Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [70]
"If he’s dead, maybe Luther will leave us alone. Orson’s just doing this because I know about him." He chambered the first round.
"Walter, you’re a little crazy now, so just —" I leaned forward to take the gun from him, but he jerked back and turned his .45 on me.
"You put the gun down."
My finger moved onto the trigger.
"You gonna shoot me?"
"You aren’t a parent," he said, incensed. "You don’t know." He trained the gun back on my brother. "Count to three, you piece of shit."
"Okay. One."
"Walter!"
"Two."
"You kill him, you kill your family!"
Before Walter reached three, Orson drew his knees into his chest and kicked the back of my seat. Jerking forward into the dashboard, I felt my finger slip, and though I didn’t hear the gunshot, my Glock recoiled.
Walter fell back onto the steering wheel, and it bleated through the countryside. I lifted him off the horn and he sagged into my lap, spilling all over me.
I wept; Orson laughed.
27
I finished burying Walter a few minutes before five o’clock. Through the ceiling of pines, light was coming, and the white Cadillac would be plainly visible from the highway, if it was not already. The sky kindled with each passing second, and I felt the self-possession I’d known just hours ago disintegrating. Walking back through the trees, the mechanic’s suit rigid now with Walter’s frozen blood, I thought, I could crumble so easily.
When I broke out of the trees, I saw three cars speed by, heading into Bristol. It was light enough that I could see the textureless black mountains clearly against the sky, and anyone passing, if they happened to look, would see me stumbling along the shoulder toward the car. On the eastern horizon a trace of day warmed above the Atlantic. The sun was coming. The moon had disappeared hours ago.
I reached the Cadillac. Orson was unconscious in the trunk, an entire 4-mg vial of Ativan coursing through his bloodstream.
The front seat was a mess — pools of blood on both floorboards, the driver’s side window smeared red. I managed to scrape enough blood and brain matter off the glass to drive. Exhausted, I started the car and pulled onto the highway, heading south, back into Woodside.
I kept wondering what I’d do if a cop pulled me over. He’d see the bloodstained interior and the purple mass that was my left eye. I’d have to run. There’d be no other choice besides killing him.
Returning to Orson’s house, I backed the Cadillac into his driveway and parked beside the white Lexus. I agonized over leaving the car out here when the town would be waking within the hour. But there was no alternative. I needed to get Orson inside, clean myself up, and figure out what the hell I was going to do.
Reclining on a floral-print couch in Orson’s den, I dialed Cynthia’s home number. It was a sunny Saturday morning, eleven o’clock, and the sunbeams angled brilliantly through the blinds into the den, a scantly furnished room with a large television in a pine cabinet and a tower of CDs standing in the corner. Orson lay across from me on a matching couch, his hands still cuffed behind his back, feet bound with a bicycle lock I’d found in his study.
She answered on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Hi, Cynthia."
"Andy." I detected undeniable shock in her voice, and it concerned me. "Where are you?" she asked. "Everyone’s looking for you."
"Who’s everyone?"
"The Winston-Salem Police Department called my office twice yesterday."
"Why are they looking for me?"
"You know about your mother?"
She was going to regret asking that.
"What about her?"
"Oh, Andy. I’m sorry."
"What?"
"A neighbor found her dead in her house three days ago. On Wednesday, I think. Andy…"
"What happened?" I let my voice quake. How could an innocent man explain not crying when he learns his mother has been murdered? Even the guilty manage tears.
"They think she was murdered."
I dropped the phone and produced a few sobs. After