Дэвид Балдаччи - The Guilty

Robie said slowly, “You need help. You’re sick.”

She smiled patronizingly. “Well, then you wanted this ‘sick’ lady really badly, Will. When we were sitting in my bedroom. I could feel the heat coming off you. You just wanted to take me.”

“I never felt that way,” said Robie. “Never. You just imagined it.”

But Victoria clearly wasn’t listening. “You wanted me because you’d already had me all those years ago when we were two horny teenagers. And you knew how awesome it was. Think about it. I had both father and son. And when I let your daddy screw my brains out after getting out of jail, the whole time I had my eyes closed and was imagining it was you, Will.” She looked at him coyly. “And given time I would have gotten you into my bed again, you know I would. Because you, like all men, are weak. Guided primarily by your prick.”

“Were you the source of the credible threats against my dad?”

“Of course. With him in prison I was free to move about and do what I needed to do.”

“And your father?”

“Dear old Daddy.” She tapped the floor with her foot. “He’s resting comfortably under the little shack where he brought all those poor kids to get screwed by Nelson Wendell.”

“So you knew about that?”

“After the fact, yes. Daddy was too refined to work for a living. So he made his money the old-fashioned way, by profiting off the misery of others.”

Robie glanced down. “He’s really buried here?”

“This seemed to be the proper place to put him for all of eternity, don’t you agree? A native Mississippian laid to rest in Mississippi soil. I hope all the manure laid in the surrounding fields leached down here. Shit should be with shit, after all.”

“Why did you want to live at the Willows? With all that happened to you there?”

“It’s about taking control of your life. I loved the Willows. I just didn’t love any of the people who lived there with me. Mother died from cancer. Lucky for her, because if she hadn’t, she would have died by my hand.”

“So she knew?”

“And as a proper Barksdale lady, she kept quiet. It would have ruined her reputation. She couldn’t have that. My welfare was a distant second on her priority list.”

“You didn’t kill my father, though. You just knocked him out.”

“It wasn’t for sentimental reasons, Will. I’m long past that. If he were dead he wouldn’t have to suffer through the loss of both his sons.”

“How did you know I’d even come to the shack?”

“How could you not? It was very helpful of you and your partner to keep me in the loop on the investigation. And I asked discreet questions here and there, if you recall. So I knew you suspected my father. And I also knew that you had found out about this place. And if you didn’t show up here, I’d have reappeared all beaten up and disheveled with a perfectly believable story of kidnap and assault with little Ty in my arms. And he can’t talk, so he couldn’t dispute one word. And then I would have killed you another time. But you did show up. Like I knew you would.”

“And did you kill all those other people? The ones the FBI is here about?”

“Well, practice makes perfect, Will. I’ve always believed that. And old horny men and young, stupid, and greedy women? Well, I already told you how I feel about that. So relieving the world of a few? I consider it time well spent. The gap in between the last killings in Arkansas and here? I met your father, got married, got pregnant, and had Ty. That all takes time.”

“You committed murder,” he said. “You can’t explain that away.”

She pointed her gun at his head. “What about you? You told me you loved me? And yet you never came for me. Explain that!”

“You didn’t show up. I went to your house. I saw you in your room.”

“My locked room. My father found out what I was planning. He beat me, and raped me, and locked me in that room. I escaped long enough to go see what had happened to you. And that’s when your father said what he said.”

“Laura, if I had known what he was doing to you I would have broken into the house and taken you with me.”

“Bullshit! You should have known I would have been there for you if I could. You should have rescued me. But, no, you just left. Because you wanted to.”

“I thought you had changed your mind.”

“People in love don’t just change their mind. You wanted a life without me, like your father said. That meant you didn’t really love me. That meant you lied to me.”

“Damn it, that’s not true. I... wrote. And, and phoned. I left messa—”

She sent a round ripping past his ear so close he could feel the wake of the bullet. He ducked down.

She looked at him stonily. “Letters? You wrote me letters? And left phone messages? And you really thought that was good enough? My father made sure I received none of them. You should have known that.”

Robie straightened. “I tried, Victoria. I really did.”

“Well, you didn’t try hard enough.”

Robie calmed. “So how does this end?”

She looked over at Ty. “Jane Smith was a genetic freak, thanks to Daddy. Ty, now Ty was mine. And he doesn’t even talk.” She shook her head. “It must be me, Will. I had always blamed things on my father, but maybe I was the problem.”

“You can kill me, but don’t hurt him, Victoria. He’s just a little boy.”

“I can’t say that I don’t have feelings for Ty. I actually do. I don’t want to hurt him. He’s nice enough. But he’s a freak, Will. Just like Jane. Just like dear old Dad. Hell, just like me.” She pointed her gun directly at Ty’s head.

“Laura, don’t do this,” Robie said quickly.

“ Don’t call me that,” she screamed.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Victoria. Please, please, don’t.”

“Begging? So weak. So... unattractive, Will. I would have expected so much better from you. But then my taste in men? Not so good.”

She swiveled her gun around and took aim at his head.

“When you see him in the world of shit, tell Daddy I said hello.”

The scream destroyed the silence of the night so completely, so jarringly, that Robie nearly collapsed and Victoria almost dropped her weapon.

It was Ty.

His mouth was open and he was screaming so loudly it was as though he had been saving all of this up during his nearly three years of life to unleash it now.

Quick as a flash Robie grabbed one of the pieces of wood and hurled it at Victoria. She fell back against the lantern, knocking it over and throwing them all into darkness. But she struggled back up, rubbing the blood off her face where the wood had hit her.

By the time she had regained her footing, however, Robie had snatched up Ty and raced through the doorway. The next moment his feet hit dirt, and he was sprinting toward the woods.

A hundred yards from the shack Robie hit a tree root and sprawled on the dirt, cutting his face on a bush with leaves sharp as knives as he went down. Then his shoulder hit something hard and he felt a pop. Tyler flew out of his grasp and rolled along the ground. Robie clutched his arm, which was bleeding where the scar tissue had reopened. He could barely raise the limb now. It might be broken, too.

He picked up Tyler again and, holding him in one arm, ran on.

Cradling Tyler against his chest, he managed to pull out his phone and dialed 911. The call did not go through. He glanced at the upper screen.

No service.

He heard movement behind him.

She was coming.

And as he looked back Robie could see that she had a flashlight.

He ran to his left, knifed between two trees, and then ran a zigzag route toward where he knew the Pearl River was.