Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,103

of the rain,” Jake said.

“It was terrible,” Sondra said. “Coming down in sheets; it was like driving blind. The next morning, when it was still raining, I thought he would turn around and come home, but he went the wrong way—”

“He must have missed a turn somehow and he ended up in Boerne at the Shell station,” Abby said, putting it together. “She must have followed them from the motel.”

“I didn’t—” Sondra’s voice stumbled. “He wouldn’t stop, if he’d only stopped.” The words came hard. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She pressed the back of her free hand to her mouth. She looked lost, frightened, as frightened as Abby felt.

“I only wanted him to love me again,” Sondra whispered.

Jake said, “Why don’t you give me that gun?”

She gestured wildly with it. “I didn’t have to come here. I didn’t have to put myself through this.”

“No,” Jake said.

“She wants the jacket,” Abby said, hoping to distract her.

“You want this?” Jake opened out the jacket’s front edges.

Sondra nodded. “I thought it would be nice of your mom to let me have it. I loved your dad, too, you know? He hurt me. Very badly. But I still love him.”

Jake eased his arms from the jacket’s sleeves.

“When he left me, I wanted to die. I wish I had been in the car with him. I wish I had gone over the cliff, too. I don’t know why I didn’t.” She looked at Abby. “Don’t you wish you were dead? How can you stand it? Living without him?”

Abby didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“That’s why I bought this gun, because I can’t stand it. You must feel the same, right? I can help you, help us both. I can help him, too.” She pointed the gun at Jake, and what sounded like a squeal rose in Abby’s throat.

“There are six bullets in here,” Sondra said. “Enough for all of us.”

Jake held out the jacket as if he meant to hand it over, but at the last second, when Sondra stepped toward him to take it, he swung it at her, making her stagger.

The gunshot that followed exploded into the room, deafening Abby, even as it seemed to suck the very air from her lungs.

Jake rushed past her, and in a blur Abby saw him hurl himself at Sondra. She lost her grip on the gun; Abby saw it fly; she heard it skitter across the floor.

Jake dove for it a split second ahead of Sondra.

Abby grabbed her cell phone and managed to pick out 911 and give their location.

Jake and Sondra rolled over the back of the sofa in a tangle of limbs.

When the gun went off a second time, Abby couldn’t hear her own scream, but she felt the force of it burn her throat. Flinging her phone aside, she went to Jake, dropping to her knees where he lay underneath Sondra, unmoving, pale. Abby shoved her. “Get away!”

Sondra scrambled to her feet.

“Jake?” Abby put her hands on his face; she touched his shoulders looking for blood, an injury. His eyelids fluttered. He took in a huge shuddering breath.

“Are you hurt?” Abby asked when his eyes opened fully.

He looked dazed, but shook his head. “Got the wind knocked out of me is all.”

Abby saw the gun then. It lay partially concealed under Jake’s leg, and she grabbed it, turning on her knees, leveling it at Sondra. It was heavier than she had imagined, and it felt cold in her hand, like something foreign, evil. Abby felt distanced from it and from herself. She felt as if she inhabited a different world now than the one she had wakened to this morning, but she would not allow this woman to take any more from her than she had already taken. Abby stood up. “The police are on their way,” she said.

“I don’t care what happens to me.” She ordered her hair, straightened her shirt. She didn’t look threatening or off balance now. She didn’t look anything more than exhausted and unhappy. But somehow that felt even more disconcerting to Abby, like the hush after one storm has passed, but you know there is another one coming. The air felt electric.

“My life was over when Nick died.” Sondra went to the sofa and retrieved her purse.

“Sit down,” Abby said.

But Sondra didn’t. She got out her car keys and looked hard at Abby. “You didn’t love him. I see that now and I hate you for it. Why couldn’t you let him go? Why should you have all