I can’t. No matter what the risk, I have to stop him.
But how? If I startle him, his training might trigger him to whirl and kill me out of reflex. Keenly aware that Jet has done nothing to intervene, I pad past her with my empty hands held out before me.
“Paul?” I almost whisper. “Hey, man . . . you with me?”
No response. How can I break through that death trance? As I ease forward, memories of our time in Iraq return, the weeks I spent with Sierra Bravo in Ramadi. “Yo, brah,” I call softly. “Rangers lead the way, right? Remember?”
Very slowly, like a man with a traumatic brain injury, Paul closes his mouth. Swallows. I crouch beside him, then sit, but I don’t risk touching him.
“Paul? Can you hear me?”
He says nothing, only stares down at his father’s motionless face.
“I want to talk to you, man. Kevin’s still your son, okay? Nobody’s taking him from you. Ever. You hear me?”
“Jet did this,” he whispers. “Jet put us here.”
A bubble of fear rises in my chest, and I sense Jet backing away behind me. “No, man, listen. Max did this. He told you I was Kevin’s father. Remember? He lied. And he lied for a reason. He wanted you to kill me. Jet, too.”
“Why?” Paul asks. “Makes no sense.”
“Oh yes it does. He wanted to raise Kevin. He wanted custody of that boy.”
Paul has yet to even look at me. But he says, “Killing you and Jet wouldn’t get him Kevin.”
“It would if you were dead, too.”
“You’re full of shit, Goose. It was her, man.”
Jet’s got to be petrified. I can’t believe she hasn’t fled the house. “Think, Paul. Max showed you that video of us. Then he told you I was Kevin’s father. With all that rage, he was betting you’d come straight here and shoot us. And you almost did. He pointed you at us like a guided missile. He knew we’d be here, and he sent you to kill us.”
At last Paul looks up with glassy eyes. “How could he know you’d be here?”
“Jet, what brought you here tonight?” I ask over my shoulder.
When she doesn’t reply, I risk a look back. Her face is a finger-painting of tears and smeared mascara. But Nadine’s gun now hangs by her leg.
“What was the first thing you told me when you came in?” I ask.
“Max sent me here,” she says in a shaky voice. “He called from UMC and told me to end it with you. If I didn’t, he’d tell Paul everything.”
“There you go,” I tell Paul. “He pointed you at us, and then he blitzed out of that hospital and followed you here.”
“Why?”
“He was betting that once you killed Jet and me, you’d end up turning your gun on yourself. But if you didn’t, he had to be here to finish the job. That’s why he busted in when he heard your shot. A single shot didn’t make sense to him.”
Paul is shaking his head. “No, man. You’re reaching.”
“Shit. You think Max followed you here because he was worried about you? You know better.”
“But you care about me?” Paul throws out his gun hand and knocks me off my heels. “You’re lying, Goose. You’ve both been lying all along. She wants to take Kevin from me, and you’re helping her.”
“I don’t want Kevin, man. He’s yours. Use your head, damn it. Not your heart.” As I scramble to my feet, a gleam of black at Max’s ankle catches my attention. A flash of memory takes me back two nights, when Max’s jeans rode up and I saw the pistol in his ankle holster. Only on that night the gun was nickel-plated.
“Check his ankle holster!” I tell Paul, pointing.
“What?” he asks dully.
“Max brought two guns. Why? Where’d he get them?”
While Paul stares at me in confusion, I reach across the hardwood with my shoe and slide Max’s pant leg up over the nylon holster. Paul looks disinterested at first. Then his eyes narrow, and he pulls the gun from the holster.
“This is mine,” he mumbles. “My compact Springfield.”
“Did you lend it to him?”
Paul hesitates, then shakes his head. “It was in my desk at home. It was there last night. This morning, too. He . . . he must have stopped on his way into town and grabbed it.”
“If the guy he paid drove him fast enough when he followed you from Jackson, he just had time.”
“This is too crazy, man. This is wack.”
“This is Max. Remember when he asked you to walk over to him so that he could whisper something to you? He tried it twice. Twice. The second time he asked you to go out on the patio. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.”
“No.”
“You know I’m right. To fit his narrative, he needed a contact head shot. A contact wound with your gun. One that would look like suicide.”
“But . . . why kill me first?”
“Seriously? You were the only real threat to him in here. He’d have shot us right after he shot you. But when he talked to the cops, he’d have told it in reverse. I followed Paul out there, worried sick. I heard two shots and busted in. I saw Jet and Marshall dead, and Paul turned the gun on himself before I could stop him.”
Paul blinks like a man struck with a club. “You really think he would have killed us all?”
“It’s the only way he could get custody of Kevin. Last night he tried to talk Jet into leaving you. He had some crazy plan to move you to Atlanta or Dallas, offer you a lot of money. But Jet refused. No threat would make her screw you over like that.” I turn back to her. “Tell him.”
“It’s true,” she says in a ragged voice. “He’d lost his mind. He said he was going to cut you out of his will if you didn’t get out of his way. He tried to rape me last night, I swear to God. That’s why I hit him with the hammer.”
“Don’t talk to me,” Paul says sharply. “Don’t say one damn word.”
Paul looks down at his father again.
What can he be feeling? I spent most of my life believing that my father wished I’d drowned instead of my brother. What can it feel like to know your father would disown you—even kill you—so that he could take your wife and child for his own?
Paul raises his head and turns until he can see Jet. His eyes are filled with what looks like Puritanical judgment. “Pop was right,” he says. “This is your doing. All of it. You poisoned this family with your lies and betrayal. You seduced him. You wanted a kid by him. Then you brought Marshall here to take you away from the lie you made us all live.”
“Paul, listen,” she says in a quavering voice. “I’m not sure who fathered Kevin. Okay? You were with me three times that month. I never saw any DNA test report, and I don’t want to see one. Our job is to make sure our son never questions who his father is. He’s ours, okay? Yours and mine.”
Paul gets slowly to his feet, and for a moment I think she’s gotten through to him. Then he raises his gun and aims at her midsection.
“That’s what you say now. But you’d say anything to get out of this room. You could always talk circles around me. But not tonight. Pop showed you for what you are. A liar. And a whore.”
Jet recoils as though struck. Then she takes a step toward Paul and says, “A whore gets paid for what she gives up. What did you pay me with? I never had a husband. I’ve had two little boys.”
With a long sliding step, I interpose myself between them, blocking Paul’s aim. He’s only ten feet from Jet, though, and he could still hit her almost anywhere with a snap shot. I hold out my arms, trying to make myself as wide a shield as possible.
Paul smiles strangely. “There you are, old friend—right where you’ve always been. Between us.”
“I can’t let you shoot her, man.”
He takes a step closer. “I don’t want to shoot you. You’re just another sucker like me. But I will. She’s not taking Kevin.”
“You’re not doing this for Kevin,” Jet says from behind me. “Have the guts to be honest, at least. You’re doing this because of what Max said. Your sense of ownership is offended. He got me pregnant when you couldn’t. You’re afraid he fucked me better than you. You think by shooting me you’ll stop that pain? You won’t.”