Split Second

CHAPTER 76

Lucy and Ruth both dropped and rolled. Miranda’s shot went through a window, shattering the glass. Miranda had shot nowhere near them or her mother. Lucy shouted as Ruth pulled her SIG, “No, Ruth, don’t shoot her!”

Lucy slowly rose to her feet. Miranda stood ten feet from her, motionless, staring at Lucy and back to her father, who really wasn’t her father at all, and finally, she looked at her mother. She said quietly, “I know Dad loves you, and you’re my mother, and that’s why I can’t kill you. I wish I could, but I can’t.” She looked at her father again, great sadness in her eyes, and gave a small nod. She slowly raised the gun to her mouth—

“No! Miranda! No!”

“This is what I want, Lucy—my choice, not yours. Don’t you dare use that ring.”

The shot was obscenely loud in the still room.

Lucy ran to Miranda as she collapsed to the floor, Ruth at her heels. Jennifer screamed, tore away from her husband, and rushed to Miranda, who now lay on her side, the gun still in her hand. Neither her uncle Alan nor Court moved, as if they couldn’t, as if the world they knew had ended, and in this horrible new world neither of them had any idea what to do.

Lucy reached for the ring, paused, then left the ring in her pocket. She stared down at Miranda’s ruined face, at her hair streaked red with blood, at the blood splattered everywhere, even the wall behind her, all the way up to the crown moldings. Jennifer was rocking back and forth over her daughter, her limp hand clasped between hers, keening, not understanding, Lucy knew, why all this had happened, knowing only that if she hadn’t slept with that man long ago, if Miranda hadn’t been his seed, Miranda would still be alive. But Lucy couldn’t ever tell her about the ring.

She heard Court say, “She came running in here, waving Dad’s Kel Tec and demanding to see mother—‘that whore,’ she called her. Mom finally had to tell her she’d cheated on Dad before she had Miranda. Mom begged for her forgiveness for not telling her, but Miranda was over the edge. She screamed Mom had ruined her life, stealing what was hers, making the ring useless to her, and then she shot Dad’s Kel Tec into the ceiling. And then she laughed, a horrible sound, not funny at all, that laugh. I think I’ll hear it the rest of my life. What did she mean? What has that idiot ring got to do with anything?”

Uncle Alan hadn’t moved. He stood statue-still, staring at his dead daughter and his wife rocking over her, her deep tearing cries filling the silent room.

Lucy said, “I’m very sorry, Uncle Alan.”

Alan Silverman shook his son’s hand off his shoulder and looked toward Lucy. “This is your fault; you brought all this death and pain to us, you and that godforsaken ring.” He walked to his wife, knelt beside her, and cradled her in his arms. Jennifer turned into him and wept.

Lucy couldn’t bear it. Tears streamed down her face. Ruth pulled her close, stroked her up and down her back, trying to calm her, and said over and over, “He’s overwhelmed with pain, Lucy. Of course it wasn’t your fault.”

Lucy clutched Ruth hard. She smelled death around her. She looked back to see Uncle Alan staring at her over his wife’s head, his face ravaged, tears streaming down his face.

Aunt Jennifer pulled back and looked up at her husband. “It isn’t Lucy’s fault, Alan. It’s mine, all of it. If only I hadn’t slept with that man, if only—this ring, why did it mean so much to her? I don’t understand.”

Jennifer leaned into her husband again, sobbing.

Lucy heard the front door crash open, heard men’s and women’s voices yelling, heard their wild footsteps.

And Ollie’s voice shouting, “Stop! All of you!”

She barely registered the voices swirling around her, some urgent, some weary, all of them were moving, doing their jobs. They weren’t looking at her, not like Uncle Alan was. They were looking at Miranda’s body.