Lisa Gardner - Say Goodbye

Except the shadow turned into a solid form. The girl, coming down the stairs, dragging the boy behind her.

“’Bout time you got here,” the girl said. She shoved the boy forward. He stumbled, then fell at the man’s feet. His cheeks were covered with bright red marks, some already dewed with blood.

He had not gone without a fight; the girl’s arms bore similar scratches, though she now held his knife in her fist.

“Found him in the attic,” the girl reported. “Stupid little shit.”

The man reached down, grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck, and jerked his head back, until the boy was forced to look him in the eye.

“What’d I tell you, boy? No such thing as gettin’ away. You belong to me.”

The boy didn’t say anything. His face had closed up, shut down. Rita could tell he was sinking somewhere deep inside himself. Saving what little bit of himself he could.

The man seemed to know it, too. “Well, boy, you know what’s gotta happen.”

The boy didn’t talk, didn’t move.

“You disobeyed me. Now you gotta be punished.”

“Can I do it?” the girl asked immediately.

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t you think you’ve caused me enough headache for one day?”

The girl shut up.

The man was regarding the boy. Rita was waiting for him to do something violent. Strike out with his fist, lash out with his leg. Instead, the man started looking around the room. Then his gaze fell on the Colt pistol, sitting on the kitchen table.

He picked it up. “Boy,” he said. “Come here.”

The boy obediently rose to his feet, stepped forward.

The man pointed to Rita, where she sat, bound and pain-crazed on the hard wooden chair.

“You brought this on yourself, boy. I told you there could be no outsiders. I told you what would happen if you ever asked for help. Do you remember what I said?”

The boy’s gaze dropped down. With a crack, the man openhanded him across the face. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy! Do you remember what I said? DO YOU REMEMBER?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy whispered.

“I didn’t lie, boy. I never lie.” Then the man turned and pointed the pistol at Rita’s forehead.

“Tell her goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” the boy whispered.

And just as Rita closed her eyes, just as she braced herself for the impact of the bullet shattering her temple, the cracking sound happened again, and she opened her eyes to discover the man had struck the boy, this time so hard the boy had fallen to the floor.

“DO YOU THINK I’D LET YOU GET OFF THAT EASY? DO YOU THINK I’M THAT NICE? OR DO YOU THINK I’M THAT STUPID?”

“No, no, no,” the boy whispered, begged, pleaded.

“GET TO YOUR FEET, BOY.”

The boy rose.

“TAKE THIS PISTOL, BOY.”

The boy obediently reached for the Colt.

“NOW SHOOT THAT BITCH!”

The boy turned and pointed the gun at Rita.

She didn’t close her eyes this time. She wanted him to see her face. She wanted him to know that she forgave him.

Behind him, a cupboard door suddenly opened.

The man whirled, looked around. “Who goes there?”

Joseph, Rita prayed in her mind. Please, Joseph .

A drawer rattled, cracked open.

“What the fuck?”

Then the pans were shaking in the cabinet, the teakettle sliding across the stove, the faucet cranking water. The man stood in the middle of the kitchen; he screamed at Rita at the top of his lungs. “Who the hell is doing that?”

It came to her, maybe just the memory of what the girl had said, or maybe with Joseph’s help. She said, “The Burgerman says hi.”

The man started to roar.

The boy pulled the trigger.

At the front of the house, Mac and Sal crept up the steps. They approached the door, hunkered low to keep out of sight of the windows. They came up on either side of the glass panes, did a quick inspection, then returned to their positions of backs pressed against the exterior walls.

“Windows are covered,” Mac whispered.

Across from him, Sal nodded. “Guess Ginny doesn’t want her neighbors seeing in.”

Mac leaned forward, tested the knob, found that it turned.

“Open,” he mouthed.

Sal arched a brow at that piece of luck, then shrugged. “All right, let’s do it.”

Mac had just twisted the knob when they heard a booming scream, followed immediately by a gunshot.

Sal had his radio out, rattling off the address. “Shots fired, shots fired. Requesting immediate backup. All units to assist…”

Then he and Mac ducked low and rushed into the parlor.

“This is the police. Drop your weapons!”

Kimberly was just leaning forward to adjust the radio volume when a knock at her window jerked her upright. She was already reaching for her shoulder harness when her eyes registered the curler-capped face outside the car window. It was the neighbor woman from last night, or maybe that was this morning. The one she and Sal had talked to while watching Dinchara’s house burn.

Kimberly popped open the door, got out.

“You’re the police, right?” the woman was asking, clearly agitated.

“Can I help you?”

“Something’s wrong at the house next door. I just happened to look out my bedroom window and notice the light on in the attic. Someone had taped something to one of the windows. It looks like nine-one-one.”

Kimberly jerked her head toward the structure in question. “You mean that house, where the girl lives?”

The neighbor frowned at her. “Girl? Rita’s no girl. Hell, she’s ninety if she’s a day. Her family has owned that house for generations.”

Kimberly’s turn to be confused. “I thought you meant the house next door, the one with the big, wraparound covered patio…”

“That’s the one.”

“No girl lives there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Does…does a girl visit sometimes?”

“No. Least not that I’ve seen. Though a man showed up about twenty minutes ago. Wearing a red baseball cap.”

The man felt pain first. That surprised him. It had been so long since he had felt anything connected with his own body, he had assumed his nerve endings were done, used up, burnt out. His skin was nothing more than an exoskeleton and he liked it that way.

But his side felt like it had caught on fire. He grabbed at it, startled to feel more pain, then encountered the shocking wetness of his own blood.

He turned to the boy. The kid pulled the trigger again.

This bullet caught him up high, in the shoulder. He twisted back, still standing, and heard another boom, felt another searing pain, and then heard another boom and another one.

His legs buckled. He slowly sank to the ground, staring at the gray pall of the ceiling. Was it his imagination, or were the shadows moving up there? He thought he saw the Burgerman’s face, and he whimpered.

The girl was screaming. Why was the stupid girl screaming if he was the one who’d been shot? He wished she would shut up. He wanted everyone to shut up. The girl, the gun, the terrible violence seeping into his brain.

And then he heard fresh yells, this time deep and authoritative. “Police, police. Hands up. Drop your weapon.”

The girl was screaming again, the old woman telling the boy, “Put it down, child. It’s okay, just put it down.”

He could feel his blood seeping out of him, into the floor. He could feel himself dying and he ought to know, as he’d seen it enough times. The way that first boy’s body had sagged, then collapsed all those years ago. And the girls, one by one, their blood running from their veins down the bathtub drain as he watched excitedly, until the last drop was gone and they became nothing more than limp dolls, and he suddenly went from feeling so powerful to being nothing but an overgrown kid, playing with oversize toys. Until he kidnapped the next one, of course. And the one after that.