To distract him, I forced out a laugh. “We’re from the suburbs. It’s pretty free of backstabbing rats.”
He glowered. “You never know.”
“But let’s not worry about that,” I said. “We have so much catching up to do, right? I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to….”
The muscles in his face relaxed, and for a moment, I thought I’d successfully changed the subject. Then he reached under his flannel shirt and pulled out a handgun. “Here’s my prize possession,” he said, holding it up like we were having a happy session of show-and-tell. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s a Wilson Combat Tactical Elite M1911 in .45 ACP. Cost me more than four thousand after I had it all tricked out.” He gave it a loving look. “I use Hornady TAP 230 grain jacketed hollow-point bullets. More stopping power.”
I nodded as if I understood any of what he’d said. What could I do but humor him? “It’s very nice.” Maybe he’d forget to be angry?
“Nice?” He sounded insulted. “You call this nice?” He held the gun in both hands and squinted like he was aiming at an imaginary target. He chuckled, lowered the gun, and leaned confidingly toward Coop. “Women! She calls my gun nice!” I guess he thought they’d share a laugh about how fluff-brained girls are, how they don’t understand important things like hollow-point bullets, and I was working to swallow a sarcastic comeback when I noticed the expression on Coop’s face. He was concentrating intently, but his eyes weren’t on the gun, and they weren’t on my uncle’s face. He was staring in the direction of the living room, his head cocked, and I realized he was hearing something. Then I heard it, too. But before I could register what it was—a car pulling up the dirt road and braking abruptly—Quentin had jumped to his feet. “Now what?” Gun still in hand, he disappeared into the living room, with Coop right behind him. What could I do but follow?
I arrived just as the front door flew open, and though I’d have sworn our situation couldn’t get any stranger, it did. Hence—of all people—strode into the room, hair disheveled, brows knit together. He took it all in at a glance—me, Cooper, Quentin, the gun—and inhaled sharply. For a long moment we all stood there looking at one another, processing this new development. Then Hence sprang into action, slipping past Quentin’s gun to position himself between us and my uncle.
“Let these kids go.” His voice was low and steady. Did he think Quentin was holding us hostage, and he was some kind of action hero saving the day? We had it under control, I wanted to protest. We would have talked ourselves free, wouldn’t we? But the ice in Quentin’s eyes and the way he spun to train his gun on Hence made me think maybe it wouldn’t have been so easy after all.
“Your problem isn’t with them,” Hence said. Behind his back, he motioned for Coop and me to get behind him. For a crazy moment, I wanted to laugh. This couldn’t really be happening, could it?
But Quentin’s posture was stiff. “You.” The one word said it all. You. My enemy, my nemesis, the guy I’ve been itching to kill for twenty-plus years. Standing in front of my gun. The smile that crept across his face was hideous.
“That’s right. You’ve got me where you’ve always wanted me. So you might as well let the kids leave.” Hence’s voice was oddly calm, as though he were making the world’s most obvious and reasonable observation. He made a shooing motion behind his back, telling us to get away, but Coop and I stood frozen in place.
Of course Quentin got angry. “I don’t take orders from you.” For emphasis, he pointed the gun first at Coop’s face, then at mine, then back at Hence. “What if I feel like shooting all three of you?” He smirked, enjoying the moment. “I’d do it, too. Don’t think I wouldn’t.”
Just humor him, I silently pleaded with Hence. Let him be in charge. Hence might not be my favorite person in the world, but I didn’t want to see Quentin shoot his head off. Not to mention the fact that Coop and I would most likely be next, now that Hence had blown our cover.
But Hence had his own ideas. “Let them go now. Then you can settle your score with me.” He gestured toward me. “She’s your niece. Your flesh and blood. You don’t want to harm her.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” Quentin’s face went purple. “You think I wouldn’t kill my own flesh and blood?”
The words chilled me.
“I don’t think you’ve got the guts.” Hence spoke quietly. He turned a little, squaring his back toward the front door, and Coop and I moved to keep behind him. Again, his fingers motioned for us to take a step backward. I did, but Coop stayed put, shooting me a quick sidelong look that said, Go. But I couldn’t leave him there. I wouldn’t.
Quentin’s voice rose. “You don’t think I’ve got the guts?”
“You’re a spoiled little boy with the money to buy a gun collection.” Hence spoke through gritted teeth. “That doesn’t make you a killer.”
What was he thinking? Did he want Quentin to blow his head off? And could he really not put two and two together? Exasperated, I blurted the words out: “He killed my mother.” Okay, so maybe it was a tactical error, but Hence had to know the truth. She would have wanted him to know.
That certainly got everyone’s attention. Hence took his eyes off Quentin’s gun to look at me. A stunned-looking Quentin was staring at me now, too.
“It’s true,” I said, more softly.
There was a long moment of silence while each of us digested the situation.
“That’s right,” Quentin finally said. At the sound of his voice, Hence whipped back around. “I killed Catherine to keep her away from you. And now it’s your turn.” He threw back his head, the sound of his laughter unnervingly boyish. “This whole thing is perfect.”
“Yes. It is perfect.” Hence’s voice was surprisingly steady. “You wanted to keep Catherine away from me? If there’s anything beyond this life, you’ll be sending me right into her arms.”
What was he saying? Was he crazy? I turned to exchange a look with Coop. He’d been standing right beside me, but he’d taken a few steps to the side. I saw him reach behind his back for the stand of fireplace tools. His fingers closed around the handle of a poker, and he inched it up slowly, so that it wouldn’t clink against the other tools and give him away.
Quentin was too focused on Hence to notice. He cocked his head again, considering Hence’s declaration.
“If there’s life after death, you’re going to hell,” Quentin said.
“I’m going to Catherine,” Hence said. “Straight to her. Go on. Pull the trigger. Send me to her.” Once again, he motioned for Cooper and me to leave while we still could. “Do it.”
I took one giant step backward, but Cooper took a step forward, and then another, so that he was right behind Hence, the two of them a few yards from that trembling black gun.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” Hence said. He motioned again in my direction and Coop shot a look over his shoulder, urging me to comply. What was he planning to do with the fireplace poker? Would he threaten Quentin with it, trying to distract him from Hence? Wouldn’t a gun trump a poker? I swallowed hard, hoping Coop knew what he was doing. Trusting that he did. As if I had a choice.
Coop threw me another look. I took one step back, and another, and then remembered the phone in my pocket. Maybe I could slip into the kitchen, out of sight, and dial 911. Would there be a signal way out here in the woods? It seemed unlikely. Wouldn’t Quentin have a landline somewhere in the house? I hadn’t noticed a phone, but I hadn’t been looking for one. I inched sideways toward the kitchen without taking my eyes off the gun.
“If she’s dead, I don’t want to live anymore.” Hence’s voice was cool and matter-of-fact, like he wasn’t daring his enemy to blow his head off. “Go ahead. Give me what I want.” He leaned in closer.
“She’s dead all right.” And to my surprise and horror, Quentin’s eyes welled up with tears. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to… but I had no choice.” With his free hand, he swiped at his eyes. “She didn’t give me a choice.”
The gun wobbled.
I moved toward him, thinking maybe I should pretend to comfort this man—my mother’s brother. My mother’s killer. Could I distract him with kindness?
But Quentin flinched and tightened his grip. “Don’t crowd me.” Now the gun was aimed right at my face.
“She’s not the one you want to hurt. Let her go. Let both kids go,” Hence said.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Quentin was shouting now. “I’m the one with the gun!” He took a threatening step closer to Hence. “You came into my house and ruined everything. You took away my father and my sister….”
“I took away your father?” Hence sounded almost amused.
“With all your music bullshit, like you were the son he always wanted. He never cared about my things… my lacrosse games or my swim meets. He hardly ever made time for me. But you… with your guitar.” He said the word mockingly. “You took my father. And you took my sister…. You made her love you….”
While Hence distracted Quentin, I had been moving little by little toward the kitchen. When I got to the doorway, I looked quickly around for a phone, but couldn’t see one.
“Catherine had a mind of her own,” Hence was saying, as if it were important to set the record straight. “Nobody could make her do anything she didn’t want to do.”
There hadn’t been a phone in the storage room, but there might be one in Quentin’s bedroom. Its door was open directly behind me. If I made a break for it, would he start shooting?
“You took her away from me….” Quentin’s voice was breaking now. “You defiled her. You couldn’t keep your filthy hands off her….” He shut his eyes and shuddered. When he opened them a second later, his expression was flat and cold. He glared at Hence a second more. The gun clicked in his hand—a noise I recognized from movies, from the moment just before someone pulls the trigger.
Coop lunged toward Quentin, swinging the poker in both hands, aiming at his outstretched arms. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. I had time to think of many things—how brave Coop was, how startled Quentin looked, how I should probably hit the floor—but not enough time to do anything about it.
The gun fired as it burst from Quentin’s grip, flew across the room, landed, and spun around. Coop dove for it. In that split second, I saw Quentin hurl himself toward the gun, but Coop got there first. With shaking hands, he trained the weapon on Quentin.
“Stay back,” he commanded in a voice I’d never heard before. “Don’t move.”
Quentin’s body froze, but his eyes darted around the room, as if he was looking for a way out or for something he could use to get his gun back. My eyes on his face, I reached for the poker, retrieving it before he could and nudging it under the couch, out of his reach. “You’d better not try anything,” I said to Quentin.
A low sound—a groan—brought my attention back to Hence. He was sitting on the floor, his hand clutching his left shoulder, up high, near his chest. There was blood—a lot of it. He stared at Quentin in what looked like disbelief. Then he grimaced in pain.
I dropped to my knees. “He’s been hit,” I told Coop, stating the obvious. “Don’t move,” I said to Hence. Hadn’t I seen someone on a cop show say the same thing to a gunshot victim? Or maybe it was a car-accident victim. Did it matter?
“He needs a compress. Some kind of cloth. And we need to call an ambulance. Is there a phone?” Coop barked the question at Quentin.
Quentin didn’t answer.
“I may not be a gun expert, but I know how to pull a trigger,” Coop said through clenched teeth.
Quentin gestured toward the door reluctantly. “In my bedroom. On the bedside table.”
Though I moved as fast as I could, it felt like I was running underwater. The 911 dispatch lady tried to keep me on the line, but once I’d given her the address—thank God I could remember it—I dropped the phone, leaving her to talk to the air. I grabbed a flannel shirt off the dresser and raced back to Hence.
“The ambulance is coming.” Praying the shirt was clean, I wrapped it around his wound and knotted the sleeves as tightly as I could. His blood was warm on my hands, but there wasn’t time to care.
Hence was talking. “I should have called nine-one-one on my way over… had them meet me here… but I didn’t think…”
“Shhh,” I ordered. “Does that look right?” I asked Coop, gesturing to my makeshift bandage.
But he couldn’t take his attention away from Quentin for even a second. “Tie it as tight as you can get it.”
Hence looked intently at my face as I yanked the sleeves with all my might. A memory popped into my mind: my mother putting a bandage on my skinned knee, her face hovering above mine, warm and reassuring. So I said what she would have said: “You’re going to be fine. It’s just a nick.”
“But I want to die,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “I’m going to die.”
“Not just yet.” I pressed down on the bandaged wound. “Cooper needs you. I need you.” That last bit seemed urgently true to me now. “You’ve got to live.”
Hence closed his eyes and moaned, as if I’d sentenced him to life without parole.
“He looks pale,” I said to Coop. “And sweaty.”
“Is his forehead cold?”
It was.
“Get blankets,” Coop said in his new take-charge voice. “He could go into shock.” He barked at Quentin. “Where?”
“In the bedroom closet,” Quentin said. “On a shelf.”
I found a pile there, and grabbed them all. I draped one across Hence’s chest, another over his legs.
“Maybe he should lie down?” I looked at Coop.
He nodded. “I think you’re supposed to elevate his legs.”
I helped ease Hence onto his back, then rolled the last two blankets and propped them under his shins. “There,” I said, but now his eyes were closed. “Look at me.” I grabbed his hand and held it tightly. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But you have to.” Wasn’t I supposed to be keeping him conscious? Then a question occurred to me. “How did you know where we were?”
“Jackie. When you didn’t come back last night, she figured you found Quentin’s address.” He paused, cringing in pain. “So she called the club.”
I checked the makeshift bandage and saw that he was bleeding through it, the red startling against the plaid flannel. Should I run for a fresh shirt, or stay here and keep him awake and talking? Both seemed urgent. “What’s taking the ambulance so long?”
Hence closed his eyes again.
“Wake up.” I squeezed his hand. “Tell me things about my mother. You knew her better than anyone.”
“Catherine.” Hence’s eyes shot open, like he’d just remembered something crucial. He craned his neck to look at Quentin. “Where did you put her?”
Coop shook the gun at Quentin. “Answer him.”
Quentin hesitated for a moment. “There’s a dump. Not far from here.” And he flushed, looking, for a fleeting moment, almost human.
“You threw your sister’s body into a garbage dump?” Coop’s voice rang with disgust. “What kind of monster…” He caught sight of me and fell silent.
My mother was dead. I’d pushed that fact out of my mind in the struggle first to stay alive, then to help Hence. I shook off a wave of wooziness. When I looked down at Hence, I found him staring intently up at me. We exchanged a look, the two of us whose hearts had been punctured by the news. He moved his lips to speak, but I shook my head. There was nothing either of us could say.
But after a moment, he spoke anyway. “I have to tell you.”
“It’s okay,” I lied.
“No. It’s not.” He inhaled sharply. “The Underground. It should be yours. I was planning to change my will….”
“What?” This was the last thing I could have expected. “Stop talking like that. We’re not going to let you die.” I squeezed his good hand again.
“It belongs to you
,” he said. “To your family.” He looked around. “Where’s Cooper?”
“I’m here,” Coop reminded him. “Keeping an eye on this one.” Hands still shaky, he gestured toward Quentin with the gun.
Hence turned back to me. “I left him the club and my savings. But I want him to give the club to you. When you’re old enough.”
“You’re not going to die,” Coop said. “Cut it out.”
But Hence didn’t listen. “Don’t let Cooper run the club. Close it down if you have to. Or hire somebody. He can’t run it.”
This order shocked me. “But… why not?”
“It’s too much… distraction,” Hence said. He called up to Coop as commandingly as he could. “As soon as you can, quit,” he said. “Give it to her. I want you to concentrate on your music.”
“Stop talking like that.” Cooper’s voice had lost its newfound authority. “The ambulance will be here any minute.”
“You’ve got talent,” Hence said. “Don’t waste it like I did.” He looked me in the eye. “Let him live in my apartment as long as he needs to.”
“You’re going to live in your apartment,” I said. It all seemed so crazy. Hence wasn’t going to die of a little shoulder wound.
“If you say so.” His expression changed, softened. “I thought your mother would do this for me.” His hand was cold in mine. “Hold my hand when—”
“You aren’t going to die,” I said again, less certain this time.
“I’m glad it’s you,” he said. “If it couldn’t be her.”
I moved my lips to respond—to thank him—but nothing came out. For once, I was speechless. Instead, I did something I never would have imagined myself doing. I brushed his hair out of his eyes, then bent and kissed his forehead. His skin was damp against my lips. I felt him shudder.
“Catherine?” he asked, his voice trembling.
I drew back and saw the joy on his face.
“You’ve come home.”