I’m going in there, Penny decided. If that guy gets Evans and the child into that truck, no telling what will happen. I’ll bring in the drawing and say that I found it when I was walking and thought it had to belong here. The cops may be on the way, but those 911 calls can get mixed up.
She hurried from her observation post in the woods. She ran across the field and stumbled over a heavy rock. Some instinct made her bend down and hoist it up. Maybe I’ll need this, was the thought that ran through her head. She rushed up to the house and looked in the kitchen window. The Evans woman was standing there. The man Penny had seen carrying the box from the truck was a few feet away from her, holding a gun.
“You’re too late, Larry,” Brittany was saying. “I dropped Matthew in a mall an hour ago. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it if you had your car radio on. It’s a big story, but I guess it won’t make Ted too happy.”
“You’re lying, Brittany.”
“Why would I lie, Larry? Isn’t that the plan? That Matthew would be in a place where he’s surely found, and I go home with the money and we’re all happy—happy that we’re finished with it?
“I know Ted is worried about leaving me out there as a potential problem, but you can reassure him that I won’t be one. I want a life again. If I turn him in, I’ll go to prison, too. And now you’ve brought the money. All of it, I guess. All six hundred thousand dollars. The trouble is that I can’t celebrate because my father just died.”
“Brittany, where is Matthew? Give me the key to the closet where you hide him. Ted told me about it.”
Brittany saw the look of desperation in Larry Post’s eyes. He’d find the closet easily enough. It was right at the end of the hall and he would find a way to open it even without a key. How could she stop him before help came?
“I’m sorry, Brittany.” Larry was pointing the gun at her heart. His eyes were devoid of emotion.
Penny had not been able to hear what was being said, but she could see that the man in the kitchen with Evans was about to shoot her. There was only one thing she could do. She pulled back her hand and with her ample strength sent the rock she was holding crashing through the window.
Startled at the slivers of glass that cascaded around him, Larry Post fired the gun but the shot sailed over Brittany’s head.
Realizing her one chance, Brittany threw herself on Larry, causing him to lose his balance, stumble, and fall. He opened his hand to protect himself from smashing against the stove and dropped the gun.
Brittany swooped down and picked it up as police cars raced up on the lawn. Holding it on Larry Post, she said, “Don’t move! I don’t care if I use it on you and I know how to do it. My daddy and I used to go hunting together in Texas.”
Without taking her eyes off him, she backed up and opened the kitchen door for Penny. “The blueberry lady,” she said. “Welcome. Matthew Carpenter is in the closet down the hall,” she said. “The key is behind the server in the dining room.”
Larry Post scrambled to his feet and began to run. He threw open the front door and ran into a sea of blue uniforms. Other policemen pounded past them into the house. Margaret Grissom/Glory/Brittany La Monte had slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. The gun she was holding was dangling from her hand.
“Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” a cop shouted.
She laid it on the table. “I only wish I had the courage to use it on myself,” Brittany said.
Penny found the key and rushed to the closet, then paused. Slowly she opened it. The little boy, who had obviously heard the shot, was huddled in the corner, his expression terrified. The light was on. She had seen enough of his pictures in the paper to be sure it was Matthew.
As a broad smile came over her face and tears filled her eyes, Penny bent down, picked him up, and held him close to her. “Matthew, it’s time you went home. Mommy has been looking for you.”