“I didn’t want to believe it, either, but Erik wouldn’t lie. You meant him to see, didn’t you? You couldn’t tell him or me to our face how you have lied to us all these years, could you? He’s nothing to you, isn’t that right? Your own son—”
“My father, and his father before him, poured their sweat and blood into this land. They built the xL brand and made it count for something. I carried on the tradition, worked my ass off, because that’s what it takes. But Erik’s not into hard work. He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. He’d rather sell cars.”
“The way you have talked about them to me, your father and grandfather would never have broken a promise they made. They would never have broken a man’s heart, his spirit. This is on you, Jeb Axel. This, today”—the sweep of Winona’s arm encompassed them all—“and everything else Erik has done. You drove him to it. How could you?”
Lily waited, they all did, for her dad to answer, but there was only the sound of the wind rifling the trees, an uneven hand.
AJ said, “Erik, give your mom the gun. Or give it to me.” He hitched forward on his crutches.
Erik jerked the .45 from his head and pointed it at AJ.
Lily heard her dad yell, “No, goddamn it!”
She was aware of Shea coming around AJ as if she would shield him. It was automatic when Lily reached out to steady him and in doing so found she had her arms around them both, AJ and Shea, with her back presented to Erik, a target.
Then the awful pause.
The horrible second that dragged into forever, while she waited for the sound of the bullet ripping through the air, ripping into her spine. And a prayer filled her mind that it would not pass through her to strike AJ or Shea. Dru would be devastated to lose Shea, her daughter for whom Lily had no doubt she would lay down her life. Winona, too, would give her life for Erik, regardless of his monstrous acts. As mothers they shared in this, the undying devotion to their children. For they are always your children, no matter their age. They are your children, too, regardless of their mistakes or even the horrors they perpetrate. Lily prayed for Winona, because even if she were to give her life for Erik, it wouldn’t save him from what he’d done.
“Drop the gun, Erik!”
It was her dad shouting.
AJ broke from Lily’s grasp, staggering, almost falling.
And now the shot came. Finally. Cracking the air, followed by AJ’s shout: “Granddad!”
Turning, Lily saw her dad crumpled on his side on the porch, Erik on his hands and knees, struggling for breath. Winona stood over them, holding the .45 in her shaking grasp. Somehow, AJ reached the porch first, and taking the gun from Winona, he ordered Erik to sit against the wall.
Lily and Shea ran up the porch steps. Shea went to AJ’s side, but Lily knelt beside her dad. He rolled onto his back.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just winded.” He pulled himself upright.
“Erik didn’t shoot you?”
“No, he couldn’t do it. At the last minute, he shot into the air. I tackled him, and Win got the gun.”
“Thank God.” Lily sat back on her heels, and on hearing sirens in the distance, she felt a gritty wash of relief. She glanced over her shoulder at Winona, weeping softly, and past her at Erik. But if he registered Lily’s attention, it didn’t show. His eyes were glassy, eerily vacant of expression.
She remembered a summer visit from years ago when he came down with strep throat. His eyes had been empty of awareness then, too, glazed with fever that at its highest had registered 104. She’d fed him ice chips with a spoon. She and Win and her dad had traded off sleeping nights in an armchair next to Erik’s bed. When his fever finally broke, they’d known he was feeling better when he managed to croak out a request for ice cream. Lily’s dad had driven to town for it, and without asking, he’d known to buy rocky road, Erik’s favorite. Her dad had bought grape Popsicles, too, and chocolate pudding. And when AJ spiked a fever mere hours after Erik began to recover, they went through the whole routine again. After both boys were well, it had rained for several days. They’d worked puzzles and played endless games of Risk that Lily’s dad had let AJ and Erik take turns winning, out on the porch.
If she closed her eyes now, she would hear the echoes of their blithe, untroubled laughter; she would see how the damp wind had ruffled their hair. She didn’t close her eyes.
She helped her dad get to his feet, and a look passed between them, one that contained his acknowledgment of the secrets he had kept from her and from AJ. He would have to own them and his betrayal of her, AJ, Erik, and Winona; he would have to explain no matter what it cost him. She followed his glance when it shifted to Winona. There was such anguish in Winona’s eyes; it knifed Lily’s heart.
In her father’s eyes, Lily saw his love for Winona. Lily saw how he wanted to go to her, to support her, and he would have, but Win’s posture, the set of her shoulders, her rigid spine, warned him off. Words might have been said at that point. Raw truths might have been revealed in those initial moments following the horrific scene they’d passed through. They were all vulnerable, all at the mercy of a volatile mix of emotions, but it was then that the Wyatt police rolled up, two squad cars, five officers—nearly the entire force, and after that, all the talking that was done was to them.
23
Lily sat in an interrogation room giving Sergeant Ken Carter her account of the events that had unfolded that morning, beginning with Winona’s predawn phone call. A tape recorder sat in the middle of the scarred table, and she spoke to it, reciting the details she remembered in a low voice. When she continued to shiver, Ken brought her a thin blanket, and she draped it over her shoulders. He said her shivering was the effect of the adrenaline leaving her body as much as from the AC.
Sitting down again, he read from his notes, telling her what they’d found upon executing the search warrant at Erik’s apartment, which they’d done at roughly the same time Winona had dialed the ranch house landline. Among other items there had been bloody clothes and a letter written by Erik, addressed To whom it may concern, in which he rambled on about the perceived injustices that he felt had been perpetrated on him from birth.
Ken said, “We found a lip-liner pencil that looks to be the same color as the one used to write the notes, the one Leigh found under her windshield wiper and the one that was found with Becca. It’s possible it belonged to her, or it might have been Shea’s or Kate’s. We’ll send it to the lab, see if it’s a match. We also talked to a neighbor at the complex who said that late on the night of Becca’s murder, Erik asked to borrow his scooter. The neighbor saw Erik loading it into the back of a white pickup truck.”
“That’s how he got back to town then, after he set AJ’s truck on fire. He rode the scooter,” Lily said.
“Took some planning all the way around. Maybe the murders weren’t premeditated, but framing AJ sure was.” Ken paused, seeming to consider.
“What?” Lily asked.