10th Anniversary - James Patterson [86]
“He didn’t look right,” Candace said. “He jumped when he noticed me. Then he screamed at me, ‘Don’t sneak up on me like that.’”
“I didn’t even have a chance to answer before Caitlin ran out of her bedroom and into my arms. She was naked. She was flushed and crying and the insides of her thighs were wet. She cried, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ the most savagely sad cries I’ve ever heard.
“She’d been raped,” Candace said, her face radiating horror. “My husband had done this to my little girl.”
Neither Yuki nor I moved or said a word, and then Candace continued.
“I held her and told her that I loved her and always would. I told her to shower and get dressed, that I’d be right back. And then I ran back down the hallway to the bedroom I shared with Dennis — and he was there, stuffing cash into his wallet, and he said, ‘Don’t believe what she tells you. Caitlin lies.’
“Dennis picked up his car keys and left the bedroom,” Candace said. “He had cheated on me for years, but whenever I tried to leave him, he said he would take the children and prove that I was an unfit mother. I knew that he would try. Even though he was never home, even though he was a horrible parent. I knew he would find a way to take them, just to make sure I didn’t get them.
“He must not have heard me come home that evening. He was raping her while I was actually in the house. How could he have done that?
“I hated myself for missing the signs. But I hated Dennis more. I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. I ran back to my office and grabbed my gun.”
Candace’s voice ran out and she just sat there, hands propping up her head, staring hard at the table, silent.
Phil went to the door of the interview room and opened it. I heard him ask someone to bring water.
As we waited, I went back over the pictures Candace had painted in my mind. I could see everything as if I’d been there myself and witnessed the horror.
It all rang true, but I still had questions.
Chapter 118
PHIL BROUGHT BOTTLES of water into the room and set them down on the table. Candace’s hand shook violently as she drank down half of one of the bottles. After that, she told Phil that she was all right and wanted to go on. She continued her story of betrayal in the first degree.
“Dennis was heading toward the front door and I was right behind him, screaming at him to stop, calling him names, but he just lowered his head and kept going.
“I had no plan to kill him. You have to believe that. I only wanted to stop him. All I could think about was that he had raped my child, his own daughter. And I didn’t want him to ever do it again.”
“What happened next, Candace?” I asked.
Candace had fallen down a tunnel of memory. I repeated my question and she returned to her story.
“I was charging after Dennis, but as I passed Caitlin’s room, she ran out to me and grabbed me by the waist again.
“I comforted her, but Dennis kept taunting me. He turned to me in the foyer and said that Caitlin was lying, that her hysteria was make-believe. I knew what he’d done. I knew full well what he had done to my little girl.
“He saw the gun in my hand, and I remembered that I was holding it. I said, ‘Stay where you are. I’m calling the police.’
“He laughed at me. I lifted the muzzle and aimed the gun at him, and for the first time since I’d met Dennis, I saw fear in his face — but only for a second. I shot him twice, once while he was standing, once when he was down.
“Caitlin was holding on to me, screaming and crying, and then Duncan was there, too. He saw his father lying dead on the floor. I put Caitlin aside and swept Duncan up, carried him to the foot of the stairs, and told him to run up to Cyndi’s room and stay there.”
Candace came back to the present and she spoke directly to me.
“Sergeant, it had all become quite clear to me — I had to protect those children. If not me, then who?
“I went to the foyer and picked up the gun. After that, I called nine one one. When the police came, I said that an intruder had broken into the house and had killed my husband. They tested