'You know how I feel about insurance.'
'Goddamn you, you taped it.'
'If we got caught, I wasn't going to go down alone.'
Joshua slid the tape recorder into his shirt pocket. Though Renee had stopped struggling, he kept her pinned against the car's fender. Or maybe he just enjoyed the heat of her body. 'A Wells never fails.'
'And two Wells are better than one,' Jacob said.
'You're insane,' Renee said between sobs. 'Both of you.'
'Shit,' Joshua said. 'I ain't the one that killed my own kid for money.'
'Yes, you are,' Jacob said. 'I never would have done that. But you would.'
'Hell, I started the fire, but you're the one that fucked up. You were supposed to get her out of there.'
Jacob grinned, and the expression felt like a live snake across his face. 'I tried. But maybe I didn't try as hard as I could.'
Renee stared at him, then past him, eyes wide and blank. 'Jakie. Oh, Jakie.'
'I couldn't let her live,' Jacob said to Renee. 'You can see that, can't you?'
'Oh, Jesus, Jacob.'
Joshua spat. 'What the hell, it was another million, right?'
'It's all Christine's fault. She died natural and it paid good. Mattie was just too healthy.'
Renee sagged and Joshua released her. She fell to her knees, sobs wracking her shoulders. She tried to speak, but the words became gasps. The sunset threw the migrant camp into a golden light, the color of Jacob's memories. Of watching Carlita and Joshua through the window, of fantasizing that he was his younger brother, that he could trade his life for Joshua's.
Only he couldn't trade fifty-fifty. He was too deeply in debt.
'Two million for two kids,' Joshua said to Renee. 'And two million for you. But I'm taking a down payment first. I got a feeling you ain't had a real man in years.'
'What about the autopsy?' Jacob said.
'Shit. Semen got DNA, don't it?'
'Well, we got the same DNA, so go for it.'
Renee looked at Jacob, wondering about the next breath and how it could possibly force itself from the sky and into her constricted, brick-hard lungs. She'd pushed him to this. She was the one that put value in material things. She wanted the Wells world, the power, the land, the respect. She'd wanted to be a Wells more than Jacob ever had.
Mattie, that was an accident. But Christine…
As if he could read her thoughts, Jacob said, 'I didn't kill Mattie for the money.'
He sat on the Chevy's hood and lit a cigarette, then blew smoke into Joshua's face. 'I killed her because she was yours.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Renee's muscles were damp rags. Her tongue was swollen in her mouth, her throat tight. The ringing in her ears was so intense she might have misheard Jacob.
Mattie was Joshua's?
The revelation made the horizon blur on the edge of her vision and the sky was an obscene and smothering ocean above her. Her head throbbed, her eyeballs ached, her jaws clenched. Her intestines felt as if they had been yanked from her gut and knotted around her larynx. But beneath the sick pressure in her rib cage was a small and sick glow of joy-she bore no blame for Mattie's death.
It was all Jacob's fault.
But what was Joshua saying about Christine?
She couldn't understand, didn't want to. The pounding on the shed door was like the beat of a bruised wooden heart, and Carlita's Spanish curses and screams came in muffled arrhythmia behind it. The sun cast doomsday lava over the land. Renee closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears, but it was too late. The knowledge had entered and could never be purged.
Jacob had killed their children.
'Get up,' Joshua shouted at her in his rough, smoky voice. She opened her eyes to the scarred tips of his boots. She lifted her head, though gravity was an unforgiving enemy.
'Hear what he just said?' Joshua said.
She couldn't speak. Words had become gravel in her lungs.
'He torched our kid,' Joshua said. 'Ain't that just like a Wells?'
She shook her head and an impossible smile came to her lips. The sunset was warm on her face, the air pine-sweet, the river churning and cold below. This was the far end of the world, this land that had created the Wells twins. The gates of hell must surely be somewhere nearby, waiting for them all to enter.
' Our kid.' Joshua snorted with derision. 'Reckon my seed took where his wouldn't.'
She tried to arrange his words into a sensible structure. Language had become an elusive snake burrowing into a moist hole in the riverbank. All she knew was the song of the river, its sibilant rush, its bright splashing against stones, slithering toward a place far away.
That August night when Jacob had taken her by force, had spent his passion into her again and again, when she'd fully opened herself to him and let him reach and join in that most sacred sanctuary. It hadn't been Jacob after all. It had been Joshua.
Even in that drunken darkness, she should have known. Maybe she had known but deceived herself. Maybe she'd craved that side of Jacob he would never let slip from his control. And the wanting had brought Joshua to her.
Wish me, cooed the mad voice in her head. Wish me that two Wells are better than one.
'Come on,' Joshua said, reaching down and grabbing her arm. He pulled Renee to her feet and put an arm around her. His sweat drowned out the wet smell of the river. She leaned against him, a rag doll with a hot wire girding its spine.
'Well, Jake, let's get 'er done,' Joshua said. 'Sounds like Carlita's getting a mite restless.'
'Wait a second,' Jacob said. 'Don't you get it? I killed your goddamned kid.'
'Big whoop-dee-shit.'
'I won, see? I fucked you over harder than you ever fucked me. I'm more of a Wells than you are.'
'Oh, I get it now. That blame thing. It's all my fault you killed Momma, right?' Joshua slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit it. When he exhaled, the smoke strangled Renee. 'You won nothing,' he said to Jacob.
'Carlita,' Jacob replied.
'You could have had her for a few thousand, dumbass. My first time, it only cost twenty bucks. But four million ain't bad.'
Jacob nodded at Renee. 'Paid in full, brother.'
Renee's legs trembled. Her mind was crushed by the wild clouds above, the fog of God's breath, the rising twilight that darkened the eastern horizon. Joshua eased her toward the Chevy.
Two million.
Her line on Jacob's M amp; W insurance policy.
Jacob was getting rid of her, too. Cashing her in, just as he had done their children.
Means to an end.
And Jacob's end was to become his brother.
'I figure the bridge,' Joshua said.
'Not bad,' Jacob said. 'She lost her footing in the dark, fell into the river, and smashed her head on the rocks. Blacked out and drowned. Another tragedy.'
'Them Wells sure do got bad luck.'
'The grieving husband and father. No one will blame me for marrying Carlita so soon after my loss.'
'And the money suits me. Carlita's kind is a dime a dozen. I don't know what it is about her that drove you so
