Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

“Brian,” Jake said airily, “was an annoying little shit who got what he deserved. Just like you are.” He leaned close to my face, his breath sweet like cinnamon. “Can you feel it working in your veins, my boy?”

“What-what-” I tried to stand, but stumbled, fell to the floor, clawed at the bandage he'd kindly wrapped around my hand. My skin burned.

“Monkshood,” he answered conversationally. “Oh, it's very nasty. Very. A little dab'll do you. You might have as little as ten minutes left.”

I tried to speak, but my throat felt like stone. I wobbled to my feet, the door blurring before my eyes. A sharp crack sounded and I realized, as I went to my knees, that Jake had struck me in the shoulder with his cane. I'd hardly felt it.

“I knew of boys in the Great War,” he murmured to me. “Forced to live in the French countryside for what they could forage. Eating monkshood killed quite a few.” I saw, through the haze descending across my eyes, a smile light his face.

Pop! Candace! I wanted to scream. Oh, God, no. Not like this. No.

“Why-why-” I managed.

He leaned down from the bed, prodding me with his cane. “Because you know. Do you know how tired I am of worrying about who knows, and who doesn't know? I'm old, and I deserve some peace of mind.” He tapped my shoulder. “It was my idea to hush up Paul's death. Of course I love your father, and I didn't want him to suffer for killing a no-account like Paul. I knew he would never talk; he was too deeply ashamed, and besides, he'd done the killing. And Mutt and Sass could be trusted-they helped dispose of the body. But Lolly”-he made a tsking sound-”she wasn't very trustworthy. Did you know. she'd even told me she'd been seeing Paul's ghost? And Brian's ghost, here in this house. She was going crazy, slowly. And she was starting to talk about what we'd done.”

The dancing light of the candle made flames appear in the holes of his eyes. I tried to scream, to scream my throat raw. A wobbly moan came out, guttural, unformed.

“Everything was fine until Brian decided to pry into his father's death. Lolly apparently kept Paul's jewelry-but you know that, don't you? Whatever Lolly was thinking by holding on to those baubles escapes me. Her silly sentimentality, I suppose. And Brian found them. And began digging around.” He prodded me again with the cane. “It was very annoying to have to kill a child. I'm not a monster. I have feelings. But children should know their place, don't you think?”

I glanced away from his madman's eyes. My blood felt clogged with ice. I pulled away from him, but my strength waned. I collapsed at the foot of the bed. Huddling on the floor, I tore the bandage away with fumbling fingers. Suddenly the lights came on, power returning to the house. I squinted against the sudden brightness.

“There's no specific antidote for monkshood,” Jake informed me, consideration oozing from his voice. “Don't trouble yourself with the bandage. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't bleed on my rug.”

“You're-you're insane,” I burbled.

“No, you are. For sticking your nose into people's lives, into murder.” He leaned close to me. “I tried to warn you away when I heard you fancied yourself a detective, but you didn't pay attention to the little cards I sent you.”

“But Lolly-”

“Lolly, my ass.” He sniffed. “I sent those cards to you, mailed by my pen-pal friends. They didn't know what was inside the envelopes. They thought I was just playing a little prank on a fellow hobbyist.”

His breath smelled foul against my face. “Didn't it ever occur to you prying could be dangerous? It didn't occur to Aubrey either in writing his stupid book, but look what happened to him.” He paused for a moment and I thought, Don't let the last words I hear be this madman's ravings. Oh, Pop, Candace. I'm sorry. Sister. Mark. Mama. I love y'all. Goodbye. Daddy? Trey? Are you there? Come find me. Tears rolled down my cheek, and I could feel my life ebbing. Fear speared through the numbness in my body.

“And look what you made me do! I have nothing against Candace or your child. Your child's blood is on your hands, not mine!” His voice rose to a shriek. He poked hard at the tears on my cheek. “Quit crying! You don't know what grief is, whelp! Stop it!” I felt a faint poke against my cheek as he jabbed me hard with the rubber tip of his cane.

A hard knock rapped on the door. I heard Pop: “Jordan? Uncle Jake? The phones are working again-”

I tried to yell, but it was hardly more than a gasp. Jake threw a pillow down on my head and called: “Jordan's fallen asleep, Bob Don, and I don't want to wake him. Come back later.”

I yanked the pillow from my head, my vision swimming, and somehow found air to fight past the deadness of my throat and my tongue. I screamed, a long, wavery sound.

“Jordan! Jake, what's wrong?”

The end of the cane slammed against my head.

“Jordan?” The door pounded with the force of Pop's blow. I pulled myself out of the cane's reach, adrenaline pumping me to my feet. No way was I giving up to die. I staggered toward the wall, trying to aim for the door.

Very nasty. Very. You may not even have ten minutes left.

Blurriness descended across my eyes, and I sagged against the wall, fighting to keep my balance. I saw Jake, murkily, moving off the bed and toward me, his hand pressed against his chest.

The door buckled in, wood splinters flying as the hinges cried out in protest. Pop was there, catching me, cradling me in his heavy arms.

“Oh, sweet God!” he cried out. Nausea squeezed my guts.

Jake's voice, wavery and a little breathless, drifted into my ear as I gasped against my father's rain-wet shirt, “Bob Don, now it had to be done.” He let out a raggedy, tortured breath. “Jordan would have told on us all-”

“What have you done to my boy?” Pop screamed, and he shoved me toward the bathroom. Suddenly my head was dangling above the toilet and Pop's fingers were jammed in my throat. Already nauseous, I retched, but slapped his hand away from mine. “No-didn't swallow. On my skin. He poisoned-the-bandage-” Pop shoved my hand under the faucet, rinsing my palm, screeching at the top of his lungs for Deborah and the others.

“There's no antidote, Bob Don.” Jake spoke, his breath coming in short gasps. “I'm sorry. You see the sacrifices I make-for the family. You see I had to do it, for you, for all our sakes.” His own color didn't look good through my glassy vision. “I don't feel well. Now kiss Jordan goodbye, and fetch me my heart pills. Please-”

Pop released me. I stumbled back into the bedroom, leaning against the elaborate oak paneling of the room I would die in. I slid to the floor, blinking hard, wondering if I could ever feel warm again. I swallowed bile. I blinked harder as I heard voices raised in fear, screams, supplications.

Bob Don, for God's sake, get me my pills… my pills… oh, God.

I tried to call back-was one voice Gretchen's? My throat refused to work. I raised an arm, feeling as if breath were a memory, and focused my vision on the figures in the room. I could see Jake's hand raised in a silent plea, Pop's hand holding something just out of his grasp.

You kill my boy and you want your goddamned pills, old man?

I watched a hand fall, I watched a life end. I closed my eyes.

More screams. Someone rushing past me, into the bathroom. Hands touching me, pulling me up from the floor. A kaleidoscope of noise, and fear, and grief, and in the middle of it all, Pop standing before the bed, with Uncle Jake lying before him, fingers splayed out across his withered chest.

It was like a waking death for me.

Somehow, Deborah kept me breathing when my lungs felt like lead. She screamed at me through the swimmy visions, through the fading lights, and as the Coast Guard helicopter rocketed away from the island with Philip, Aubrey, Candace, Jake, and me aboard, through the convulsions. Philip hollered at me, too, that I had to live. His voice-not a whine this time-pierced the rumble of fading thunder.