The Girls I've Been(68)

“Raymond, can we just talk about this, please. Just give me a second. I really don’t know what money you’re talking about—” She’s trying to talk sense into him, but there’s no talking sense into a man who’s always seen you as less-than.

“You’re the only one who could’ve taken it. I’ve checked out everyone else. If you don’t tell me the truth . . .” His hand doesn’t rear back, but instead, it pushes forward.

And that’s when the shadows shift, and I see he’s got a gun pointed at her.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t think. I can’t move. The fear wraps around me and squeezes until my bones feel like they’re splintering, and it almost carries me away.

I almost run.

But instead, I move toward him, toward my mother, my twisted constant, toward the gun I know is loaded. It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Also the stupidest. In a second, that gun’s on me, and now he’s got even more leverage against her.

Mom’s sobbing, mascara down her cheeks, knees bruised and scraped. He must’ve sent her sprawling, and my fists clench even as I stand as still as I can, trying to get his wild eyes to focus on me.

“What are you doing?” I don’t sound like myself. My voice is breathy. High. Am I breathing too hard? Everything feels sped up and too slow at the same time. I wonder if this is what a panic attack is like. I’m not supposed to get those. She tells me I have to be strong.

“Get out,” he snarls. “This is between me and your mother.”

But I don’t go. She’s not even looking at me. She’s slumped on that floor with her bloody knees, and she looks so much like a child that for a second, I feel like the adult.

I’m not. I’m scared shitless. But in that second, I make a decision.

If she can’t con her way out of this, with her manipulation and power and the way she twists people around her gold-banded fingers like it’s nothing, then I will.

“She didn’t take your money,” I say, and now he’s completely turned toward me, so she’s at his back. Move! I think, but she doesn’t. It’s like she’s given up.

But I can’t.

“I took it.”

I didn’t. I have no idea what money he’s talking about. But I don’t care. Anything to get him away from her.

“Bullshit.”

It’s a miracle, but I keep my face bored as I shrug. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I guess I’ll keep the cash. It was eighty-seven thousand dollars, right?” It’s foolish to throw out a number, but it’s the one I overheard him saying into the phone earlier. And I need something to really clinch it after such a gamble.

So I do the thing you should never, ever do.

I turn my back on him and the gun.

“Don’t walk away from me, young lady!”

Relief twines in me. Oh thank God I was right.

His voice slurs just enough to tell me he’s still the careening kind of drunk. He’s sloppy slow when he’s like this. I just need to get him away from her.

I look over my shoulder. “I thought you wanted your money.”

I tremble as I walk away, out of the office, down the hall.

But he follows.





— 51 —


    Transcript: Lee Ann O’Malley + Clear Creek Deputies


August 8, 12:17 p.m.




Deputy Reynolds: Butte County deputies left their station about five minutes ago. If we can just keep everything calm until they— O’Malley: It won’t stay calm.

Deputy Reynolds: You don’t know that.

O’Malley: Something’s coming.

Deputy Reynolds: What’s that in your hand? Is that what you were hiding earlier?

O’Malley: Nora gave the little girl a message for me.

Deputy Reynolds: And you didn’t think to show it to me until now?! What does this even mean—He has an ace up his sleeve?

O’Malley: I don’t know, Jess. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Deputy Reynolds: I can’t believe you.

O’Malley: I’m telling you now.

Deputy Reynolds: Smoke. Shit! Smoke!

O’Malley: What? Oh my God!

Deputy Reynolds: Hey! Hey! Fire! Get on the radio.

[Scuffling noises]

Deputy Reynolds: Holy shit, Lee!

O’Malley: My kids are in there!

[Scuffling]

O’Malley: Let me go, Jessie. Let me go!

Deputy Reynolds: You’re not running into a burning building! Are you— Oof!

[Yelling]

Deputy Reynolds: Lee! Lee!

[End of transcript]





— 52 —


12:16 p.m. (184 minutes captive)

1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys, 1 hunting knife, 1 chemical bomb, 1 giant fire starter, the contents of Iris’s purse

Plan #1: Scrapped

Plan #2: On hold

Plan #3: Stab

Plan #4: Get gun. Get Iris and Wes. Get out.

Plan #5: Iris’s plan: Boom!



At first, it works exactly like Iris says it will. She lights the fuse and the flame travels up to the garbage-can fire starter. It flares up. The sanitizer-soaked toilet paper fills the room with so much acrid black smoke, I’m choking underneath the handkerchief. I bang on the door. Fifteen or twenty heart-stopping, hard-to-breathe seconds later, I hear him start to move whatever’s blocking the door away.