Page 69 of 4th Silence
“It was an accident,” he insists. “A misunderstanding.” He jabs a thumb toward Meg. “She’s a menace, just like your mother. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but I have limits, you know.”
JJ nods, his expression so neutral it could win medals. “Why run if it was just a misunderstanding?”
“Because I knew how it would look!” Alex’s desperation is palpable now. “Everyone’s been trying to pin this on my family for years. I have to protect them. Always have.”
“I need to get Charlie off this snow,” JJ says, doing a one-eighty. He motions at me and his car. “Why don’t you hop inside?”
Not that he doesn’t care about me and my feet, but this is a stall tactic. To keep Alex guessing. Keep him off guard. JJ walks back to his car and opens the door for me. Alex’s eyes dart around frantically, this gaze lingering on the Sherman, then shifting to the street.
I’ve seen the same look on cornered suspects just before they make a desperate move.
JJ bends down to dig into his glove box. He pulls out evidence gloves and a polyethylene bag that he folds and places inside his coat pocket. There’s a Beretta next to all of it. “Be ready,” he mutters.
I lower my voice as I slide onto the cold seat. “I don’t think he’s armed. If he were, he would’ve used it already.”
Alex goes for the purse, snatching it with clumsy desperation. He nearly drops it before clutching it to his chest and bolting down the driveway past us.
JJ starts to go after him but slips on the ice. I bail out and shout, “Come back here, you bastard!”
Meg is moving, too, a blur on my right. “I’ve got him!”
She veers left to avoid colliding with Mom, her chunky winter boots giving her traction that my wet, stocking feet can’t match. My sister, usually lost in her artistic world of reconstructing faces, moves with surprising athleticism.
I do a wobbly flail and slide. Mom catches me, and both of us almost go down. “Alex, stop!” I shout, more to distract him than anything else. “You’re only making it worse!”
He hits the road and glances back, fear twisting his face.
That split second of distraction costs him.
His slick loafers hit a patch of dirty snow, and he stumbles.
That’s all Meg needs. She hurls herself forward in a tackle so solid that it would make any NFL coach proud. They crash to the ground with a spectacular thud, snow exploding around them in a powdery cloud. One of Alex’s shoes flies off.
“You bastard!” Meg shouts, punching him repeatedly in the back and shoulders. “Now I get it. All this time, we were chasing the wrong Hartman. You killed Tiffany.”
JJ marches past me and Mom. I catch up, my feet numb.
Alex’s face is pressed into the snow, one arm pinned awkwardly beneath him, the other still desperately clutching the bag. Meg’s face is flushed with exertion and victory. Her years of hauling clay and plaster have given her upper body strength, easy to forget until now.
“Alexander Hartman!” My mother’s voice cuts through the air. “I wouldn’t move another muscle if I were you.”
My head snaps around to see Mom striding to us, handgun pointed directly at Alex.
“For God’s sake, Mom!” I hiss. “Meg is right there.”
JJ pushes me toward her. “Take care of that. Now.”
Alex freezes, terror and disbelief mixing in his expression as he stares at the barrel of the gun. The weapon looks absurdly steady in Mom’s hands, like she’s practiced this moment in front of a mirror for years.
Has she?
I position myself between her and Alex, my hand outstretched. “Give that to me before you end up back in jail, this time for murder.”
For a tense moment, she doesn’t move. I see that familiar gleam in her eyes—the one that appeared whenever she thought she was onto something big. Then, with a resigned sigh that fogs in front of her face, she flips the safety on and places the gun in my palm.
“You always were too sensible,” she says with disappointment.
Yep, that’s me.
