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Sandra looked up into the angry eyes of a man holding a gun in his right hand, his arm outstretched toward her. Beside him stood the even angrier Birch. Oh good, so he wasn’t dead. What a relief. Her hands slid down her shorts, and she was relieved to find that the nail hadn’t floated out during her impromptu autumn dip.
The man holding the gun looked familiar, and at first, she couldn’t place him. Then he said, “You sure are a lot of trouble,” and she recognized his voice. He was the ref who’d been working with Frank when he’d died.
“It was you,” she said, not knowing if she’d said it out loud.
The man laughed. “What? What was me?”
In that moment, Sandra knew that she was going to die, and she wasn’t even that sad about it. She was mostly just irritated. She said a silent prayer for her children. Then, “If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me why you did it.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said sibilantly. “You’ve just decided that being a housewife wasn’t enough for you. So you’ve hopped a bus to Vegas. We’ve already moved your car to the bus station.”
Sandra laughed, but her face didn’t have the energy to smile. “No one will ever believe that. I love being a housewife, you idiot. I love my husband, my children, my home. You’re never going to get away with this.”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought doubt flickered across his face.
“Well, we’re at least going to try.” He cocked his gun. “You should’ve stayed out of this. You should’ve just focused on your cozy little life you love so much. This didn’t have to happen—”
“What are you talking about?” she cried. “I didn’t stick my nose into anyth—”
“You went to the police!” he nearly shouted. “You don’t think we know that you’re the reason they’ve hauled Mike in?”
Oh? Well, there was some good news, at least.
“Why’d you kill Frank Fenton?” she asked, impressed with the strength of her voice.
The man whose name she didn’t know tipped his head to the side. “Frank was also sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. It’s a dangerous hobby.”
She was suddenly desperately tired of conversing with this person. She looked at Birch. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you. I was worried there for a second.”
He nodded, not looking convinced. In fact, he looked a little scared of her. “I’m sorry we have to kill you. I’m really not a murderer, but you’ve left us no choice.”
“Us?” She raised an eyebrow. The wind blew, and a chill overtook her. “How many of you are in on this?”
Birch shook his head. “Just a few.”
She looked at the gun. “Birch, I get that I’m going to die. So please tell me what I’m dying for. Is that too much to ask?”
Birch started to talk, and the man with the gun told him to shut up. “Do you want Dad to kill you too?”
Her eyes snapped to his face. “Dad? Who’s Dad?”
He rolled his eyes, and her heart ached for Peter. How she wanted to hug him one last time and tell him how proud she was of him. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Mike is his father,” Birch said, “and Mike is a dangerous dude. I’m not mixed up in any of it except for the reffing, but I do what Mike tells me to do, because, like I said, he’s a dangerous dude. He told me to grab you, so I did.” His hand drifted to the top of his head. “I never dreamed you could be so much trouble.”
“I said, shut up!” Junior White said.
“What do you mean, mixed up in reffing?” She shoved her hands in her pocket and curled her fingers around the nail. Absurd, she knew, to try to go up against a handgun with a nail, but it was all she had.
“We’re on the take,” Junior White said. “People pay big bucks to fix the games.”
She laughed so suddenly that she snorted. This caused her to inhale some of the water she hadn’t realized was still lurking in her nose, and she began to cough. For one absurd second, she wondered if she was going to drown right then and there, removing the necessity of shooting her.
Buying a middle school soccer ref? That was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. “Who pays big bucks to fix a middle school soccer game?” she managed, while she tried to stop hacking up pond water.
“No one, you moron,” Junior White spat. “We’re high school refs, and you’d better believe the good teams pay.”
If they were that good, they wouldn’t have to pay. She decided it wouldn’t be wise to point that out.
“It’s not much money, really,” Birch said. She pulled her eyes away from the gun to look at him. “And we don’t do it often, but Frank found out and was going to turn us in, but Mike couldn’t allow that because he’s got a bunch of other—”
“Will you shut up!” Junior hissed.
Your dad must be so proud.
“What difference does it make? You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?” Though he’d stuffed her in a trunk, and though she’d beaten him half to death with a toilet, it appeared that Birch was having doubts about murdering her. She found this sentiment refreshing.
Junior stared at him for what felt like a long time. “Good thing I got here when I did, Kabouya”—
It took Sandra a moment to remember what that word meant.
—“’cause it sounds like you’re losing your nerve.” He returned his attention to her, and she didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. Because she saw nothing. His eyes were cold and empty, and she knew her time was up.
Again, without realizing she was about to sound a war cry, she let it rip, and pulling the nail out of her pocket as she went, she charged at the man with the gun. His eyes widened with surprise, and then his hand twitched. She thought she was seeing him pull the trigger, but as she reached him, she saw that his hand was trembling, and he was staring at it as if he’d never seen his own hand before. Then his whole arm began to tremble; he now only had a loose grip on his weapon.
“What the ...” he said to himself.
Fully engaged in whatever was happening to his hand, she held off on stabbing him in the eye.
Then the gun fell out of his hand completely and landed in the soft dirt by his feet.
“What’s wrong?” Birch asked.
“I don’t know!” Junior wrapped his left hand around his right wrist. “Something’s wrong with my hand.”
She was fascinated, but her desire to survive overpowered her curiosity. She grabbed the gun out of the dirt and took off running.
“Go after her!” Junior cried.
“Why don’t you?” Birch cried right back.
“I can’t get my feet to move!”
Sandra’s feet were moving, and they were moving fast. Despite the fact that her sneakers felt like soggy clown shoes, making a splat sound every time one of them hit the earth, she was setting speed records, she was sure of it. And this time she was running away from the lake. She came around a large pile of brambles and almost smacked directly into Bob. She let out a little screech, which she cut short so that she could snap, “Where have you been?”