Sandra Brown - Lethal

He yanked it out from under her. Honor, moaning in defeat, went limp and began weeping.

He flipped her over onto her back. He was on his knees, still straddling her. His hands, one of them in possession of the pistol, were planted on his thighs. He was breathing hard, and his face was contorted with fury.

And she thought, This is it. This is the moment I die .

But to her astonishment, he tossed the pistol aside, then placed both hands on her shoulders and leaned down on her heavily. “Why the fuck did you…? It could have discharged and blown a hole right through you. Stupid, idiotic thing to do, lady. Don’t you know what…” Seemingly at a loss for words, he gave her shoulders a hard shake. “Why’d you do that?”

Her reason for doing it should have been obvious: She’d been fighting for her life. Why was he asking such a dumb question?

Her breath coming in pants, she said, “Just tell me-and please make it the truth-are you going to kill us?”

“No.” His eyes bored into hers, and, in a rougher voice, he repeated, “ No .”

She wanted desperately to believe him, which is perhaps why she was close to doing so. “Then why should I pay any attention to your threats? Why do anything you say?”

“Because you have a vested interest.”

“Me? I don’t even know what you’re looking for! Whatever it is, this thing you’re after-”

“Is the thing that got your husband killed.”

It was well past the dinner hour when Tom returned home. He found Janice in Lanny’s room giving him his sponge bath, which they performed each evening before changing him into pajamas. In the morning, they dressed him in a track suit. Of course it made no difference what he wore, but changing his clothes was a much-needed nod toward normalcy.

Tom set his briefcase on the floor and began rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Honey, why didn’t you wait on me?”

“I didn’t know when you’d be home, and I wanted to get him settled for the night so I could put my feet up.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to get some paperwork done on Tambour before tomorrow, because tomorrow will be crazy. It always is after a holiday. And now with this crisis, it’ll be doubly nuts.”

When he reached the bed, he elbowed her aside. “Sit down. I’ll finish.” Before dipping the sponge into the tub of warm water, Tom bent over his son and kissed his forehead. “Hi, Lanny.”

Lanny’s eyes remained fixed. The lack of response filled Tom with a familiar despair. He dipped the sponge in the water and, after squeezing out the excess, applied it to Lanny’s arm.

“How’s that going?” Janice asked.

“What?”

“The crisis in Tambour?”

Lanny’s arm was dead weight when Tom lifted it to wash his armpit. “The suspect is still at large. I think he’d be a fool to hang around here. It seems to me that he’d hitch a ride with a truck-driving pal and get as far away from southern Louisiana as possible.”

“Is there such a person as a truck-driving pal?” She had settled herself into the La-Z-Boy recliner and tucked her feet beneath her. The large chair served as a bed for one of them if Lanny was having a rough night.

“None identified as yet, but we’re checking with companies that do business with Royale. Fred Hawkins thinks it’s a waste of time. He thinks Coburn is still in the area.” He smiled across at her. “He feels him like standing hairs on the back of his neck.”

“Good Lord,” she scoffed. “What’s next? Reading chicken innards? I hope he’s not relying on a sixth sense to find a mass murderer.”

“It’ll take some smarts.”

“Is Fred Hawkins up to the task?”

Tom began washing Lanny’s legs and feet. “He’s certainly motivated. Mrs. Marset made a personal call to the superintendent of police and put the squeeze on him, which he passed along through the rank and file. Marset’s church is conducting a candlelight prayer vigil tonight. Heat is coming from God and government, and Fred is beginning to feel it.”

“He sounded pretty confident a while ago.”

She motioned toward the TV sitting on a dresser opposite the bed, which remained on around the clock in the hope that some programming might stimulate a reaction from Lanny. The picture was on now, but the audio had been muted.

“Fred fielded questions from reporters live on the evening news,” Janice said. “He seemed convinced that the footprint and blood spatters you found this afternoon were a major boon.”

It pleased Tom that she seemed suitably impressed by his contribution, which he had exaggerated slightly.

Taking advantage of her attention, he expanded the story. “Did I tell you about Mrs. Arleeta Thibadoux?” His anecdote about the colorful and semi-toothless woman actually coaxed a laugh from Janice. He detected a trace of the woman he’d fallen in love with and proposed marriage to.

He remembered that day as one of the happiest of his life, rivaling even their wedding day in his memory. After he’d slipped the solitaire diamond ring on her finger, they’d made love on the sagging bed in his stuffy, cramped apartment. It had been ardent, sweaty, and athletic, and afterward they’d celebrated their engagement by sharing a bottle of beer.

He wished he could turn back the clock to that afternoon and once again see Janice’s cheeks flushed, her lips soft and smiling, her eyes lambent with satiation and happiness.

But if he turned back the clock to that day, they wouldn’t have Lanny.

The next thought that flashed through his mind was involuntary but treacherous, and he was instantly shamed by it.

He dropped the sponge into the plastic tub and looked over at Janice. Judging from her expression, her thoughts were moving along a similar track, or one close enough to make her feel equally guilty.

She came out of the chair as though trying to outrun her own thoughts. “I’ll go fix dinner while you’re finishing up here. Omelets okay?” Without waiting for him to reply, she left the room as though the devil was after her.

Ten minutes later they sat down to their omelets and ate in virtual silence, exchanging only brief snippets of forced conversation. Tom remembered times when they couldn’t say enough, when they would talk over each other relating the events of the day.

When he finished his meal, he carried his plate to the sink and ran water over it, then mentally braced himself and turned to his wife.

“Janice, let’s talk.”

She set her fork on the rim of her plate and placed her hands in her lap. “About what?”

“Lanny.”

“Specifically?”

“It may be time to readjust our thinking about his care.”

There, he’d said it.

Lightning didn’t strike him, nor did the statement spark a reaction from his wife. She just stared up at him with an expression as closed as a storm shutter.

He pressed on. “I think we should revisit the possibility-just the possibility-of placing him in a facility.”

She looked away from him and rolled her lips inward. Giving her a moment, he cleared the remainder of the dishes and utensils from the table and carried them to the sink.

Finally she broke the tense silence. “We made promises to him, and to each other, Tom.”

“We did,” he said somberly. “But when we pledged to keep him with us always, I think we nursed a kernel of hope that he would develop to some extent, acquire some capabilities. True?”

She neither denied nor admitted having held out such a feeble hope.

“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.” That was something both of them knew, but had never acknowledged out loud. Saying it had caused Tom’s voice to crack with emotion.