backed into the foyer, my eyes on the gun in Brad’s hand.
“What the fuck?” I said, and glanced at his face. He didn’t look well, his normally ruddy complexion gray, and his neck muscles taut. He was wearing a jean jacket with a sheepskin lining and there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He seemed drunk.
“Nice place you got here,” he said, and the words came out in a strange rhythm, as though he’d rehearsed them.
“Can I show you around, Brad? Can I get you a drink?”
His brow lowered, as though my words had confused him. “Yeah, a lot nicer than my temporary little shithole, right? This is where a real man lives, right?”
A memory flashed through me. The night that Brad and I were drinking. Me saying something about where Brad lived. A hateful look on his face. And suddenly I knew that Brad was here to kill me, and instead of panicking, I became calm and rational, my mind in overdrive. I knew I could talk him out of this. I knew that I was smarter than he was.
“Seriously, Brad, what are you doing with that gun?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he said, and raised it so that it was pointed at my head. Everything in the room disappeared except that gun.
“Jesus, Brad, think for a moment.” I stared at the gun, probably the same one I’d seen in Brad’s drawer in Kennewick. A double-action revolver. I watched as Brad slid his thumb onto the hammer. Did he not know that he could just pull the trigger? I needed to make a move, either attack or run. I was less than two feet from him, and I found myself lunging forward. The last time I’d been in a fight I was a third grader and I’d lost to a kid named Bruce in the first grade. I simply shoved at Brad as hard as I could, spinning his body so that the gun pointed away from me. He flew backward, his head striking the front door with a loud crack. I thought he might have been knocked out, but he hissed out a word I didn’t understand. I turned and ran toward the stairs. As I hit the first step, already thinking about the phone on the first landing, I heard the loud pop of Brad’s gun, and felt a slap of air at my back, as though the bullet had missed me by less than an inch. I kept bounding up the stairs. By the time I reached the top I could hear Brad behind me, his work boots hitting the first few steps of the stairway. I reached toward the phone, sitting on an antique phone table, and stumbled, falling to the carpeted floor, knocking the phone and the table over. Something warm had spilled across my stomach and I put my hand there. When I pulled it back I was surprised to see blood, and for a second, wondered where it was coming from. Then Brad was standing over me, the gun pointed in my direction. He was breathing heavily, a strand of saliva hanging from his lower lip.
“Why?” I said, but as soon as I said it, I knew. Brad was no psychotic, deciding to kill me because I’d insulted where he lived. He was doing this because of my wife. And in a few moments, it all unfolded in front of me. Miranda was using Brad to get rid of me. She wanted all the money for herself. Why hadn’t I seen this before? A sharp pang of pain went through my gut, and I grimaced, then almost laughed.
I looked up at Brad with his stupid face and shaking gun. “Miranda would never be with you,” I said.
“You don’t know a fucking thing.”
“Brad, she’s using you. Who do you think they’re going to suspect? She’s in Florida. You two are having an affair. Everyone knows it.”
I saw an expression of doubt on his face, and felt a sliver of hope. I held my hand against the exit wound on my stomach. The blood pulsing through my fingers was warm and thick.
“You think you’re such a big deal,” he said.
“Brad, you’re an idiot.”
“We’ll see,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
PART II
The Half-Finished House
CHAPTER 16
LILY
“Hello, there,” I said to Ted Severson. He was sitting at the bar in the business class lounge at Heathrow Airport. I had recognized him right away but doubted he recognized me. We’d only met once, a