Rebecca Coleman - Heaven Should Fall

Someone screamed. A man. I guessed it was Cade.

I shoved the gun back into Leela’s closet and buried it beneath the bolts of cloth. “What the fuck! ” I heard him shouting from the second floor. “What the fuck! ”

I slipped back into the workroom and locked the door behind me with the old key that jutted from the lock. Matthew stared at me as I hurried in. He asked, “Did Uncle Cade go and shoot himself?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s what happens. My dad says so. That’s what happens when you don’t know your target.”

I nodded and peeked out the shade.

“Uncle Cade’s sort of stupid with guns.”

“He sure is.”

Cade’s howling had turned into a wail. After a few moments a long shrill sound from Candy rose up, as well. I heard the sound of the attic door being thrown open, and my heart thumped in my ears, a double thud that resonated like being underwater. I felt as though I could feel all four chambers pumping, each distinct. TJ, sensing my anxiety, pulled up his legs inside the sling and twisted against my side. But he did not awaken.

“The hell you didn’t!” Cade shouted, and without a reply from Candy I had to assume he was talking on the phone. “Then why the fuck is my brother-in-law hanging dead out my window?”

Candy began to sob in a messy, noisy way, punctuated with fresh wails. “All right, all right,” Cade said. “All of them, yeah. Take ’em all.”

Relief flooded through me. I wrapped my arms around TJ and stood just inside the attic door, prepared to rush out as soon as Cade opened it. But when he did, he blocked my exit with his arm. “Not you. Candy’s boys.”

All the relief I had felt turned abruptly to dread. The boys ducked beneath his arm and raced down the stairs like water down a drain. I tried to push past, but he shifted to stand in my path. His face was pale, eyes frantic. “Stay there, Jill.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s not safe for you to go out. They shot Dodge. Candy wants her boys, fine, but you’re not going anywhere. Not as long as they’ve got a sniper on us.”

So that was what he believed. I had no problem playing along. “But they’re not going to shoot us. It’s safer for everybody if TJ and I go, too. Why would you want your son to stay here if there’s a sniper on the roof? Just let us go, Cade. If they see you’re willing to be reasonable, they’re less likely to rush in on you.”

“And there’s less to stop them from shooting me if they do.” I looked at him in dismay, and he combed both hands back through his hair. “Sorry, Jill, but that’s where it’s at right now. You know I’m out of cigarettes? Fine frickin’ time for that to happen.”

Just leave anyway, I thought. Shove past him and run. But I looked at the gun on his hip and thought better of it. I didn’t think he would hurt me or TJ, but I had never thought he would hold Drew Fielder hostage, either. “If I go, maybe I can negotiate for you better than anybody else can,” I suggested. “I’ve got more sympathy for you.”

He glanced toward me. I kept my expression neutral, but in the effort to do so I realized I wasn’t lying. More than anger, I felt pity for him. He could have been something wonderful, but here he was, whiling down the minutes that would end in him losing everything. Prison was going to be ugly for Cade. He was too good-looking and too easily cowed by another man’s will.

His phone buzzed. He looked at it, then handed it to me and sat on the floor, leaning back against the craft closet. I stared at the phone and then at him, and asked, “What am I supposed to do, answer it?”

“Yeah. I’m tired.”

I turned it on. “This is Jill.”

“Jill!”

The sound of Dave’s voice bewildered me. I hurried into the workroom and turned away from Cade. I couldn’t utter a response. Dave’s voice came on again. “Is that you, really? I thought I was going to talk to Cade. Are you doing all right?”

Glancing back at Cade, I gauged his reaction, but he only stared at the wall in a passive way. “I don’t understand,” I replied carefully.

“They’ve had me talking to him for a couple hours now,” Dave explained. “I got your email and then I saw the news, and so I called the police. They said sometimes it helps if someone with a connection to the family tries to help broker a truce, so they put me on. I’m trying to get you out of there. Is the baby all right? Are you?”

“We’re both here. We’re not hurt. Cade’s trying to process whatever just happened.”

“Yeah. They say they need him to be clear on the fact that they don’t know what the situation is with Dodge Powell, and they’re investigating it, but they don’t believe it was one of their men. They say they’re not in a position to retrieve the body. Do you know the condition of the hostage?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been up in the attic all this time.” At this Cade scowled at me. “What Cade wants…is to talk to a lawyer who will put together a good case for him.”

“Am I on speaker? Can he hear me?”

“No.”

“Good. What Cade really wants is for everybody to go home and forget this ever happened. In the end the choices are going to be that either he comes out or the SWAT team comes in. It’s a lot better for everyone, especially him, if he picks the first one. Tell me what it’s going to take to make that happen.”

I thought about the things Cade wanted. Not one of them sounded like anything that anyone could provide any longer. “I don’t know, Dave,” I replied. “If I did I’d tell you. He’s just tired.”

“Is that why he had you take the call? He’s still armed, though, right?”

“Yeah.” I looked at Cade again. “He could use some cigarettes. I think that’s what he wants.”

Cade gave me a listless thumbs-up.

Dave snorted with irritation. “Duly noted. Put him on the phone.”

I handed it to Cade, who clicked it off. Draping his arms loosely over his bent knees, he gazed up at the small round window, looking thoughtful and faraway. My stomach tightened with the fear that he was putting together how Dodge might have been shot just below that window. His back pressed against the door of the closet where the rifle still lay hidden.

He said, “Lay him down.”

“You mean TJ?”

“Yeah. He’s asleep anyway.”

I looked around the room as though seeking out a place to set him, but I was buying time, trying to discern Cade’s purpose. “I can’t,” I told him. “He’ll wake up if I take him off my back.”

Cade got up from the floor and, with gentle hands, braced TJ in the sling. I fumbled at the closure and loosened it enough that Cade could lift him. When he opened the closet door with his free hand, I caught my breath. But he pulled out a crocheted blanket from the shelf below the fabric bolts, shook it open and dropped it on the floor where he had just been sitting. Onto its folds he laid TJ, who didn’t stir. Then he stepped into the workroom, where I still stood, and closed the door so softly that the click of its latch made barely any sound.

“C’mere, Jill,” he said.

I didn’t move, but he came to me. He kissed me, working my shirt down over my shoulders as he unbuttoned it, letting his head drop to kiss my shoulder, my collarbone. I felt the warmth of his breath, the tip of his tongue, but as if from a great distance.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, rasping a whisper. “I love you. And I love our son.”

His phone vibrated against the front of my thigh. He lifted me with one arm and set me on the worktable, then eased me onto my back. The worn wood pressed against the back of my skull and my tailbone, but that felt distant, too. From my neck to my thigh he ran his hands down my body, touching me as a blind man touches the face of a loved one, as if yearning to burn it into his memory. Give him whatever he wants, I thought. He doesn’t care about getting out of here alive. You do.