Neighborly(94)

“The vasectomy,” she says. “So you wouldn’t reproduce the Layton genes. That wasn’t really your idea, was it? It was Andie’s.” He’s too anguished to answer. “She was always leaving an escape hatch.” Ellen spits out her next words at Andie. “How long has it been going on, Andie? You and Doug?”

Nolan can’t even look at Andie as he says, “You’re the one who came up with the ketamine. You talked about how Ellen needed an insurance policy when it came to getting Kat to move. You said the threatening letters weren’t enough. You did what you always do. You made me think it was my idea, but it was what you wanted all along.”

“You’re all crazy! It must be contagious.” Andie tries to laugh.

“You want Doug, but he’s mine,” I say. “And I’m going to fight for him.”

“Like you can win!” Now Andie is laughing, but it’s ugly and harsh. Has she forgotten her own husband is standing there?

But she hasn’t won yet, or she wouldn’t be so insecure. “Doug told me he doesn’t have feelings for you,” I say. I want to inflame her, get her to show her colors all the more. I need Nolan and Ellen to turn on her for good, to turn her in to the police, because I know that she’s behind the poisoning. Nolan and Ellen are done terrorizing me, but Andie still needs to be stopped.

“He’s lying! You’re nothing! Just a fucking victim.” She sneers at me, infusing the word victim with loathing.

“He’s been using you,” I say, hoping it’s true. “You’re a placeholder. He loves me, and you know it.”

It’s a direct hit. She flies at me, knocking me against the brick wall. I’m so startled that it takes a second to react, and by then I’m down on the ground. She’s smacking my head against the concrete, and someone’s trying to pull her off, but she’s curiously strong, feral.

I hear a loud, authoritative voice. “Freeze! Get off her now!” It’s Wyatt, bellowing, and I look up to see a gun trained on Andie.

Andie listens, standing up and stepping away. I’m dazed, from the shock of the attack and from the blow to the head.

Ellen squats down next to me. “Are you OK?” she asks. Wyatt is looking down, waiting for my answer, and maybe that’s why Nolan grabs the gun away from him so easily.

“Hey, Nolan. Hey, man,” Wyatt says. “You don’t want to do this.”

Nolan gestures for him to get back, and Wyatt complies.

“So you did sleep with Doug,” Nolan says. “Even though you spent all last night convincing me that I was wrong about what I saw in the hospital room. And it almost worked. I came so close to believing you.”

“We haven’t slept together,” Andie says. “He has feelings for me, yes, but that’s because I wanted him to. I wanted that insurance policy we talked about. If he fell in love with me, if his marriage ended, then he and Kat would move away. See, it was for the family.”

Nolan continues as if she hasn’t spoken. “You talked about killing Kat. In that last e-mail you sent her. Stabbing her in the heart.”

“You know I wasn’t serious about that,” Andie says. “I was trying to help you. You and June. That’s what this has all been about.”

“You made that comment one time.” Nolan is seeing Andie as if for the first time. “You said that if something happened to Kat, you would hate for Ellen to take the fall. But she would be the most likely suspect, the one with the grudge, who’d written all those notes.” He levels the gun. “Katrina wasn’t getting out of the picture fast enough. Doug hadn’t chosen you. You were going to murder her and frame my sister.”

“No, no.” She waves her hands frantically. “I would never do that!”

“You poisoned someone. Maybe it was meant for Kat; maybe it was meant for Sadie. But I don’t want to know what else you’re capable of.”

Andie is talking to Ellen now, probably calculating that it’d bring Nolan back to his senses. “Ellen, you know me. I love your brother. Tell him.”

“She’s not worth it,” Ellen says to Nolan. “Give the gun back to Wyatt.”

“I’m Fisher’s mother,” Andie says. “He needs me.”

“You’re not Fisher’s mother anymore,” Nolan says. “You’re a monster. And I’ve known monsters before.”

He shoots, and Andie crumples. It really is like slow motion, like a movie, and the sound is still ringing in my ears, and I don’t know who goes to whom, but my arms are around Ellen and hers are around me.

Nolan is doubled over on the ground. It’s like he’s the one who’s been shot. Wyatt, meanwhile, is springing into action.

“Call 911,” he tells me. “And remember this, all of you: she was reaching for the gun. Andie reached for the gun, and with all that we’d just learned about her, Nolan had no choice.”

“It was self-defense,” Ellen says, robotic with shock.

“Exactly.” Wyatt is pure kinetic energy. I think of all those stories you hear about the thin blue line, the way the officers pull together, how they plant guns in the hands of people they’ve shot.

“Call 911,” he says, “now.”

I take out my phone, which has been recording since we came out here. I didn’t get a confession exactly; I don’t know why Andie did what she did. But I told the truth, and I got more than I could have hoped for. Acknowledgment. Vindication. Ellen’s arms around me. Ellen and Nolan don’t need to be punished by the law. They’ve suffered plenty—in different ways than I have, but still.