Linwood Barclay: Stone Rain

Trixie’s GF300 car was parked at the curb. Sarah and I walked with her to the end of the driveway. Katie wandered in dizzying circles in the front yard, arms extended, like she was an airplane.

Trixie looked at Katie. Her lip trembled slightly, and then she looked at us.

“I came here to thank both of you. For saving Katie. For saving my daughter’s life.” She hugged Sarah, put her arms around her and held her close, and then hugged me, whispering into my ear, “Thank you for explaining things to the police. About what happened in Canborough.”

“Sure,” I said as she pulled away.

Then Trixie turned back to Sarah. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve brought into your life.”

Sarah started to say something, but Trixie, tipping her head toward me, continued, “I know you want to kill him.”

Sarah made no protests.

“If he were my husband, I’d probably want to kill him too. He’s very possibly one of the biggest pains in the ass I have ever known. And I envy you every day that you’ve got him.”

Sarah swallowed.

“If this helps,” Trixie said, looking right into Sarah’s eyes, “I’m going to make you a promise.” Trixie took a breath. “You’re never going to see me again.”

Neither Sarah nor I said anything. Trixie watched Katie playing in the yard, wiped a tear that was just starting to make its way down her cheek. “She’s my little girl. I hope, if I do right by her now, she can forgive me for all the mistakes I’ve made.” She clapped her hands together. “Katie! Let’s go!”

Trixie led her daughter to her car, buckled her into the safety seat in the back.

“Goodbye, Miranda,” I said as she got into the car.

As we watched the car disappear down Crandall, Sarah said to me, “She killed those three bikers, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Sarah thought about that for a moment, then said, “I would have too.”

As the car rounded the corner at the end of the street, Sarah turned to me and said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her, “I think there’s a bottle of Beringer chilling in the fridge. I could pour a couple glasses.”

It felt to me like the entire world was holding its breath.

“That would be nice,” I said. I tried to smile. “Are you going to put something in mine that’ll kill me?”

Sarah looked at me very seriously. “It could go either way,” she said, and took me inside.

They drove until it got dark, then found a motel alongside the interstate. Miranda figured, why rush it, no sense driving all through the night. They’d take their time, make an adventure out of it.

Katie didn’t want to sit in a restaurant to have dinner. She felt scared when there were lots of other people around. Miranda said, “Why don’t we get some pizza, and some ice cream, and we’ll take it back to our room and we’ll sit on the bed and we’ll eat it right out of the box and then we’ll eat the ice cream right out of the container with two spoons.”

Katie liked that idea.

They went to bed early. They were tired from driving all day. So they got undressed and got under the blankets together and turned off the lights and listened to the trucks on the highway go by and disappear into the night.

“Tell me about the princess,” Katie said.

“Well,” said Miranda, “once upon a time, there was a princess, with very curly hair, who was only five years old, and she could do anything she wanted.”

“Even stay up late and watch TV?”

“Not that sort of anything. She could do anything that was hard, that took a lot of work, anything she set her mind to, she would do that thing.”

“Could she be a movie star?”

“Yes.”

“Could she be a hot dog person who sells hot dogs?”

“Yes, she could.”

“And would there be any dragons? Would there be dragons chasing her and trying to get her?”

Miranda wrapped her arms around Katie, brought her in close to her, felt the rhythm of her heart coming into beat with her own, her curls against her cheek, and she put her mouth to Katie’s ear.

“No dragons,” she whispered. “No more dragons.”