Chapter 25
LEROUX SITS UP QUICKLY, REACTING to a sound from downstairs.
It’s inorganic, like a chair moving across the floor.
He reaches over for Andrew, but there’s an empty spot where his husband should be.
Leroux’s body has an immediate response, with one side going straight into panic and the other assuming Andrew is just downstairs getting a drink of water. He always forgets to bring up water.
“Andrew?” he shouts, breaking through the staticky silence that’s being punctured by whatever is going on downstairs. He stands up now, quickly looking over at his cell phone, which lights up with one message from Lucas Hart:
L: PT got on a flight to Louisiana.
A glass breaks downstairs, and Leroux grabs his firearm and begins running. He sails down the stairs, feeling like he never touched even one step. When he lands at the bottom, he can see Andrew in the kitchen.
Broken glass surrounds Andrew’s feet, and he’s backing up, holding a large glass shard in front of him like a shield. Delicate tendrils of blood drip from his palm and down his arm. His left eye and the skin just above it are swollen, like he’s been punched or hit with something.
Leroux can feel his heart pound in his chest, feel the way his blood pulses through his veins; his whole body is an angry, raging sea.
Anger and adrenaline course through him in equal amounts, searing through his system like a wildfire.
All his training, the years of seeing situations like this and how they end—all that never could have prepared him to see Andrew this way: hurt and in a defensive position in the middle of the night.
It hits Leroux like mace, briefly smothering his senses.
As he makes his way toward the kitchen doorway, he angles himself out of sight, keeping himself close to the wall to make sure whoever is advancing on Andrew won’t see him—and to avoid distracting his husband.
As soon as he gets to the doorframe, he is met with a face he has seen before—a face he has seen in his mind nearly every day since leaving Massachusetts two months ago.
He sees the face of Philip Trudeau, breathless and wild-eyed, in his kitchen.
Trudeau is holding a medium-sized blade and looks ready to lunge forward at Andrew.
His hair is a mess of waves, and his expression is nothing like the calm, cool, and calculated pastor Leroux and Wren met in Kingsborough.
Leroux holds his gun out in front of him, slowly and quietly counting to three before sliding into the kitchen.
“Drop the fucking weapon!” he says, announcing his presence with as much authority as he can muster.
Philip’s expression doesn’t change. He begins slowly stepping forward, one step and then two. He’s testing Leroux, looking right at the gun and daring him to pull the trigger.
“I said drop the weapon, Philip,” Leroux repeats, slowly maneuvering himself in front of Andrew, who still grips the shard of glass. Blood drips from his palm, and his hand trembles, sending spatter onto the floor like raindrops.
Philip grips the blade tighter, his knuckles turning white. “You son of a bitch!” he roars, shaking his head. “You thought you could sic your cop buddy on me? You thought I wouldn’t figure it out!” He’s yelling now, his voice violating the silence of night.
“No one did anything. Put the weapon down. I’ve warned you,” Leroux repeats.
Philip advances again, still slow. “It doesn’t matter what they have, what Lucas Hart thinks he can dig up. It doesn’t fucking matter!” he yells. The sound makes Andrew flinch behind Leroux. “‘Like one who grabs a stray dog by the ears is someone who rushes into a quarrel not their own.’”
The injection of biblical wisdom is chilling, with Leroux and Philip hovering in the purgatory between life and death.
The air is electric, crackling with tension and the sharp stench of fresh blood.
There is a deadly conviction in Philip’s stare—the twisted belief that this is all because people won’t mind their own business and allow him to silently wield a holy scythe, dispatching judgment and pain wherever he sees fit.
“Because you can kill a man and get away with it, right, Pastor Philip?” Leroux asks, his own voice matching Philip’s anger.
Philip’s mouth twists into an insufferable smirk. “Let’s see if I can make it three, huh?” He looks from Leroux to Andrew, and Leroux can feel his chest tighten. His finger hovers over the trigger, and a bead of sweat makes its way down his brow bone.
“You were tracked to the Andrea Meyers and Richard Muller scenes, you half-wit!” Leroux watches Philip’s expression change just slightly.
There is a flash of anger, of acknowledgment, in his eyes.
He doesn’t know whether to believe it or not, to believe that he’s been caught.
“You’re going to prison, Philip. It’s over. ”
For a second, everything stops. Philip stares back at him, and Leroux sees him as a child, snapping a cat’s neck.
He sees the teenager dreaming of hurting the young women around him just for existing out of his reach.
He sees the man who killed Wren’s husband.
It’s all there in his empty eyes—his real eyes.
The ones he camouflages as human for his sermons.
Suddenly a broom that had been leaning against the wall falls to the ground with a sharp slap, shattering the silence and causing Leroux to break his eye contact for a split second.
That’s all it takes for Philip to be on him, lunging and knocking him back into Andrew, who falls backward onto the floor.
Leroux stumbles, righting himself just in time to see Philip hovering above Andrew, who dropped the shard of glass he was holding and now lies defenseless.
Philip pulls his blade back, preparing to bring it down, and Leroux’s world slows.
Everything feels like it happens in a slog of slow motion. He can see Andrew’s wide eyes and his look of absolute terror and stubborn determination as he throws his hands up to claw at Philip’s face.
The anger inside Leroux reaches a level he never knew possible, but it’s such a quiet rage, like a bomb decimating everything in its path. There’s nothing left to do but act, to end this now, before the most important thing in his world is taken from him while he debates his next move.
The decision is made in that second. Leroux raises the gun and pulls the trigger, sending a bullet sailing into Philip’s neck. As soon as it penetrates, blood pumps from the wound and onto Andrew and the cabinets they’d just painted together, a spray of red amid a sea of deep green.
Philip falls to the side, clutching his neck, as Andrew struggles to get out from under him.
Leroux pulls Andrew away faster, moving in on Philip and making sure he stays down on the ground.
But even with a fresh hole in his throat, Philip surges up, pushing back against Leroux.
They grapple on the kitchen floor, and Andrew struggles to his feet, grabbing a pan from the drying rack and holding it out in front of him.
Philip’s burst of energy is short-lived.
He wavers, losing steam as blood begins to pour from the ragged wound in his neck.
As soon as he shows a sign of weakness, Leroux is quick to throw him hard back onto the floor, crawling on top of him and gripping his hands around Philip’s throat, intentionally closing off the bleeding with his palm.
“You sanctimonious fuck!” Leroux yells, throttling him against the floor violently.
He lets it all out in that moment. He pushes months of rage and frustration into his hands, sending waves of hatred pulsing through his fingertips.
Everything around them feels like it’s been thrust into silence; the only thing Leroux can hear now is the ringing in his ears.
He watches as Philip’s face begins to turn a grotesque shade of blue, then purple, as he fights for a breath that simply won’t come.