Karin Slaughter - A Faint Cold Fear

Lena stared at him. “Why did you kill Ellen Schaffer?”

“Lena.”

“Tell me why,” she insisted. “I need to know why.”

Richard waited a beat before saying, “She looked right at me when I was in the woods. She stared at me while she was calling the cops. I knew it was just a matter of time before she told them.”

“What about Scooter?”

“Why are you doing this?” Richard asked. “You think I’m going to offer this long confession and then you’re going to arrest me?”

“We both know I can’t arrest you.”

“Can’t you?”

“Look at me,” she said, holding her arms out to the side, drawing attention to her battered body. “You know better than anybody else what I’m mixed up in. Do you think they’re going to listen to me?” She put her hand to her bruised neck. “They can barely even hear me.”

He gave a half smile, shaking his head as if to say he could not be suckered in.

“I need to know, Richard. I need to know I can trust you.”

He gave her a careful look, trying to decide whether to continue. Finally he said, “Scooter wasn’t me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Richard rolled his eyes, for just a moment the girly Richard she knew from before. “I heard he was scarfing. Who’s stupid enough to do that anymore?”

Lena resisted his cattiness as an invitation to let down her guard. “And Tessa Linton?”

“She had this bag,” he said, suddenly agitated. “She was picking up stuff on the hill. I couldn’t find the necklace. I wanted that necklace. It was a symbol.”

“The Star of David?” she said, remembering how Jill had clung to it in the library. That day seemed like a lifetime ago.

“They both had one. Jill bought them last year, one for Brian and one for Andy. Father and son.” He exhaled sharply. “Brian wore it every day. Do you think he would do something like that for me?”

“You stabbed Tess Linton because you thought she had the necklace?”

“She recognized me somehow. I saw her putting it together. She knew why I was there. She knew I had killed Andy.” Richard paused, as if to gather his thoughts. “She started yelling at me. Screaming. I had to shut her up.” He wiped his face with his hands, his composure slipping. “Oh, Jesus, that was hard. That was so hard to do.” He looked down at the floor, and she could feel his remorse. “I can’t believe I had to do that. It was so horrible. I stayed around to see what happened and . . .” His voice trailed off, and he was silent, as if he wanted Lena to say it was okay, that he had not been given a choice.

He said, “How do you want to do this?”

Lena did not answer.

“How do you want me to get rid of him?” Richard asked. “I can make him suffer, Lena. I can hurt him just like he hurt you.”

Lena still could not answer. She looked at her hands, thinking about Ethan in the coffee shop and how angry she had been when he hurt her. She had wanted to pay him back, to make him suffer for the pain he caused.

Richard lightly tapped his finger on the cast. “I had more than my share of these growing up.”

She rubbed the cast. The scar on her hand was still red, dried blood around the edges. She picked at it as Richard laid out his plan.

“You won’t have to do anything,” he said. “I’ll make sure everything is taken care of. I’ve helped women like you before, Lena. Just say the word and I can make him go away.”

She could feel the scar give under her fingernails, peeling back like the sticker on an orange. “How?” she whispered, playing with the edge of skin. “How would you do it?”

Richard was watching her hands, too. “Will it do any good?” he asked. “Will it make you stop hurting yourself?”

She clutched her right hand around the cast and held it low on her waist, shaking her head, saying, “I just need to get him out of my life. I just need to get away.”

“Oh, Lena.” He put his fingers under her chin, trying to get her to look up. When she did not move, he leaned down, putting his hands on her shoulders, his face close to hers. “We’ll get through this,” he said. “I promise you. We can do it together.”

With both hands Lena rammed the cast up into his throat as hard as she could. The cast cracked underneath his jaw, clamping his teeth down on his tongue, throwing his head back whiplash fast. Richard stumbled backward, his arms flailing as he fell hard against the doorjamb. She bolted down the hallway toward Nan’s room, slamming the door behind her, working the ancient thumb latch just before Richard turned the knob from the other side.

Nan’s gun was under the bed. Lena dropped to her knees, pulling out the box. The cast had split open at the top, and she managed to use both hands to jam the magazine into the gun and release the safety before Richard broke down the door. He came in so fast that he tripped over her, knocking the gun from Lena’s hand. She scrambled to reach the weapon, but he was faster than she was. She stood slowly, hands in the air, as he pointed the gun at her chest.

“Get on the bed,” he told her, blood and saliva spraying from his mouth. His words were thick from where he had bitten his tongue, and his breathing was labored, like he was not getting enough air. He kept the gun on her and put his free hand to his throat, coughing once. “I could have helped you, you stupid bitch.”

Lena stayed where she was.

Despite his injury, his voice filled the room. “Get on the fucking bed!”

When she still did not move, Richard raised his hand to hit her.

She did as she was told, lying on her back with her head on the pillow. “You don’t have to do this.”

Richard moved deliberately onto the bed, straddling her legs, keeping her in place. Blood dripped from his mouth and he wiped it on his sleeve. “Give me your hand.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I can’t knock you out,” he said, and she knew that Richard’s only remorse came from the fact that her being awake made things more difficult for him. “Put your hand on the gun.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“Put your fucking hand on the gun!”

When she did not obey, Richard grabbed her hand and forced it around the gun. She tried to push the glock away, but he had the advantage of height. He pressed the muzzle to her head.

She said, “Don’t.”

Richard hesitated for half a second, then pulled the trigger.

Shards of glass rained down, and Lena put her hands over her head, trying to protect herself as the window exploded above her.

Richard was blown back onto the floor. That was how it happened: The window shattered, and he was on the floor. Empty space was above her, nothing but the ceiling fan in Lena’s line of vision. She sat up so she could see Richard. There was a large hole in his chest, blood pooling around him.

Lena turned, looking behind her. Outside the broken window, Frank stood with his gun still drawn on Richard. The threat was unnecessary. Richard was dead.

17

Sara sat at Mason’s desk, the phone propped between her shoulder and ear as she listened to Jeffrey describe what had happened at Nan Thomas’s house.

“Frank hung up on Lena when she called the station. He felt guilty and went by to talk to her,” Jeffrey explained. “Then he heard Richard screaming and ran around the back.”

“Is Lena okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, but she could tell from his tone of voice that she wasn’t. “If Richard knew how to load a gun, she would be dead right now.”

Sara sat back in the chair, trying to process everything he had said. “Has Brian Keller said anything?”

“Nothing,” Jeffrey told her, sounding disgusted. “I brought him in for questioning, but his wife was here an hour later with a lawyer.”