Don't Look for Me(85)

Daisy strokes his face, runs her hand down his arm to his fingers which release the gun without the slightest resistance. He is in a trance. And he is weak and sick from the poison.

She steps away, five or six yards. Alice is dragged along with her like a pet on a leash.

She points the gun at the man with the shotgun, who trembles. Her face is stone cold. It shocks me more than anything else in these woods.

She sees Nicole, she sees her, but now really sees her. And she laughs, loud and hard. She laughs at Mick.

“I get it now. You thought this girl was going to replace me? That she would want to live with you? My God, it is beyond pathetic.”

Mick stumbles, drops to his knees. I can’t tell if it’s the poison or his grief. But he lets his head fall into his hands and he begins to weep.

“You didn’t come back this time,” he cries.

Alice tries to pull away. She wants to go to him. She loves him. I can see that now. Even though she helped try to kill him to set me free.

Daisy sighs like she’s annoyed. “I told you if you kept getting into my bed I would leave for good. And that’s what I did.”

“I kept waiting. We kept waiting…”

Alice cries. I see that she is confused, and confusion is her worst enemy. Mick told her Daisy died in the woods. Now she knows that Daisy is alive, that she left on her own, and that Mick knew the whole time.

I think about what Alice told me—how the beginning of the end was when Mick got into bed with them. Now I understand. Daisy had simply had enough.

She continues her rant as though she and Mick are the only ones in these woods. “But then you gave up, didn’t you? You found that old woman, and then her daughter. Why didn’t you just go fuck a waitress at the diner? Why did it have to be like this?”

Mick has a second wind, rises to his feet. “You know why—because of her!” He points to Alice. “How was I going to explain that? I had no way out. You left me with no choice.”

Daisy takes a step closer. “Did you even consider moving away? Making up a story about the girl? You could have gone anywhere. Started over. It just pisses me off! I used to think you were so smart. That we were going to build a little fortune and get the hell out of here together. But you had no imagination. Just your little cons and scams. I told you I wanted more. You promised to give it to me if I stayed with you and had the kid. But no—that was all just a con you pulled on me, making me need you. Making me have to stay!”

She pauses, looks to the sky, and back at Mick. She is cold with rage. I think about the photo in that book, and the way Alice loves her. She wanted something that Mick had promised her—something she believed in once. Something that made her stay and give things to this little girl.

“It’s all so clear now. How weak you are.” She speaks with an eerie calm. “I should have gone to the train station with the chief. Gone to Boston and gotten rid of it. I could have been anything. I could have gone to college. But I believed you—and you promised me. You said we would make it out. That’s all I ever wanted. To get the hell out of Hastings! But you’re a coward and a liar.”

The woods are dead quiet. The man with the shotgun, and my daughter—they are statues listening to this story. And Alice, how she weeps and buries her face into the side of her mother.

Daisy gets ahold of herself. Her face changes the way Alice’s does. In an instant.

Now come seconds that blur. Seconds that leave me stunned.

First, the words.

“Well, it’s done—so now we have to clean this up.”

And the shot. One shot, fired at Mick. Hitting him dead-on.





54


Day seventeen





“Daisy!” Booth yelled out to her. Nic felt her head spin. She reached for the tree.

Reyes was on the ground. His eyes were open. His body still. He was dead.

The little girl was screaming now. “No!”

Daisy slapped her clear across the face.

“Stop it! Do you hear me? Mommy has to take care of things now.”

She turned the gun on Booth. He held the shotgun on her, though his arms were trembling.

“Put it down,” she said to him.

But even as his whole body began to shake, he did not let go of the shotgun.

“Roger—think about it. Do you know what’s been going on? We’ve been here this whole time. For ten years. Right under your nose. Living in that house through the woods. Running the cons—on the roads, at the casino, it’s been so easy—and raising this girl. Your girl. Don’t tell me you’re not happy he’s dead.”

Booth was breathing hard, but said nothing.

“You wanted him dead when he said those things to you, right? Just now, when he told you how I never loved you? How I would never have your baby? He wasn’t lying. I was going to get rid of it. I kept it for him. I kept it because I thought he was a big man. I gave him your baby.”

Daisy laughed.

“You wanted to pull that trigger just now, but you couldn’t. That’s why I could never love you.”

Nic moved farther behind the tree. The little girl pulled hard against her mother’s hold, even as her face began to swell.

Then, suddenly, Booth cocked the gun and held it higher. Aimed right at Daisy’s head.