Judgment

68

Jake, get back upstairs!” Duncan said. The gun was no longer in his hand. He’d dropped it to the carpet.

“What just happened? Did a gun go off?” Jake, like his dad, dressed for sleep in T-shirt and boxers.

“Upstairs! Now!”

“Did someone get shot?”

“Go!” She’d never heard Duncan yell at him that way before.

“Jesus!”

Looking like he’d been slapped, Jake winced, turned, and walked heavy-footed away, back upstairs. But he would be listening at the top of the stairs, lurking at the upstairs railing.

She closed the door to her study. Duncan had walked over to the open French door. He was picking up some papers that had flitted to the floor in the breeze.

“Duncan, that was insane!” she said. “Where... where the hell did you get that gun?”

“I know a guy who knows a guy. I just — five hundred bucks for the gun plus some ammunition.”

“This is crazy! I’ve turned us both into criminals.”

He put his arms around her, pulled her close. “Breathe, Jules.”

She nodded, closed her eyes. “He wasn’t here to kill anybody. He was here to look for something.”

“For what?”

“Hersh had a file for me.”

“I think I got him in the leg,” Duncan said. “I’m not sure.” He actually looked pleased.

“You’ve never fired a gun before?”

“Call of Duty on Jake’s Xbox. But this was pretty close range.”

“God, what if one of our neighbors heard the shot and called the cops?”

“So?”

“And the cops come knocking on our door. Asking about a reported gunshot. If they find out you have a gun and fired it without a license, we’re screwed.”

“Gunshot? No gunshot here. Maybe from the movie we were watching. Who knows.”

“Unlawful possession of a firearm,” she said. “That’s eighteen months in prison.”

“I know the law. And they can get you for discharging a weapon within five hundred feet of a dwelling too. I know. But I wouldn’t worry about illegal. The guy pulled a gun on me. He could have killed me. He could have murdered all three of us. How do I know what he’s about to do?”

She nodded, closed her eyes. She felt the beginnings of an onrushing panic attack.

“The guy was a threat to my family,” he went on. There was something in his voice, something hoarse. Not loud but firm. “Legally, we both know you can twist it this way or that, but what I did? I’d do it again. You think I’m going to let these bastards break into my house, menace my family?”

“Is that blood on the carpet?” she said, pointing at what indeed looked like a darker spot on the gray carpet. “We’ve got a crime scene. What do we do?” Her voice shook.

Duncan came close and gently caressed her face. “Breathe,” he reminded her.

She nodded. “I’m okay.” She drew him near. They hugged, hard, and for a fleeting moment she felt safe.

“We’d better hope this guy doesn’t check himself into a hospital,” she said. “They’re required to report gunshot wounds.”

“Guy like that? He’s not turning himself into any hospital.”

He placed his forehead against hers. “The cops are either coming or they’re not, and I’m not going to call them.”

“But what if we call the cops, tell them about the break-in? Maybe they’ll park a cruiser out front for a while.”

“Think, honey. Your situation, you sure you want the cops involved? And how long do you think the police can protect us anyway? A day or two?”

“Yeah,” she said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Jules, I’m here, okay? Don’t think for a moment there’s anything I wouldn’t do to keep you safe,” he said. “To keep us safe.”

Her heart rate began to slow. A curious sense of calm seeped into her like a warm fluid.

They cleaned up the crime scene, as she thought of it, sweeping up the glass, putting packing tape over the holes where the glass panes had been broken. Before they went to bed, they checked in on Jake — amazingly, he’d fallen back to sleep. Juliana wondered briefly if he’d even remember this in the morning, and if so, what they could possibly say.

They both lay there for a long while. She looked at a beam of moonlight across the ceiling and tried to still her revving thoughts, but it was like trying to slap down a spinning top.

“Sweetie?” Duncan whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You awake too?”

“Yeah.”

She felt his hand caress her thigh, and then she reached for him. “I missed you,” she said. She pulled his face close, kissed him, lightly at first, then ferociously. His hands moved slowly over the swell of her hips, and then his fingertips brushed against her nipples, his lips grazing hers as his hands encircled and caressed her breasts. She pushed him down on the bed, straddled him, slid him inside her. She closed her eyes, felt the pressure building and building, more and more intense, and then the dam burst and an engulfing hot wave came over her, a great flood of pleasure and a hot tingly sensation all over, and she felt herself melting, and then she gave over to it entirely. Her head was spinning and her body began to shake. A surge of heat washed over her, and then a great calm.

They talked for another hour until pinkish light appeared in the night sky and morning began to dawn. She made coffee, took a shower, and got dressed for work.

Her phone made a text sound.

It was from a long series of numbers at T-Mobile. It read only: