“But what?” John asked even more insistently.
“But he should be able to see that I’m the one who loves him the best. How can he not see that?”
“She was the same way.” He meant Dani, I knew. “Travis heard her talking to someone on the phone about coming here to see Marcus. I knew what it meant. She’d been secretive for a while. I knew she was going to try to get back together with him.”
“You told her how you felt,” Hope said.
I couldn’t hear their footsteps, I realized. I took a chance on turning around again.
Hope was facing John, hood pushed back, rain dripping from her hair. “We have history,” Hope said. “Why doesn’t that mean anything?”
“She said I didn’t really know who she was at all.” John gestured again with the gun.
Hope moved closer to him, taking a tiny step as she nodded at his words. She was going to rush him, I realized. I wasn’t a police officer but I knew he’d shoot her before she ever got the chance to get his gun. Hope was strong and fit, but John was bigger.
“I knew her better than anyone. Who helped her pass organic chemistry? Who cleaned up the mess when she screwed Marcus? You know what she did? She told me to get out of her life and then she just walked away. I just . . . I was just trying to catch up with her. I didn’t mean to hit her.” He gestured with his gun hand again and his voice got louder in the silence of the rain-soaked woods. “It was her fault. She just should have loved me.
I looked at Hope and thought of Owen. She had the same coiled energy as he did, ready and watchful in the backyard before he launched himself on a squirrel or a bird. I had no way to stop her. At least I could help distract John.
“Love isn’t an obligation,” I said. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu said that.”
John took several steps closer to me so he was less than an arm’s length away from Hope. “Want me to shoot her?” he asked. His eyes never left my face but I knew he was directing the question at Hope.
“It won’t change anything,” she said.
My heart pounded in my ears and my chest was so tight I couldn’t breathe. The gun was level with my head. If John decided to pull the trigger anyway I was dead. Then, finally, he lowered his arm.
And Hope made her move.
John had seen it coming. Somehow he’d seen it coming. The hand holding the gun arced sideways and caught her on the side of her head. She staggered and he kicked her right leg out from under her. Her arms flailed in the air as she tried to get her balance but her foot caught in a protruding tree root and she went down. I lunged to catch her but I was too late.
I bent over Hope. Her eyes were closed and there was blood in her hair on the right side of her head. I felt for a pulse, grateful to feel her heart pounding even faster than mine. I reached in my pocket, pulled out a couple of Kleenex and pressed them against the gash on Hope’s head.
“Get her up,” John ordered.
“She’s unconscious,” I said, not looking at him. I was so angry I was afraid I’d do something stupid and get us both shot. Every minute longer was another minute I could use to figure a way out of this.
“Then carry her or drag her. I don’t care.” He spit out each word.
My anger boiled over. “Neither one of those is going to happen,” I snapped. If he hadn’t had the gun I would have hit him. “So either you wait until she comes to or shoot us, because those are the only two choices you have. And if you shoot a police officer they will hunt you down like a rabid dog until someone puts a bullet in your head.” I was breathing hard and I could feel flecks of spit on my lips.
Hope’s eyes fluttered and opened. “Way to build a rapport, Kathleen,” she rasped.
Rain had soaked the tissues pressed to her head. I took my hand away. It didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore but the skin was already swelling and darkening.
I helped Hope sit up slowly. Her eyes rolled and for a moment I thought she was going to pass out again.
“Move,” John barked.
“Wait,” I retorted.
“I’m all right,” Hope said. “Give me a hand.”
I helped her get to her feet. She grimaced as she put weight down on that right foot. “Let me look,” I said. I bent down and rolled up the bottom of her jeans. Her ankle was already swelling. I probed carefully with my fingers and Hope sucked in a sharp breath.
I stood up and wiped my hands on my wet jeans, which really didn’t do any good. I looked at John. “Her ankle might be broken. It’s sprained at least. She can’t walk. Just leave us here and go.”
“I can walk, Kathleen,” Hope said. “Let it go.” There was warning in her eyes.
“Let me help you,” I said. I put my arm across her back, taking as much of her weight as I could, and we started moving again.
It was slow going. The rain continued to fall and the ground was slippery and uneven. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and not letting Hope fall. Her breathing came in ragged gasps. I glanced over at her. She was gritting her teeth and pain was etched in the lines on her face.
She caught me watching her. “Hunt you down like a rabid dog?” she whispered, and her mouth pulled into a semblance of a smile.
“Best I could do in the moment,” I said.
“If you get a chance to get away—” she began.
“—I’m taking you with me,” I finished.
“You two planning some way to best me?” John was right behind us, so close I fancied I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, which in reality was impossible because I had my hood up.
“Yes,” I said.
Hope pressed her lips together. “You’re so bad at this,” she said.
“You set Marcus up,” I said. I wasn’t trying to stall. I needed to hear John confirm everything. I needed to stay angry so we’d stay alive.
“Yes, I set Marcus up.” John’s voice was smug.
“You hacked his phone. You made it look as though he’d sent those texts to Dani.”
“And they say the Internet is a waste of time,” he said.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What I don’t get is how you planted the key chain?”
He laughed but there was nothing humorous about the sound. “That was just a spur of the moment thing. The drive-in logo broke off my keys. Then I realized I could leave it there and all I had to do was get one from Travis or Marcus to replace mine and send the police in another direction. That night at Marcus’s house when I used his bathroom I saw his keys on his dresser. Since he had taken Dani away from me again, it just seemed like poetic justice.”
I didn’t say anything. It was clear something was broken in him.
We kept walking. I lost all concept of time. We could have been moving for five minutes or two hours. Hope’s face was pale and wan and the rain had washed a trail of blood from her hair down the side of her face. Not only was I fairly sure she had a broken ankle, I thought she had a concussion, too.
I looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were on Ruby’s property, I realized finally, not that far from the old camp, which meant we weren’t that far from Wisteria Hill. The thought gave me hope. I shifted a bit more of Hope’s weight onto me.
“Where are we going?” I said. I could feel John, still no more than a step behind us.
Ding, dong, bell,
Pussy’s in the well.
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Flynn.
He recited the children’s nursery rhyme in a singsong voice.
A well? Was there a well somewhere on this land? All I could think of was a dark, cold, small space. I bit down hard on my tongue so I wouldn’t vomit. Or scream. I was claustrophobic.
“Stop!” John ordered. We stopped walking. Hope sagged and I lost my grip on her. She dropped to the ground. I bent down to help her up.