Kin

He looked at her.

“I want you to wait outside,” she repeated. “Don’t talk to no one. Don’t go nowhere. I’m just goin’ to be a few minutes. Gotta get dressed, okay?”

She didn’t wait for a response, doubted he had one, so she opened the door and gently pushed him over the threshold. A quick check showed no one in the hall. Satisfied, she stepped back into the apartment, leaving him alone. “Wait,” she told him, with a look of pleading, and closed the door behind her.

* * *

“Fuggin… bitch… My eye….” Red moaned. He was up on one elbow, struggling to get up. Louise watched him from the door, her hummingbird heart threatening to stall under the weight of panic.

You can’t leave him like this. You know that.

Red dug his heels into the carpet and after a moment, managed to get to his knees. He swallowed, and glared at her, the ruined eye only adding to the malevolence. “Gonna kill you,” he said hoarsely. “Wasn’t gonna, but now…” He sneered, blood trickling over his lips, streaking his cheeks. Breath rattled from his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” Louise said, and meant it. This was not part of any plan. No one had promised her this. It had happened all on its own, and now it would have to continue.

“Bitch,” Red said, swaying slightly.

Louise took a deep breath and in three short strides was across the room and standing before him. She saw him tense to strike her despite the extent of his injuries, but he never had the chance. She was crouching down and in his face, one hand grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking his head back before he could even draw back a fist. Then, eyes narrowed so she might be spared the full extent of her actions when the memory of them came back to haunt her, opened her free hand and drove her palm against the shard, slicing her own skin and forcing the thick glass into Red’s brain.

He was dead in an instant, his remaining eye wide in surprise as he fell awkwardly back on his legs. As his lungs expelled a breath meant for a scream, or a plea he had not lived to deliver, she reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the pouch Red had retrieved from the guts of the destroyed television. It felt heavy in her hand, and when she opened it and angled it toward the light, she saw what was inside and her own breath left her.

Diamonds.

Swallowing back the terror, she hurried into the bathroom, quickly washed the gash on her hand and bandaged it, then moved to the bedroom where she tugged on whatever clothes she could find, and checked her face in the closet mirror for blood, or any evidence of what had happened here tonight. Satisfied that she did not look too conspicuous, she hurried out to join Pete.

Diamonds, she thought, stunned by the implications of everything that had just transpired in her roach-ridden fleapit of an apartment. But there would be time to think later, if they weren’t apprehended before they even reached the front door of the building. In the forefront of her mind for now, was the fear that Pete had already fled, that his own turmoil had propelled him away from her and she would never find him. His guilt might lead him directly to the police.

But he was there, waiting where she’d left him, and she couldn’t restrain a heavy sigh of relief.

She led him out of the apartment into the cold street, where she was stunned to see that though there was plenty of blood on the pavement amid the stubbed out cigarette butts and beer bottles, there was no body. The grief too, would come later, she knew, but was now glad that there was nothing to see here, nothing to distract her from what she planned to do.

As she hailed a cab and waited for it to slow, Pete finally spoke.

“Where we goin’?” he asked quietly.

Bolstered by this small sign that he was returning to himself, she brushed a hand against his cheek and summoned a smile.

“Home,” she told him.

* * *

Finch’s alarm clock showed 8:55 a.m. He sat up, groaning at the immediate assault of pain in his skull, and rubbed his eyes. The phone had dragged him from sleep without consideration for the amount of alcohol he had put away mere hours before, and he was not pleased with the interruption.

Grumbling, he blinked a few times and reached across the bed to the phone and snatched it up, muscles aching.

“What?” he snapped into the receiver.

The voice that came back at him did not alleviate his suffering, but it chased away all thought of sleep.

“Finch?”

He smiled, despite the shock. “Claire?”

“Hi.”

“Where are you?” he asked. Her voice was low, as if fearing she might be overheard.

“Out in the yard. Told them I was going for some air. I’m stuck behind a goddamn bush right now in my pajamas.”

“Well, I’m glad you called.”

“Me too. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“About what?”

“Ted Craddick told me you’re visiting all the families.”

“Trying to at least,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“To talk about what happened.”

“Is that all?”

“No. No, it’s not all. I told them what I planned to do.”

“And what are you planning to do?”

“I’m going back down there, Claire. To Elkwood.”

“Why?” The tone of her voice told him she already knew, and just wanted to hear him say it.

“To stop the men who did this from ever doing it again.”

“How do you know it was them and not the doctor? Everybody else seems to think he did it.”

“Did he?”

“No,” Claire said. “No, he helped get me out of there. I’d be dead if not for him.”

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, there was no emotion in her voice. “I can’t stay long. I’ll try to call back later if I can. We need to find some way to meet.”

“You’re a grown woman, Claire. They can’t keep you a prisoner in that house.”

“Yeah. Tell them that.” Her sigh rumbled over the phone. “When are you going?”

“Friday.”

“Okay.”

“Why did you call, Claire?”

“Because I can help you. I think I have a way of finding out where they are.”

Finch experienced something akin to a jolt of nervous excitement in his guts. Since making his decision to go after the killers, he had dreaded the notion that maybe he would get there and they’d have vanished underground, or hidden themselves away in a place not found on any map. The chance that someone in Elkwood would know where the Merrill family had gone was a slim one. Getting them to tell him even if they did know would be even harder. But it was all he had. That, and whatever Claire was willing to share. But now she was offering him more than he had dared expect.

“How about tonight?” he asked.

“Sure, but how?”

“I’ll call you. You can tell them it’s Ted Craddick, and that he wants to see you to reminisce about his boy. If they object, throw a fit. Accuse them of smothering you with their attention. Say you’re old enough to make your own decisions. Call your sister a bitch or something.”

“You would say that.”

He smiled. “Head for Ted’s house. I’ll be parked outside.”