He passed the gravel road and rounded the bend, his stomach dropping as his premonition proved right. Before him the entire tableau spread out beyond his windshield, like a portrait of hell.
He noticed movement on the side of the road, up ahead. Two small figures, dressed in white pajamas. Josh and Kristen. He slammed on the brakes.
He was out of the car and rushing toward them almost before the jeep came to a halt. They cried out for him as they ran, and he bent down to scoop them into his arms.
“You’re okay,” he murmured over and over, holding them in the tight circle of his arms. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Kristen and Josh were both sobbing and hiccuping and at first he didn’t understand what they were saying because they weren’t talking about the fire. They were crying about a man with a gun, that Miss Katie was fighting him, and then he suddenly knew with chilling clarity what had happened.
He pushed them into the jeep and wheeled it around, racing toward Katie’s house as his fingers punched the speed dial on his cell phone. He reached a startled Joyce on the second ring and told her to have her daughter drive her to Katie’s house now, that it was an emergency, that she should call the police immediately. Then he hung up.
Gravel sprayed as he came to a skidding halt in front of Katie’s house.
He dropped the kids off and told them to run inside, that he would be back for them as quick as he could. He counted off the seconds as he turned around and gunned the engine for the store, praying that he wasn’t too late.
Praying that Katie was still alive.
Kevin saw the gun in the same instant she did and dove for it, reaching it first. He snatched it up and pointed it at her, enraged. He grabbed her by the hair and put the gun to her head as he began dragging her across the lot.
“Leave me? You can’t leave me!”
Behind the store, beneath a tree, she saw his car, with its Massachusetts plates. The heat from the fire scorched her face, singeing the hair on her arms. Kevin was raging at her, his voice slurred and raw.
“You’re my wife!”
In the distance, she could faintly make out sirens, but they seemed so far away.
When they reached the car, she tried to fight again but Kevin slammed her head onto the roof and she almost passed out. He opened the trunk and tried to force her in. Somehow she turned and managed to drive her knee into his groin. She heard him gasp and felt his grip loosen momentarily.
She pushed blindly, tearing out of his grasp, and started running for her life. She knew the bullet was coming, that she was about to die.
He couldn’t understand why she was fighting, could barely breathe through the pain. She’d never fought him before, had never scratched at his eyes or kicked or bitten him. She wasn’t acting like his wife and her hair was brown but she sounded like Erin… He started staggering after her, raising the gun, aiming, but there were two Erins and both were running.
He pulled the trigger.
Katie gasped as she heard the shot, waiting for the flash of pain, but it didn’t come. She kept running and suddenly it occurred to her that he’d missed. She veered left and then right, still in the lot, desperate for some kind of shelter. But there was nothing.
Kevin staggered after her, his hands slippery with blood, slipping on the trigger. He felt like he was about to vomit again. She was getting farther away, moving from side to side, and he couldn’t keep her in sight. She was trying to get away but she wouldn’t because she was his wife. He would bring her home because he loved her, and then he would shoot her dead because he hated her.
Katie saw the headlights of a car on the road, moving as fast as a race car. She wanted to get to the road, to flag the car down, but she knew she wouldn’t reach the road in time. Surprising her, the car suddenly began to slow, and all at once, she recognized the jeep as it careened into the lot, recognized Alex behind the wheel.
Roaring past her, toward Kevin.
The sirens were getting closer now. People were coming and she felt a surge of hope.
Kevin saw the jeep coming and raised the gun. He began firing, but the jeep kept coming toward him. He leapt out of the way as the jeep roared past, but it clipped his hand, breaking all the bones and knocking the gun somewhere into the darkness.
Kevin screamed in agony, instinctively cradling his hand as the jeep careened forward, past the burning wreckage of the store, skidding on the gravel and crashing headlong into the storage shed.
There were sirens in the distance. He wanted to chase Erin but he would get arrested if he stayed. The fear took over and Kevin began to limp and jog to his car, knowing that he had to get out of there and wondering how everything had gone so wrong.