Page 105 of Kill For Me Kill For You
With the sudden silence in the room, Ruth could hear her heartbeat, a thumping rhythm that grew faster, and faster and then she realized it wasn’t her heart.
The chest in her mind was rattling, the chains screaming again. Sometimes things got out of the box even though she tried hard to keep it closed. The sound and images flooded her mind. She clamped her hands to the sides of her head, but the assault was so great it brought her to her knees.
It was getting worse.
The peace she enjoyed after the killing was growing shorter and shorter, and the chest was growing bigger and angrier and louder, no matter how many chains she wrapped around it, no matter how deep she tried to bury it.
She knew things had to change. She had to be more involved. The knowledge that her target was dead wasn’t enough. She knew that she had to somehow make it more real – so that she would know he was dead this time.
They were all him. That family. They all knew – they were all part of it. The child of a monster is still a monster. They all had the look – they all had those eyes.
Ruth had thought of asking Gary to take pictures after he had killed the Grangers. Something she could look at, and hold, and use to stretch out that golden hour into a day, a week, a month.
The loss of Gary Childers was hard to take. She could manipulate the right people into killing, but this was different. No one, apart from Gary, would destroy a whole family. A man, a woman. And two kids. They just couldn’t. Gary could have done it, gladly.
She needed the release. The fear was taking hold again, rooting her to the spot. She looked up, from her kneeling position, and saw the gun lying on the carpeted floor, bloodstains dotted around it.
It would be easy to pick it up. Take it with her. Any damn fool can pull a trigger.
The thought of it brought a wave of excitement. Her chest fluttered, and her fingers trembled as she reached for the gun.
She hesitated, her hand hovering over the butt of the pistol.
‘Pick it up,’ said a voice.
Her gaze flicked to the TV screen. There was a graphic in the bottom left corner, indicating the volume had been muted.
‘Pick it up,’ said the voice.
She recognized the voice. There was a slow, wet sound to each word. Ruth raised her gaze, even though she felt a strong urge not to. A will from somewhere inside to keep looking at the carpet. Something old and primal in her brain was warning her not to look up.
She couldn’t help it.
Gary was looking at her. His eyes were black eight-balls – swollen, filled with blood and quite dead. His lips moved, blood pouring from his mouth as he said, ‘Pick it up. Kill them all.’
Ruth picked up the handgun at Gary’s feet, put the gun in the waistband of her jeans. She took the remote control too, and carefully wiped down the door handle of the garage as she made her way out through the garage.
She got into the car, reversed and drove away fast.
58
Amanda
In the half hour since they had left Scott, neither Amanda nor Billy had spoken. There was a pressure inside the prison, and Amanda felt as though any word that escaped her lips would stay there, suspended in the heavy air, and for all to hear forever. Billy must’ve sensed it too.
It wasn’t until they’d left the complex and were strolling through the parking lot that Amanda started to feel the pressure ease. They reached Billy’s Escalade, got inside, and as the doors closed Amanda let out a long sigh. Billy started the car. Dolly Parton played on the stereo.
Billy loved Dolly Parton.
‘You did great,’ said Billy.
‘Don’t get your hopes up yet. Let’s wait and see if he comes through with anything. You were right – it’s really scary going in there.’
‘Yeah, but it feels good leaving the place.’
Amanda checked her phone. There was another missed call from Farrow. But nothing else. She’d had to turn it off when she put it in the locker in the visitors’ center. Billy drove out of the lot, onto Correctional Facility Road and soon found Saw Mill River Parkway, which flows into the Henry Hudson Parkway that hugs the river all the way back to Manhattan and 79thStreet.
Just the feeling of being able to walk out of that prison gave Amanda a sense of accomplishment. She prayed she would never have to go back. If she had to spend the rest of her life in a place like that, she knew she wouldn’t be able to cope. Her good knee bounced her heel off the floor of the car with nervous energy. Every second in there had been hard, and going outside, gazing at the river and watching New York fly by the window, it helped.
