Secrets to the Grave

82

Anne got her arm up in time to block him and swung her other arm in from the side to try to hit Dennis in the head. But that wide swing left her right shoulder vulnerable and he was quick enough to stick his weapon into the hollow of her shoulder all the way to the hilt.

This was incredible. She was down. He had the complete advantage over her. He was striking her, stabbing her with two different weapons. She was going to be killed in the hallway of her own home by a twelve-year-old boy she had only ever wanted to help.

And somewhere behind her a four-year-old child was witnessing her second murder in less than a week.

She could hear Haley’s hysterical screams.

Where had Wendy gone? Had she run out the back door to go get the deputy who was sitting in his car curbside eating a baloney sandwich, oblivious to what was happening in the house he was supposed to be guarding?

Above her, sitting on her stomach, Dennis was still raging. His eyes bugged out of his head. His face was so red she couldn’t see his freckles. His mouth tore open, a gaping maw with a wild animal sound pouring up out of some terrible part of his soul.

The scent of urine was strong. All control gone, he had wet his pants in the frenzy.

As he raised an arm to stab her again, Anne tried to twist her hips beneath him to throw him off.

“STOP IT!! STOP IT!! STOP IT!!” Wendy screamed.

Suddenly Dennis Farman’s head snapped to the side and blood spewed from his mouth and cheek all over the wall.

“STOP IT!! STOP IT!!”

Wendy, wielding a poker from the fireplace in the family room, struck at him again, hitting him on the shoulder, and once more, hitting him in the side.

Dennis fell sideways and over, dazed.

The deputy called from out on the lawn. “Mrs. Leone? Is everything all right in there?”

No, Anne thought as she lay there on the floor, cut and bleeding. Everything was not all right.

Nothing was right at all.