With shaking fingers, Jet starts unbuttoning her blouse.
Yet again I sense death near, as I have so many times before. How many guises can it take? The barge in the foggy river with Adam . . . the hooded man with his water jug in the Bienville jail. There were other times, other faces, especially during the first years after my son died, when I took crazy risks on the job. But the memory that haunts me now is that night on the kitchen table in Ramadi, when Paul burst in and killed the men about to cut my throat. And now, defying logic, or perhaps fulfilling it . . . my rescuer has become my executioner.
“Paul, why are you doing this?” I hear myself ask. “You really want to kill me?”
He shakes his head slowly. Yet the words that come from his mouth are “I saved your life, didn’t I, Goose?”
“You did.”
“So all the years you’ve lived since then . . . you got from me. Right?”
“Absolutely.”
“And this is how you repay me?” He points at Jet, whose blouse has slipped to the floor, revealing a flesh-colored bra against her dark skin. “By taking what’s most precious to me?”
“That’s a lie,” she says. “If I were precious to you, our whole lives would have been different.”
She’s the one lying now. The truth is, Paul was never precious to her. Not really. And he knows it. He glances at her for a couple of seconds, then looks back at me. His right forefinger slips inside the trigger guard. Something goes out of his eyes, and my bladder turns to lead.
“Paul, please,” Jet pleads with utter subservience. “I’ll do anything. Let’s go home right now, and I’ll be your wife till the day you die. I swear to God. For Kevin. Come on. Just leave him standing here and let’s go.”
Nothing she could have said would have hurt him more. What more powerful proof of her love for me could she give than to offer to martyr herself by living with Paul for the rest of her life? I open my mouth to try to mitigate her words, but the scream that bursts from his throat knocks me back a foot.
Then he fires.
Jet’s shriek barely registers against my eardrums. I stagger back, a delayed response to the eruption of flame from the pistol. No bullet hit me—none I’ve felt yet, anyway. At the last instant Paul pulled his aim left, putting a slug through a kitchen cabinet instead of my heart.
In the ringing aftermath of his shot, he screams once more, then sobs, but he doesn’t lower his weapon. “You liars! If Kevin was his, why didn’t you just leave? Why stay with me and live this goddamn lie? I thought you had more guts than that . . . both of you. Jesus, it’s sick.”
Jet and I stare at each other in stunned horror. Four words have burned themselves into our brains: If Kevin was his . . .
Max did this. If Paul just came from UMC, then it was Max who put this poisonous idea into his head. What agony must Paul have endured during his ride here? To believe, even for an hour, that I’m the father of the son he loves above all things?
“Paul, what did you say?” Jet asks. “About Kevin?”
“You gonna make me say it? All right. Kevin’s Marshall’s son! I know it now. And I know Mama knew it, too. Goddamn, you’ve been lying for twelve years. I just . . . I thought y’all were better than that. You’ve fucked us all up—Kevin most of all.”
Jet stands shaking in disbelief. She clearly has no idea how to respond to this. But I do. There’s only one path open to us now—one road to life.
“Paul, listen,” I say firmly. “As God is my witness, I am not Kevin’s father.”
His eyes narrow, but Jet’s widen in fear.
“Why keep lying?” he asks me.
“I’m not lying. I am not Kevin’s father. But you’re not either. Not his biological father.”
Paul goes utterly still. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Try to ease back, man. Calm down. I’m not your enemy. The person who screwed up your family is your father. It’s Max, bro. He’s the cause of all this misery.”
Paul is shaking his head now, almost violently. “What are you talking about?”
Jet silently begs me not to go on. But I have no choice now. “Paul . . . Max is Kevin’s father.”
“Oh, God,” Jet gasps, backing away from the table.
“He raped her,” I say quickly. “Max raped her in 2005. And she never told you about it.”
Paul’s initial response is one slow blink of the eyes, then another. But after a few seconds, I sense a tectonic shift within him. My words are leaching through years of accreted anger, pain, bewilderment, suspicion. When at last they sink into his mind, something vast and heavy slides into place.
“Thirteen years ago,” I say as Paul’s face undergoes a terrifying change. “You were passed out in the den. Max drugged her with Xanax and raped her.”
I cut my eyes at Jet, who’s paralyzed with fear. I can almost read her mind. After so many years of lying, how can our salvation depend on another lie? But it does.
“Is that true?” Paul asks, looking her square in the face.
She nods once, her chin quivering.
Paul closes his eyes, then wobbles on his feet. The Glock hangs loose in his hand, but death is in the room with us, hovering. While Paul is blind, I glance at Jet, who sucks in her lips and nods quickly. Tears are streaming down her face. She gets it. Rape must be the story now. It’s the only narrative that might allow her a life after this—a life with her son—and she knows it. For an insane moment I consider going for my gun, because there’s no telling what Paul might do next. He could kill himself, or us—or us first, then himself. But I don’t think he will. Somehow, he understands that what I just told him—at least Max’s part in it—is the truth. And even if he means to kill himself at some point, Paul won’t leave the son he loves under the power of the man who made his life a tragedy.
“Max told you I was Kevin’s father, didn’t he?” I say softly, trying to steer his anger away from Jet.
In the roaring silence of Paul’s shock, the back door opens. Max Matheson walks through it, a pistol in his hand. The upper left quadrant of his face and skull is a Pollock painting of purple and blue, and his left eye is so swollen I can barely see it.
“What the hell happened?” he asks. “Paul? I heard a shot.”
I back away from the door until the island stops me, and Jet follows. I have a feeling Max’s life is now measured in seconds. Then again . . . I thought that last night, on Parnassus Hill. All I know is this: I need the gun from the drawer.
Chapter 52
Paul takes a step toward his father, partially blocking my view. But as Paul speaks to Max, and Max meets his eyes, I move left and slide open the drawer that holds the .32 automatic that Nadine insisted I take this morning.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Paul demands. “How did you get out of the hospital?”
Max steps deeper into the kitchen and says, “The way you stormed out of my room, I was worried you might do something crazy. So I yanked out my IVs and got down here as fast as I could. I nearly passed out near the county line, but I made it.”
Paul’s back is to me, but I can see skepticism in his posture. “What did you drive? Your truck was here in Bienville.”
Max doesn’t miss a beat. “I went down to the employee lot and found a guy dropping off his wife for a shift. I waved two hundred-dollar bills in his face and asked if he could get me to Bienville in thirty minutes.” Max touches the wrecked left side of his face. “I think this got me the ride. The guy felt bad taking my money. He drove eighty-five all the way to my house, and I got my truck there.”
While Paul digests this, Max sweeps his eyes over the room, taking in the scene with military efficiency. He and Paul are on the far side of the table, Jet and I between the table and the island. Max looks surprised to find us alive.
“I thought for sure you’d shot this Jody bastard,” he says, waving his gun at me. “Did you show them the video?”
Paul answers without looking at him. “Yeah.”
“And?”
I slide the pistol a little farther behind my leg.
“And what?” Paul says.