Run to Ground(97)

“Who was the shooter?” Jules asked. She knew on some level that Sherry was sharing too much with her, that every new fact Jules learned lessened her chance of survival, but she still needed to ask, needed to know who had tried to kill her and Dee and Sam and Theo. “Why did he want to kill Hugh?”

“I didn’t want to kill Hugh,” Sherry snapped back, and Jules’s eyes widened. Sherry was the shooter? Then she realized the silliness of her surprise. After all, Sherry was currently holding her at gunpoint, proving she had access to guns and was willing to use them. “I had to.”

“Why? Why did you shoot him?” Jules winced inwardly at her confrontational tone, but it was sinking in that this was the person who had endangered all of their lives. The memory of Dee, looking bewildered as someone shot at her—shot bullets at a little girl!—rose in her mind, and rage started to take hold again.

“He needs to know.” The words were so soft that Jules, straining to hear, started to turn toward the other woman. The pressure of the gun barrel against her back made her freeze. She hoped the conversation would distract Sherry, keep her from realizing that they were just standing there. Jules wasn’t sure where Sherry was taking her, but she knew it wasn’t good. If Jules could delay it, she would. “He needs to know what it’s like to lose someone he loves.”

“What?” Anger for Theo was building, adding to the existing blaze. “How can you say that? He’s suffered so much already. I assure you, he knows perfectly well what it’s like to lose someone he loves.”

“Bullshit!” That hysterical edge was back in Sherry’s voice, but Jules was almost too riled up to care. “I’m the one who lost my dad. I’m the one who’s hurting, not him!”

The mention of her dad’s death softened Jules slightly. Although Jules’s father hadn’t died, she understood what it was like to lose a father. After all, everything that had made him her dad had already slipped away. His Alzheimer’s had slowly, painfully stolen him from her. “I’m sorry about your dad, but Theo—”

Sherry interrupted before she could finish. “He knew! He had to have known. They were together all of the time!”

“What?” Jules halted again. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or adrenaline making it hard to understand Sherry, but she felt like she’d just been knocked into the deep end of the pool. “I don’t understand. Who knew what?”

“Theo knew.” Every time Sherry said his name, she spit it out, like it tasted bad. “All those months, when Dad’s depression was getting so bad, Theo must’ve known something was wrong. He knew, and he didn’t do anything!”

Although Jules opened her mouth, nothing came out. Her brain was too busy absorbing the new information to be able to form sentences.

Sherry didn’t have that problem. The words came rushing out, like a newly cleared drainpipe. “You think he loves you, but just wait. You’ll be hurting, and he’ll just ignore it, pretend you’re fine, until you’re dead.”

“I don’t… Why are you blaming Theo?” Jules finally pulled it together enough to ask. “Why not you or your mom or the other cops? Couldn’t someone else have recognized your dad’s depression and tried to get him help? Why is Theo the only one you’re blaming?”

Judging by the angry silence behind her, it had been the wrong thing to ask. Again, Jules braced herself for the shot, but it still didn’t come. “Because”—Sherry’s voice was too quiet, and a nervous shiver ran through Jules, leaving prickling goose bumps in its wake—“Dad was never around. I couldn’t have seen it. Mom couldn’t have seen it. He was always with his precious partner, Theo. He got all of Dad’s time, all of his attention, so he was the one who knew Dad the best. He should’ve seen it. I shouldn’t have had to walk in on that, to see Dad’s body after he ate his gun. Why did he get all the good times with Dad, and I only got that?”

Despite the gun, despite the shooting, despite her bone-deep anger, Jules felt a tiny spark of sympathy for Sherry—but that was quickly extinguished by another jab of the gun barrel into her back. Jules started walking again.

“In there.”

The heavy door of the walk-in cooler loomed in front of her. Jules bit down on the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood. Her whole body felt numb, unfamiliar, as if it wasn’t her own. Her feet were glued to the floor, refusing to move forward.

“Go. Now!”

The pressure of the gun between her shoulder blades reminded Jules that there were scarier things than going into the walk-in cooler, although her clammy palms and racing heart disagreed. Feeling like she was moving through sludge, Jules moved forward. Her hand shook as she closed it around the handle, and it took another prod with the gun barrel before she was able to yank open the heavy door. The dark space yawned in front of her, reminding her to turn on the light, and she fumbled for the exterior switch. Even with the tiny room lit, however, she couldn’t keep herself from stopping just inside the door. Sherry’s hard shove propelled her forward until she was as far in the cooler as she could get, wedged in the L of two shelves filled with cases of eggs and milk and bacon.