“Who the hell are you?” Marjorie screeched. “Get out. Get out of my house.” Her eyes glowed hard and beady, like a rat’s.
“It’s over,” Afton said. “I know all about the baby. I know all about you.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“I know you’re going to prison.”
“That ain’t never gonna happen,” Marjorie hissed as her right arm slowly emerged from the folds of her housecoat.
That slight motion kicked Afton’s brain into overdrive. Gun. Old lady’s got a gun, her brain screamed out as she caught the gleam of cold metal.
Afton had a gun, too, of course. Only it was stuck way the hell down in her jacket pocket. Feeling her insides turn to water, she started to fumble for the Glock, and realized she was moving way too slow. Marjorie had just about raised her gun to eye level and had closed one eye, sighting to take aim at her.
“Marjorie!” Shake suddenly screamed, her voice ringing out like the whine of a bandsaw. She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, looking terrified in a faded green nightgown.
Marjorie jumped, startled by Shake’s earsplitting scream. In that split second, Afton hoisted her ice ax high above her head and brought it down hard across Marjorie’s right forearm.
Marjorie let loose a horrific, high-pitched screech as she reflexively pulled the trigger. Afton’s blow had been enough to knock her aim off and her shot went wild, crashing into the door frame, spewing shards of wood.
“You bitch,” Marjorie seethed. With bloody blue murder in her eye, she jerked her injured arm up to shoot again.
As though her life depended on it—and it probably did—Afton swung her ice ax in a tight, practiced arc. Whistling like a missile, the deadly tip, honed meat-pick sharp for biting into rock and ice, caught Marjorie in the left temple.
The impact was deep, the result instantaneous. Marjorie yodeled a high-pitched scream, like an animal caught in a trap. Her lips slicked back over her upper teeth and her pupils retreated into tiny pinpricks in a sea of ghastly white. A geyser of blood spurted from her head wound, spattering both Afton and Shake. Marjorie’s arm jerked sideways and the gun flew out of her hand, clattering down hard on the linoleum, then bouncing its way down the stairs.
Marjorie, who was still standing upright as bright red blood sprayed like a faucet, made a gurgling, underwater sound that sounded like glub bluh. Then she managed one shaky, tottering step backward. In her smooth cotton slippers, both heels slid back over the lip of the top stair and she teetered dangerously on the edge. Her arms flailed wildly as if she somehow sensed the precariousness of her situation. A split second later, her brain fully registered the trauma from the ice ax. Her arms dropped leadenly to her sides and she tipped straight over backward.
Bones cracked and splintered, blood painted a nasty Jackson Pollock as Marjorie tumbled down the narrow stairs. She made one final ass-over-teacup cartwheel and landed in an ungainly lump with one arm twisted behind her back and her leg practically cocked around her neck.
Oh my God, was Afton’s first thought. What have I done?
“What just happened here?” Shake’s frightened, ragged voice cried out as she shuffled forward to look. She gazed down at Marjorie, and then shrank back from Afton, as if fearing the same horrible fate.
“Everything’s fine,” Afton said even as she thought, No, it’s not fine. Nothing’s fine. I just killed a woman.
“What did you do to her?” Shake quivered. She bent forward and clawed at her nightdress, pulling it into a knot. “Is she dead? Did you kill her? My God, what did you do?”
Suddenly, without warning, another voice joined in with Shake’s caterwauling. A male voice.
“Ma? Ma?” someone yelled from below. Footsteps pounded and a door banged open.
Someone running up from the basement? Afton wondered as she hastily wiped a mist of blood from her face.
“Holy shit, what happened?” the voice cried again. “What the hell’s going on up here? Shake, did you—” The yelling ceased abruptly.
Afton finally thought to drop her ice ax and pull out the Glock. She gripped the heavy gun tightly, mentally girding herself in case she really had to use it.
“Get back in bed,” Afton ordered Shake, who retreated sullenly to her room. Then she leaned forward and peered down the staircase.
A young man gazed up at her from the bottom of the stairs, pale and blond, unexpectedly youthful looking. His face was a contorted mix of shock and surprise as he regarded Afton. Then, almost as an afterthought, he stared down at his mother’s dead body.
“You killed her,” he mumbled in a strangled voice. Then, more forcefully, “You killed Mom.”
Oh shit, Afton thought. He’s put it together all right. I’m up here and Mom’s down there.
On the plus side, she was the one holding the gun.
“Who are you?” Afton demanded. “Are you Ronnie?” Was this the kid she’d tangled with at the hospital? She aimed the gun directly at the midpoint of his body. At the greater kill area.