When Diane looked back at Everett Walters, he was pointing a gun at her.
Well, hell.
“Now it’s time to pay the piper,” he said.
“Oh God, Tyler,” yelled Wendy.
She stood up and started toward her unconscious son. As she crossed in front of Everett, she didn’t see the blow from the pistol butt coming to the back of her head. Wendy reeled forward and fell, crashing into the table, rolling off it onto the floor at Marsha’s feet. For a moment, Diane thought Marsha was going to kick her. Wendy struggled to get to her feet. She looked seriously hurt.
“Just lie there,” said Diane. “Until you get your breath.”
Ross Kingsley stood and faced Everett. “This may seem like a good idea to you now, but you’re very angry. I understand that. Take a moment and think about this. It will do you no good to cut off your nose to spite your face,” he said.
“It won’t be my nose I’ll be cutting off,” he said. “You and the woman are do-gooders. I know your type. You take care of people too yellow to take care of themselves. So this is why I’m going to tell you, I’ll be shooting these other folks first. I’ll shoot my worthless daughter-in-law right now unless you sit down. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Kingsley hesitated a moment, then sat down. Diane guessed he was trying to think of something else to say. Right now, Everett wasn’t in the mood to listen.
All the guns were across the room with Tyler, except the one in Everett’s hand and the one under the sofa. Diane tried to think of a plan to get her hands on one of them. She didn’t see how she could do it fast enough.
But maybe Wendy could. She was still on the floor and Diane could see her looking under the couch. She saw the gun; Diane was sure. But the coffee table was between her and the sofa. Everett would cut her down if she tried. Maybe if there was a diversion.
“Apparently, it’s me you want to, how did you put it, chop up in little pieces? Why don’t you leave these people alone?” Diane said, standing up and facing him.
“All full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you? Think you can make your move once we get away from these people here? I know how your mind’s working.” He tapped his finger on his temple. “It’s not going to go like that. No, I’m not going to drop my guard. You aren’t going to get off, not after what you’ve done.”
“Don’t like being outed as a serial killer?” said Diane. She stepped toward him.
“Shut up. When I tell you to shut that damn hole of yours, I mean it,” he said.
He started backing slowly toward the entrance to the living room, pointing his gun at Diane’s head.
“Any one of you so much as looks like you’re going to stand up is going to get it. I can shoot her and any one of you before you dive for the guns. Now, we are going out. You try and follow, she’s dead and I’ll take my chances. Are we all on the same page?”
He looked back at Diane, who stood a few feet away from him.
“Still got that mind working, don’t you, girlie? Thinking about doing a dive like Wendy?” he said.
Diane was thinking of something like that. Diving at him quickly, knocking him off his feet before he could shoot. But he was too alert to a move like that now. If he was taking her to another location, he had to get her out of the house, across the yard, and into a vehicle. He would have to let his guard down at some point.
“Don’t do it,” said Everett. “It won’t work. Now, very slowly, I want you to step-”
Crash!
Everett fell to the floor, a pink guitar careening away from the spot where his head had been a moment before.
“That’s for my sister,” said Samantha.
She hit him again on the head with the solid hardwood guitar.
“That’s for making me ruin my Fender Stratocaster guitar. I’ll send you the bill.”
She kicked him in the back.
“That’s for ruining my family.”
Diane grabbed the gun that had fallen from his hand.
“Play much baseball?” Diane asked Samantha.
“No, but I have a mean golf swing,” she said, and hugged Diane.
Diane turned in time to see Kingsley on his feet, hitting Samuel Carruthers in the jaw with his fist. Kingsley knocked him against a hutch filled with china that crashed on the shelves. He picked up the guns and turned to face Carruthers, who was struggling to his feet.
“What happened?” asked Diane, keeping an eye on Everett Walters as she spoke.
“He was going after the gun,” said Kingsley. “He was planning on shooting one of them. I’ve been watching him.”
“You’re crazy. I’m going to sue,” Carruthers said. He stood, scowling at Kingsley, his bathrobe askew, showing his gray boxer shorts and T-shirt. He rubbed his jaw and ran a hand through his uncombed hair.
“I saw it,” said Kingsley. “You telegraphed your intentions. You’ve been sitting there stewing over your helplessness. And now that everything’s over, you were going to get a gun and shoot one of the people responsible for your daughter’s death. Now that they were helpless and you could do it in safety.”
“How dare you,” began Marsha, retying her own robe. “You come in here and disrupt our lives.”
Kingsley ignored her.
“If you want to be a man, take care of your family. The two of you have been self-indulgent so long, you’ve forgotten that you have another daughter. Get out of the computer games and quit sitting staring at your dead daughter’s painting and drinking yourself into oblivion. Look at the two of you. Your daughter just came in and saved your sorry ass and all you can think of is how to make yourself feel like a man. Did either of you go to her just now? And while I’m at it, do you know she found Stacy Dance’s body? Do you know what that kind of thing does to a person?” said Kingsley.
Marsha whimpered and looked at her daughter. “Samantha? How could she have found her? That doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s going to be a lot in your world that doesn’t make sense for a while,” said Kingsley. “Start by getting sober and talking to your daughter like an adult. And thank her for saving us all.”
“Well said,” whispered Diane.
She started to say something, when she heard Kathy Nicholson yell at Wendy. Diane turned to find Wendy with a gun on them.
“This is just too much,” said Diane. “Put down the gun.”
Wendy had tears running down her cheeks and was rubbing the back of her neck with her free hand. She looked strange to Diane, uneasy on her feet. She tried to speak but collapsed on the floor.
Diane ran to her and felt her neck. Nothing.
“No pulse,” said Diane.
“What?” said Kathy. “How?”
Samuel Carruthers came over to her and felt for a pulse himself. Then he felt the back of her neck. “She’s gone,” he said.
“The hit by Everett?” asked Diane.
Samuel nodded. “I think it broke her cervical vertebrae. When she started moving, the bones cut through her spinal cord.”
Diane put a hand over her eyes. “God, this is just an awful day,” she said.
“What was she trying to do?” asked Marsha.
“I think, save her son from us,” said Diane. “I don’t know.”
“That man drove her crazy,” said Kathy.
“Did anyone call the police?” said Diane.
“I did,” said Samantha. “Before my big entrance.”
Diane went back over to where Everett was stirring. “Just stay on the floor,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” Marsha asked her daughter.
“I came in through the window upstairs to get some of my things. I was trying to do it without your knowing. Then I heard some crazy stuff down here, so I crept down with my guitar. Good thing.”
Diane heard the police sirens. It was a happy song. She and Kingsley gladly gave long statements to the police that went well into the afternoon. It was dinnertime before she and Kingsley went to their vehicles.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” said Kingsley.
Diane put a hand on the handle of her car door. “I’m giving up private work. Don’t call unless you want a tour of the museum. By the way, that was quite a lecture you gave the Carruthers.”
“They needed it. It really pissed me off when he decided to do some man stuff after his daughter did all the rescue work,” said Kingsley.
“Are they going to be all right?” asked Diane.
Kingsley shrugged. “Samantha will be. I don’t know about her parents. Who knows? Sometimes near-death experiences can change people. Want to meet at the Olive Garden on the way out of town? I’m famished.”