“Brandon and I were just talking,” Landry said, nudging him with a smile. “Right, buddy?”
“I know you told me to stay there.” Brandon looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“That’s okay, honey,” I said, trying to appear together. Though my heart was beating out of control. I forced a tremulous smile for him. “It’s okay.”
Then I fixed on Landry’s icy, almost mocking eyes. “Leave him alone. Please.” I took a step toward them. “He’s innocent. He doesn’t know anything.”
“Nice little guy …” Landry jostled Brandon amiably. He looked larger than I’d imagined. Sandy hair. Slightly balding on top. A narrow face. “We’ve been talking. Seems we might have some things in common, right? Do you always need to act out on your urges, Brandon? Do you want to show people what you’re made of inside? Violence doesn’t bother you. In fact, you even kind of enjoy it, don’t you? Watching it occur. Even stepping on an ant, you don’t much care, do you, Brandon, when you extinguish life?”
“Stop it!” I glared at him. “He’s nothing like you. Nothing.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure. I know it when I see it. The problem is, little guy,” Landry jostled him again, good-naturedly, “I’m not sure we’re ever going to fully find out.”
That shot through my blood like ice. I knew at that moment that everything was all on me. Patrick was on Staten Island. Robin was dead. No one was going to come. I took another step. “What do you want?”
“Let me see. What. Would. I. Want?” Landry let out a sigh. “I think you know what I want, Hilary. Can we start with those diary pages?” He motioned to the couch. “By the way, if I were you, I might sit down.”
I stood there, my eyes drifting around the room. Trying to identify anything I could possibly use against him. I spotted an iron poker next to the fireplace. On the coffee table, I saw a kind of animal horn mounted on a wood base, like a zebu or an African cow.
If I could even get to them.
Landry looked at me and pushed the muzzle deeper into Brandon’s jaw. “I said, sit down.”
Brandon was strangely calm, just standing in Landry’s arm, blinking. Not showing any outward signs of fear. I stepped back toward the couch. “Whatever you think you’re going to do, you won’t get away with it. We know. We know about Deirdre O’Byrne. And I’m not the only one.”
“You mean the old hag?” Landry shrugged with a snort. “Nothing to worry about there. She’s gone. Oh, and your boyfriend? Kelty’s son … You probably mean him too. Solid guy. Whatever happened to Charlie, anyway? I really would like to know. Anyway, don’t waste away your precious time thinking he’ll be coming round any time soon to save you …”
My heart picked up with worry. “What do you mean?”
Landry winked. “He ran into a little situation after the fire. He’s dead too.”
I shook my head and felt my knees start to wobble. “No.”
“Afraid so. Here, check out the phone …” Landry lowered the gun, keeping his hand tucked tightly around Brandon’s waist, and took out a cell phone from his jacket pocket and tossed it at my feet. I felt my heart constrict. I was almost afraid to pick it up and look. I shook my head back and forth, staring at Landry with both heartbreak and anger. “No!”
“Go on … I’m afraid, yes, it’s his. And thank you very much for those texts you sent, which made it easy to find you.” He brought the gun back to Brandon’s jaw and smiled. “His gun too.”
No …! I felt the blood rush out of my head and my knees start to buckle. It couldn’t be. Landry couldn’t have killed him. Patrick was more than a match for him. It had to be a lie. Suddenly I felt like a thousand pounds was pressing me into the floor and I would drop.
Oh, Patrick, I thought, tears filling up my eyes.
I fell back on the couch.
Landry chuckled. “I told you to sit, didn’t I? And so, you see, you are …” He smiled, seemingly satisfied, at me. “You are the only one left to worry about.”
“You son of a bitch!” I glared. The tears ran unstoppably now.
Patrick.
“I told him he should’ve just left well enough alone. Taken the money. It wasn’t the money I ever really wanted. You know that. Though now that I mention it, I wouldn’t mind it if you gave me a clue as to where the hell it all went?”
“You’re a fucking monster.” My glare burned into his eyes. “You killed Robin. She was innocent too. You killed that old woman and her daughter. You even killed your own wife!”
That seemed to sting him a bit. He nodded, letting out a breath that actually seemed contrite. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Brandon? It’s hard to explain this to someone on the outside. Who doesn’t know.”
“Stop it!”
“It seems easy, doesn’t it, to point a finger? But that wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t you …?” Mucus and tears slid down my face. Tears of grief and hatred.
“No.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t. Tell her what I mean, won’t you, son?”
“Mommy, Mommy, I don’t want to be here …” Brandon tried to pull away.
“Please, please,” I begged. “For God’s sake, let him go.”
Landry held him back and turned to me. “So where are they? You know what I mean.”
“You can do what you want to me. Just let him go. I’m begging you. You have children. I saw them. You understand. He can’t do anything to you …”
“The pages,” Landry said again, his eyes unblinking. He pressed the muzzle on top of Brandon’s yellow hair. “I think one thing’s been made clear, don’t you agree? I won’t have a lot of hesitation about pulling this trigger. And take it from me, I don’t think that’s a sight you care to see.”
“Mommy!” Brandon started squirming in his arms. “Mommy, don’t let him hurt me.” Landry tightened his hold.
“Please!” I was dying. I knew any minute my life could end. Brandon’s too. I had to do something. No one was going to come. Listening to my son imploring me was killing me.
“I have them,” I said. “They’re in my purse. Just, don’t! Don’t.” I put up my palms. “Please.”
“All right.” I’d left my bag at the table by the front door. “Bring the bag over here. And don’t do anything foolish or you’ll watch your son’s brains splatter all over the fancy upholstery.”
I got up, my legs jelly. Time was running out. Soon as I showed him those pages, I had no idea what he would do. I went and grabbed my handbag by the straps and took it over to him. I stopped about five feet away. “Here …”
“Open it,” Landry said. “Let me see.”
I pulled out the plastic folder Patrick’s Russian friend had given us. I wished the man was here now. The three pages were visible through the clear binding. Landry seemed satisfied.
“I knew that fucking nickname would come back to haunt me one day.” He shook his head. “Stupid, huh? I would never have let it come out, even after all these years, if I knew this silly diary even existed. Hard to believe, how that girl managed to point the finger at me after being stuffed in a hole all those years. I loved her, you know …”
“Just like you loved your wife. Like you love your kids.”
“I did, though.” He shrugged. “I still do.”
My gaze drifted to the fireplace. The iron poker leaning there. “What are you going to do?”
“There is a plan, such as it may be. You saw that oil can over there?” I involuntarily glanced toward the open doors. “It has a little fuel left in it. Just enough … And identical to what they might find accelerated that fire in Staten Island last night.
“And this …” He showed me Patrick’s gun, lifting it away from Brandon. “Your police boyfriend’s gun … Which when found here ties you to both those crime scenes from last night. The fire and Kelty.”
“Who do you think is going to believe that?” I asked.
“It’s not perfect. I admit.” He squeezed Brandon by the shoulder and stood up. “But there will be a trail of interaction between the two of you, and somehow they’ll tie it to the money—cops are good, you know—wherever it may be. To me, it’ll seem like you told the son you’d taken it from his father and the son was threatening to turn you in. You killed him and the woman, and then yourself. Oh, and your friend, in the garage. I admit, it’s a bit rough. But the good news is, I don’t see how any of it points toward me. Especially”—he grinned and glanced at the pages in my hand—“without that diary …”
Suddenly all my grief for Patrick fell away and I knew I couldn’t let it happen like this. “What about Brandon?”
“The boy? I’m sorry.” He stood there, smiling, stroking Brandon’s hair. “But I’ll be doing the world a favor when they find him here. He’s just like me.”
“Mommy!” Brandon tried to pull away, but Landry yanked him back.
“He’s not like you!” I glared at him. “Here … take them!” I took a step and held out the diary pages to him. “Do what you want with me. Just let me have my boy. Please … please …”
Landry didn’t bite. He just stood there.
“Here,” I said, again. “Take them. All of them.” I opened the clear folder and hurled the pages at him.
Instinctively, he reached out to grasp them.
I’m not sure the thought occurred to me even as much as a second before; it was just instinct.
But that’s when I spun.
With a loud grunt, I whirled into a perfect roundhouse kick that I’d executed in the gym at least a thousand times. It completely surprised Landry, catching him on the upper chest and shoulder, knocking him backward into the stone hearth, the gun clattering to the floor. He staggered for a second in shock, and I followed it with a powerful forward-thrust kick that sent him reeling over the love seat and onto the floor.
I yelled, “Brandon, get away!”
I searched frantically on the floor for the gun. It was like a race, who would find it first. I didn’t see it, and didn’t know whether Landry had landed on it or if it had been swept under the love seat. I didn’t have the time. I leaped and took the iron poker from the fireplace stand and came at him with the point down into his chest, not knowing if he had the gun and it would be the last thing I would ever do.
He didn’t.
With a scream I drove the poker into his chest. Landry put his legs up and blocked it away, the tip slicing into his leg. He let out a roar. He thrashed his hand about, trying to locate the gun. I lunged at him again.
“Brandon, run!” I shouted. “Just get out of here. Run to one of the neighbors. Then call the police. Go!”
I tried to drive the poker into Landry, but he wrapped his hands around it and tried to twist it out of my grasp. He was stronger than me by far.
“Run!” I yelled again to Brandon. I felt Landry guiding the point away from his midsection. Brandon hadn’t moved.
“Please, Brandon, run! Get out. Now!”
He just stood there, seemingly transfixed.
I didn’t know how long I could keep Landry at bay. I kept begging Brandon, “Please, go to the neighbors! Tell them to call the police!”
Landry was gradually wrestling it away from me. I strained with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. I was losing. Soon he’d have it from me.
“Please, honey, go now. I’m begging you, go!”
“I’m sorry, Mommy.” Finally Brandon took off.
I heard him run to the foyer and open the front door. A part of me felt uplifted, that no matter what happened here, at least my son would escape. That maybe in the end Landry wouldn’t get away with it.
“You don’t actually think he’s going to get away, do you?” Landry mocked me, his eyes ablaze. He pulled me to him, one hand releasing the poker, and the next thing I felt a punch to my face. My head shot back, blood bursting from my lip. He hit me again. I kept pushing with everything I had, trying to ignore the blood and the pain, but I knew it was futile. Again, he hit me. I was almost done. Finally he drove my arms to the side and rolled on top of me, ripping the poker from my grasp. My head hit against the coffee table and I almost blacked out.
I tore at his face, trying to rip off whatever I could take hold of. Lips, cheeks, eyes.
Landry screamed in pain.
Blood streamed down his face. He had reversed it now and he was over me on the floor, pressing the shaft of the steel poker into my larynx. Forcing the air out of me. I fought back, sucking air into my lungs.
But I couldn’t hold him off any longer.
“You really think I’m going to let that little toad just get away? I’ll find him. I will. How does that feel?” He dug the iron rod into my throat. “How does it feel, knowing I’ll get him as soon as I’m done with you? Enjoy it to the max, please …” His voice crackled with rage. “’Cause it’s the last thing you’re ever going to feel.”
I tried to squeeze air into my heaving lungs. I felt my arms grow weak, no longer able to fend him off.
Run, Brandon, please, I said to myself. Angry. Angry that Landry had won. Angry that he had killed Deirdre and Mrs. O’Byrne. And Patrick. The only prayer I had was that my son would get away. Just run …
I felt my strength waning.
Then I looked past Landry over me and my one remaining prayer was dashed.
It was Brandon. He was there. Behind Landry.
No, no, no, no, no!
I wasn’t sure if it was real or if this was some kind of near-death delusion they say happens at the end of life.
I was almost crying. Why are you here? Why are you here …? You have to get away. Get away …
“Mommy,” he said, his arms in the air. “Don’t be afraid.”
The next thing I knew he brought his hands down and the tip of something sharp and shiny came through Landry’s neck. He uttered a garbled scream, not a scream really, more of a strangled gasp.
It was the tip of the large cow’s horn coming through him.
His face twisted in shock and anguish, his eyes grew angry and wide. So wide I could see the blood vessels in the whites like swelling red rivers.
He threw his arms back and flailed at Brandon, who stepped back, the horn stuck through Landry’s throat. Landry’s hands wrapped around it. He grabbed the exposed tip, gargling in agony, not sure how to remove it. His eyes fell on me as if somehow I would help him.
Three words went through me: Make him pay.
He thrashed around like some wounded animal, his hand slapping the floor until his hand found the poker. He wrapped his fingers around it and almost had it up to strike. Me? Brandon?
Then a heavy wheeze came out of him, his breaths short and hacking. He looked toward Brandon and dropped the rod. And if you didn’t know it was death taking hold of him, his final act, you might have sworn he had uttered a laugh.
He fell over. He let out two or three more resigned, hacking breaths.
Then he was quiet.
I lay on my back, too exhausted, too in shock, to even feel a thing. I sucked precious air back into my starving lungs. And then my gasps turned into sobs. Tears alternating between exhalations of joy and grief.
“Brandon …” I pulled him onto me. I brought him close with everything I had, but my arms were so weak and heavy, all I could do was just feel him close to me and laugh.
You made him pay, darling. You made him pay.
Then I noticed that he wasn’t even looking at me. He was just kind of staring blankly. His head on my chest. His gaze fixed on Landry.
Not crying as I would have thought, after the horror of what had happened. Or aghast. Or even with joy that we were somehow alive and he had rescued me.
But something more detached. Staring at him with those transfixed blue eyes.
“Brandon, baby, he’s gone. He’s gone,” I said. “Don’t worry anymore.” I squeezed him. “He can’t hurt you now.” I pushed myself up. “I know that was terrible.”
He just remained there, staring. His eyes calm, almost pleased. Then finally he turned to me, and said in a way that he might have if he was playing a video game. “It wasn’t terrible. I cut off his head, Mommy. I cut off his head.”