Joe Victim

Chapter Eighty-Two

“What’s-” is all Walt can manage because a moment later Melissa’s bullet is rattling around in his wrong-on-so-many-levels skull. He stays standing as if being shot in the head is a momentary distraction, an annoyance, and then he’s waltzing down the steps taking the same path my mom took.

The shot Schroder took has gone high and wide, but he points his gun at me to take his second shot. Before he can, I pull Melissa in front of me, which ruins the shot she’s about to take, and ruins Schroder’s shot too. Instead of him shooting me, he shoots her. I can feel the impact of it.

I back into the church as Schroder takes his third shot. Another impact into Melissa and I get back through the church doors, dragging her with me. The door closes behind me. I lay Melissa on the floor next to the priest.

“You fucker,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I truly am. “It just. . just happened that way.”

There are twin pools of blood forming on her chest. She raises her gun toward me and I reach out and take it out of her hands before she can fire it. “I can make it quick,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. Then she laughs. “I can’t believe you did this to me.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I tell her again, and it’s true.

“Abigail,” she says.

“I’ll look after her,” I tell her. “I’ll do everything right by her,” I tell her. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe,” she says.

“Don’t let her grow up without either of her parents,” I tell her, and I tell her this because I really need to know where Abigail is being hidden. I really need the safe place.

“Bullshit. You just want somewhere to hide out.”

“I promise you that’s not the case,” I tell her.

She laughs again. “I’ll tell you,” she says, “because I have no choice,” she says, and she hands me a key.

I don’t know what she means by that, but she gives me the address.

“Leave me the gun,” she says.

“No.”

“I’ll take care of Schroder,” she says. “Go out the back. Go through the cemetery. Make your way out onto a different street and steal a car, but do it now. Go now!”

I’m about to lean down and kiss her when she coughs up a small amount of blood.

“I love you,” I tell her.

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

I leave her the gun. I don’t know why I trust her, but I do. I run to the back of the church and turn to face her, but she’s not looking at me, instead she’s looking at the doors, pointing the gun toward them, and she’s talking to somebody, but I don’t know who. She laughs, and the only words I can make out are Smelly Melly. I have never in my life felt this guilty about a person. Or even guilt.

I go through a doorway into a corridor. I reach a back entrance and then I hear two gunshots that sound different from each other and then nothing. I go out the door and there’s a car parked there. It probably belongs to the priest. I climb into it. I don’t have the keys, but not having keys has never been a problem for me. I get it started and I drive around to the front of the church and there are no police cars, just people from mom’s wedding hiding behind other cars. I get out onto the street.

I keep driving.

After a few blocks I can hear sirens approaching.

I turn off so we don’t share the same road.

For the first few minutes my heart is racing so hard it feels like it’s going to pop right out of my chest. Then it starts to calm. Ten minutes into it I’m feeling pretty good. Good enough to look back over the last few hours and think that it all went really well.

I already miss Melissa.

It takes me another twenty minutes to get to the address she gave me. It’s a secluded house where the closest neighbors aren’t in looking distance. It’s a long shingle driveway and there’s a lot of land here. It’s not a modern place, but it’s not old either, and it looks comfortable. This place is going to be my home for the next few months until I can figure out where to go next.

I park around the back. I unlock the back door. I can hear a baby crying. My baby. My heart starts to speed up again. I make my way toward the sound. It’s a bedroom. I open the door. Inside is a woman. She looks to be in her twenties. Her hair is a mess. She’s wearing no makeup. She’s wearing clothes that look like they haven’t been washed in weeks. And there’s a metal chain going from her ankle to the metal pipe of a radiator. She’s trying to calm the baby, trying to feed it. This is what Melissa said when she said she had no choice but to tell me where the baby was. The woman looks up at me.

“Oh my God, oh thank God,” she says, and she drops the bottle of formula that the baby is refusing. The baby, Abigail, has a blank look on her face and she’s trying to clutch at something that isn’t there. She looks over at me and doesn’t smile or look away and I don’t know whether or not she can see me. She’s cute. As far as babies go. Very cute.

“What’s happening here?” I ask. “Who are you?”

“This crazy woman kidnapped us,” she says.

“Us? You and the baby?”

“No, me and my sister,” she says. “The baby belongs to the crazy lady. She said if anything happens to the baby she’s going to kill both of us, so I have to do everything she says. Please, please, you have to help us.”

“Is your sister younger or older than you?”

“A little older. Why? Why does it matter?”

“Just so I know what I’m in for.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I mean it really just isn’t your lucky day,” I tell her, and I close the door behind me and tell her about my day, then explain to her how she and her sister are my reward for getting through it.