Safe Haven(59)

Katie spun around. "Lock the door!" she screamed, and this time it was Kristen who moved first, even as she screamed.

The  crowbar had fallen to the side and Kevin struggled to roll over and  stand. Katie raised the gun, pointing it as Kevin finally made it to his  feet. He swayed, almost losing his balance, his face a skeletal white.  He seemed unable to focus and Katie could feel the tears in her eyes.

"I used to love you," she said. "I married you because I loved you."

He  thought it was Erin, but her hair was short and dark, and Erin was a  blond. A foot lurched forward as he almost fell again. Why was she  telling him this?         

     



 

"Why did you start to hit me?" she cried. "I  never knew why you couldn't stop even when you promised." Her hand was  shaking and the gun felt so, so heavy. "You hit me on our honeymoon  because I left my sunglasses by the pool … "

The voice was Erin's and he wondered if he was dreaming.

"I love you," he mumbled. "I've always loved you. I don't know why you left me."

She  could feel the sobs building in her chest, choking her. Her words  flooded out in a torrent, unstoppable and nonsensical, years' worth of  sorrow. "You wouldn't let me drive or have any friends and you kept the  money and made me beg you for it. I want to know why you thought you  could do that to me. I was your wife and I loved you!"

Kevin  could barely stay upright. Blood dripped from his fingers and arm to the  ground, slippery and distracting. He wanted to talk to Erin, wanted to  find her, but this wasn't real. He was sleeping, Erin was beside him in  bed, and they were in Dorchester. Then his thoughts leapfrogged, and he  was standing in a dingy apartment and a woman was crying.

"There  was pizza sauce on his forehead," he muttered, stumbling forward. "On  the boy who was shot, but the mom fell down the stairs and we arrested  the Greek."

She couldn't make sense of what he was saying,  couldn't understand what he wanted from her. She hated him with a rage  that had been building up for years. "I cooked for you and cleaned for  you and none of it mattered! All you did was drink and hit me!"

Kevin  was swaying, like he was about to fall. His words were slurred,  unintelligible. "There were no footprints in the snow. But the  flowerpots are broken."

"You should have let me go! You shouldn't  have followed me! You shouldn't have come here! Why couldn't you just  let me go? You never loved me!"

Kevin lurched toward her, but  this time he reached for the gun, trying to knock it away. He was weak  now, though, and she managed to hold on. He tried to grab her, but he  screamed in agony when his damaged hand connected with her arm. Acting  on instinct, he threw his shoulder into her, driving her against the  side of the house. He needed to take the gun away from her and press it  into her temple. He stared at her with wide, hate-filled eyes, pulling  her close, reaching for the gun with his good hand, using his weight  against her.

He felt the barrel graze his fingertips and  instinctively scrambled for the trigger. He tried to push the gun toward  her, but it was moving in the wrong direction, pointing down now.

"I  loved you!" she sobbed, fighting him with every ounce of rage and  strength left in her, and he felt something give way, momentary clarity  returning.

"Then you never should have left me," he whispered,  his breath heavy with alcohol. He pulled the trigger and the gun sounded  with a loud crack and then he knew it was almost over. She was going to  die because he'd told her that he'd find her and kill her if she ever  ran away again. He would kill any man who loved her.


But  strangely, Erin didn't fall, didn't even flinch. Instead, she stared at  him with fierce green eyes, holding his gaze without blinking.

He  felt something then, burning in his stomach, fire. His left leg gave  way and he tried to stay upright, but his body was no longer his own. He  collapsed on the porch, reaching for his stomach.

"Come back with me," he whispered. "Please."

Blood  pulsed through the wound, passing between his fingers. Above him, Erin  was going in and out of focus. Blond hair and then brown again. He saw  her on their honeymoon, wearing a bikini, before she'd forgotten her  sunglasses, and she was so beautiful that he couldn't understand why  she'd wanted to marry him.

Beautiful. She was always so  beautiful, he thought, and then he was tired again. His breaths became  ragged and then he started to feel cold, so cold, and he began to shake.  He exhaled once more, the sound like air being released from a tire.  His chest stopped moving. His eyes were wide open, uncomprehending.

Katie stood over him, shaking as she stared down at him. No, she thought. I'll never go with you. I never wanted to go back.

But Kevin didn't know what she was thinking, because Kevin was gone, and she realized then that it was finally, truly, over.





41





The  hospital kept Katie under observation for most of the night before  finally releasing her. Afterward, Katie remained in the hospital waiting  room, unwilling to leave until she knew Alex would be okay.

Kevin's  blow had nearly cracked Alex's skull, and he was still unconscious.  Morning light illuminated the narrow rectangular windows of the waiting  room. Nurses and doctors changed shifts, and the room began to fill with  people: a child with a fever, a man having trouble breathing. A  pregnant woman and her panicked husband pushed through the swinging  doors. Every time she heard a doctor's voice, she looked up, hoping she  would be allowed to see Alex.         

     



 

Bruises mottled her face and arms,  and her knee was swollen to almost twice its usual size, but after the  requisite X-rays and exams, the doctor on call had merely given her ice  packs for her bruises and Tylenol for the pain. He was the same doctor  who was treating Alex, but he couldn't tell her when Alex would wake and  said that the CAT scans were inconclusive. "Head wounds can be  serious," he'd told her. "Hopefully, we'll know more in a few hours."

She  couldn't think, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't stop worrying.  Joyce had taken the kids home from the hospital and Katie hoped they  hadn't had nightmares. Hoped they wouldn't have nightmares forever.  Hoped Alex was going to recover fully. Prayed for that.

She was  afraid to close her eyes because every time she did, Kevin reappeared.  She saw the smears of blood on his face and shirt, his wild eyes.  Somehow, he'd tracked her down; somehow, he'd found her. He'd come to  Southport to take her home or kill her, and he'd almost succeeded. In  one night, he had destroyed the fragile illusion of security she had  managed to construct since she'd arrived in town.

The terrifying  visions of Kevin kept coming back, recurring endlessly with variations,  sometimes changing entirely; there were moments she saw herself bleeding  and dying on the porch, staring up at the man she hated. When that  happened, she instinctively groped at her stomach, searching for wounds  that didn't exist, but then she was back in the hospital, sitting and  waiting under fluorescent lights.

She worried about Kristen and  Josh. They'd be here soon; Joyce would bring them in to see their  father. She wondered if they would hate her because of everything that  happened, and the thought made tears sting her eyes. She covered her  face with her hands, wishing she could burrow into a hole so deep that  no one would ever find her. So that Kevin would never find her, she  thought, and then remembered again that she'd watched him die on the  porch. The words He's dead echoed like a mantra she couldn't escape.


"Katie?"

She looked up and saw the doctor who was now treating Alex.

"I  can bring you back now," he said. "He woke up about ten minutes ago.  He's still in ICU, so you can't stay long, but he wants to see you."

"Is he okay?"

"Right now, he's about as good as can be expected. He took a nasty blow."

Limping  slightly, she followed the doctor as they made their way to Alex's  room. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture before she  entered, telling herself that she wasn't going to cry.

The ICU  was filled with machines and blinking lights. Alex was in a bed in the  corner, a bandage wrapped around his head. He turned toward her, his  eyes only half open. A monitor beeped steadily beside him. She moved to  his bedside and reached for his hand.

"How are the kids?" he whispered. The words came out slowly. Labored.

"They're fine. They're with Joyce. She took them home."

A faint, almost imperceptible smile crossed his lips.

"You?"

"I'm okay." She nodded.

"Love you," he said.

It was all she could do not to break down again. "I love you, too, Alex."

His eyelids drooped, his gaze unfocused. "What happened?"


She  gave him an abbreviated account of the past twelve hours, but midstory  she saw his eyes close. When he woke again later that morning, he'd  forgotten parts of what she had recounted, so she told him again, trying  to sound calm and matter-of-fact.