Giovanni replied, “Looks like I just got her back. Deal with it.”
And then two shots fired, but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to; I knew it was all over.
CHAPTER 55
“Talk about your knight in shining armor,” Maddie said, with a wink.
“I guess you could call him that. But it’s over now. He’s done his good deed for me and now he can go back to his life.”
“That’s what you want?”
“Have you ever thought that might be what he wants?”
“Never crossed my mind. He’s smitten, there’s no denying that.”
“It’s hard to say where we’ll go from here,” I said. I’m not even sure how to go about it.”
We embraced and I stepped on the plane.
“Take good care of Boo for me,” I said. “See you both tomorrow.”
Maddie took Lord Berkeley’s paw and waved it up and down in the air. “Say goodbye to your mommy. Time for us two to have some fun.”
The warm breeze of Baltimore, Maryland drifted across my face like a warm blanket just out of the dryer as I descended the stairs of Giovanni’s private jet. It felt good to be free of bodyguards, Nick, and the plague Sinnerman inflicted on me over the past few years of my life. It felt like I’d carried the weight of the moon on my shoulders, and now I was so light I needed to brace myself against something so I didn’t get swept away into the air.
I rented a car and used my cell phone to map my location. Twenty-three miles later I arrived at my destination and parked in front of a powder blue single-wide trailer with what used to be white trim. Now it held a kind of brownish hue. The trailer looked like it had been moved more than its share of times in its lifetime.
The door was the color of a fire engine, except duller, and on one of the single-pane windows in the front someone had taken their finger and scratched the word HI in the caked up layer of dust. Grass had been planted in the yard at one time but had long since gone, leaving small patches of yellow about the size of a plate in its wake. A single car was parked out front; a purple Saturn sedan circa 1993 or so.
I ascended the two-by-four wood-planked stairs and knocked.
A woman with a face that resembled the back of my elbows answered the door in a tattered peach robe and long, stringy hair that practically reached out and begged me for a V05 hot oil treatment. The distinct smell of gin floated by and was absorbed into the atmosphere.
“Can’t you read?” she said and pointed to the sign that was hot glued to the door. “No solicitors. That means you missy.”
I spread out my fingers.
“Do you see me carrying anything?”
“Well, no.”
“What does that tell you then?” I said.
“You’ve got a sharp tongue, anyone ever tell you that?”
“Can we skip the small talk and get to why I’m here?” I said.
“Patience isn’t your strong suit, I guess.”
Not even one minute with the woman and I already wanted to wring her neck.
“Do you have a son named Sam—I mean, Samuel Reids?”
She looked like the ghost of her dearly departed grandmother had just appeared before her and said BOO.
“Has something happened—is he dead? Did he leave money for me in his will? I just knew that boy would grow up and still find a way to care for his mamma.”
She spread the door all the way open, smiled and said, “Won’t you please come in?”
Under any other circumstances I would have protested based on the smell alone, but I’d come all that way, and I wasn’t about to turn around now.
She reached down to the sofa and picked up a variety of plates, silverware and other items that were scattered around. “Sit, sit,” she said.
“I’m not here about his will.”
She scrunched up her face and frowned and said, “Oh, hmm. He hasn’t gone and gotten you pregnant has he, because if you all need a place to stay, it’s not here. There’s no room at the inn.”
A man emerged from the hallway with a stained yellow shirt that had endured more than its share of beer. His legs were almost all the way exposed except for a pair of boxer shorts, and his hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed for days. He passed by Laurel who stood next to the bar in the kitchen and smacked her on the ass.
“Why would he have wanted anything from you after what you put him through?” I said.
She flashed me a dirty look and said, “You did not just say that to me.”
“Who you talkin’ about?” the man said.
“Leave it alone, Larry,” Laurel said.
On a scale of one to leave it alone, I wasn’t about to let it go.
“I flew here to talk to you about your son, and no I’m not pregnant with his child and he doesn’t need a place to live. He’s dead.”
“My son’s what—”
Larry looked at Laurel and said, “You had a kid?”
Laurel turned to him.
“Yes…I mean no, I mean—I used to.”
“How in the hell did you used to have a kid?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t think nuthin’. I’m outta here,” he said. He walked out the door, got into the Saturn, and left.
“Guess he’s not going to get dressed first,” I said.
Laurel turned toward me.
“You’re ruining my life, just leave—please!”
I shook my head and laughed.
“It’s still all about you, isn’t it? After all these years. You just don’t get it. You sit here in your piece of shit trailer and don’t even have a clue what you’ve missed out on.”
“I’ve lived a full life.”
“Do you even care what your son did?”
“Should I?”
“Ever hear about the Sinnerman murders?” I said.
She tilted her head to the side like she was in deep thought, which seemed like a stretch.
“Seems like I did hear something about that a few years ago. Happened in Park City, right?”
“In your son’s house, actually.”
“I can’t believe he’d ever live with anyone capable of doing something like that.”
“He didn’t,” I said.
“Well then…”
I gave it a moment to let it sink in and then another until it got to the point that I was going to have to get a chalkboard out and draw a diagram for her. I spoke in a slow and distinct manner. “Your son is the Sinnerman killer. He murdered many women, including my sister.”
“But how—”
I shook my head.
“Right now I talk and you listen.”
Her jaw popped open like no one had ever spoken to her that way before. Maybe if they had, she wouldn’t have turned out to be such a waste.
“When your son was just a boy, you knew he had problems. Maybe a little anger inside, maybe he didn’t develop the same as the other kids, but something was different. And you chose to turn your back on him. I’m here to tell you what happened after that,” I said. “His own father couldn’t look at him without thinking of you, so he sent him away to school, and then when he was a teenager, he kicked him out and left him on his own to fend for himself. At some point he fantasized about killing women and then one day he did. And do you want to know who those women looked like? You.”
I stood up and walked to the door and opened it. “You’re a horrid wretch of a woman, and I just wanted to come here and say that to your face.”
CHAPTER 56
It felt good to touch down in Salt Lake City. I was home, and my life had taken on new meaning. I didn’t know where I’d go from there, but I knew one thing: I would always take the time to appreciate the people in my life, and I’d spend the rest of it living for me and partaking in all that life had to offer. That’s what Gabby would have wanted.