“Goodbye, Norm,” he said simply before shooting.
The noise was deafening- so loud that it felt like razor blades being rammed into their ears. In an instant, Norman was no longer a solid being but just a big, slimy, slippery mess. Every fibre of his miserable, pathetic being exploded, the shot sending shreds of his blood and flesh splattering high up on every wall and surface.
For a moment, Minnie and Ronnie stood still, contemplating the mess.
They themselves were covered in thick lashings of his entrails.
After some time, Ronnie walked back towards her and put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s dead,” he said dumbly.
Minnie smiled, eyes shining as she absorbed the gore.
“And I’ve never felt so alive.”
Chapter Fifty-nine
2019
“Jesus fucking Christ,” wheezed Minnie, clutching her chest as she stared, unblinking, down at the news story that blared up at her from her phone. “Oh my god…”
“I know,” Ronnie said sympathetically, reaching a hand over and planting it on the top of hers, rubbing her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “I’m so sorry, my darling. We could try and break him out if it wasn’t for Flo.”
Minnie nodded, her lips remaining firmly pursed shut as her eyes glazed over.
The couple sat in a state of complete shock in the driver and passenger seat of the RV. Well, at least one of them was. Ronnie was pretending. He’d gotten good at that over the years.
“He didn’t do it, did he?” Minnie said, looking at her husband with hurt in her tear-glazed eyes. “I bet it was Flo up to her tricks. And he must have retaliated.”
“Don’t think that way,” Ronnie retorted, keeping his own gaze firmly locked on the road ahead as he sped as fast as he could through the grey evening. “I know Flo is smart, but she is only eight.”
Swallowing, Minnie sat back in her seat and attempted to breathe normally. Maybe the reunion with her parents hadn’t been as sweet and heartfelt as she had feared it would be. But that didn’t take away from the fact that Ross was her brother, and no amount of years apart could make her stop loving him.
Now, he was in a cell at a police station somewhere.
Arrested for the murder of his own daughter and the attempted murder of another, unknown child.
The headline on the news page haunted Minnie’s thoughts, even after she’d turned off her phone and thrown it onto the ground as if that would stop it from hurting her anymore.
“My brother wouldn’t have done that,” she said slowly, with so much certainty that it was difficult for Ronnie to even attempt to argue with her.
Ronnie sighed, guilt twisting in his gut.
“Flo killed the girl, didn’t she?” Minnie whispered softly, staring into space in a kind of daze. “We taught her to do that. To destroy everything.”
Her husband cleared his throat, flicked on the indicator, and turned off the main road, following a sign that announced the hospital nearby.
“Let’s be honest, though, Min. Would you even care if he hadn’t been caught?”
A breath caught in her chest as she paused and considered this. Did she really care if her niece died? No. It was a link from Ross to Paul. And there was no room for Paul in her life. But there would have been for Ross.
“We could’ve taken him along with us. It’s not like we would’ve killed him just for beating Flo.”
At that, Ronnie’s brow collapsed and furrowed as her desperate words sunk in. “Minnie, Flo is our daughter. She is a child…”
Minnie shot him a stony glare, “she also murdered somebody else’s daughter. Also, a child. Her own cousin, no less.
A sarcastic chuckle trickled from Ronnie’s mouth as he lifted his eyebrows. “You’re really going to act like we haven’t literally raised the child to be a criminal? Come on, Min.”
“Family is different,” said Minnie icily. “And what if the roles were reversed? What if it was us finding our little girl dead in the woods?”
Silence fell over the both of them as Ronnie quickly swerved into a dark, quiet-looking side road. As much as it was an awful thought, they were both forced then to wonder what it would feel like to see their own child die. To know that they had been murdered.
“That would never happen,” Ronnie replied finally, his voice gruff. “We’ve taught her well.” He parked further up the road, driving deeper into a row of parking bays that he hoped would not arouse any kind of suspicion. “Anyway, we can discuss this later. For now, we’ve got to get Flo back and get the fuck out of here.”
Obediently, without another word, the couple slid into the back of the RV, rounded up the remaining three children who were already dressed for the occasion. Each of them bagged up the necessary tools, then departed their mobile home, a sort of bittersweet mixture of exhilaration and unease dancing wildly in their stomachs. Outside, the jet-black night was cold, stinging their skins as it swallowed them up.
In particular, Ronnie felt his skin crawling with nerves. He hung back, allowing Minnie and Stella to walk along together in a pair, with the boys trotting along behind them.
He felt guilt for lying to Minnie.
But, he kept reminding himself firmly, he’d had no other choice.
Out of anyone else on the planet, he knew his wife best. He could see her softening, her exterior breaking when Ross had come back into the picture. He’d had to get him and the rest of their family out of the picture. As quickly as possible.
And, like on so many other occasions, the opportunity seemed to just fall right into his hands. It was as if the devil himself had given him a blessing.
When he’d gone
