Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(125)

“I found your mother in Colorado,” my aunt replied. Her voice seemed to be moving, probably as she sought better cover. “I’d hired a private investigator who finally managed to track her down. I made the trip out to see her in person when you were ten.”

“Why?” I was dumbfounded enough to stop watching Abigail and turn toward the sound of my aunt’s voice. I must have popped up slightly, because Abigail squeezed off another round and I quickly dropped as the arm of the wingback chair exploded beside me. I inhaled more frosting.

“I wanted to talk to her, sister to sister,” my aunt said. “She’d hurt you, not to mention what she’d done to the babies.…I don’t know what I was thinking. I was angry. I wanted to talk to her, have my say, before calling the police.”

Abigail was moving. Not toward me, but toward the sound of my aunt’s voice. I went back to hastily debating my options. Phone? Too far to safely reach. Weapons? She had taken my sock stuffed with batteries, which had been in my coat pocket, but I still had a small knife taped to my ankle, not to mention the ballpoint pen. I wasn’t sure I could stomach drawing down a blade on my baby sister, no matter how deranged. The ballpoint pen would have to do.

“You came to our apartment,” Abigail said now, her voice sounding almost little girlish as she stalked our aunt in the dark.

“I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t know you existed.” Aunt Nancy’s voice softer, more distant. “The police report…There was no sign of a second child.”

“Everything I owned I kept in a backpack…” Abigail said the words, just as they appeared in my head. I mouthed the rest of the sentence, so that we finished in silent unison, “like a good soldier.”

“When I saw you,” my aunt continued, “I didn’t know what to do. I’d had a plan. I was going to yell at my sister, give her a piece of my mind, then call the police, who would cart her away to be locked up for the rest of her life. The least she deserved! But she knew. Chrissy actually knew what I was going to do and she was already ahead of me.”

Moaning. From behind me. Frances again, gasping with the pain. The sound goaded me. We couldn’t stay here, pinned down in the dark while Abigail stalked us with a gun.

“But then I saw you,” my aunt was trying to explain to Abigail, her voice carrying through the dark. “And I didn’t know what to do. I told Chrissy she was sick. Demanded that she turn herself in. I offered to take you, Abigail, raise you just as I’d been doing with Charlene. Except Chrissy wouldn’t hear it. She told me I was wrong, had gotten everything confused. There’d been a boyfriend in New York. That’s who had stabbed Charlie, who’d murdered the babies. She’d been on the run from him ever since that night, which is why she’d grabbed you, Abigail, and fled from the police. So this ‘boyfriend’ wouldn’t find her.”

Across the room, I saw Abigail pause. She’d been moving steadily closer to the sound of my aunt’s voice, seeking a target. Now, however, I saw her hesitate. I used the opportunity to ease off my first heavy winter boot.

“For a moment, I almost believed her,” my aunt whispered. “Then Chrissy started to laugh. She looked me in the eye and told me that’s exactly what she’d explain to the police. They, of course, would start looking for the boyfriend, and in the meantime, she’d demand full custody of Charlie again. She’d take both of you and disappear. I couldn’t believe she’d do such a thing, but of course she would. Drama and intrigue. Everything she liked best. Who cared if it hurt you, Abigail, or you, Charlie, or me. All that mattered was that it served Christine.

“I asked her what she wanted and she offered me a deal. If I never told the police I’d found her, then I could keep Charlie. She’d never contact me, I’d never contact her. We’d go our separate ways, each one of us with one child. She made it sound generous, as if she was doing me a favor. And I…

“I couldn’t let her have you again, Charlie. You were doing so well. You had friends and you were happy, and I…I loved you too much to send you back to her. So I made the devil’s bargain. I agreed to her terms, Abigail. I sacrificed you, so I could save your sister. And I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that one day, you would forgive me for that.”

My aunt’s voice changed, became resolute. Too late, I realized what she was going to do. Too late, I stood up behind the wingback chair, all the way at the other end of the long, shadowed family room.

As my aunt rose up from behind the sofa and peered straight at Abigail.

“I hoped,” my aunt whispered bravely, “that as a sister, you’d be grateful that at least one of you got away.”

Abigail stared my aunt in the eye. For one second, I thought we just might make it. I thought Abigail—

She pulled the trigger. Her Sig Sauer exploded. My aunt made a funny hissing sound, spun slightly left, reaching out a hand as if for balance. Abigail took aim a second time and I hurtled my boot at her head.

It connected just as she squeezed the trigger. Another gasping sound from my aunt, then Abigail spun around, pointing her gun toward me. I flipped off my second heavy-soled boot and hurtled that one as well.

I caught her shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt her. But it threw her off balance. She had to take a second to adjust her stance, during which time I grabbed three sofa pillows and started winging them through the air.