Jude said, “Mandy asked for you at the hospital. She needs her father.”
“Her father needs to get the hell outa town.” Emmy said, “You can still walk away from this.”
“Like the last time?” Russell sneered. “You goddam bitch. I lost ten years of my life because of you.”
Jude heard a ring of certainty in his tone. She had talked to enough killers to know he’d decided that there would be no witnesses once he walked out the door.
Jude asked, “How did you know about the video?”
“Allison told me I could have it if I let her leave with Mandy. Then the bitch got herself killed.” He waved his pistol at Emmy. “Send it over.”
Emmy placed the Glock on the linoleum, pushed it toward Russell.
“I know you got it.” Russell tucked the gun down the front of his jeans. “I seen you at the library. Same place as Allison. I’m not an idiot. I know what you’ve been up to.”
Jude mentally inventoried the kitchen for weapons. There were none. Myrna had been too unpredictable. All the knives had been packed away. The glasses were plastic. Even the stove had been disconnected. She had to get Russell to another location.
“Put your goddam hands up.” Russell brandished the pistol. “You got five seconds to start talking or one of you’s taking a bullet.”
Emmy said, “It’s—”
“Outside.” Jude cut her off. She was thinking about the shotgun over Gerald’s door. “It’s in the office. The video is in a secret compartment inside the desk. I’ll take you to it.”
Russell kept his beady eyes trained on Emmy. “What were you gonna say?”
She shook her head. “It’s in my father’s office outside.”
“Bullshit.” Russell moved around the kitchen table, the pistolstill trained on Emmy. “I saw that safe upstairs. Get going before I start shooting.”
Emmy moved first. Slow, reluctant. Jude followed her pace. She was pretending like she was scared, helpless, as if she didn’t know that the safe in Myrna’s room contained Gerald’s 357 Magnum.
Jude made a show of struggling with her knee on the stairs, gripping the banister to pull herself up, putting some space between her and Emmy. She could feel Russell close behind her. His breath hot on the back of her neck. She tried to think through options. Gerald’s revolver in the safe. The heavy lamp beside her mother’s bed. The wooden jewelry box that her father had carved from a tree that he’d felled on the property.
“Hurry.” Russell gave Jude a violent shove into Emmy. “Get up them stairs.”
They kept going, taking a left into the hallway, hands still raised. Jude tightened the space between them. She tried to formulate a plan, but the only thought in her mind was that she couldn’t lose Emmy again. Shewouldn’tlose her again.
“Russell.” Jude didn’t have to think too hard to come up with a lie. She had worked with enough predators to know one of the things they hated most was their victims getting the last word. “Allison wrote a letter about you. We know everything you did to her.”
Jude couldn’t see Russell’s response, but she could feel it.
“She called you a thug. She said you were the stupidest man she’d ever met.”
Jude glanced back at Russell. She could see the blow had landed.
“Maybe she was right. What kind of idiot goes in for ten years, then earns himself six more?”
“That wasn’t my fault. I was set up. I ain’t stupid.”
She glanced back again. Russell had faltered. The muzzle of the pistol dipped down.
“I dunno,” Jude said. “You got framed by a woman. Arrested by another woman. Then you went to prison and got framed by the screws who left drugs in your cell, then framed by another man who claimed that you assaulted him. Sounds pretty stupid to me.”
Russell found his voice. “Shut your goddam mouth.”
“Then you let a sixteen-year-old girl scam you,” Jude said. “Gave her a five-hundred-dollar gift card. Mandy and Allison laughed at you, Russell. They were laughing at you the whole time.”
Jude glanced at him again. She realized too late that she should’ve prepared herself. Ignorant, impotent men like Shane Russell always responded to truth with violence. Russell swung back the pistol and smashed it into Jude’s head.
