She deftly moved to one side and he stampeded past her, tripping over Juno and falling, the scalpel driving farther into his head.
And she was on him, gun drawn. She flipped him over and straddled him, one knee on each of his arms. She stuck the barrel of the gun in his mouth. He was not dead. He struggled for breath, his nose broken and his mouth full of steel. She tried not to smile. She didn’t think anymore about the fire or the debris beginning to fall around them.
“You miserable, cocksucking psychopath,’’ she said. She had forgotten about the flames, about Juno lying unconscious. It was only her and him. The room seemed to wail with sound and fill with light. Everything warped and slowed around her. The only thing she knew in that moment was rage. It was a rage that had been born the day her mother died, and had dwelled within her, growing like a parasite all these years. Today, she realized, was the fifteenth anniversary of her mother’s death. And this thing inside her had devoured every happiness that was ever offered to her, had sucked every possible moment of peace and joy from her heart. And it had led to her being here, straddling a monster in a burning church, holding a gun to his mouth. If she pulled the trigger, she would put an end to him and the havoc he’d visited upon her, and have revenge for his victims. But what would she be, then? Would she destroy the worm that was eating away at her inside or would she become what she most feared and hated?
“That’s enough, Lydia.’’
And she looked up to see her mother standing before her. She looked for Juno and he was gone.
“You came home early because I got caught smoking,’’ Lydia said, sobbing and thrusting the gun harder into Hugo’s mouth. “He killed you because I did something wrong.’’
“He was waiting for her, Lydia. If it hadn’t been that afternoon, it would have been another time. It had nothing to do with you or what you did. Jed McIntyre was sick and so is Bernard Hugo.’’
But then it wasn’t her mother at all, it was Jeffrey. Morrow stood behind him, and the flames were almost out. And she could see the flashing lights from police cars and fire engines through the thinning smoke.
“I want this to be over now,’’ she said, coughing from the smoke.
“Just give me the gun, baby. You stopped him. This is finished and we can go home.’’
She let the gun drop to the floor and Jeffrey came to her and lifted her away from Bernard Hugo. He carried her from the church to the ambulance waiting outside.
Epilogue
Six months later – Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii
When the bright morning sun and roosters wake Lydia from sleep here it takes her a few moments to remember where she is. She looks out the window to see mystical green mountains rising from a crystalline ocean, the mist rolling in as if from heaven. And sometimes it takes her longer to remember who she is. It’s like that here, where perfect, temperate days run together and the sound of the ocean and Jeffrey’s breathing beside her are a lullaby. Lydia Strong made it through fifteen years without knowing peace. Now that she has found it, she can’t imagine how she survived.
Recovery has been slow for Lydia. Her physical wounds healed quickly. But the issues she’d been forced to deal with surrounding the death of her mother had left her feeling fragile and hollowed out. Jeffrey strongly urged her, as he had so many times, to seek counseling. But she was not one for head-shrinking. So he had brought her here, to this magical place where rainbows and geckos worked a spell on her. The pain, and the guilt, and the grief and the loss, and the fear didn’t disappear, exactly, but became more like rough textures in the fabric of her life. Part of her but not all of her.
She’d spoken to Juno and he was recovering, moving on in spite of his grief. Father Luis Claro’s body had been found in the back of Bernard Hugo’s minivan and was buried behind the church. The repairs to the damage from the fire are almost complete. And another priest will come to take over the congregation. Juno will stay on as caretaker, and continue to play his guitar. He’s found a way to reconcile all that he now knows with the faith he has always had in God.
“I’m not sure what brought us together, Lydia. But it was something larger than us, wasn’t it? We are both better for what happened here. We learned from each other. And things have happened that neither of us can explain. It’s as you said. That’s the space where faith resides,’’ Juno had said.
Bernard Hugo lies in a coma in a state hospital, breathing on his own. Lydia is trying to find out how much it costs to keep him there. It’s a detail she wants for her book. If he ever awakens, he will face charges on five counts of murder, among other things. She doesn’t hate him. It’s hard to hate someone you understand so well.
Jed McIntyre had dwelled in a place of similar pain – different in its nuances and outcome. But similar in that they both sought a kind of justice. Jed sought vengeance for himself. Bernard wanted justice for his son. His logic was faulty and full of holes, of course, and maybe only an excuse to satisfy an urge to kill.
She imagines him teetering on the edge of psychosis most of his adult life, his dark urges caged by medication and maybe even by the happiness of his life. Then the loss of his son had released the beast inside.
She understands him perfectly. Lydia believes that all human action can be understood, if people are honest about their own hearts. The urge to rage in pain, to lash out and destroy, even to kill – she knows it well.
Benny Savroy remains unable to discuss his involvement with Bernard Hugo, any mention of the events bringing on a seizure. According to Simon Morrow, the DA is reluctant to bring charges, though physical evidence puts Benny at the Lopez dump site and his fingerprints were found in Hugo’s minivan. It seems unlikely that someone so developmentally challenged could have been involved on any level that would make him culpable, but stranger things have happened.
Simon Morrow got all the credit for the investigation, in the local press and with the FBI. Lydia and Jeffrey kept their end of the bargain and let him have it. After all, he did eventually solve the puzzle, just one step behind Lydia. He seemed to walk a little taller after the press conference. And she doesn’t begrudge him that. Compared to some of the other people she has met in her life, he isn’t that bad after all. Besides, Lydia will have the final word when her book comes out. And she does like to have the final word.
Lydia thinks about Greg sometimes. He came to visit her at St. Vincent’s as she recovered, and looked some sad combination of relieved and haunted. Recovering himself, from the head wound inflicted upon him by Bernard Hugo, Greg had been pale and thin the last time Lydia sat with him. With Hugo unable to confess or provide details, Greg will always have to guess about Shawna’s final hours. Lydia wonders if he will ever find peace. She prays that he will.
Jed McIntyre still sends his letter every month. But Lydia no longer receives them, having asked her publisher to destroy them when they arrive.
And Lydia is in love with Jeffrey. She no longer tries to hide it from anyone, not even from herself. Sitting on the lanai, watching the small, calm waves roll in and out of Hanalei Bay, she is starting to become acquainted with happiness.
A classified envelope arrived in the mail for Jeffrey today, delivered by a hippie on a beat-up red bicycle. He’s frowning as he leafs through the pages. And Lydia has been in front of the computer for hours, putting the finishing touches on the book she’ll call Angel Fire. Bernard Hugo had one prayer answered, at least. He’ll have his book.
And as she sits out on the lanai drinking a whiskey sour that evening, Jeffrey comes to join her. The sunset is just finished, the sky still orange and black like a sleeping tiger. He takes the glass from her hand and sips from it, then hands it back to her. He notices that she isn’t smoking but says nothing.
“I guess we’ll need to head back to New York next week. Something has come up.’’
“All right. I have to turn in my manuscript anyway. Besides, there’s something I want to look into. Your place or mine?’’
He smiles. He had been reluctant to bring it up, unwilling to break the spell they’d been under here.
He’d wondered whether they would stay together for a while or if she’d be off on another story when she was feeling more like herself again. Either way, it would have been okay. Because he is home for her now and that is all that ever mattered.
