39. Caleb
Chapter 39
Caleb
I listen to the soothing sounds of Aubrey’s rhythmic breathing next to me, willing my own breathing to fall into lock-step with hers. But I can’t do it. Can’t relax. Can’t fall asleep, no matter how hard I try.
Partly, I’m feeling impatient and excited to give Aubrey the engagement ring I bought her in LA with my sister’s help. Mostly, however, my mind is racing with thoughts of Ralph Beaumont. Whenever I close my eyes, I see the inhuman look in his eyes, when he told me to “watch my back” at the courthouse. Something about that cop staring at my family the other day spooked me. Got my hackles up.
Something dark is brewing.
I can feel it.
Unfortunately, that security service can’t make it out here for two more days, so I’m my family’s only security system until then. I don’t take that responsibility lightly.
A rustling sound jerks me from my wandering thoughts and makes me sit up in bed and listen intently. That didn’t sound like an animal or the rustling of trees in the breeze. No, it sounded like human footsteps clomping on dried pine needles and leaves.
I unravel myself from Aubrey and slide out of bed. Peer outside my bedroom window. And sure enough, a darkly clad human figure just turned the corner of the house, heading toward the back facade. Fuck!
I throw on sweats, shoes, and a hoodie and quickly grab my new, fully loaded handgun from the locked cabinet. With my firearm in hand, I grab a flashlight from the kitchen counter and step outside into the cool night air and onto the deck.
Nothing.
Nobody.
I head around the house, past The Family Tree, as we now call it—the black cottonwood with my family’s three initials carved into its bark—and then cut through a cluster of high bushes, as a shortcut to the back facade. When the back of the house is in view, I stop and peer into the darkness, trying to discern any kind of movement.
I hear a crack of a twig, or maybe the crunch of dried leaves or pine needles. And that’s when my flashlight beam engulfs a dark figure, dressed in black from head to toe, trying to open my goddamned back window with a crowbar.
“Freeze!” I shout, and the figure instantly turns to look at me with wide eyes.
Fuck me. It’s Ralph Beaumont. His face is smudged with black paint, and his silver hair is hidden underneath a black cap; but I’d recognize those deadly, evil eyes and that sneering mouth anywhere.
“Drop the crowbar and hold up both hands— right fucking now ,” I grit out, pointing the gun between his vacant eyes. He’s retired law enforcement, so I’m assuming he’s armed. But when he begrudgingly drops the crowbar to the ground—right next to a black duffel bag at his feet—and raises both arms, my assumption is immediately proved correct: the butt of a handgun is peeking out of his belt.
“What’s your plan tonight, Ralph?” I shout, jerking my chin at the duffel bag on the ground. “Did you come here to rape my daughter, the same way you raped your own?”
“Fuck you, you piece of shit kidnapper.”
I scoff. “Excuse me if I don’t give two shits what a wife-beater/pedo-rapist thinks of me.”
I take careful aim at Ralph’s forehead, squinting one eye to lock in my aim. I’m itching to pull the trigger and end this motherfucker now; but if I do that while his hands are in the air, that’d be a tough sell as self-defense. They’ve got forensics for this kind of thing, right? Plus, as much as I want him dead, I’m not sure I’m capable of cold-blooded murder. That’s what this would be, if I were to pull the trigger now, right?
I take a deep breath to steady myself. “Apologize for what you did to Claudia,” I say evenly, the gun still aimed at his forehead. I don’t expect him to do it. Don’t care if he does. I’m actually toying with him. Egging him on to do something, say something— anything —to inspire me to squeeze this fucking trigger and put an end to this nightmare, once and for all.
“Fuck Claudia,” Ralph spits out. “She was an even bigger liar than she was a slut. All I can hope is Raine doesn’t take after her slutty, lying mother.”
Oh, fuck no. Gunfire splits the quiet night, and Ralph immediately drops like a stone into a clump of bushes behind him. My heart hammering, I whisper, “Keep my daughter’s name out of your goddamned fucking mouth . ”
As the gunshot echoes, I realize what I’ve just done, and my breathing turns shallow and erratic. My heart stampeding in my chest, I shuffle through the brush toward Ralph’s unmoving body, barely able to breath, and when I reach my destination, it’s clear as can be Ralph Beaumont is no longer among the living. The man’s “taking an eternal dirt nap,” as my grandfather used to say. In fact, Ralph’s forehead would make a mighty fine pencil holder.
I’m shocked to discover I got the fucker right between his reptilian eyes, exactly as I was aiming to do. I’ve never been a great shot. Not terrible, but not a sure thing. Plus, I haven’t been out shooting in forever, so it’s honestly a miracle I got off a perfect shot when I needed it most. Shit. Maybe that’s not such a good thing for a claim of self-defense?
As I’m having the thought, a light flickers on in my peripheral vision. I jerk my head toward the source of the illumination, my eyes as big as saucers. It’s coming from my closest neighbor’s house. Obviously, the gunshot woke somebody up over there. Fuck. If I don’t alter this scene to fit a better narrative than what actually happened, I’ll be fucked.
Covering my hand with my sweatshirt sleeve, I slowly pull Ralph’s gun from his belt and carefully lay it into his lifeless, opened palm. When that task is done, I unzip Ralph’s duffel bag with my covered hand and peek inside. Jesus . It’s stuffed with some spine-chilling, serial-killer shit: duct tape, rope, a hunting knife, and a box of bullets.
“Holy shit, what happened?” a male voice calls out. It’s my neighbor, an older guy in a bathrobe with a rifle in his hand.
Before I’ve replied to him, Aubrey suddenly appears at the back door, wide-eyed and frantic, asking what’s going on .
With my heart lodged in my throat, I look back and forth between Aubrey’s terrified face and my next-door neighbor’s smug one and realize I’ve got no choice but to lie to Aubrey in this moment. At least, for now, while this neighbor is in our presence, I’ve got to tell the same story I’m going to tell the police.
“I-I heard a noise while I was in bed. I had insomnia,” I choke out. “So I-I got my gun and came outside and found this guy, dressed in black, trying to break into my back window with a fucking crowbar.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the neighbor murmurs, punctuated by a whistle.
I look at Aubrey. She’s sheet-white and gripping a vertical wooden beam on the back porch to keep herself steady.
“Well, he’s worm food now,” my neighbor says, nudging the dead body with his boot. “You hit him, square on his forehead, C-Bomb. Damn. ”
I take a deep breath. “I shouted at him to freeze and put his hands up, but he pointed a handgun at me, instead.”
The neighbor shrugs. “Classic kill-or-be-killed situation. Don’t feel bad about it for a second, son. You did exactly the right thing.”
I look at Aubrey again. She’s holding her stomach. From where she’s standing, Ralph’s body is too far away for her to identify his face, surely, especially given the darkness of the night and the way Ralph landed when he fell back. But her body language suggests, pretty damned clearly, she’s got a strong hunch about the identity of the body.
“Is he . . .?” Aubrey begins.
“ Dead ?” the neighbor supplies, unaware what she’s actually asking me. “Yes, darlin’,” he continues reassuringly. “ Don’t you worry, that bad man can’t hurt you or anyone else, ever again.”
As the neighbor bends down to check out the duffel bag, Aubrey mouths to me: Ralph ?
I nod slowly, and her entire body visibly shudders.
“My god,” the neighbor says, his attention fixed on Ralph’s duffel bag. “Looks like this mofo planned to do something pretty horrific.” He identifies the full contents of the bag—all the shit I’ve already seen for myself—and poor Aubrey bursts into tears, even before he finishes his list.
Thanks, asshole. If I’d wanted Aubrey to know about all that serial-killer shit, I’d have told her myself.
As Aubrey shudders and cries on the porch, I beeline over to her and hold her close. “It’s okay, baby. We’re safe now.” I don’t want to hurry her along, when she’s sobbing like this; but I also know I’ve got to call the police and play my part, in order to secure my freedom and my future with my family. “Baby, go inside and check on Raine, okay? I need to call the police and report what happened. Go on now, baby. The gunshot might have woken Raine up. She might be awake and scared.”
I’ve said the magic words. Raine and scared . Instantly, Aubrey flips into parenting mode. Enough, anyway, to drag herself across the porch and into the back doorframe. In the doorway, though, she stops and turns around.
“Make sure you tell the police about how he pointed a gun at you, Caleb.”
“I will, baby. Go on.”
“Tell them you had no choice. Tell them what’s in the duffel bag.”
“I will. It’s gonna be okay.”
“The judge said you can’t get into any more trouble. She said if you do anything violent?— "
“It was self-defense,” I reassure her. “Plain and simple.”
“Classic case of it,’” the neighbor agrees. “Nobody’s gonna blame C-Bomb for a minute, darlin’. In fact, all anyone’s gonna do is pat him on the back and tell him ‘good job.’”
With a trembling chin that breaks my heart, Aubrey drags herself into the house, and the moment she’s gone, I press the button to call the police. When the 911 operator answers, I tell her my story again—the same one I told the neighbor and Aubrey, while my neighbor shouts things in the background like, “He had no choice!”
“Stay put and don’t touch anything,” the dispatcher says. “Officers are on the way.”
I hang up and sit on my back stoop, physically quaking with stress and adrenaline. If I’ve fucked up here, if I’ve forgotten some important detail that’s going to give me away, I’ll never fucking forgive myself. It felt so right in the moment to pull that trigger, when he mentioned Raine’s name. It felt like a no-brainer. Otherwise, I knew we’d never get a moment’s peace again. I mean, really, how long would they have detained Ralph for simple trespassing? But now, as I await the sound of sirens and flashing lights, I’m second-guessing if I made the right call.
“Don’t you worry for a second about this,” my neighbor reassures me. “This ain’t California, C-Bomb. In Montana, when a fucker tries to break into your house to do God knows what to your family with his bag of torture, nobody’s gonna bat an eyelash at you for putting a bullet between his eyes.”
God, I hope he’s right about that . . . even when the fucker in question is my known mortal enemy who publicly threatened my family and me only a week ago . . . and the whole world knows I’m not the type of man who lets bygones be bygones.