60
She was there.
Nicole Chandler, in a blouse and a skirt much like the uniform Angie wears to school. She was holding a Bible in her hands, the big NIV study Bible, 2,936 pages, with twenty thousand study notes, seven pages of full-color timelines from both testaments, sixteen pages of full-color maps, an expanded topical index, and a “Harmony of the Gospel” section.
I turned to glance back at Gwen, as if to say, “See!”
Nicole snapped the Bible shut. I barely saw her out of the corner of my eye as she swung it, two-handed, with all her might, and smashed it on the top of my head. I went down, seeing stars. If the wig hadn’t been there like a pad, I think she would have knocked me out cold. As it was, I went down on my hands and knees, head throbbing, trying to figure out what had just happened. I had dropped the gun and didn’t know where it was. Nicole tried to rush out past me. But Gwen was coming in after me, coming to my aid, yelling, “What are you doing? Get away from him.” They collided, Nicole trying to push past, I think, and Gwen trying to grapple with her, and they got entangled in my legs and fell over, both of them, on top of me. Pushing me flat.
They were fighting like women, clawing and grabbing. Legs, arms, and elbows jabbed into my back. Still dizzy, I put my palms on the floor and pushed upward, trying to get them off me and turn over at the same time. I heaved, and they moved. I turned, and there I was between Nicole’s legs. Her short skirt had flipped up, and her kicking legs were spread apart.
She was screeching, “Let me go.” She pulled Gwen’s hair, and Gwen yowled. I put my eyes back in my head, rolled away, and kicked the door shut before someone heard us. Then I looked around for the gun, figuring I better get to it before either of them did. I saw where it had landed. So did Nicole. She kept yanking at Gwen’s hair with one hand and was reaching for the gun with her other. She got to it before I did. The safety was off, there was one in the chamber, and she’d only have to squeeze, and someone would be dead.
I leapt—I tried to leap; it was more like I staggered and fell—on top of her hand holding the HK. I reached blindly, found the barrel, held it tight, and twisted as hard as I could to rip it from her. It came loose before she could fire it. I shoved it away from us and went after her other hand to make her let go of Gwen.
Nicole started yelling at the top of her lungs, “Help, help!”
All of us were rolling around on the floor. I pried Nicole’s fingers loose from my wife, then twisted her arm up behind her back. That put me behind her and forced her into a sitting position, her legs out in front of her, her back bent forward from the upward twist against her shoulder joint.
She was still shrieking, so I put my free hand over her mouth. She bit down. I yanked my hand away before she could chomp a piece of flesh off, and she started yelling again. I pulled my wig off and put that over her mouth, hairy side first. “Bite on that, damn you. Bite on that.” Which she did and got a mouth full of whatever the fake strands were made of. She started trying to spit the wig out and twist her head away.
Gwen was sitting on the floor. She held her head where Nicole had been tearing at her. There was a big scratch on her face.
“Nicole, come on. Quiet down. I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, though I was doing exactly that as I pressed her arm up to immobilize her.
Her skirt was up around her waist. Gwen looked at her with disgust. Nicole reached down with her free hand and covered herself, but she didn’t really stop struggling.
“We’re here to help you,” I said. She shook her head as violently as she could, trying to get rid of the wig at the same time. “If I let you go, will you be quiet?” Not getting a response, I pushed her arm up even harder and held her tighter.
She made a muffled noise and tried to nod yes.
I took the wig away from her mouth but kept her arm up behind her back. “Why did you attack me?”
She coughed and gasped and spit the black strands from the wig out of her mouth.
“Why?”
“You’re going to kill me,” she said bitterly.
“No, we’re not,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, although my head was throbbing.
“I know who you are,” she said. “You’re Jeremiah’s friends,” as if that were proof enough of the reason we were there.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m really not. And I’d like to get out of here, with you, before he shows up or Plowright does.”
She panicked. “I won’t go,” she cried, trying to pull away from me.
I pressed up on her arm again, locking her in place. “Calm down, Nicole. Calm down, and listen. We’re not here to hurt you or kill you. We’re just trying to find out who killed Nathaniel MacLeod.”
“Nate is dead?” she cried out in disbelief and anguish. “Nate is dead?” Her surprise and shock seemed real. All the fight went out of her. I released her. She curled up in a ball and began to weep and moan, crying out, “No, no, please, God, no.”