Six months went by, and no arrests. The news articles dried up. It seemed over. Then Rebecca Mooney and Steven Starzyk asked for my help. Not knowing of my marginal connections to the Bishops or my suspicions, the investigators asked me to meet with Tom. He had given conflicting statements, they said. Could I help them get to the bottom of it?
How could I say no? Not just for Tom’s sake — I wanted to know what he saw. If it had anything to do with my husband.
Nothing Tom told me would be directly admissible in court. I would discuss things with him and then submit my formal evaluation at the end of five sessions. At that time, he would give Mooney and Starzyk a new statement. A final statement.
Five sessions.
Midway through our second session, Tom was describing a vehicle in the street. By the third session, a man in the house. But then, everything changed. The police asked me to hurry. I focused more on the hard details of that night, and Tom admitted to his parents arguing. In our final session, he boldly proclaimed his mother was the killer.
The rest was history.
And then, fifteen years later, a young man showed up at our door with our daughter. I had my immediate fears; Paul didn’t think it was possible.
The rest is history.
I’m pulled out of the past when I notice Laura is yelling something to Paul, but I can’t hear it; the crackling flames smother the sound. Sweat is running down my face.
We watch as Paul, presumably doing as Laura instructs, picks up a tool from the ground. The drill I saw earlier, on the lumber pile.
“Hurry,” I say under my breath. It’s become too hot this close to the window, and my view is at last obscured by flame and smoke and quivering heat.
The three of us retreat to the center of the room where it’s coolest. We stand, huddled, watching the door. All we can do now is hope.
No, not all we can do. I must’ve dropped the hammer somewhere when I first saw Laura outside, but I search for something else that can be used as a weapon, and settle on the lamp that fell. It’s heavy enough, and I can swing it like a baseball bat.
Noise comes from the other side of the door. A vibration. A muffled whine.
The smoke is filling the room now. “Cover your mouths,” I tell the kids. I pull my shirt up over my nose and stand just inside the door, wielding the heavy lamp. The noise stops. A board falls away. Then the door opens.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Beyond the open door are leaping flames. I don’t have any idea what awaits on the other side, and I’m not letting Joni through first. But before I can dive through, Michael grabs me.
His eyes lock on mine, alive with determination, then he’s gone.
I grab Joni and we go together.
Searing heat, the smell of singed hair — my own — a sudden suffocation. My foot misses a step coming out and I tumble to the ground, losing grip on Joni and the lamp. But I’m on my feet an instant later, screaming into the inferno, screaming for my daughter.
She’s in my arms a moment after that, her own hair smoking, one of her sleeves aflame. I smother it with my body. Someone shouts — it’s Michael. Paul has grabbed him, and the two of them wrestle. Joni screams and jumps on her father’s back and claws at his head and neck. He sends her flying.
Laura Bishop is on the ground a few yards away, curled into a ball. When she looks my way, I catch her eye. She’s bleeding from the face, as if Paul hit or scratched her, but she’s okay. She unfurls her body just enough to show me that she’s still got the gun; she’s clutching it like a football against her midsection. Paul tried to get it from her in the moments before we made it out of the yurt.
He is still grappling with Michael. He’s got his hands around the younger man’s throat. Michael is trying to fend him off with one arm. His legs kick at the air. His face is turning bright red.
I move to Laura, and she hands me the gun.
There is no thinking.
There is only action.
I step toward Paul. I’ve never fired a gun, never even held one. But it looks modern, the point-and-shoot type.
I aim it at Paul. He looks over at me. His eyes are inhuman, his lips pulled back in an animal’s sneer.
The gun kicks in my hand — I wasn’t expecting that. The sound is explosive and crisp and reverberates throughout the hardwood forest. I miss Paul; the shot is only meant to shock him, and it works: Michael manages to get away.
Paul is tense — the bullet went wide, but my inexperience with shooting means the next round might go anywhere. And he knows it. He stands there, hands clutching the air, glaring at me.
The yurt is almost completely engulfed by fire now. Flames shoot up nearly to the tops of the trees. I aim the gun again, this time directly at Paul’s face.
His expression changes. He appears sorrowful, scared. “Honey,” he says. I can barely hear him over the crackling inferno. “Emmy . . . please . . . what are you doing?”
“You tried to burn us.”
His face contorts in agony. He points at Laura Bishop, like a child might. “She’s the one who locked you in.”
“Stop it, Paul. I saw you light the match.”
He’s shaking his head. Blood oozes from his clavicle. “Honey, no. Ever since your accident . . . hitting the deer, you haven’t been the same. You’ve got things all twisted around in your head. Honey . . . Emily — you need help.”
“Stop it, Paul!” I’m shaking again. I’ve still got Starzyk’s gun trained on him, but I’m trembling. Uncertain.
Sirens wail in the distance.
Paul holds out his hand. His eyebrows are knitted in compassion. He shakes his head. “Emmy, you’ve had issues your whole life. It’s your father’s fault. We’ll get you some help, okay? We’ll call Sarah. We’ll get everything straightened out, and this will all be okay. But right now, we need to get away from these two people.” He casts angry eyes on Michael and Laura. “They’re con artists, Emily.”
He looks at our daughter. “Joni, you’ll understand as you get older. People like this, they—”
His words are cut off as the entire roof of the yurt collapses. It sends up a huge plume of black smoke and hot embers scattering in the air like fireworks. A couple of them land on me, burning like miniature meteors.
Everybody backs farther away from the blazing structure. It’s a skeleton of a building now, oddly like a carousel.
Around and around.
We stand there, watching, mesmerized.
Until I remember Paul.
Amid the distraction, my husband has slipped away.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“He won’t get very far,” the cop says to me. “Especially if he doesn’t have anything with him — provisions, tools, things like that.”
The place is surrounded; I’ve never seen so many police and firemen and emergency service workers. Since the location is so remote, the dirt road is nearly unnavigable; the fire department could only arrive in smaller vehicles called brush trucks. They had to let the structure burn while keeping it from spreading, shoveling dirt and spraying water to create an impassable perimeter.
Seeing them work in their heavy gear, in all the heat and danger, uplifts my heart.