The Drowning Child

72

Shannon Fuller stood with her back against the bar counter, her thoughts on a horrifying loop, her heart shattered. Not one person she loved, all of whom she had loved so fiercely, had been honest with her: not Aaron, not Seth, not John. Everyone had lied to her. What a fool she was. How humiliating it all was. She thought her heart had been as broken as a heart could be, but it just kept on coming. She couldn’t believe that there could be a lower place to which she could be plunged. The place where she now was. She was standing upright, but she felt there was another version of her, some shadow version that was collapsed on the floor at her feet. She would never recover. The hits had come one after the other. But she knew, at least, that Seth, she could forgive. Seth had more demons than she had ever known, but she knew she was right to have always trusted in his beautiful soul. And she would do everything she could to repair that, even if it took the rest of her life.

The phone rang, and it startled her from her thoughts. She let it ring. It stopped, then it rang again. When it rang a third time, she picked up.

‘Shannon, it’s Ren Bryce.’

‘Hi,’ said Shannon.

‘Have you seen John Veir in the past twenty-four hours?’

Shannon’s eyes flicked over to where John sat, ashen-faced by the wall, as she pointed Seth’s gun at his heart.

‘No,’ said Shannon.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but please, if he shows up, don’t let him in. I need you to lock up the bar, the house. Do not let anyone in. I’m on my way over.’

‘What?’ said Shannon. ‘Why?’ She stayed calm, but her heart had started to beat wildly.

‘I’ll speak with you when I get there,’ said Ren. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’

‘Please,’ said Shannon. ‘Tell me. Why? What do you mean?’

‘I can’t,’ said Ren. ‘I’ll speak with you when I get there.’

‘OK,’ said Shannon. She put the phone down.

‘Who was that?’ said John.

‘None of your business,’ she said.

She was staring, now, at two people who thought nothing of taking lives, or of telling the most horrific of lies, of being colder than any two people she had ever been faced with.

And she was pointing a gun at them. And she wanted them to be gone.