But what if he wasn’t alone? What if he wasn’t dead? Oh God! What if hewasdead? Coldness unlike anything Toni had everfelt before rushed over her as she tried to right herself on the steps. When had she gotten halfway down them?
The figure at the bottom of the steps wasn’t moving. She couldn’t see anything but the lower half of his body. He must have been thrown backwards by the impact of the shotgun. On shaky legs, Toni fought to keep herself steady as she made the journey the rest of the way down the stairs. She couldn’t hear anything besides her loud breathing and the pounding of her heart in her chest.
Was there someone else here? The house felt eerily quiet now. Had her parents heard the shotgun blast? Were they on their way? She prayed one of them remembered to bring a cell phone. Service was spotty up here on the mountain, but she had good reception through her satellite internet service.
On the last step, Toni hesitatingly poked her head around the corner. On the right was her kitchen. She could see glass everywhere, but it was too dark to make out anything else. At the very least, she didn’t see another person standing there with a gun.
Toni blinked, frowning to herself. Through her fear-filled mind, she recalled the glint of metal. The person she’d shot had had a gun. Holy fuck! Had he been planning on using it? Onher? Why? She didn’t have any high profile cases right now. Nothing that would warrant someone taking a hit out on her.
Feeling like her sharp breaths were loud enough to project through the entire house, Toni quickly turned to her left, specifically not looking down. Her living room light was on. The curio cabinet, where she kept her nice dinnerware and the Revere silverware her grandma had gifted her upon graduating law school, was completely tipped over. That must have been the giant crash she heard when she’d still been in the tub.
But no person. No movement whatsoever.
Toni’s fear did not lessen, though. There was stillsomeonein her house. They just weren’t moving. Where were her parents? Why hadn’t they come running upon hearing the shotgun?
Knowing she couldn’t put it off anymore, Toni carefully stepped off the last step and onto the hardwood floor. She was barefoot and naked under a thin bathrobe. Not exactly ideal for the situation, but it wasn’t like she’d been given much choice. She kept her eyes on the floor as long as she could, telling herself it was to ensure she didn’t step on any glass or blood and not to avoid looking at the unmoving person. Where was the gun? Maybe it had skidded away in the fall?
Shit. Fuck. Gritting her teeth, Toni finally looked at the body—and frowned. He—based on the size and frame, it could only be a he—was face down, an old black hoodie still pulled up over his head. Why… Why would he be face down? He’d been coming up the stairs. Hadn’t he? He’d been coming at her?
Fuck, Toni couldn’t remember. It had happened so fast. She’d always hated that line when her clients said it, thinking it an excusenotto remember or to avoid the truth. Now that the tables had turned, Toni felt a bit bad for having been so short with that excuse.
But if he’d been facingawayfrom her, then had he even been coming at her at all? What about the gun? Where was his gun?
Toni followed up the black sleeve of his outstretched arm to see something silver under his hand. But it wasn’t a gun. It was the Revere ladle given to her by her grandma.
No gun.
A completely different chill filled her as reality started to fall into place. Yes, he’d broken into her house. Clearly he was a thief from her ladle in his hand. She could argue Castle Doctrine, which meant she had no duty to retreat from her home and could use deadly force against an intruder.Butshe hadn’t been in imminent threat of death or bodily harm. She could argue shethought he was holding a gun, clearly remembering the glint of metal, but it was a ladle. Not a weapon. Were words even spoken between them? She couldn’t remember. She didn’tthinkshe’d said anything, but maybe she’d shouted.
And most damning of all, he was clearly shot in the back. The argument could be made that he’d never even seen her, never even known she was there.
Rubbing her temple, Toni thought through her options. She needed to call the police. She’d just killed a man! With those gaping wounds in his back, he was clearly dead. Maybe she should check, though? But that would mean contaminating evidence? But couldn’t it also be argued that she’d done nothing to try to save him? What if he was alive and just…sleeping…with two giant holes in his back?
Plausible, right?
Fuck. She’d just killed a non-violent burglar in her home. First her car, then sex with a practical stranger on the side of the road, and nowthis?
And what about her wine intake? Toni didn’t think she was still buzzed, but maybe that explained her wavering memory. Fuck! How had her life come to this?
Not knowing what else to do, Toni put the shotgun against the planter and stepped over the man. Glass and broken china was everywhere, but she was pretty sure she had a pair of flip-flops by her laundry room door. Wait, was it better to protect her feet or to check the man for a pulse? Was she just stalling to avoid touching the possibly sleeping dead man?
“Fuck!” she shouted out her frustrations. Forgetting the flip-flops, she turned back around to kneel next to the body. Clenching and unclenching her hands several times, Toni finally counted to three in her head and rolled the man over.
Something fell out of his hoodie pocket and onto her knee. She stared at it for far too long, way too familiar with the sight ofthe small, clear baggie with white, crystalline shards. Until she’d been removed from their home at six years old, it had been a common sight throughout her childhood. With shaking fingers, Toni picked up the bag and held it in front of her face.
She didn’t have to look. She already knew that eight years of sobriety, endless doctor appointments, and dental care had been for nothing. She knew, and it sickened her in more ways than one as her eyes looked up into the still, unseeing eyes of her father.
CHAPTER 5
There was a wrinkle in the plastic. Not a bump from the crystals inside, but a dent, like the bag had been folded, unfolded, and folded again and again, remembering every journey, every time it was roughly shoved into a pocket, dropped on the floor and stepped on… Poor baggie. At maybe three inches tall and two inches wide, it was probably designed for a pair of earrings or sports cards. Maybe stickers. Instead, its entire existence now revolved around the disgusting toxin it now held.
It didn’t feel real. How much wine had she had? Maybe she was still asleep in the tub. This was some twisted nightmare that her father had relapsed after eight years of sobriety, broke into her house, and tried to rob her. If there had been a second person in the house, it had likely been her mother. When one fell, the other was never far behind. It was the same story, over and over and over again through Toni’s entire life.
Wayne and Debra Anderson were just fifteen when they got pregnant with her. Her mom’s parents kicked her out, not wanting anything to do with their “slut daughter”. On one hand, good riddance. The one time Toni had met her maternal grandmother, she had been standing in the middle of a grocerystore and the woman loudly called her a bastard and told her she would grow up to be a whore “just like your mother”. Toni had been fourteen and trying to sneakily buy tampons. She’d always knownwhoher grandma was, but had never met or spoken to her before that moment.
But that was the cursed life of a small town.
Her dad’s parents had taken her mom in. Made sure she was taken care of throughout her pregnancy, gave her a home, food, and stability. But they did not coddle Wayne or Debra. They’d made an adult decision, and they needed to own the consequences of that. Connie and Craig Anderson were firm, hardworking people.Goodpeople. They believed in an honest dollar for an honest day’s work. Wayne might have only been fifteen, but he was now responsible for a baby and the teenage girl who gave birth to her.
