"Don't," he said, his breathing heavy.
Roger just stared at him. Something welled up inside Roger at that moment. The man on the floor before him—the cop—had come and tried to take the girl away. Away from Roger. And things were always being taken away from Roger. His mom and dad. The last girl. Maybe someday they'd come and try to take the house and the land from him. The clearing, too. But they weren't going to take the girl, not this girl. He had taken her. She was his wife.
"Don't do it," the cop said, his voice more level. "I'm a police officer. Just put it down."
The girl continued to make her noises from behind the tape. He could tell she was trying to scream, but the tape muffled the noise. Roger looked at her, then back at the cop.
"No," Roger said. "No, you can't come in here and take what belongs to me."
"I'm not taking anything," the cop said. "But the girl, Jacqueline, she belongs back with her family and friends."
"No," Roger said. "She belongs here. With me. She's my wife."
The cop looked puzzled by Roger's words. Maybe even bothered by them. He shook his head. "She's not your wife, buddy. She's a college student."
"No! She's with me. She's mine. She belongs to me. I took her. I took her in the clearing and that means she's mine."
"Okay," the cop said. "Why don't we ask her? I'll just the take the tape off her mouth and we'll ask her, and if she wants to stay, she can stay. But if she wants to go, I'll take her back into town with me and we'll sort the whole thing out."
He sounded so reasonable, so calm. So sure of himself. It made sense in a way. Ask the girl. See what she wants to do. Why not?
The cop started to get to his feet. He held his hands out in front of him, palms forward, as if to say he didn't mean Roger any harm. And he didn't seem to mean him any harm, which is why Roger almost fell for it.
But he stopped it in time, before the cop got all the way to his feet. Roger knew what the girl would say. He knew she'd beg to go. She just hadn't been there long enough. They hadn't fallen into their routine yet. But they would, as long as nobody took her away.
"Stop!" Roger said.
The cop kept going. "I'm just going to ask her, like we said."
"No." His voice sounded calmer to his own ears. "Stop."
"We had an agreement, right? Just ask the girl."
The cop didn't think Roger could shoot him. That's what he was thinking. He was thinking Roger didn't have it in him to pull the trigger.
"No, she's going to stay."
"Let's just ask her, buddy. She's uncomfortable. She's bleeding. Look."
Roger looked. He saw the blood. He forgot that the girl had cut herself. What if she bled to death, right there on the bedroom floor? It could happen, he knew. Someone could cut a vessel or an artery in their foot and bleed all the blood inside them right out onto the floor. Maybe that's why the girl whimpered. Maybe she was bleeding to death and needed help.
Roger kept the gun level. He didn't know what to do. He thought it was a trap. A trick.
The cop started for the girl, his hands still up in the air on either side of his face.
"Stop," Roger said, trying to sound tough.
"Easy," the cop said. Roger knew he wanted to lull him off guard with the reassuring tone of his voice.
"Stop," Roger said again.
But the cop kept going. He had almost reached the girl when the gun kicked in Roger's hand. The first time he missed and hit the wall, but the second one took the cop in the neck. The cop's mouth opened, showing all of his teeth, as if he were smiling for a moment, before he brought his hand up to cover the hole where the bullet had gone in. But then the cop made a choking noise. It sounded like he was trying to swallow broken glass. Blood leaked through his fingers and down his hand. He tried but couldn't speak.
The cop folded in half, crumpling to the floor as if he were made out of paper. Roger moved closer. When he glanced at the girl, her eyes were wider than ever, the pupils darting back and forth like pinballs. She stopped making any noise.
Roger moved across the room and stood over the cop. His eyes were still open and blinking. He was still alive, but blood ran out of the hole in his neck in a steady stream. It made Roger think of the tiny creek that ran through the woods. And the cop's skin was pale, the color of bone.
Roger moved the gun in close. He had to finish the job now. He had to keep his wife.
He pulled the trigger, sending the cop's brains and skull against the white wall of the bedroom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Roger had a lot of work to do.