A woman behind me said, “Get up, you idiot, or I’ll kill you.”
Stunned, I obeyed. Ken came up swinging and I warded off his clumsy drunken blows.
“Turn around.”
A slender form, orange-lit by a chandelier dimmed low. Holding an automatic a lot bigger than the one Graydon-Jones had brought to the pit. Looking comfortable with it as she came closer.
“Stand still, asshole,” said Nova.
Ken took a blind swing at my head. I pushed his hand away, and he fought to regain his balance.
Nova said, “Cut it out. Don’t waste your energy.”
He said, “Goddamn asshole.”
“Later. Clean yourself up. Look at you, you’re a mess.”
He wiped his lip.
“Fix your shirt.”
He stuffed it into his waistband.
She had clear authority. The kind that imprints early? The scars . . . young for a face lift. But not for patching old injuries?
“Clean yourself up,” she said. “Take an upper, then come back and give me a hand.”
He complied.
“Big sis?” I said. “Hi, Jo.”
Silence. That same smug smile I’d seen at Sanctum.
“One pair against the other,” I said. “What are we talking about here? Going for the gold in sibling rivalry?”
She chuckled. “You have no idea.”
“Must have been tough,” I said. “Daddy leaving your mother for their mother. Then she got so depressed, she escaped to Europe and left you behind. With him, of all people. You and Ken end up locked in a dinky little cabin while the other two get to stay in the big house.”
“Free psychoanalysis,” she said. “Sit down on that couch—on your hands, keep your butt on your hands.”
“Such gratitude. I saved your life.”
“Gee, thanks.” She laughed. “What have you done for me today?”
Meaning it.
A part of him—genetically. Raising selfishness to an art form.
I thought of the way she’d tended her father. Absorbing his sexual comments. Changing his diapers.
Jocasta. Turning his Oedipal joke against him, secretly.
Lowell so estranged from his own child that he didn’t recognize her.
The scars remnants of the fall down the mountain. New face. . . .
Nova. New person.
“Anyone with you when you fell off that cliff?”
No answer.
“Wouldn’t have been Ken, would it? He tends to damage women. How can you be sure he didn’t push you?”
A toilet flushed. Ken came out of the guest bedroom with his hair slicked like a country kid’s on Sunday.
Nova said, “I’ll take care of him. You get her.”
“She’s out like a light. I’ll have to carry her.”
“So?”
He touched his lower back and grimaced.
“Do it.”
He left and climbed the stairs.
I said, “He’s really the walking wounded, isn’t he?”
“He’s a dear.” The gun hadn’t moved, and she was just out of reach.
“Dangerous business being a member of your family. Then again, that’ll work to your advantage. Only two slices of the pie, if you and he don’t kill each other first.”
She smiled.
I said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. You and Kenny will find a nice quiet place, get all cozy, and give in to what you’ve been wanting to do for such a long time. What you wanted to do to Daddy. Changing diapers’ a poor substitute for the real thing, isn’t it, cutie?”
She was tough and she knew what I was doing, but her eyes wavered for just a fraction of a second. Her grip on the gun must have loosened, too. Because when I chopped down hard at her wrist, she cried out and the weapon fell to the carpet.
She was a strong woman, full of rage, but there are few women who can handle even a small man physically. That’s part of rape and battering and a lot of the tension between the sexes.
This time, it worked out for the best.
CHAPTER
50
Milo said, “Can’t talk long, got a promising suspect on the copycats. Roofer who was working at the courthouse during the trial.”
“Does he have a dog?”
“Big surly mutt,” he said gleefully. “Aren’t you glad you weren’t the poor clown who had to give him an enema?”
“How’d you get on to him?”