The Wrong Family(66)

“What is wrong with you?” she gasped, backpedaling farther from him. His only response was to raise the gun, the muzzle pointing at Nigel’s chest, and to shoot it, once...twice. Winnie didn’t scream; she was too stunned. Besides, if you knew you were dreaming it was stupid to scream, wasn’t it?

Terry Russel screamed, however. It was an old woman’s scream, deep and frail, and it didn’t go very far. Nigel’s body bucked only when the second bullet hit him. There was a faint curling of smoke above where the bullet entered his chest—or at least Winnie thought there was. The pops of the gun were so loud Winnie’s vision seemed to tremble, and when the air settled, her husband was dead. Winnie was puzzling over the fact that her knees had hurt when Dakota shoved her down, hurt like it wasn’t a dream. She could see a stream of red pooling underneath Nigel; his shirt had been white, hadn’t it...? She reached to touch the blood; if it was warm, this wasn’t a dream. You couldn’t feel warm in a dream. Winnie opened her mouth to scream; in that moment her head suddenly exploded with pain and everything went black.



* * *



Her eyes opened gently, but what came after she opened them was the most painful moment of her life. Her head felt like someone had opened her skull and poured hot coals inside. Pressing the heel of her hand to her right eye, she struggled to sit up. When her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was Terry Russel, sitting across from her on the floor of the blue bedroom, the one in the apartment. She wasn’t dreaming, and that meant that Nigel was dead.

Winnie felt the pain straight down her middle; it tore out of her mouth in what should have been a cry of anguish, but, muted by the gag in her mouth, came out as no more than a muffled sob. Her hands were bound behind her back with what felt like duct tape. She couldn’t see; beneath her tears, her eyes strained to focus on anything other than Terry Russel. She moaned again, this time in frustration, and blinked furiously to clear her eyes. Where was Samuel? The panic drove her to her feet, which she was relieved to see were not bound. She wobbled unsteadily before rushing for the door. Winnie couldn’t reach the doorknob with her hands bound. She had no doubt it was locked from the other side, the house side. Nigel had insisted they put a solid lock on the door to the separate apartment in case they did decide to take on a renter; they could make sure the tenant couldn’t get into the main house, he’d said, by dead-bolting the door from the Crouches’ side. She looked around at the kitchenette and bathroom door. On the other side of the locked door was Nigel’s den. She could picture the Lovesac, the ridiculously overpriced couch he loved so much. At the thought of her husband she bent over, pulling short breaths in through her nose. Focus. Samuel... Samuel... Samuel... Focus.

Her eyes were stinging as she considered the room.

This room—the addition—had its own entrance, the one her husband had insisted on. This entrance led to an alley behind the house.

Her eyes darted to that door at once, and she saw Terry Russel’s head jerk in the direction. She didn’t want to think about that awful woman right now; her brother had snapped, murdered Nigel in cold blood, and she needed to get to Samuel. If she could get out to the street, she could run to the neighbors for help. But Dakota had duct-taped her hands together so tightly behind her there was no give. How was she going to open the door? She had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been unconscious, though it was dark outside the windows. She could knock her head against the glass until someone on the street heard. But what were the actual chances of that? Dakota would hear her, if he was still in the house, or she’d give herself a concussion and then she wouldn’t be able to help Samuel.

Terry was rocking back and forth, her eyes practically rolling around in their sockets. Her brother had used the woman’s own scarf to gag her, and a portion of her hair had gone into her mouth with the gag. She was making absolutely no move to do anything helpful, just staring at Winnie with panicked eyes. Winnie started working on getting her hands free.

But Dakota walked into the room not two minutes later, the gun still in his hand. Winnie craned her neck to see if Samuel was with him, trying to call to him around her own gag.

“Where’s Samuel, where’s Samuel?”

But it sounded like nonsense, like “Wazazow...wazazow.” Her eyesight blurred again with new tears. Grief and horror were cycling through her, and she bent at the waist as Nigel’s death replayed behind her eyelids, the way his body had jerked when the bullet hit.

Dakota grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and pushed her onto the bed. Her legs flew up as she fell on her back, which was what he was counting on. He had her ankles tied before she could even try to struggle into a sitting position. She screamed at him through the gag, screamed until her throat was on fire, trying to get him to acknowledge her, but her brother’s face was as vacant as a mannequin’s.





      30


JUNO

Juno was in Hems Corner when Dakota shot Nigel Crouch. She made a noise when the gun went off, but it was drowned out by guttural screaming, and then the screaming stopped abruptly. There was a thud as a body hit the floor, and then Juno wet her pants.

Terry Russel was remarkably quiet for a woman who’d stumbled right into a family tragedy and had seen a man murdered in front of her. Or had Dakota shot her, too? Juno had heard two shots and a scream. She could hear harsh breathing from the other side of the closet door, but she couldn’t tell whose it was.