Brian Freeman - The Bone House

Chapter Fifty-Three

'I needed a cigarette,' Katie explained. 'I was on the patio with the Green Bay team while Gary gave one of his rah-rah speeches, and I wandered over by the hotel window and flicked my lighter. I heard a girl scream inside. Crazy. I knew Tresa was at the hotel, and I'd been avoiding her, but I never thought Glory would be there too. It must have triggered something when she saw me. The brain's a funny thing.'

Hilary watched this pretty young girl talk clinically about her crimes, as if they had sprung from someone else's hand.

'I never wanted this to happen,' she went on. 'I'm Katie Monroe now. I've spent six years trying to forget that I was Jen Bone or that I ever lived in that house.'

'You murdered your mother and your brothers,' Hilary said. 'You burned them all to death.'

Katie's eyes flashed. 'Did you live there? Do you know what it was like? Do you have any idea of the things they did to me? I wanted to erase them and that house and everything in it. I wanted it to be like none of it had ever existed. I didn't feel guilty. I still don't.'

'But you let your father take the blame.'

Katie's face went cloudy. That was the first real emotion Hilary had seen in her. 'Dad got home while I was watching the place burn. He acted like he was sorry. Can you believe it? I was doing both of us a favor. With them out of the way, it was finally going to be just the two of us, but Dad didn't understand. He sent me back to Tresa's house, and he stayed there to wait for the sheriff.'

'Has he contacted you?'

Katie shook her head. 'He's dead. If he wasn't dead, he would have gotten in touch with me. My aunt was always telling me I didn't have to be scared of my father coming back. Like she knew something. Like it was a secret I should keep.'

Hilary wanted the girl to keep talking. She wanted time for the police to find them. 'So is Gary Jensen supposed to take your father's place?'

'What does that mean?' Katie retorted. 'Do you think I was sleeping with my father? You think he was abusing me? Is that what you think?'

'I have no idea.'

'You're the one with the husband who screws teenage girls.'

'That's a lie.'

'Oh, you think so? You're like every wife, loyal and stupid. Gary's wife was the same way, until she found pictures of me on his phone. He convinced her he'd dumped me, but he dumped her instead. Off a cliff.'

'Mark's not Gary.'

'Yeah? I followed Glory out to the beach that night, but your husband got in the way. They put on a hell of a show.'

'Don't play games with me,' Hilary snapped.

'Glory took off her top, and then she got on her knees. Do I need to spell it out for you?'

'Shut up.'

Katie shrugged. 'You know I'm telling the truth.'

Hilary saw Gary Jensen reappear behind Katie. He had liter bottles of gin, tequila, and vodka in his hands, but his jaw was clenched with dismay. He hovered in the doorway, unwilling to enter the bedroom. Katie gestured at him, and her face betrayed a growing agitation and impatience. She was losing control.

'Pour the alcohol around the room,' Katie told him. 'Quickly.'

Gary didn't move. 'We don't need to do this.'

Katie reached out and caressed his cheek. 'There's no going back now. It's too late. If you'd gotten rid of Amy fast like I told you, then we would have been fine. But you let the cat out of the bag, lover. We could have contained the damage if it was just Amy, but not anymore. By the time the police sift through the ashes, we'll be in Canada.'

Jensen opened his mouth but said nothing. He crouched down and laid two bottles at his feet. He unscrewed the cap on a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya and hesitated over the prone body of the girl on the floor.

'Pour it over Amy,' she instructed him. ' Do it .'

With a long glance at Katie, Jensen turned the vodka bottle upside down, letting the liquid spill out in spurts, covering Amy in strong-smelling alcohol. Her hair. Her shirt. Her arms. Her jeans. Her feet. As the fumes gathered in her nose, Amy began to stir. Hilary heard her moan, but the girl's eyes were still closed.

He poured until the bottle was empty.

'Now the rest,' Katie told him. 'Do the whole room. The curtains. The carpet. And don't forget Hilary here.'

Jensen's eyes awakened with a kind of shock. 'Jesus, how did this happen?'

'Hurry. We're running out of time.'

'My wife. That girl in Florida. Now we have to kill two more people?'

Katie picked up the bottle of Cuervo and shoved it into his hand. 'This is the only way.'

Jensen slowly twisted the cap. When the bottle was open, he dropped the cap to the floor and watched it bounce and roll. He took a stuttering step toward Hilary, and then he stopped and shook his head.

'No.'

Katie clenched her fist. 'Gary, please.'

'I won't do this.'

'I told you, this is the last time. Once it's done, we're free.'

'You said that about my wife. You said that about Glory.'

'I know. I never meant for any of this to happen.'

'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'You and me. Right now.'

Katie kissed his cheek and exhaled in a slow, sorrowful sigh. 'OK. You win. Sure.'

'Really?'

'Whatever you want, Gary. You know I love you.'

Katie gently pried the bottle from his hands. She upended the neck to her lips and took a long, burning swallow. When she was done, she wiped her mouth, pointed the gun at Gary Jensen, and fired into the center of his forehead.

Hilary screamed. The explosion sounded like a bomb, rattling her head. Blood and brain matter blew out the back of Jensen's skull in a chunky spray and painted the wall. Jensen's body dropped straight down like an imploding building with its columns knocked out. He crumpled into a dead pile. The smell of charred metal was like sulfur in Hilary's nose.

Katie bit her lip unhappily, staring down at his body. She blinked rapidly, as if even she was surprised at what she'd done. As if it was an impulse she couldn't resist, like scratching an itch. The echo of the shot died, and in the terrible silence, they all heard a rhythmic wailing, rising above the wind. In the distance, sirens grew louder and closer.

Multiple sirens, overlapping, from police vehicles racing toward them.

'It's over, Katie,' Hilary said softly.

Katie listened to the shrill sirens, her face stricken with indecision.

'It's over,' Hilary repeated, it's too late.' She pressed her hands into the bed and tried to stand up without alarming the girl.

Katie swung the gun, which was still smoking, and pointed it at Hilary's face. 'I swore to my mom I was going to burn the house down,' she said. 'She laughed. She didn't believe me.'

'Don't do this.'

Katie ignored her. Her mind was made up. She swung the vodka bottle into the corner of the door frame, and the neck of the bottle shattered across the floor in razor-sharp fragments. She jerked the open, jagged body of the bottle toward Hilary, letting the alcohol splash across Hilary's face and soak through her blouse to her chest.

Katie shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.

'Don't worry,' the girl told her. 'I've done this before.'

Chapter Fifty-Four

On the floor, Amy Leigh's hand shot out.

Before Katie could react, Amy locked her fingers around her roommate's ankle and yanked Katie's leg into the air. Katie flew, crashing backward on to bottles and broken glass. Sharp fragments stabbed through her clothes and impaled themselves like arrowheads in her skin. The gun broke loose from her hand.

Amy lunged for Katie, leaping past Gary Jensen's corpse and landing on the girl's chest. She drove the air out of Katie's lungs, and Katie rasped for breath underneath her. Pinned, Katie's fingers twitched on the cigarette lighter. She cocked her elbow and pressed the lighter against Amy's alcohol-soaked clothes. Hilary shouted a warning, but before Amy could react, Katie's thumb flicked the wheel, spinning it, striking the metal against the flint.