Nevada Barr - 13 1/2

She should have left them with Martha, away from whatever was coming.

She had them with Martha; Danny had taken them, taken them without asking her permission, though she was a cell phone call away.

“Wait,” she cried as he started for the door into the cellar. Suddenly, she could not bear to have him carry Gracie into the black beneath the duplex. Terror that she would never see her daughter again gripped her and she yelled, “Wait, goddamn you!”

Danny stopped and looked back. “Of course I’ll wait. Are you okay?”

“Thank you,” she said as politely as she could. She didn’t answer his question. It was absurd.

Why on earth would anyone expect her to be okay?

Light came sudden and hard into Marshall ’s eyes. Lost in the past, he hadn’t heard anyone coming.

“Marsh!” His brother’s voice was harsh with the shock of seeing him there. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

Old memories and hard light cleared from Marshall ’s eyes, and he saw Danny with his daughter nightgowned and draped in his arms like Faye Wray. Gracie’s eyes were open and her face blank. She was trying to figure out what the adult world was up to. With the sixth sense of a child, she knew not to demand answers in her usual, forthright manner.

Marshall ’s fingers closed over the remnants of his childhood still held in his palm.

“Get down, Gracie,” he said in a neutral tone. “Uncle Danny can’t carry such a big girl for too long.”

Polly, Emma clutched to her side, stood at Danny’s shoulder. Stainless steel lamps loomed behind them, reminiscent of a dentist-chair nightmare.

“Polly, take the girls upstairs and put them to bed,” Marshall said. It was not a command; it was a plea.

“Don’t do it, Polly,” Danny said. “God knows what he’s got upstairs. Stay with me. Otherwise, I can’t keep you safe.”

He sounded so certain, so sure of himself, for a moment Marshall was Dylan again, and Dylan believed himself capable of any horror.

Gracie struggled. Danny set her on her feet but kept her close to him, one arm locked across her chest protectively. “Polly, I think it’s time you met your husband. The girls, too. It will help them with the transition,” Danny said.

“Dylan Raines,” Marshall said to his wife. “I’m Dylan Francis Raines of Rochester, Minnesota.” The words tasted like a lie. He’d not been Dylan Raines for too many years. “And I’m Marshall Marchand, the man you married.” He was sounding schizophrenic. He could see alarm growing in Polly’s eyes. He didn’t dare look at Emma or Gracie.

“Tell her how you murdered our parents and our little sister.” Danny said this with a sadness that hummed along Marshall ’s bones.

When Danny spoke again his voice was pitched for the ears of children. “He didn’t do it to be mean but because he went into mental illness for a while. I’m not telling you this to scare you,” he said and kissed Gracie on the top of her head, “but because my brother is sick again. He’s been losing time-doing things that he forgets he did. When that happens, people get hurt. The people closest to him get hurt.”

The clear, mossy green of his wife’s eyes was icing over.

Polly believed Danny. Dylan believed Rich.

Remembrance of who he’d been as a boy, how things were, was slipping away.

Marshall opened his hand and held it out. His brother looked at the pieces from their mother’s jewelry box without recognition, and Butcher Boy slid up close beside Marshall ’s spine, a sword into its scabbard.

Danny opened his mouth to speak, then closed it abruptly. He’d realized what Marshall held. In that single, unguarded moment, Marshall read his own innocence in Rich’s face. Not in Danny’s, or even Richard’s, but Rich’s-the old face from when he was a boy, before he learned to hide the pleasure he took in torturing the younger kids, in manufacturing accidents.

Rich saw the tiny gold crosses, the wedding ring and the hockey pin and, for a heartbeat, a smug, sly smile flicked across his lips like the tongue of a snake. In that instant, he looked into Marshall ’s eyes and gloated.

“What are those?” Polly asked, breaking the moment.

“They are trophies,” Marshall answered evenly. He couldn’t take his eyes off of his brother, and he could not block the thoughts that flowed like lava, hot and inexorable, through his mind. Half a century of thoughts.

“They are trophies,” Danny repeated. “Dylan took them off the bodies of our family. I found them clutched in his hand, just like they are now. I took them so the police wouldn’t find them. Do they bring back memories, brother?”

Marshall started to stand up. The fear on his wife’s face stopped him. She could not see the pride in Danny’s stance or the satisfaction in the set of his lips.

“Don’t believe him, Polly,” Marshall said, but he had little hope. If Danny-Rich-had bothered to hide his delight in what he had done to Dylan’s life, Marshall might have believed him too.

“Polly, please take the girls upstairs. Let Danny and me talk.”

“Stay,” Danny ordered. Pressure was building behind Danny’s mask. Marshall felt it in his own skull, a sharp bite of need. Polly bristled at Danny’s tone. Marshall hoped she would rebel and leave the room with her daughters.

Danny’s arm tightened around Gracie. “Polly, did Marsh tell you what happened-almost happened-to his fiancée? He tried to kill a pet dog she had. Why do you think he didn’t want Gracie to have a kitten?”

Marshall watched his elder daughter’s face close against him. Talk of old murders had not affected her. That was too much like the movies. Killing a little animal was within her child’s grasp of consummate evil.

“He drugged the girl with doctored champagne and put her dog in the freezer to die,” Danny said.

The champagne, the peace offering from Danny. That’s how he had done it without waking them. Marshall was not even allowed the small triumph of knowing he’d figured it out. Danny had just told him.

Danny wanted him to know. Danny wanted credit.

“Hidden your light under a bushel too long, brother?” Marshall asked.

Danny smiled. It might have read true to someone who didn’t know him. To Marshall, it stank of mockery. He’d seen it when Rich lectured Charlie about water safety when they’d visited him in the hospital, when he swore to Ricky’s parents that he had no idea their son was afraid of snakes.

When he told Dylan how sorry he was that Phil Maris got booted. “Polly, why did you come back tonight? Why did you bring Emma and Gracie home?” Marshall demanded suddenly.

“Danny got the girls… ” Polly started to speak. Then her voice trailed off.

“Why did you bring my wife and daughters here tonight?” Marshall asked his brother. This time he did stand, but the way Danny’s forearm pressed against Gracie’s windpipe kept him from closing the distance between them. “You figured I was knocked out on Ambien. Why would you bring them here when I was out?”

“I was afraid for them, Dyl, afraid you intended to do what you’d done before, clean house, kill everybody but your brother.” He smiled his old crooked smile and carefully, gently placed one hand on Gracie’s hair. It could have been a caress, but Marshall knew it wasn’t.

Danny was going to snap her neck.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Polly hissed. “Come on girls; let’s let Uncle Danny and Marshall work things out between them.”

Marshall watched helplessly as she turned and walked toward the bedroom door. “Polly… ” he began, but what could he say? It’s not what you think it is? Better she should leave. He prayed his brother would let Gracie go.