Chapter Thirty-Four
Somewhere in the State Forest
The hikers had finally stopped, which allowed Sam to catch up and get a pretty good vantage point from a rock. They were talking, and from where she had positioned herself, she could even hear what was being said.
She didn’t understand it. How all of this connected. How Cal and Glenda and Hayes were somehow connected to this old event. She figured it didn’t matter when she heard Daryl Everly say, “So, let’s see which one of you ends up dead.”
She didn’t think. She didn’t pause. She shot her own weapon.
*
Glenda heard the sound explode around them at the same time Daryl’s body jerked, stumbled, fell. The gun he’d been holding clattered onto the ground in the process.
Glenda looked at it more than him. Without fully thinking the move through, she moved forward, reached out and picked it up.
Then, she looked at Daryl Everly. Blood poured out of the wound at his stomach.
She watched it, trying not to think of the way Gerald had bled, and bled, and bled, when Daryl had shot him.
He was coming after me. He was going to kill me. I did the only thing I could do. It was just like Charles. He’s crazy! He’d kill us all.
Her husband hadn’t been crazy. He’d been traumatized. A young boy sent into a warzone where he didn’t belong.
He hadn’t deserved what greeted him at home. He hadn’t deserved what that war had done to him.
He hadn’t deserved Daryl Everly.
She didn’t know where the shot came from. She found she didn’t even really concern herself with anything. Except the gun in her hand.
And the man at her feet.
I never told anyone anything, she wanted to scream at him, but her voice was gone again.
Because she existed in two places. The now. The faint murmur of voices she didn’t recognize. And a past she tried not to think about, but it was right here in this moment.
“Come on, we’ve got to hurry.” She knew the boy was hurting. Benjamin had done something to him. Marie always claimed Benjamin only hurt her, but Glenda could see it in the way the boy held his arm.
He was hurt. Marie hadn’t done it. An accident hadn’t done it. Benjamin Bennet had hurt his oldest son. If Glenda had to guess, the boy’s shoulder was strained. Didn’t seem to be reacting bad enough for it to be dislocated.
But it was still an injury. Maybe not one as glaring as the black eye Marie had been sporting—hidden haphazardly under makeup, though not well enough for Glenda to miss—but still an injury.
Glenda considered stopping. Going against everything she’d promised Marie and taking the boy to the police. If Cal would tell the police who’d hurt him…
But the last time Glenda had tried to interfere, get the police involved, they’d dismissed Marie’s claims and had a good laugh with Benjamin Bennet. Marie had paid.
Glenda wouldn’t make her pay again.
No, there was no one to help. And she’d promised Marie to get the boy out.
Apparently, he had quite a mouth on him when he wanted to—one Benjamin didn’t appreciate. Glenda had been watching after Cal since he’d been a wee little thing, and he’d never so much as forgotten to say thank you to her.
It made Glenda wonder just how much worse things were at the Bennet Ranch than Marie let on.
Marie was desperate—rushing back to the ranch so the little boys she’d had to leave behind to get Cal out of Benjamin’s crosshairs could be protected.
Glenda wished she’d been able to convince Marie to come with her. She’d help them both disappear. But she understood the woman couldn’t leave her babies behind.
Glenda tried not to think of Benjamin Bennet, or how worthless that little police station was in protecting a poor, manipulated, and abused woman and her boys. How little Glenda could do herself.
She couldn’t think about it because she didn’t want to scare Cal by being angry herself.
She couldn’t think about it because who knew how Benjamin would handle Marie having one of the boys disappear.
But Cal would be safe. That was all Glenda could think about.
So she focused on her steps. On getting up to where Gerald had said he’d be camping tonight. He’d be able to protect Cal. He’d know what to do. He always did.
When he was sober.
“It’s only a little while longer,” she assured Cal.
Then she began to hum her favorite lullaby, calming them both.
She’d hummed it to her babies—dead and the one who’d survived.
She’d hummed it to her grandson and her granddaughter—both of who she didn’t get to spend enough time with.
She’d hummed it to Cal and the other boys any time she helped Marie out with them.
Because she remembered her mother humming it to her and her brothers … before Mama had been sent away. A tragedy best left in the past. Like all of them.
As she got closer to where Gerald had said he’d be camping, breathing heavily and worry and fear pounding through her, she heard raised voices. Shouting.
Gerald had said he’d needed a little alone camping trip. She stopped for a moment, as the realization stung. He’d lied.
Because she recognized the other voice. Daryl Everly.
Bad news, that man. She tried to keep the sudden fury off her face so Cal didn’t pick up on it. Why couldn’t Gerald see that man was only after strife?
No time to worry about it now. A little boy was at stake. Gerald and Daryl would have to set their childish bickering aside.
Cal came to a sudden, dead stop and wouldn’t be dragged—and since his arm was hurt, she didn’t want to drag him.
She smiled down at him. “Come on, honey. Just a little ways. I bet Gerald has some marshmallows.”
Cal just stared at her—but she didn’t think he saw her. His eyes were wide and glassy like he was somewhere else, but he was trying to pull his arm away—away from the angry voices echoing from the trail above.
Glenda understood in this moment. He was afraid. Because in his life angry voices meant a hurt arm and a hurt mother.
Her heart just broke for him. But broken hearts didn’t protect anyone, that she knew.
“Okay, it’s okay.” She looked around, saw the mouth of a cave just up the trail a little ways. Protection. Safety. She gently pulled Cal over to it. “You sit right here. Keep nice and quiet.”
Obediently, the boy did as he was told. He edged into the dark of the cave. Then sat, cross-legged. He put his hands over his ears.
Glenda had to blink back tears. She crouched in front of him, gently took one hand off one ear. “I’ll stop the yelling, and then everything will be okay. Okay? You only have to stay put and wait.”
The little boy looked up at her in a way that gave her a cold shiver. She recognized that dead-eyed stare. She saw it in her husband too many times to count since he’d come back from Vietnam.
What had he seen? Endured? She couldn’t think on it now. She had to get to Gerald and find a way to get Cal out of here.
“Shh. It’ll be okay,” she assured him one more time, then left him in the cave.
She’d interrupt Gerald and Daryl’s argument, bring Gerald home. He’d know what to do about Cal once he was away from Everly.
Before she’d gotten a few steps, the gunshot rang out.
She ran toward it. Panic. Terror.
All of it crashing into the center of her chest when she reached the little clearing and saw Gerald on the ground.
She shoved that memory away. The terror. The sobbing. Managing to get Gerald down to their cabin so she could call an ambulance. She’d tried to hide Cal away in the house, but Marie had heard the ambulance and came and collected Cal.
Taken him back to that nightmare, calmer then, sure she could handle Benjamin. Always so sure. She hadn’t been wrong. It had taken another ten years before Benjamin had killed her.
But this wasn’t about Marie. It wasn’t about getting Gerald to the hospital, thinking the doctors would save him only to watch him fade away.
It was about the deal with the devil—Daryl.
He’d never tell anyone about Gerald’s mental struggles if they didn’t mention his involvement with the police. If she kept it a secret, for the rest of her life, he would also keep it a secret.
Gerald had been dead. What did the truth matter if her son never had to know that his father’s PTSD had led him to threatening his own friend to the point the only option had been for Daryl to fight back?
The coroner would determine it was self-inflicted, and in a way it had been. If no one talked about it, their son never had to know.
She’d stopped speaking, more or less, then. Because if she didn’t speak, no one ever had to know what had happened.
What had the truth mattered anyway when the silence meant she could remember Gerald as the man he’d been in the good times?
She looked down at a bleeding-out Daryl Everly and felt no remorse. Maybe there’d been no other way for Daryl but self-defense, but she still blamed him. Blamed him for riling Gerald up. For planning those hunting trips that had only ever caused damage and harm.
They’d made their deal, but she’d never done it for him. She’d done it for her boy.
“Fitting you’d die this way,” she told him. Maybe. Was her voice loud enough to carry to him the way he writhed and carried on?
Daryl’s laugh was gargled, pained, but it was a nasty, horrible laugh. She’d always seen that side of Daryl, but Gerald had said it was nice.
Nice to be around someone who seemed more bitter, more angry, more mean than him at his worst moments. He’d felt better because Daryl was worse, and Glenda had always known that wasn’t healthy, had tried to convince Gerald of it for so long.
“Even now, you think it was him. I can’t decide if it’s better that way, or better to know the truth.” Again, he laughed, all gurgled and pained.
He must be in some kind of terrible shock. His words didn’t make sense.
Truth? What truth?
She thought vaguely that someone was saying her name. Cal probably. But she kept her finger around that trigger, pointed at Daryl’s head.
She could put him out of his misery. She could avenge her husband. Maybe he’d been trying to hurt Daryl, but it hadn’t had to end that way. And Daryl was trying to hurt her now. Her and Cal, who was an innocent bystander.
Didn’t he deserve to die by someone else’s hand?
“Better to know the truth, I think,” Daryl said, sneering at her.
“I shot him because he was going to tell everyone I killed Charles.” He tried to sit up but fell back on a groan of pain.
“I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it.
” He was staring up at the sky now, still wriggling in pained, horrible movements.
And Glenda … didn’t fully understand the words.
No accident.
No self-defense to Gerald’s PTSD outburst.
On purpose. Because…
She made some kind of noise, felt a tremor of denial and despair roar through her. “No.”
“Oh, yes. I killed them both because I wanted to.” Daryl coughed, groaned, moaned.
Still no one moved forward to help him. But his eyes met hers. Dark and mean and soulless.
Dead. They should be dead.
“Come on, Glenda.” He sneered at her. “Always so right. Always so tough. Do it. Pull the trigger.” He coughed, a gurgling dribble of blood flowing over his mouth. “I fucking dare you.”
She would have. Her finger was curled around the trigger. She felt that rage, that grief, that loss so big, so overwhelming, pulling the trigger seemed the only possible end to this.
Until she heard, “Grandma.”
It was perhaps the only voice that would have gotten through to her in this moment, so stuck in the past did she find herself.
But Jill…
She looked up at the granddaughter who’d so patiently cared for her after the stroke.
Who’d never gotten impatient with all her frailties.
Her bad attitude. Her refusal of so much.
The way she’d shut down. All the hard edges she’d built to keep herself safe, Jill had never done anything but let herself be cut by them.
Glenda was used to taking care of herself and everyone she loved, but this sweet girl had taken care of her.
Jill was huffing and puffing. A muddy, desperate mess. Tears in her eyes and tracking down her dirty cheeks. Cal was holding her back. Nate was here now and that detective. Sam, Landon and Aly too.
Glenda didn’t know who’d shot Daryl. It didn’t matter.
If she pulled the trigger, everyone would know who killed him. Everyone was giving her the chance. No one was trying to stop her. They were leaving it up to her.
She wanted to. She really did. Pull that trigger. End his life for certain. Good riddance. An eye for an eye. Fair and justified.
But she’d go to jail, no matter her reasons.
Still. Tempting.
Glenda looked down at Daryl, still felt the pull. She could end it all. It would be righteous. It would be revenge.
And Jill would witness it. She would see that choice, and it would haunt her forever. Her son would know what she’d done, and she would spend her days in jail, disappointing everyone she loved that she had left.
Glenda wouldn’t let that be the case.
She dropped her arm. She didn’t want that for her granddaughter. All this hard. All this pain. She wanted something softer than Glenda had ever been able to find in this life.
Arms came around her then. Jill hugging her tight. Crying and reassuring her.
Glenda looked at Daryl, ashen, bleeding out. Before she could think of anything to say—some kind of blame or closure or something, someone rushed up to him.
Paramedics had gotten up here apparently.
But Glenda didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it. All the past. She’d never stopped loving her husband. She never would.
And now she didn’t have to lie about the story of Gerald Harrington.
Like the truth really had set her free.