Chapter Forty-one
I don’t even hesitate. He’s holding onto Tara, so I run into my bedroom, lock the door behind me, and go for the gun in my closet.
Something hits the back of my leg. It’s part of my door. Grant kicked it down. I’m fumbling with the code when I’m slammed to the floor. My head hits something and I see stars. When my eyes regain focus, Grant is standing over me, a fistful of Tara’s shirt in one hand and his gun in the other.
He’s yelling, but I can’t make any of it out.
He kicks my foot and yells again.
He turns to Tara and I see her say, “She’s deaf,” as if he didn’t already know. But it’s like he doesn’t know, because he continues to yell. At me.
“I can’t hear you,” I sign, knowing good and well he doesn’t understand, but those basic signs are fairly intuitive.
“Stop doing that,” he says, as I’m finally able to read his lips now that he’s not yelling. He looks at my hands in disgust. I think he says, “You look ridiculous.”
“What do you expect me to do, you idiot? This is how I communicate.” I keep signing all the shit I’ve wanted to tell him even though I know it’s only for me.
He strides forward and kicks my right hand with his boot. I wince in pain as I look at my hand, fairly sure he dislocated my forefinger.
“I said stop it!” he shouts, nostrils flaring.
It pisses me off that I have to keep looking at him to assess the situation. His face is red, his temple pulses in anger, and his jaw is clenched in fury. He towers over me, tall and buff. His dress shirt is soaked with sweat stains, and he’s sporting a police badge on his belt, as if he’d left work the second he saw Sierra’s text. Another gun is holstered to his side. He has two guns now. What am I going to do?
Behind him, Tara looks ashen. And it’s now that I see a bruise forming on her cheek.
“You monster,” I sign with my left hand.
He tries to kick that hand too, but I pull away.
He goes for my arm, and I swat him away until he gets purchase on my bicep and hauls me up, about pulling my shoulder out of the socket.
He forces Tara and me into the other room and onto the couch, then he paces the floor, occasionally hitting himself on the forehead with the barrel of his gun in frustration. I silently wish for it to go off and shoot him.
Tara is frozen to the couch. She’s stoic. She’s not going to fight. I’m the one who has to get us out of this. But how can I if I can’t talk to him?
He yells something at Tara and waves the gun around recklessly. He’s acting like a maniac, and I wonder if he’s high on drugs.
There’s only one thing I can think of to do. “Grant!” I say in what I think is a shout.
His eyes snap to me in surprise.
“You don’t have to do this. We can work this out.”
His lips turn into a sneer. “Shut her up,” he says to Tara. “She sounds like an idiot.”
“I called the police as soon as I got Sierra’s text. They’re on the way.”
Two steps forward and my face burns with the slap he delivers. When I recover and look back, he’s got the gun to Tara’s head. “Shut her up or I’ll kill you.”
Tara turns to me with terror filled eyes.
I don’t speak again.
He backs up but keeps the gun trained on his wife. “Get her phone,” he says.
I pull it from my pocket and hold it out.
His lip twitches and he leans close. “Type in the fucking code.”
I can smell the alcohol on his breath and his pupils are pin pricks. He’s totally bombed.
I do what he asks and hand the phone over. A minute later, he laughs. “You’re a liar. Do you know what I do to liars?” He narrows his eyes. “Are you reading my fucking lips?” He turns to Tara. “Tell her what I do to liars.”
Tara doesn’t say anything, she shrinks into the couch.
“Just my luck,” I think he says. “I’m stuck with Deaf and Dumb.” He touches the gun to Tara’s temple. “Make me some food. I was driving all night.”
She gets up and goes to the kitchen as if his request was the most natural thing in the world. Grant doesn’t look at her as she walks away. It’s like he knows she won’t try anything. Was this how it was with my mom? Does he beat them down and strip them of who they are until they just become robots?
He points the gun at me, motioning for me to follow Tara.
In the kitchen, Grant smirks and immediately moves the knife block to a top cabinet out of my reach.
I’m helping Tara get cold cuts from the refrigerator when I spy the large pot of coffee I brewed before. It’s full and steaming hot. Without giving it another thought, I grab the handle, spin around and throw the hot liquid at him. He dodges most of it, but a good bit lands on his arm and I see him wince in pain.
“You bitch!” he yells. It’s easy to read his lips. Bitch is often a word that gets yelled.
I’m certain I’m about to be shot. I brace for it. I inhale what could be my last breath as I think about what this will do to Blake. To Maisy. To Mom, Dad, and Beth.
Instead of putting a bullet into me and ending my life, Grant smiles. I can see a few blisters already forming on his arm, yet he’s smiling. It’s the most sinister smile I’ve ever seen. It makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn.
“Sit the fuck down,” he says, motioning to a kitchen chair with the gun.
He has words with Tara that I can’t understand, then he sits opposite me as she puts a sandwich down in front of him. She cleans up the coffee on the floor, retrieves the coffee pot that miraculously didn’t break when it landed on the living room carpet, and goes to brew another batch.
Good. Maybe drinking coffee will sober him up and make him realize what he’s doing. Because, seriously, what does he think he’s going to do? Kill me and walk out of here with Tara? He’d be caught. It doesn’t matter if he’s a cop. We have evidence now. The texts will prove he knew she was missing. There are witnesses. Surely someone saw him take Tara from the school. Regardless of what happens to me, he’ll be caught.
There is a chance he may realize all this when he sobers up, though. And that has the potential of making things worse. If he knows he’s going down, he’ll have no problem taking everyone in his way down with him.
But if he stays drugged up or drunk, he’ll make poor decisions. Yes, he could decide to shoot me, but his aim might be off. And his reactions will be slower. I have liquor in the cabinet, but how can I get him to drink it without him suspecting it’s part of a plan?
When he eats, he does it with one hand, using the other to keep the gun on the table, a finger on the trigger. But when he looks down at his food, I take the opportunity to use my eyes to motion to the liquor cabinet. It takes a few times for Tara to see me, but when she does, I bring my hand up to my face in a quick drinking motion and then wipe my nose in case Grant catches a glance.
He stiffens and says something to Tara when she goes for the cabinet. Then a smile spreads across his face when he sees my liquor collection.
He turns to me. “See what a good wife I have? She knows I like my coffee Irish.”
Tara puts the bottle on the table. Grant unscrews the top, sniffs it, and takes a giant swig.
My plan is working. Stay calm.
Tara pulls a coffee cup from the dish rack and sets it before him. He eyes it, then her. “I’ll make it, sweetheart.” He gets up, puts his gun in the front of his pants, kisses Tara on the cheek, then crosses the kitchen and gets the freshly brewed pot of coffee. He turns back to me with the same sinister smile from minutes ago. “The coffee’s for you.”
Before I can wrap my mind around what’s happening, he grabs my right arm below the elbow, forces it palm-down on the table and pours hot coffee on it. I’m screaming and thrashing around, but I’m no match for his strength. And just when I think I’m going to pass out from the pain, he does it again with my left hand.
When the pot is empty, he backs away. I’m shaking. My pants are wet; not from coffee, but the release of my bladder. My hands are a shade of red I’ve never seen, and the pain surrounds me like a heavy blanket I can’t shed. Even my throat is burning, but that must be from my screaming.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tara jumping onto Grant’s back. They tussle and he throws her to the ground, gun pointed at her. But I can’t think about that. I can’t think about anything but the pain. Death must be less painful, and right now, it’s what I’m wishing for. It’s the last thought that goes through my mind before my head swims in dizziness and I see the table come up to meet my face.
Then everything goes black and there’s no more pain.