The Spite House(64)
Max looked around the room and waved the gun like he expected a small group of commandos to come out from trapdoors beneath the rugs or a false wall hidden by the bookcase. He’s going to start shooting, Lafonda thought once again, but was at peace with it this time.
Stacy heard her, she was sure, and she had an unaccountable confidence in the little girl to evade capture for however long she needed to. There was no logic behind this feeling, no reason to be convinced that Stacy hadn’t frozen with panic in the chair upon hearing Lafonda tell her to run, nor any reason to believe that Stacy would not run toward Lafonda’s voice instead of away from it, except that she was a bright kid who didn’t need to be told anything twice, and who snuck out of the house last night, making it all the way to the gazebo before anyone got to her.
Besides, logic did not reign over this moment. Logic could not account for how Max Renner even knew Stacy was here, much less why he was so determined to find her. But here he was, looking for her.
Lafonda looked again to Eunice, who had trepidation in her eyes, but it was painted over iron. She had a rigidness to her that Lafonda hadn’t seen before. Her lips were parted, baring her teeth. Lafonda thought of the story Eunice told her of her aunt Val. The way her aunt raged in her final moments. The implication that the heart attack was only one element of what claimed her life that day on the hill. Lafonda wondered if winter would flood the room now, with their deaths imminent.
“Why did you do that?” Max said. “Why did you do that? I told you I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“You have a fucking gun,” Lafonda said.
“I’m not going to use it on her. I can’t. I need her help. I told you this!”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Mr. Renner,” Eunice said, slowly and deliberately, like it was the last thing she ever meant to say.
This is too much for her heart, Lafonda thought. She’s going to drop dead before he can pull the trigger.
“You shouldn’t have brought us here,” Max said to Eunice, shaking the gun at her with one hand.
“I made an offer. You and your wife made a choice. I’m sorry for what happened to her, but—”
“No! You’re not sorry. You just wish we would’ve stayed longer, but you’re not sorry about what happened. You should’ve told us about that place—”
“I told you there was something there.”
“We didn’t think it was real,” Max said.
“And I’m to blame for that?”
Max bit back whatever he meant to say next, wiped his face, and gathered a fraction of composure.
“If you’re really sorry about what happened to Jane, you’ll help me,” he said.
Eunice said, “I’m not letting you take that girl. She’s my charge, and I need her. If that’s why you’re here, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”
Max chuckled. “You’re ‘afraid’? No, no, you’re not afraid. Not enough. Not yet.”
He stepped toward Lafonda, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. He put the gun to her temple and told Eunice, “Who else has to suffer over this because of you? How afraid are you really? I know you’re afraid to die. Afraid of your little curse. You think it’s going to go any easier on you if you make me kill this woman because you won’t help me?”
Eunice inhaled deeply through her nose to speak, but Max cut her off. “Don’t. Before you say it, I’m going to tell you both one last time, I’m not going to hurt that girl. I can’t. I need her to save Jane. But I don’t need either of you, get it?” He traced a small circle against Lafonda’s temple with the point of his gun. She shivered at this, but kept her eyes on Eunice, pleading with her not to trust this deranged man, not to sacrifice Stacy’s safety for hers.
“You mean what you’re saying, don’t you?” Eunice said. “Fine. Let’s see about finding her, and we’ll talk more about this from there.”
“Okay, now we’re talking. Now you’re being reasonable,” Max said, a sudden lightness springing through his voice. He sounded relieved. Bordering on hopeful, like it was the first hint of good news he’d heard in years. “Let’s go. You first. You’re going to call out to her and tell her it’s okay to come out.”
“I’ll scream again,” Lafonda said. “I’ll keep telling her to run. I won’t let you—”
Eunice put her hands up in the universal sign language of peaceful negotiation. “Miss Lafonda, it’s all right. I know this man. I know he’s desperate. I know he’s doing something foolish. But I know why he’s doing it, and I believe him when he says he won’t hurt Stacy. And I don’t want him to hurt you, either. Now I need you to please trust me. Please.”
Once more, Lafonda scanned the old woman’s face. It was hard to read, but she seemed to have a plan. Maybe it was as simple as stalling. There was no way she was really going to let Max take off with Stacy, was there? If nothing else, it would destroy any chance she had of keeping Eric Ross in the spite house, ruin everything she had worked for. But if she could buy some time … Dana would be here soon and when they heard Dana come in, they could scream for her to call the sheriff. That had to be it.
Even if she was wrong, and Eunice really did plan to let Max abduct Stacy, Lafonda knew she couldn’t help the girl at all by dying right now. So she didn’t object or resist as Eunice led Max Renner out of the room and toward the library.