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While we waited for April to fall solidly asleep, we stayed up with James. In the dark, in the glow of the potbelly stove in the corner of the room, the room felt almost cozy.
Almost.
He took inventory of the survival tools, freeze-dried meals, and firewood yet again. He wrote the numbers down on the back of a receipt that he’d found in the black backpack.
There were one hundred and eighty meals. Each of them served two people. He wrote down 180 days. Then he frowned, tapping his pen on the receipt in front of him.
He turned over the receipt to look at the date. It was from eight years earlier. He swore softly. “You had one job,” he muttered, cutting his eyes toward the closed bedroom door where April was sleeping.
“What’s wrong?” Meghan asked anxiously. “Why is he suddenly upset again?”
I shook my head. “It’s not actually that much food. I think they made the emergency kit before the girls were born. If they all ate three meals a day, it would only last ...” I did a quick calculation. “Thirty days. Not six months.”
He flicked the pen back and forth in his hand, staring at the bedroom door.
“Talk, you piece of shit,” Skye spat, right in his ear.
He didn’t flinch. And he didn’t talk. Instead, he walked over to the pile of camping supplies on the floor near the door and picked up one of the two tarps next to the sleeping bags. He opened it, spreading the tarp wide between his hands, then holding it up to his own body. It reached his chin, and was wider than his arms could stretch. He studied the surface, holding it up to the light. Looking for holes.
“No,” Meghan cried. “No. What is he doing?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “It could be anything. Maybe he’s going to cover the firewood.”
“He’s going to kill them,” Meghan cried, and the lights in the kitchen flickered wildly.
James looked back at the kitchen light in irritation then turned around to fold up the first tarp and place it back on the pile. We all watched in horror as he picked up the second, larger tarp. He did the same thing he’d done with the first.
“You said he’s never hurt them before, right?” Skye asked as she and Meghan turned toward me, as if I could reassure them.
I nodded slowly. “Yes. I mean . . .” I trailed off, remembering the times he’d screamed at April and the girls and thrown his phone against the wall. The time Kimmie had hurt her elbow when he’d flung the door open into her as she tried to enter his office. He’d sent her back upstairs without so much as an apology. There were times April cringed away from him so hard that I knew she was bracing for the verbal blows to land on her skin at some point. Maybe they already had. I hadn’t seen everything.
He walked out the cabin door, and we scrambled to follow.
He didn’t go far. Just the side of the house, where a shovel leaned against the woodpile. He picked it up and tested the heft of it. Then, seemingly satisfied, he set it back against the woodpile and went back inside.
Meghan sank to the living room floor. In front of us James was brushing his teeth in the kitchen sink. “He’s going to kill them,” she repeated again.
Skye sat down beside her. “Maybe. But he hasn’t yet. So come on. We’re going to talk to April.” She grabbed Meghan by the hand, and I watched as first surprise then a flood of other emotions—compassion, sadness, horror—played across her features. “Come on, sis. I feel that. And I’m with you. Stay with us, okay?”
Meghan shook her head but followed Skye to the back bedroom, still holding her hand.
40. SKYE
Cascade, Idaho
I didn’t expect it to work—even though it was my idea.
Brecia did the talking. She knew April and the girls best. And neither Meghan nor I were going to fight her for the pleasure. She had to lie right between April and James—who had stripped off his jeans and crawled into bed twenty minutes earlier.
I knew Meghan was right. He might have dragged his wife and kids here in a panic; after all, they were his family. Even psychopaths held some things dear, right? Even so, my cynicism reminded me that leaving them behind at the house in Boise would have been a liability. April knew him better than anybody else. Which wasn’t saying much.
If I was judging the way he was calculating the balance of resources and risks, April and the girls were quickly becoming liabilities here, too. I didn’t know how soon he planned to act. Or what he planned to do. All three of us had seen what he was capable of, even when he wasn’t cornered; however, unlike Brecia, I’d never imagined myself capable of stopping him. He’d done what he did to me. And he’d keep on doing it.
All we had were whispers and flickering lights.
Or that was what I thought, anyway.
