against the wall. His fist smashed into her face so hard it would have sent her flying had he not had a grip on her hair. And Margi… now she was suddenly fighting back, ripping at his hands and kicking at his shins, fighting him. She never fought back before. But she was fighting now, fighting like her life depended on it.
He shoved her down onto her hands and knees on the floor and held her there by the back of the neck. He heard coughs and screams, felt her bony body shuddering under his grip.
He pushed her flat to the floor, spread-eagle on the linoleum as he dropped down hard on her thighs. His blows came like a pendulum, swinging fists from both sides, slamming into her back and ribs and head. Over and over and over like that fucking song.
Suddenly, he stopped.
Deaf again and numb to anything but the feel of a warm stickiness on his face and hands. He drew a breath heavy with the stench of blood.
He opened his eyes and looked down at what was beneath him.
Red on blue. Slick black leather. Matted yellow hair.
He pushed off her and slumped back against the wall, legs spread out in front of him. His chest filled with something that made it hard to breathe.
He opened his eyes slowly, trying to get his bearings, trying to get things to stop spinning. He brought his hands up slowly and squeezed his head between them.
The cops thought he had killed Jean and buried her out here. But he hadn’t buried her. Not in the barn or anywhere else.
He’d left Jean lying here on this very floor. He had left her to go to the barn to get the axe after he broke the knife. When he got back, the bitch was gone, nothing in the kitchen but a bloody smear across the linoleum to the back porch.
It was raining like hell that night, and he couldn’t follow the blood trail, so he waited until morning to walk the farm to find where she had finally fallen down and died.
Two weeks of walking, and he never found her.
For nine years, even after he had left the place, he had told himself she had to be dead. Carried away and eaten by animals. She was dead. Had to be. Chopped-up, bleeding women just didn’t vanish into the corn.
A soft moan pulled him back.
He looked over at her, but still it took him a moment to understand it was Margi. Her skinny body was trembling like she was in shock or something. And she was trying to move her arms and legs, but all she could seem to do was slide around on the floor, kind of swimming in her own blood.
But she was alive.
Chapter Twenty-one
Louis stood by the bedroom door watching Amy’s face. Joe was sitting next to her on the bed, and although he couldn’t hear Joe’s soft voice, he knew what she was saying: “It wasn’t your mother in the barn, Amy.”
Amy’s expression registered surprise, then settled into something he could read only as deep disappointment.
Louis had expected tears or even resignation, anything but the quiet look of blighted hope that colored Amy’s face. But in the end, he understood it. He had seen the expression before in the faces of those who had lost loved ones. With loss came the relief of grief, but only if there was someone to grieve over. Amy still had not found her mother. The hole in her heart remained.
Still, he was surprised when Amy told Joe that she wanted to go back and see Dr. Sher again. “I need to keep looking for her, and Dr. Sher can help me do that,” Amy said.
It was only after Joe finally agreed to take Amy back to Dr. Sher the next day that Amy went back to bed.
Now, two hours later, Joe was stretched out on the sofa, hand over her forehead, and Louis was sitting close by. There was a bucket of chicken and a bottle of cabernet on the coffee table between them. Louis reached over and poured the last of the wine into Joe’s glass and held it out.
She shook her head, closing her eyes.
“Did you call your sheriff?” Louis asked.
“Detective Bloom called him,” Joe said.
“Is Mike upset at you?”
Joe shook her head. “He’d like me to come home, but he told Bloom whatever I did, he’d back me a hundred percent.”
“He sounds like a good guy.”
Joe nodded slowly.
The room was quiet. It was nearly eleven, and Louis knew Joe was as tired as he was. Still, she had been quieter than usual all evening.
“So, I guess you haven’t changed your mind about running for sheriff this fall,” Louis said. “You’re going to stay in Echo Bay?”
She opened her eyes. “You knew that when I left Florida,” she said. “Nothing has changed.”
He nodded. “Thank you for staying,” he said. “I think Amy likes you a lot.”
Joe didn’t comment.
Louis glanced to the bedroom door, open just enough so they could hear if Amy had a nightmare. But she had been out for hours now. Her need to sleep seemed to have lessened some, and she had not had another
