Chapter 32
Doug
Doug rammed back into the living room, a single word bursting in his mind.
Gun.
After Hellie had basically given him the F-U, Doug stormed out, went straight to his car, realized with rage he didn’t have his keys, kicked the door a couple times,
then broke into a run. He made it all the way to the turn onto the county road before stopping, a stitch tearing at his side.
Damn, he wasn’t in any kind of shape anymore.
He turned around and walked back. Everything was so freaking quiet out here he couldn’t think a single clear thought. As he returned to Phelps’s street, he noticed Ted, sitting in his sporty
show-off little silver BMW with the interior lights on. Doug slammed the window with his palm as he passed the car, but didn’t
stop.
Gun.
He wasn’t as helpless as he’d felt when Hellie stroked his cheek and said I can’t and he realized he couldn’t make this goddamn woman do anything—couldn’t make her stay, couldn’t make her reconsider. Couldn’t
make her love him.
He pulled the front door shut behind him with a vicious yank. He didn’t have to use the gun. But he could if he wanted. He wasn’t anyone’s pawn. He was in charge of his own self. He could kill Hellie. He really could.
He’d go down for it, but that didn’t sound so bad right now. Crimes of passion had something respectable about them. Something
grand, right? Something epic . . . Doing shit for love . . .
“Phelps?” he shouted, broken glass crunching under his shoes as he crossed the living room. “Phelps! I need my goddamn keys!”
His gun and his keys, so he could shoot and leave and see how far he could make it before the inevitable handcuffs.
He never should have surrendered his keys to Phelps. He’d had a bad feeling when Phelps collected them all, and he should
have listened to it, listened to his gut—
He stopped in the doorway between the living room and dining room. The dining room was empty too. It didn’t seem like anyone
was in the kitchen either.
“Where the fuck is everyone?” he shouted, making a slow three-sixty. “Hello?”
Ah. A light in the hall and the sound of running water.
He headed in that direction. The bathroom door was open. It was Hellie, washing her hands. She glanced up, meeting Doug’s
eyes in the mirror.
“Didn’t you hear me shouting my head off?” he said. She didn’t answer.
For a moment, Doug felt like he wasn’t actually looking at Hellie, but the ghost of Hellie.
“I am not moving out,” he said, pointing his finger at her pale reflection. “She’s my grandma. I moved back in to take care
of her. If you want to leave, you find somewhere to go.”
Hellie didn’t answer. She just looked back down at her hands. The water was pink. She squirted more soap. She was really working up a lather now. Could she hear him? Maybe Doug was the ghost. Maybe he was already dead. Tonight had felt like a dream.
“Are you trying to piss me off now? Because it’s working.”
No response. Just like Fort Wayne. Cold, neutral Hellie. Hellie behind a wall, hidden away where he couldn’t get to her. He
preferred her the other way, flying at Jenn like a wildcat with her bitch-claws out. That was the woman he wanted to see again. To say goodbye to, he realized. He didn’t want to shoot her. What had he been thinking?
He just wanted to know she cared.
He ran his hands through his hair. His scalp felt tight, every hair follicle like a diamond.
“Why won’t you say anything? Aren’t you even going to give me a proper goodbye? After seventeen fucking years together? Am
I not good enough for you to even acknowledge right now?” Apparently not. He laughed. “You’re not even sad, are you? Admit it. It’s okay, I can take it. Just admit that you never gave a shit about
me. That’s all I’m asking. Did you ever even love me, Hellie? Or were you in it for . . .”
Hellie lowered her gaze to the sink bowl. Her breathing was shallow.
Part of him wanted to grab her, spin her around, make her answer him . . .
Exhaustion crashed through him. It had been useless in Fort Wayne and it would be useless now.
“Screw this,” he said, kicking the open door on his way out. It rocketed against the wall.
He headed to the bedroom he and Hellie were supposed to sleep in tonight.
Back to Granny’s he’d go. No shooting, it was too messy, and even then he wouldn’t get what he wanted, which wasn’t too much to ask, just a goddamn sign of love from his partner of almost two decades.
As soon as he was home, before the sun even fucking rose, he’d take Hellie’s clothes, and her pathetic collection of scratched CDs from high school that they didn’t even listen to anymore, her fantasy paperbacks and her makeup bag, and he would throw it all in the yard.
Let her figure out how to come collect it all.
It was no longer his problem, and if she wanted to be alone that bad, she could start figuring it out right quick.
He rummaged in his bag, wanting to feel for one second the security of the gun. He wasn’t going to use it tonight, not anymore,
but . . .
Where was it?
“Fuck.” He rummaged some more. Gone. Fucking gone. His gun. Who had taken his gun? He turned on the light. The rotating ceiling
fan turned on too. He made a search of the room. Under the air mattress, in the closet, under the pile of bedding . . . Nowhere.
Double fuck. It was unlicensed.
He zipped his overnight bag closed, shouldered it, turned off the lights, and left the room. The bathroom was deserted now.
“Hellie?” he called out.
Gone.
Phelps would be in the Dog House, no doubt, where he had his stash of weed. Doug could go there, demand his keys . . . but
first things first. Ted had the shit he needed so that he could handle everything else.
“Hello?” came a female voice from the kitchen, just as Doug was opening the front door. Hellie? No . . . definitely Olivia.
So she’d found her way out of the old cornfield, after all. But he wasn’t lingering.
Outside, he stabbed the Santa with a stick he saw in the yard, then went straight to Ted’s car as the Santa deflated behind
him. Ted was in the front seat. Doug wrenched open the passenger door and slugged his overnight bag inside. He climbed in
after it.
“Fuck, man,” said Ted, leaning away from the dashboard before sneezing. “Stop trying to scare me. First you slam your hand
on my window, now you—”
“I need a fix.”
“Help yourself.” Ted gestured to the dashboard, where he was lining up some powder on a little mirror.
Doug would indeed help himself. He deserved it, after all the shit that had gone down. The powder tickled. Aaaah. He closed
his eyes. In a minute, he’d be able to actually think. It occurred to him that what he really needed was for Ted to give him a few grams. A New Year’s present. Anyway, just look at Ted’s car. Brother was loaded.
“Dude,” said Doug. “I’m headed out soon, but hey, before we part ways—”
Doug’s attention was arrested by sudden commotion near the house.
“Allie?” said Ted, already climbing out of the car.
“Someone call 9–1–1!” She was running toward them, waving her arms frantically. “Something happened to Jenn!”
“What happened?” said Ted. Doug climbed out of the car too and rubbed his nose with his index finger.
“Some kind of accident!” She was wringing her hands. “Maybe she fell down the stairs? I don’t know! There’s a lot of blood,
you guys. We have to get help! Do you have your phone?”
“Shit,” said Ted, glancing back at Doug. “The coke.”
“We’re gonna need a second,” said Doug, leaning back into the car and opening the glove compartment. They could hide the stuff
in there—
“Not there, doofus, that’s the first place they look,” said Ted. His hands were efficiently gathering up the materials on
the dashboard. He called out to Allie, “Get Phelps! It’s his house. He can call the ambulance.”
Allie turned back around with a cry of frustration and disappeared into the house.
Cops. Would they show up along with the ambulance? That wasn’t ideal. On the other hand . . . who cared if they did? Doug hadn’t done anything wrong. These weren’t even his drugs, and they couldn’t arrest you for being high.
“Make yourself useful,” growled Ted. “Go get our car keys from Phelps. Ideally, I’d prefer not to be a sitting duck if law
enforcement arrives.”
“Sure, man.” Good idea. Doug should leave too, and on the double.
Doug jogged to the house. The living room was a beehive of activity, like everyone had decided to burst back into existence.
Bunny was talking frantically to Will. Olivia was on the couch, her dress covered in blood, weeping. Wait . . . was it Olivia
who was injured? Or Jenn? Bennett, looking wet and dirty, had a hand on Olivia’s back. Allie was messing with her phone . . .
Why hadn’t she called the fucking ambulance? . . . and where was Jenn? Didn’t matter.
“Dude, I need my keys,” said Doug, going up to Phelps. “Mine and Ted’s. Like, stat. Surrender the keys.”
Phelps laughed with disbelief. “You can’t leave now!”
“The fuck I can’t!” said Doug, blood rushing to his cheeks. “Last I checked, this is a free country!”
“Well, that’s debatable,” said Phelps with heated sarcasm, “but right now there’s a dead woman in my basement, and no one
is leaving until the police get here.”
Wait—dead?
Ted was at the front door, gesturing. Doug made a helpless shrug in his direction.
“What?” said Ted, stepping inside.
“So, apparently we can’t leave because Jenn is dead,” said Doug with a laugh of disbelief.
“Fuck,” said Ted, making for the bathroom. The sound of flushing followed.
“What’s he doing?” said Phelps.
“Getting rid of his drugs, man!” said Doug. It made him want to cry, all that good stuff getting flushed into the sewer system.
The sound of a siren came in the distance.
“How are they here already?” shouted Ted from the bathroom.
Doug went to the front window and pulled apart the blinds with his fingers. It looked like a fire truck would be first on
the scene.
He closed the blinds and turned.
“Well, get your fucking alibis in a row, amigos,” he joked.
“Not funny,” snapped Phelps.
“What?” said Doug, a little aggressively. “I mean, it was an accident, right? Anyway, what happened?”
Phelps’s jaw was clenched. He looked like he wanted to punch Doug.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Phelps. The quiet pressure in his voice could cut through metal. “I wasn’t there. But it
sure didn’t look like an accident to me.”
At this, Olivia wailed even louder.
Well . . . damn. Really? One of them had murdered Jenn? Not that she didn’t deserve it . . . Who would it have been? Old Phelpsy
seemed pretty tense . . . Revenge for the restaurant? Maybe Olivia, she’d really snapped back in the yard—
Hellie. Doug hadn’t even noticed her at first, leaning against the doorframe between the living room and the dining room.
So small and quiet. So easy to miss at first.
Oh . . .
Fuck.
The missing gun.
The pink water in the sink basin.
Hellie, washing her hands, then lathering up again and washing some more. She was washing out blood. Jenn’s blood.
Jenn, who had gotten Doug fired.
Jenn, who had broken up Doug and Hellie’s marriage.
Hellie met Doug’s eyes. Her gaze was steady. Unflinching. She knew he had a gun. She was the only one here who knew. He hadn’t
told her he was bringing it tonight, but it wasn’t unreasonable to imagine she might have gone looking for it in his bag.
He suddenly remembered how she’d attacked Jenn. Doug had had to pull Hellie off Jenn so she didn’t kill her right then and
there in the living room, in front of everyone . . .
Doug knew a moment of limbo before a hot rush filled him. Even as his body buzzed, his brain was clear as day, all his thoughts
standing to attention like bright, beautiful little soldiers.
Hellie hadn’t responded to Doug in the bathroom with declarations of love, because she’d already given him her declaration. Her sign. A sign that was more than words, just like that song she loved . . . The biggest sign of love
she could ever give him.
His wife had killed Jennifer Fucking Bernanke.