CHAPTER 38
“You damn bitch,” Riana spat. I was being dragged, my head bouncing along the vinyl floor of Riana’s kitchen. Whoosh . . . thunk . . . whoosh . . . thunk. Hot pain shot through my right temple, where the pan had connected. My eyes rolled back in my skull. I forced them forward again, opened my lids, saw a blur of the ceiling moving overhead. The effort was too much. I let them roll back again.
“I need your frickin’ help, that’s what. Now get over here.” Riana’s voice again. The back of my head was wet, with snow or maybe blood, my arms pinned to my side. A blanket. She’d wrapped me in a blanket and dragged me outside to the dark yard.
“No. She’s dead . . . because she knew too much.... No, Mama didn’t see nothing. She took two of them pills for her back pain, you know how they do her. . . .” Dogs barked in the background. They grew louder and louder. One bark stood out. Wilco’s. Wilco was still here.
Footsteps sounded by my head, back and forth, back and forth. Riana was agitated. “Get over here and help me!”
Then her hand slid under my back. I felt my body being lifted up, up, and then I slipped. Powerless to brace myself, I hit the ground hard. A noise escaped my throat.
“What—” Riana said. “You’re alive!”
I thrashed, side to side, got one arm loose. More barking. A weight straddled me, so heavy on my chest; one arm was still pinned, it ached, my fingers tingled. The blanket came down, cool air hit my face, the smell of sweat and stale cigarette smoke. I opened my eyes, a strange shadow played across Riana’s face like a mask, twisting her features. I shook my head. No, no, please no.... Her fingers on my neck, thumbs pressed against my throat, my pulse thumping, thumping.... I thrashed, fought, snot and tears dripped down my temples. I strained against her weight. The stench of her breath hot on my cheeks. “Stop fighting me. . . .”
The blow came hard, straight in the jaw. The blackness started from the edges and closed in on my vision. Then the fingers were back, closing in around my windpipe. I didn’t care. I was slipping into the darkness.... I’m going to die. This is it. Finally I’m going to die. . . . I’ve wanted to die for a long time.
I spiraled down through the darkness, surrendering myself, welcoming the final escape.
At the last second, I heard something that clouded me with regret and shrouded me in loss—Wilco’s distant bark.
* * *
For the second time that week, I woke up in a hospital room. This time, it was Pusser standing over me. “Your grandmother’s outside, waiting to come in, but I need to talk to you first. Can you talk?” He pushed the button on the bed rail until I was semiupright.
“Yes.” Pain scraped my throat as I squeaked out a barely audible reply.
“You’re lucky. Riana Meath tried to squeeze the life out of you.”
“But how? . . . I should be dead.”
“That dog of yours.” Pusser swiped at his face. “She claims he went crazy. He tore her up, half her face is gone. A neighbor heard her screams and called 911. She’s a couple rooms down. Alive still. But pretty messed up.”
Wilco? I searched the room.
“He’s not here. They’ve impounded him.”
“What!” I started to get up. Pusser pushed me back down. “Take it easy. Had he actually killed her, we’d be in trouble. As it is, it was an act of self-defense. I’m doing everything I can. I promise.”
“But impound—”
“Parks is seeing to him. Don’t worry.”
I tried to swallow, felt the cutting of raw edges in my throat. Finally got out, “Jacob didn’t kill Maura.”
Pusser frowned, confused. “He confessed. Harris picked him up at the farm, made the arrest. The kid confessed to the murder before Harris even got him in for booking.”
“I think Harris coerced the confession.”
Pusser shook his head. “I don’t know, Callahan. That’s a big accusation.”
Not really. Harris loved credit for anything—especially solving a case, regardless of whether he was right or not. But I let it drop. I didn’t have the energy to argue.
“Doesn’t matter,” Pusser said. “The confession is just icing on the cake. We found the murder weapon in his barn and some devil stuff in the house.”
“Like what?”
“Video games mostly. He played some sick video games.”
“A lot of kids do.”
We looked up as Grabowski stepped inside. He regarded me with concerned eyes, then spoke to Pusser. “The grandmother’s out there and she’s spitting mad. Wants in here now.”
Gran? “Let her in. Oh, wait. Eddie and Nevan?”
Pusser shrugged. “We don’t know where they are, but it doesn’t look like anyone was there but Riana and her sleeping mother. We found Ona. She’s in Nashville.” Pusser pulled up a chair. “I need to get a statement from you.”
So I told him everything, the best I could. The words spurted out slowly through my raw throat. I struggled to swallow, and spit kept pooling at the corners of my mouth. Pusser dabbed at it with a tissue. Gently. Caringly. I kept talking, and he nodded, encouraging me to continue. I explained about the journal, the handwriting, Eddie, Riana . . . and ended with, “They’re lovers. Eddie and Nevan are lovers.”
Pusser and Grabowski exchanged a look. Grabowski shrugged. “So? I get what that has to do with Maura, she was Nevan’s beard, his cover. But what’s it have to do with Addy Barton?”
“I don’t know.”