Lily moved closer to AJ, as if she might shield him from the lash of Erik’s words. She wanted to speak, to somehow defuse the hostility, but her tongue felt rooted to the floor of her mouth.
“So we join the marines, right?” Quieting, Erik swiped his eyes and under his nose. “I wash out and you come home a hero, and I’ve got to deal with the bullshit all over again—how you’re better, stronger, smarter. I’m sick of it. Sick of walking ten paces behind you like I’m your damn lackey.”
“But why did you kill Becca and Kate?” AJ raised his voice. “To get back at me? What?”
“You realize, don’t you, that Becca was in love with you. Like, crazy obsessed.”
“I doubt that, Erik,” AJ said. “We dated, but it was never serious, and, anyway, what does that have to do with—”
“She was preggers, vato. She told me she wished it was your kid. But no, hell no, my shitty luck, it was mine, and she’s all like I had to ‘do the right thing.’”
“She wanted you to marry her, is that it?” AJ asked. “And what? You got pissed?”
“She was going to tell Kate about the kid. I couldn’t let her do that. Kate was the best thing that ever happened to me, and after I saw how Jeb screwed me over, she was the only thing, the only good thing, I had left. I told Becca I’d pay for an abortion. Hell, I gave her the money last month.”
“It wasn’t just a loan,” Shea said.
Erik looked at her.
“Kate kept a journal. She wrote that she knew when she saw you and Becca fighting that it was about more than a loan.”
“She thought I was cheating on her with Becca. Can you believe it? It broke me, you know? She didn’t believe me when I said I’d only slipped the one time. She wouldn’t let it go. She texted Becca last Tuesday and said they had to meet. Becca freaked and called me, making all kinds of threats. I told her to meet me at AJ’s. I knew he’d be working, and I figured I’d have time to reason with her. But no, hell no. The second I said the word abortion, she went all bat shit, called me a murderer. I said, ‘I’ll show you murder, bitch.’ I was only playing when I grabbed her around her neck. I just wanted her to understand I was serious about not wanting the kid. After a minute I tried letting her up, but she screamed like a fucking hyena. I was scared the neighbors would hear.” Erik paced now, a short path, toward Winona.
“Give me the gun, mijo,” she said, reaching out her hand. Erik ignored her, walking back to the top of the porch steps.
Lily saw her dad pull the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder and thought, No, and as if he heard her, he lowered the weapon. Or maybe he couldn’t bring himself to shoot Erik. “When it comes to shooting someone—another human being—you can lose your nerve.” He’d said that to her at the hospital on Friday—a scant forty-eight hours ago—in reference to AJ, and it was ironic, given that he hadn’t known or even suspected Erik was the shooter who’d lost his nerve. Now her dad was in the same place, pointing a gun at someone he purported to love. His son.
His son. The revelation had all the substantiality of a balloon in the wind.
“She kept fighting me.” Erik walked back to the head of the steps. “I just wanted her to get the damn abortion and keep her mouth shut. I get so goddamn sick and tired of everybody screwing me over, you know?” He looked out at them in anticipation of their agreement, as if they must see his reaction was one that any of them might have, sane and justified.
Over the dull thudding of her heart, Lily listened for the sound of a siren, praying for it, but there was nothing, not even in the far distance. Maybe the police wouldn’t use them, she thought. Maybe they were here already, in the trees, and they would come out, guns drawn, any second.
“Bec went limp, finally,” Erik said. “I gotta say it was a relief. But then I got scared. I mean, what if she woke up? I’d seen your knife, bro, in the kitchen sink.” Erik addressed AJ. “You left it out.” He shrugged. “I had to be sure.”
“What about Kate, Erik?” Shea stepped forward. “You just said she was the best thing that ever happened to you, but you killed her. Why?”
His expression softened; his shoulders slumped. “You and Katie—you girls were so damn cute, you know? So funny and sweet.” He grinned, but his eyes were horrible, bottomless black wells of regret. He looked at AJ. “You remember, vato, how it was going to be, the four of us? Living on the same street, raising our kids together? You remember how they talked about it? Kate and Shea? ‘Besties marrying besties,’ that’s what they said. Our giggle girls. Remember how we called them that?”
“I remember all of that, bro,” AJ said, and his voice was thick, hurt.
Erik addressed Shea. “Thursday night when I left the note on Leigh’s car—”
“The one you tried to make look as if AJ wrote?” An undercurrent of fury heated Shea’s voice.
“Kate called me when she left your house. She knew—well, she didn’t know for sure it was me and not AJ who killed Becca, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long until she—until everyone figured it out.” Erik shoved his hand over his head. “God, I was scared. I knew by then I was done, that it was over. Kate would break our engagement. Losing her, our life together—that was just the fucking cherry on top of the shit sundae that is my life.”
The pause was taut, fragile.
Erik broke it. “I got her to agree to go on one last hike, give me one chance to talk it through in person. I said I could explain, and if afterward she thought I should go to the cops, I would. She went for it. You know how she was.”
“The story you told, that Kate was confused about where you were meeting, you made that up, didn’t you?” Shea asked.
“Yeah, it was messed up. I never figured she’d get found so fast. But I made so damn many mistakes. Like taking AJ to the fort. I should have known it would be about the first place the old man would look.” Erik gestured at AJ. “I should have killed you right off, but I couldn’t, vato, you know?”
“But you could kill Katie?” Shea was anguished, furious.
“I couldn’t let her go to the cops. And I’m a shit for it. I know that.” He raised the .45 to his head.
“No, hijo!” Winona scrambled to her feet. “Give it to me; por favor, te lo suplico.”
“Don’t do it, Erik.”
Lily glanced at her dad as he took a step, then another, over the rough ground.
“I don’t know what started this,” he said, “but it’s over now. Give your mother the gun.”
Winona said, “You left your will out on your desk, and he saw it, Jeb. That’s what started this, that’s when he knew you had broken your promise—”
“No. I would never do that.”