The doorway was empty when suddenly he filled it again. He stared in my direction, yelling something I could not hear.
I got out of the car, rain soaking my clothes as I ran.
I smelled the burnt gunpowder the instant I entered the foyer.
“I’ve called for help,” Marino said, eyes darting around. “Two of them are in there.”
The living room was to the left.
He was hurrying up the stairs leading to the second story as photographs of Spurrier’s house crazily flashed in my mind. I recognized the glass coffee table and saw the revolver on top of it. Blood was pooled on the bare wood floor beneath Spurrier’s body, a second revolver several feet away. He was facedown, inches from the gray leather couch where Abby lay on her side. She stared at the cushion beneath her cheek through drowsy, dull eyes, the front of her pale blue blouse soaked bright red.
For an instant I didn’t know what to do, the roaring inside my head as loud as a windstorm. I squatted beside Spurrier, blood spilling and seeping around my shoes as I rolled him over. He was dead, shot through the abdomen and chest.
I hurried to the couch and felt Abby’s neck. There was no pulse. I turned her on her back and started CPR, but her heart and lungs had given up too long ago to remember what they were supposed to do. Holding her face in my hands, I felt her warmth and smelled her perfume as sobs welled up and shook me uncontrollably.
Footsteps on the hardwood floor did not register until I realized they were too light to be Marino’s.
I looked up as Pat Harvey lifted the revolver off the coffee table.
I stared wide-eyed at her, my lips parting.
“I’m sorry.”
The revolver shook as she pointed it in my direction.
“Mrs. Harvey.”
My voice stuck in my throat, hands frozen in front of me, stained with Abby’s blood.
“Please . . .”
“Just stay there.”
She backed up several steps, lowering the gun a little. For some bizarre reason it occurred to me she was wearing the same red windbreaker she had worn to my house.
“Abby’s dead,” I said.
Pat Harvey didn’t react, her face ashen, eyes so dark they looked black. “I tried to find a phone. He doesn’t have any phones.”
“Please put, the gun down.”
“He did it. He killed my Debbie. He killed Abby.”
Marino, I thought. Oh, God, hurry! “Mrs. Harvey, it’s over. They’re dead. Please put the gun down. Don’t make it worse.”
“It can’t be worse.”
“That’s not true. Please listen to me.”
“I can’t be here anymore,” she said in the same flat tone.
“I can help you. Put the gun down. Please,” I said, getting up from the couch as she raised the gun again.
“No,” I begged, realizing what she was going to do.
She pointed the muzzle at her chest as I lunged toward her.
“Mrs. Harvey! No!”
The explosion knocked her back and she staggered, dropping the revolver. I kicked it away and it spun slowly, heavily, across the smooth wood floor as her legs buckled. She reached for something to hold on to, but nothing was there. Marino was suddenly in the room, exclaiming “Holy shit!”
He held his revolver in both hands, muzzle pointed at the ceiling. Ears ringing, I was trembling all over as I knelt beside Pat Harvey. She lay on her side, knees drawn, clutching her chest.
“Get towels!”
I moved her hands out of the way and fumbled with her clothing. Untucking her blouse and pushing up her brassiere, I pressed bunched cloth against the wound below her left breast. I could hear Marino cursing as he rushed out of the room.
“Hold on,” I whispered, applying pressure so the small hole would not suck in air and collapse the lung.
She was squirming and began to groan.
“Hold on,” I repeated as sirens wailed from the street.
Red light pulsed through blinds covering the living room windows, as if the world outside Steven Spurrier’s house were on fire.
18
Marino drove me home and did not leave. I sat in my kitchen staring out at the rain, only vaguely aware of what was going on around me. The doorbell rang, and I heard footsteps and male voices.