Chapter Thirty-eight – Not Running Anymore #2
I watched him leave, watched the dog disappear with him, and something inside me fractured. I wished I’d told him I loved him. I wished I’d told him what an incredible kid he was, and how bright his future was.
“Smart move,” Muirgen said behind me before giving me another shove.
“Keep playing it smart, and you might actually live. First, I’ll take whatever is left of the cash you stole.
Then, you’ll pay off the rest, with ten years of interest, by helping me manage a little project I’ve started here in town.
You’re the perfect choice. No one will suspect the sheriff’s new lover of running drugs right under his nose.
“And if you don’t step up to the plate, I’ll make sure every single person you care about in this town and in San Francisco pays the price.
Your brother and his family. The Wylees.
The damn dog and the kid. All those people who you’ve fooled at the ranch.
The list is long. And I’ll enjoy sending my men after each one of them in turn. ”
I swallowed over the acid burning my throat. All the people I loved would be hurt simply because they’d cared about me. The room swam, darkness tugging at the corners of my vision. I forced the panic back. Forced myself to concentrate.
She shoved the tackle box into my arms. “Pull the cash out and count it.”
I slowly set the box on the counter, wishing there was more inside than a couple of mementos from the chapters of my life I should have just left behind.
A sound from the living room had Muirgen whirling around, gun swinging with her. Misty sauntered in as if my house was her home, unhurried and calm, her hands tucked into the pockets of her bright-red coat.
“What are you doing here, Blubbo?” Muirgen snapped.
Blubbo? Blubbo was Marla… My mind whirled far too slowly, connecting the dots. Misty was Marla?
It seemed impossible. Eddie’s sister had been a light-brown haired, three-hundred-fifty-pound introvert. Misty was a midnight-haired, exercise-obsessed extrovert.
Marla’s voice had been broken, damaged beyond repair. Misty’s was smooth and silky.
But God…. There’d been something about her eyes from that very first day, hadn’t there? Her expressions that had chilled me…
I hadn’t heeded any of the warnings my instincts had screamed at me.
Misty didn’t reply to Muirgen. Instead, she met my gaze with a smirk, slowly spinning around like a runway model. “What do you think, Ari? Quite the miracle makeover, right?”
Muirgen let out a grunt. “We aren’t going to beat that dead horse again, are we? Big fucking deal. You’ve lost some weight and had some surgeries to fix miles of sagging skin. Good for you. It still doesn’t change the fact that you only have two brain cells to your name.”
Something dangerous flickered across Misty—Marla’s—face, a flash of fury so sharp it made my stomach twist, but she smothered it just as quickly. “You always underestimated me, Auntie,” she said evenly. “Always.”
Muirgen shook her head in disgust. “And you always thought you were smarter than you actually are.”
“I found her, didn’t I?” Marla shot back. “And it was me who told you about Randy’s little operation and how you could capitalize on it. But sure, I’m just stupid, lazy, Blubbo Marla.”
As they faced off, I inched backward, slowly and carefully, toward the back door.
With every step I took, the black hole I had of the day Eddie died cracked open, revealing a new piece.
Marla had been there. I’d seen far more than just her dirty, pink Crocs.
She’d been there, exuding all the same emotions she was now.
Fear. Loathing. Impatience. As if she’d reached the final thread of a fraying rope.
“You couldn’t even find the cash that was barely hidden,” Muirgen snarled, waving at the tackle box. “One visit and I’ve already found it.”
Marla laughed, sharp and sarcastic. “Have you opened it, Auntie?”
Annoyance and a flash of doubt traveled over Muirgen’s face. She shifted the gun back toward me. “Open it.”
I didn’t move.
Muirgen stormed forward and flung the lid open herself. “What the fuck?”
I watched triumph flare across Marla’s face, but by the time her aunt looked up again, every ounce of emotion had been tucked neatly away once more. Chills ran up my spine as all my buried memories came crashing free.
“You killed him,” I whispered.
Muirgen looked at me sharply then spun back toward Marla. “You told me she killed him. That they fought over the gun.”
“She did kill him,” Marla said coldly. “She killed him the moment she spread her legs. The moment she tricked him into taking your money and trying to make a run for it. A cheating, stealing whore.”
Muirgen’s brows knit together, confusion creeping in. “All this time, you let me believe you couldn’t pull the trigger. That you were terrified of guns. Why?” Her voice shifted, almost wounded. “I would have been so proud of you. Why let me believe you were a failure?”
“So you’d never suspect I could do this.”
The hand Marla had tucked in her coat pocket moved slightly, and then the crack of a gun sounded through my empty house.
I flinched, cowering in reflex, expecting the pain of a bullet ripping through me.
Instead, Muirgen’s weapon clattered to the ground, her face turned white, and she pressed her hands to the hole in her blue jacket. A hole dead center in her chest, just like Eddie’s.
Marla looked down at the rip in the pocket of her coat the bullet had caused. “Now look what you made me do, Auntie. I really loved this coat.”
“How dare you!” Muirgen gurgled, blood spurting from her mouth as she staggered forward a step before collapsing to the floor.
Marla strolled closer, looming over her aunt’s crumpled body, her voice rising with every step.
“How dare I? How dare you. How dare you stand by the man who beat your sister to death. How dare you watch him abuse his children. And after Eddie freed us from that monster by killing him to save me, how dare you use that knowledge to control us for the rest of our lives. How dare you order Eddie killed over money. How dare you refuse me the surgery I needed to fix the voice my father destroyed simply as a reminder of my failures.”
Muirgen tried to speak, but only wet, ugly sounds came out.
Marla’s smile sharpened. “But I learned a good lesson from you, Auntie. I learned that loyalty and respect aren’t given—they’re taken. Demanded. And now I’ve taken yours.”
She kicked Muirgen hard, the pointed toe of her boot slamming into her aunt’s ribs.
“That’s for Eddie. That’s for me. That’s for Mom.”
The horrible sound of bones breaking tore open another memory—Eddie on the ground, blood pouring from him, making those same horrible sounds while Marla kicked me in the head until everything went black.
I edged back another step. My fingers brushed the doorknob just as Marla noticed me moving. Her hand disappeared into her coat and came out holding a pistol.
A pearl-handled gun.
The same one from the cash box my father had left me. The one Cooper had taken.
Anguish ripped through me so violently I could barely stand.
Cooper.
He had to be hurt. Wounded. Or…God…dead.
It was the only way she could have the gun.
“Move away from the door,” Marla said, stalking toward me.
I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t respond. Pain rolled through my chest in crushing waves.
“Move, whore.”
She gave me a vicious push, and I stumbled just as the back door burst open. It slammed into Marla’s arm, knocking her off balance. Somehow, she kept hold of the gun, swinging it wildly toward the doorway as Luca’s furious face appeared.
Time slowed to a crawl. I could hear each beat of my heart, felt every surge of blood, as Marla’s finger tightened on the trigger. My body reacted before my mind caught up. I lunged, ramming into her arm and propelling it upward.
The gun fired.
The wall beside Luca’s head exploded into splinters as his eyes went wide. A blur of fur shot past him.
Akela hit Marla with a feral snarl, jaws locking around her wrist. She screamed, a sound of pure rage and pain. I threw myself toward Luca, shoving him back through the doorway while keeping my body squarely between him and the gun now jerking erratically in Marla’s grip.
“Get out!” I screamed. “Run, Luca! Run!”
Marla kicked wildly at Akela, but he refused to release her, growling through clenched teeth. Her shriek rose to something inhuman as the dog tore through flesh and bone.
Behind me, Luca was screaming Akela’s name.
The pistol went off again.
Pain sliced through me, white-hot and blinding.