Spencer went light-headed with fear.
Blood spatter. Definitely caused by a gunshot. He lowered his gaze. A bloody trail to the street. Then it stopped. Made by a victim being dragged to a vehicle.
Spencer was aware of John Jr. coming up behind him, out of breath. Heard his explosive expletive.
A victim. Who?
“Downstairs is clear,” the patrolman said. “There’s no way to the second level.”
Yes, there was. Metal stairs going to the second floor, one on each side of the building.
He darted for the ones on the right, John Jr. the ones on the left.
“Stacy!” he shouted, hitting the stairs. “Shauna!” The metal screamed in protest at his weight but held firm.
He shouted again. He heard his brother doing the same. Their shouts had drawn other teams within earshot.
Spencer reached the door and stopped cold. Padlocked. The lock was shiny, new.
What could be so valuable here, in this post-Katrina hell?
“They’re here!” he yelled, drawing his weapon. “Stacy, Shauna, if you can hear me, get back!”
Below him, John Jr. reached the staircase and started up. Spencer fired three shots, blowing the lock apart. He kicked in the door. Light spilled into the darkness, falling over Stacy and Shauna who were bound and gagged-but alive.
With a sound of relief, he raced into the room, his brother at his heels. He reached Stacy, removed the gag. She gasped for air, then began coughing.
“Somebody!” he shouted, working at the duct tape securing her wrists. He was aware of his brother beside him doing the same for Shauna. “We need water!”
Within moments, he was handed a bottle of cold water. He held it to her lips.
When she’d had enough of the water, he moved his hands over her face, arms, searching, desperate for reassurance. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“N…no-”
“Thank God…thank God…I thought I’d lost you. I-” His voice broke.
“I’ve got to-” She struggled to speak, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Got to tell you-”
“I love you, too, Stacy. I was such an idiot. I-”
She laid a finger against his lips, stopping him. “I do love you,” she croaked. “But that’s not…It’s June,” she managed. “June Benson’s the Handyman.”
76
Saturday, May 19, 2007
5:10 p.m.
Patti came to. She lay on her side on the floor. She hurt. She tried to move and moaned as pain shot through her.
“Thank God. I was afraid you were dying.”
Yvette. Patti cracked open her eyes. It took a moment for her vision to clear. When it did, she moved her gaze over the room.
A bathroom. Luxurious. Garden tub. Marble.
She settled it on Yvette. She still wore the cuffs. June had bound her ankles with duct tape. “Where…is she?”
“I don’t know.” Yvette drew in a breath; it caught on a sob. “When she stabbed you, I tried to run for help. I didn’t get far…I fell and with the cuffs-”
Couldn’t get up fast enough.
“She has your gun. She said she’d shoot me.”
June. Her best friend. Trusted confidant. How could this be happening?
Patti recalled the sequence of events: turning her back to June; the scissors going into her back; the intense pain, then falling forward; not stopping herself in time and hitting her head on the coffee table; being knocked out.
“How bad am I?” she asked.
Yvette’s eyes filled with tears. “Bad, I think. The scissors, they’re still in…”
“My back?” Yvette nodded.
“How deep?”
“Pretty deep, I think.”
Patti breathed deeply against the dizziness. Obviously June hadn’t hit anything vital, but too much could go wrong if she had Yvette try to remove them.
Yvette inched toward her. “What can I do?”
Patti pressed her lips together a moment. “I’m sorry I suspected you.”
“The way I acted, like such a brat…I don’t blame you.”
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I tried. There’s no way out.”
“Window?”
“Glass bricks. One door. Locked from the outside.”
“Did you try to kick it in?”
“I was afraid she’d hear me and get angry.”
And making June angry would be a bad idea. She had Patti’s Glock. And no doubt, the gun she had used to kill Riley and Messinger-and most probably Marcus Gabrielle. Patti wouldn’t doubt she had a couple of bone saws hidden on the property as well.
Yvette started to cry. “I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not going to die, not if I have anything to say about it.”
“But you don’t, Patti,” June said, opening the door.
Patti saw that she did, indeed, have the Glock. It had a full magazine. Bullet chambered.
“I’m sorry,” June said. “I really am. You’re my friend.”
“Your friend?” Patti repeated. “You call this friendship?”
“You got involved in my business. My private business.”
“You killed Riley!” Yvette cried. “How could you-”
“He got in my way. Starting snooping around. Letting you go was the final straw.”
“He let me go? He’s the one who-”
“Unlocked the door, yes.”
“He warned me,” she whispered. “Told me you were going…to…kill-”
Tears choked Yvette, and Patti took over. “Was Riley part of this?”
“Riley? Mr. Incompetent? I don’t think so. He began to suspect, somehow. Although frankly, I can’t imagine how. And then he involved himself with Yvette. My muse. Mine.”
“He was your brother. You killed your own brother.”
June looked at her then, her expression terrible. Grotesque. “He wasn’t my brother. He was my son.”
The words caught her so by surprise, they took her breath. “Your son? How-”
“My parents sent me away to ‘boarding school.’ That’s how they did it back then. An abortion was, of course, out of the question. A good Catholic would never resort to such a thing.
“Besides, Mama wanted another child. So she pretended to be pregnant. They faked the whole thing. No one suspected. No one ever suspects people who live in Garden District mansions to be anything but upright, law-abiding citizens.”
A lesson, it appeared, she had made good use of.
“I was fifteen when he was born. I was never allowed to speak of what happened, never allowed to refer to him as anything but my brother.”
“Did Riley-”
“Know?” She shook her head. “I gave him everything, devoted my life to him. And he did this to me.”
Patti stared at her friend, shocked by the skewed perspective. She’d killed him, but he did her wrong?
“And his father,” Patti asked. “What of him?”
“You mean our father.”
Patti stared at her, feeling sick, stunned.
“That’s right. Riley and I had the same father. He raped me. More than once, of course.”
Her dislike of men. The distrust of them that had emerged every so often.
“Mama figured it out, but looked the other way. After all, she got what she wanted. Relief from her conjugal duties and a son.”
If only she had known, maybe she would have been able to help, to get her help. “I’m so…sorry, June. You could have told…Someone would have listened, would have believed you.”
She laughed, the sound harsh. “In your world, maybe. Not in mine.”
Patti struggled to sit upright, nearly passing out from the pain. “You need help,” she managed. “I can make certain you get it.”
“No, I needed help at fourteen. Now I’m fine. I’m in control. Me. I’ve got all the power now.”
“Killing people gives you power?”