“Oh, God . . .”
The sight of him hits hard. I’ve been protecting myself, half-lying and half-joking to myself about what’s going on. Any sense that I might get out of this is gone now, replaced with a stark, empty fear. There is nowhere to go from here. There is nothing else to hide from, or repress, or try to fix.
Paul pulls the gun from his shorts. Joni moans beside me. I’m still backing up toward the building, my arms spread out, one covering Joni, the other Michael.
“Paul . . .” I almost choke on the word. “Please stop. It’s me. We’re your family.”
Paul’s mouth twitches, like he might speak. His eyes seem to shrink to even denser, darker points. He flicks the gun, indicating we get inside the yurt.
What choice do we have?
Joni goes first, followed by Michael. I’m last.
“Come back to me,” I say, staring at Paul as I stumble inside. “Come back to me, Paul . . .”
He takes one of the steps, his face inches from mine. “You had your chance,” he says. “Now we do it my way.”
He slams the door in my face.
I back away from it. Joni is whimpering in the center of the room. Michael holds his arm and stares dumbly at the floor. The bodies of Madison and Hunter have started to draw flies. “Cover them in a blanket,” I whisper.
Something thumps against the door. It’s followed by a soft, high-pitch whining and some minor vibration. By the time I realize what’s happening and rush toward the door, it’s too late. I hit my shoulder against it, but it doesn’t budge.
Paul has locked us in. He’s boarded up the door.
I rush to one of the octagonal windows and peer out. Seeing nothing, I try the next one. I’m kicking furniture out of the way; a lamp falls and the bulb shatters. I glimpse Paul outside. He’s over by the backup power generator.
He’s got the can of gas.
He unscrews the cap as he walks toward the yurt.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Paul splashes the gas around the yurt, circling the entire building.
Joni screams and pounds the door, then the windows, following him as he goes, pleading.
How can he?
His own daughter?
Michael has placed a blanket over the two dead people. He stands, watching as his fiancé beseeches her father. Please don’t burn us alive. Something in his expression reads that he’s been here before. A family horror like this. He’s come full circle.
I run to each window, searching for a way out. There are six in all, each double-hung, but none of them will open. Paul has already engineered it. He’s nailed boards across them to prevent any from sliding up.
There’s got to be something. My attention turns to the skylight. I find a stool and drag it over. It’s enough to reach the hand crank and open the window, but there’s no way to remove the glass, the screen, let alone pull myself up there and shimmy through.
We all end up on the floor, huddled under it, breathing hard, trying not to panic. Michael has gone pale, his skin beaded with sweat. Holding his arm, he lies back, moaning. He’s going to pass out from the shock and pain. Joni moves beside him. She curls up into a fetal position.
Then Joni speaks. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
Michael opens his eyes and looks at her.
Joni faces me. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“For what?” It feels breathless.
“Michael told me who he was. Early on when we were dating.” She looks at him. “I almost left him, but then I didn’t. He told me about his mother, and about you.”
The betrayal slides over my heart like a dark hand. It squeezes.
“I thought he deserved answers,” Joni says. “And so did I. Laura suspected it was Dad. She deserved to know, too.” Joni looks at the covered bodies of Madison and Hunter as her eyes well with tears. “But this was never supposed to happen.”
I look there, too. I’m about to say something — I don’t even know what — when I hear a noise outside.
I rise to my feet. And I move to the nearest window in time to see Paul light the match.
*
Within seconds, the flames are licking the windows from the outside. Looking through, I can see Starzyk, still on his back, blood around his head. Maybe you got off easy, I think, already feeling the temperature rise.
Death by flaming yurt.
I can’t help it. It’s just where my mind goes.
Frantic, I look for something to break the glass. I hesitated before, expecting Paul would cover a breaking window with his gun and shoot us. But now there’s no choice. I consider a small end table, but it’s too wide. A chair? Everything is too big and heavy. In the open kitchen, I riffle through the drawers and consider a few items until Joni says, “Mom . . .”
I see her holding up a bloody hammer.
“Don’t touch that!” It’s just an instinct — she’s holding a murder weapon. But what does it matter? We’ll burn alive if we don’t do something.
I take it, our eyes briefly connecting. I see pain there, and love, but she’ll never ask for forgiveness. She knows she doesn’t need to.
I rush at one of the windows at the back of the yurt. The glass shatters but remains mostly in place. I hit it again, this time dislodging a huge, jagged chunk.
A figure runs past the window. The sight momentarily paralyzes me, then I chase the movement from window to window until the figure stops. It’s Paul. He stands there looking in at me, his face a blank.
I want to shriek, pound on the glass, scream at him that he’ll have his own personal bonfire in hell. But there’s nothing left in me. I’m a shell of a person at the end of her life.
And the flames are getting higher.
Paul stares at me — his eyes reflect the flames climbing the wooden walls between us. His image shimmers in the rising heat.
But then he turns to look at something outside. His expression changes to a look of surprise. He is raising the gun when he’s struck by a two-by-four that sends the gun flying from his grip and Paul stumbling backwards.
The person wielding the lumber is fast — not only does she manage to get the gun, but she darts far enough out of his reach that when he lunges for her, he nearly goes sprawling.
She aims at his head. Paul freezes.
It wasn’t Paul that I just saw running. It was her.
Joni speaks behind me. “Mom? What is it?”
I can hardly believe the words. “Laura Bishop is here. She just took the gun from your father.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Paul met Laura Bishop at one of our house parties. She invited us to an art show in Manhattan. After that, he kept seeing her.
When David Bishop was murdered, and word leaked of a male suspect, I feared the worst. Paul had been acting strange, flying into rages for no reason. I hounded him until he admitted to the affair. He never named her, but I suspected.