No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [140]
“Honey,” I said.
Cynthia’s eyes were bloodshot, her cheeks streaked with dried tears. Grace, on the other hand, was still crying. Damp lines ran down her cheek.
“He said he was Todd,” Cynthia told me. “He’s not Todd.”
“I know,” I said. “I know. But that is your father.”
Cynthia looked to her right at the man sitting in the front of the Impala, then back to me.
“No,” she said. “He might look like him, but he’s not my father. Not anymore.”
Clayton, who had heard the exchange, let his head fall toward his chest in shame. Without looking at Cynthia, he said, “You’re entitled to feel that way. I know I would, if I was you. All I can tell you is how sorry I am, but I’m not so old and foolish as to think you’ll forgive. I’m not even sure you should.”
“You get away from the car,” Jeremy warned me, coming around the front of Cynthia’s Corolla, the gun pointed my way. “You stand back over there.”
“How could you do it?” Enid said to Clayton. “How could you leave everything to that bitch?”
“I’d told the lawyer you weren’t to see it before I died,” Clayton said. He nearly smiled, and said, “Guess I’m going to have to look for a new lawyer.”
“It was his secretary,” Enid said. “He was on vacation, I dropped by, said you wanted to take another look at it, up in the hospital. So she shows it to me. You ungrateful son of a bitch. I give up my whole life for you and this is the thanks I get.”
“Should we do it, Mom?” Jeremy asked. He was standing by Cynthia’s door, preparing, I figured, to lean in through the window, turn the ignition, slap it into drive or neutral, pull himself back through the window, and watch the car roll over the edge.
“Hey, Mom,” Jeremy said, more slowly this time, “shouldn’t they be untied? Won’t it look funny if they’re tied up in the car? Doesn’t it have to look like my…you know…like she did it on her own?”
“What are you blathering on about?” Enid shouted.
“Should I knock them out first?” Jeremy asked.
I couldn’t think of much else to do but rush him. Try to grab his gun, turn it on him. I might end up getting shot myself, would probably end up dead, but if that meant saving my wife and my daughter, it didn’t seem like that bad a deal. Once Jeremy was out of the way, there wouldn’t be anything Enid could do, not without the use of her legs. Eventually, Cynthia and Grace would be able to free themselves, get away.
“You know what?” Enid said, ignoring Jeremy and turning her attention to Clayton. “You never appreciated anything I did for you. You were an ungrateful bastard from the moment I first met you. A miserable, useless good-for-nothing. And on top of that, unfaithful.” Enid shook her head disapprovingly. “That’s the worst sin of all.”
“Mom?” Jeremy said again. He had one hand on Cynthia’s door, the other still pointing the gun at me.
Maybe when he leaned in, I thought. He’d have to turn his back to me, at least for a second. But what if he managed to knock Cynthia and Grace out, put the car into gear before I got to him? I might get the drop on him but not in time to stop the car from rolling off the edge.
It had to be now. I had to rush him—
And then I heard a car starting.
It was the Impala.
“What the hell are you doing?” Enid screamed at Clayton, sitting in the driver’s seat. “Turn that off!”
But Clayton wasn’t paying any attention to her. He turned, calmly, to his left. He had a small smile on his face. He looked almost serene. The Impala was right alongside Cynthia’s Toyota, and he nodded at his daughter and said, “I never, ever stopped loving you, or ever stopped thinking about you and your mother and Todd.”
“Clayton!” Enid screamed.
And then Clayton looked at Grace, her eyes just visible above the door. “I wish I could have gotten to know you, Grace, but I know without a doubt that with a mother like Cynthia, you are very, very special.”
Then Clayton gave his attention to Enid. “So long, you miserable old cunt,” he said, and dropped the car into gear and hit the gas.
The engine roared. The Impala bolted forward toward the edge.
“Momma!” Jeremy