“There’s no getting around that.”
“No.”
“You did the best you could, girl,” Willa said, patting her hand.
“I know,” Anne said. “I just wish it could have been good enough.”
Dennis had walked what seemed like most of the night before getting to his old house, careful not to let anybody see him. He was good at that. He used to roam all over town in the night, looking in people’s windows and watching them have sex and stuff. Once he had seen a man fucking a blow-up doll. That had been crazy.
He didn’t know what had happened to his family’s house or any of their stuff. With his mother dead and his father dead and himself stuck wherever the court put him, his stupid half-sisters had gone away to live with some relative who didn’t want anything to do with him.
Ha! They’d be surprised when they saw his picture in the paper.
To his shock, when Dennis had finally gotten to the house, practically everything had been ripped out of it— walls and floors and carpets. A big, huge trash bin was parked in the driveway, and it was full of junk like old drywall and linoleum and a broken toilet.
Dennis decided it didn’t really matter to him that all the Farman stuff was gone. They hadn’t had anything very nice anyway. And most of Dennis’s prized possessions had been in his backpack that the detectives had taken away from him. They had probably divvied up the good stuff, like the pocketknife he had stolen from his father’s dresser, and the cigarette lighter he had taken from his mother’s purse. Probably nobody had wanted the dried-up rattlesnake head.
He had spent a cold night in the house with no blankets and no bed, but he was an outlaw now, so he had to just get over it. Today he would steal some stuff and find a place to hide it. He had always heard that bums lived in Oakwoods Park. Maybe he would live there too.
When it got light out he walked to the convenience store hoping, hoping, hoping with his fingers crossed that the old raghead guy that owned the place wasn’t working. He had chased Dennis out of the store a million times for shoplifting stuff and trying to look at the dirty magazines.
That Paki bastard—that was what Dennis’s father had called the old man, so Dennis called him that too.
Luckily the person behind the counter was a big, fat, pimple-faced girl, and the store was really busy with people getting coffee and doughnuts and burritos and stuff, so she didn’t notice Dennis.
He cruised the aisles, lifting a little thing here and there and slipping them into the big pouch pocket on the front of his hooded sweatshirt. A Slim Jim, some Lifesavers, a tire gauge—just because he’d always wanted one.
He could have whatever he wanted now. He was calling all the shots. Nobody could tell him what to do— especially not that stupid twat Miss Navarre.
The television bolted to the wall behind the counter was showing the morning news. Dennis watched with one eye, waiting to see a picture of himself on the screen.
Some woman had been rescued after falling down a well. There were no new leads in the murder investigation of local artist Marissa Fordham. Some crazy-looking white-haired guy had gone missing. Finally the screen filled with a shot of the county mental health center with flames shooting out a window on the second floor.
Dennis inched closer to the counter and strained to hear. According to the reporter, the fire had been contained to the second floor and damages to the building were minimal. But—and here was the exciting part. Dennis almost shit his pants when he heard it—one person had gone to the hospital with third-degree burns, and one had been killed—KILLED!—when an oxygen tank had blown through a wall.
He had killed somebody! The excitement was almost too much for him. Holy shit! He had killed somebody! He was a killer!
To celebrate, he bought himself a breakfast burrito and a Mountain Dew with some of the money he had stolen from the nurse. Then, because he was feeling like such a hotshot killer and all, he decided he would buy himself some cigarettes.
“And a pack of Marlboros,” he said.
The pimple-faced girl looked down at him. “Get real and get lost.”
“They’re for my mom.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are, and she’s a real bitch. You want me to go and get her? She’s in the car.”
The girl looked out the window like she was looking for his mother, then rolled her eyes and gave him the cigarettes and his change. Stupid cow.
Dennis took his stuff and left, not sitting down to eat his burrito until he was out of sight of the store.
He felt different now than he had twenty minutes ago. Twenty minutes ago he had been just a kid. Now he was a killer. He felt bigger and stronger and meaner. He was going to show everybody just how bad he was. And he was going to start with that bitch Miss Navarre.
73
He hadn’t counted on the knife.
Zahn came at him like a wild animal, and Vince flashed on what Anne had said:
“Vince!” Mendez shouted, drawing his weapon.
Zahn’s arm came down in an arc, the light catching on the blade of the knife. By reflex, Vince caught hold of the man’s wrist and stepped to the side to get out of the path of the weapon.
“Zahn! Drop the knife!” Mendez shouted. “Drop the fucking knife!”
But Zahn didn’t hear him. What was reasonable and civilized in him was gone, overridden by fear and demons. He struggled to pull free of Vince’s grasp, the two of them crashing into the bed frame, falling against a nightstand.
Madness fueled and intensified Zahn’s strength. Vince had half a foot and a good fifty pounds on him, and all he could do was stumble backward on his heels as Zahn continued his attack.
“DROP THE FUCKING KNIFE!” Mendez shouted again.
From the corner of his eye Vince could see him trying to maneuver around them to get a clean shot.
Zahn twisted and yanked free of the hold Vince had on his wrist, stumbling backward and banging hard into the wall. Vince took the chance to dive across the box spring to the other side of the bed.
“DROP THE DAMN KNIFE!!”
“TONY! DON’T SHOOT!” Vince shouted.
Zahn stood there, looking stunned, looking like he didn’t know where he was or who he was or who they were. He looked at the knife in his hand, his arm still cocked at the elbow, ready.
“Zander!” Vince said. “Zander! It’s me, Vince. Put the knife down.”
Zahn stared at the knife in his hand, fascinated. He stared at the knife and at his arm as if it weren’t attached to his body.
Mendez had taken the stance to fire, his arms straight out in front of him, his finger on the trigger of the weapon. Everything about him was pulled as taut as a string on a bow. His dark eyes were as bright and hard looking as polished onyx.
“Zander, put the knife down,” Vince said, lowering the tone and volume of his voice. “You need to put the knife down. Isn’t your arm getting tired?”
Zahn looked uncertain. His fingers flexed on the handle of the knife.
“Aren’t you tired, Zander?” Vince asked. “You’ve had a rough day.”
He let the quiet hang, imagining his words trying to find a way into Zahn’s brain and, once there, struggling to be routed and processed.
