He doesn’t reply, just lets out a snarl.
“Why?” I ask, raising my voice. “Tell me why!” I slap him hard across the face, hear his head thump against the hardwood.
“Why?” I cry, slapping him again and again. I hit him harder, faster, and each slap stings my palm.
He just takes them, doesn’t say a thing, and then I feel Duncan’s arms around me, and he lifts me up, pulls me away.
“I hate you!” I scream at Dad. “I fucking hate you!”
“I wish your mother had never died,” he says, his voice slurry. He spits out a wad of blood. “So she could have given me a son.”
Duncan turns on Dad, points the gun at him. “You shut your fucking mouth right now.”
“You were always a disappointment, Deidre.”
“Shut up!”
“I needed an heir, not a fucking—”
Duncan kicks Dad in the mouth. I look away, but too late, and the image of Dad’s flying, bloody gold teeth is seared into my mind.
I go to the bleachers, sit down, and Duncan comes toward me, his whole body tense like some kind of tornado, and he holds me, and I want to cry, I feel like I’m so pent up, like I just need to burst, but I can’t.
Nothing comes out.
I just look at Dad, can barely feel Duncan stroking my hair, can barely hear him telling me it’s over.
But after a moment I tell him, “It’s not over. It’s in my mind.” I touch my temple, then lie against his shoulder. “I hope I don’t lose you. The police are coming.”
The fire alarm bells have stopped, and the sprinklers peter out. I can hear their sirens now, wailing in the distance, growing louder by the second.
“You won’t. We’ll be fine. We just have to tell the truth.”
“How does it look?” I ask, nodding at Duncan’s hand. He lifts up the revolver, then drops it to the floor in disgust. “Your prints are on the gun that killed Frank.”
He sighs, pinches his eyebrows together in his fingers. “Fuck. I had to take it.”
“I know.”
“God damn it.”
I peer into my own hand, realize I’m still holding Frank's gun. I look at Dad, then Bullock, then Frank’s limp body.
We can’t count on Bullock, and I realize, my mind whirring at a million miles an hour, that I have to take this into my own hands.
“It’s cold,” I tell Duncan. “Go put on your top.”
He listens to me, gets up, picks up his shirt and jacket off the floor. He squeezes into his t-shirt, and then looks at me and asks me the question I was waiting for.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes.”
He gives me his jacket, and I worm my arms into it, then find the inside jacket pocket.
“Go check on Bullock,” I say.
“Why?”
“You need to see if he’s dead. We need to know what to expect when the police get here.”
Duncan goes to Bullock, kneels down by him, and when his back is to me I shove Frank’s gun into the jacket’s inside pocket.
Duncan returns to me, and looks down at the revolver on the ground. He opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment the door to the gym opens, and we see a yellow fire helmet.
The fireman steps into the gym, looks at Duncan and I in turn, then sees the bodies and the gun on the ground, and he throws himself back out of the door.
“Be ready,” I say.
Duncan bends down, picks up the gun.
“What are you doing?” I ask, widening my eyes. “Put it down, don’t hold it.”
It’s too late. The cops come in, weapons raised, shouting at Duncan to get to his knees. He holds the gun out, lets it hang off his finger, and then falls to his knees.
He looks at me, says, “The gun had to be in my hands, Dee.”
The police circle Duncan, handle him roughly, and I shout at them, tell them that he was just protecting me, that I’m pregnant, that we were held at gunpoint.
But they clear out, carry out Bullock and Dad, and then I see a lone detective walk into the gym. He’s old, wiry, but his eyes shine. He sits down beside me, and asks me one question: “Are you the daughter of Johnny Marino?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I’m going to have to take you down to the station.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes.”
“I want to be read my rights.”
“You will be.”
“But I need to see a paramedic first. I’m pregnant, and they weren’t gentle with me.” I rub my belly, and the detective’s eyes go to it, fill with compassion for a moment.
“There’s an ambulance outside. Come on.”
I get up slowly, shake off his helping hand.
“I can do it myself.”
We go outside, and there I see Duncan being forced into the back of a police car. He’s cuffed, and he swings his head over his shoulder, and I meet his eyes for a moment before he disappears.