in fact, and took a step toward Nigel, lifting the arm holding the gun.
“Dakota!” Winnie’s scream was shrill, but the only indication he’d heard her was a slight sway his head made in her direction.
She looked down at Nigel, afraid to leave him and even more afraid to move him. But if her phone was trapped underneath his body... She needed to calm down, clear her head. She thought of Samuel, upstairs doing his homework—had she really heard his door open, or had she imagined it?—and mentally begged him to stay put. If he heard Dakota’s voice he’d stay in his room, she thought. But Dakota had yet to say anything, and that was the strangest, scariest part.
Winnie tried to stand up, but something abruptly slammed her back to the floor. She felt pain explode in her knees and she fell forward over Nigel, the palm of her hand almost landing on his bleeding shoulder. Astonished, she looked over her shoulder at Dakota, who had been the one to shove her down. He wasn’t looking at his sister; his eyes were now on Terry Russel—the thing that didn’t belong in this situation. Winnie tried to stand up again with the same result: Dakota’s heavy hand resting on her shoulder before slamming her back to her knees. This time, she managed to crawl across Nigel’s legs and away from her brother.
“What is wrong with you?” she gasped, backpedaling farther from him. His only response was to raise the gun, the muzzle pointing at Nigel’s chest, and to shoot it, once...twice. Winnie didn’t scream; she was too stunned. Besides, if you knew you were dreaming it was stupid to scream, wasn’t it?
Terry Russel screamed, however. It was an old woman’s scream, deep and frail, and it didn’t go very far. Nigel’s body bucked only when the second bullet hit him. There was a faint curling of smoke above where the bullet entered his chest—or at least Winnie thought there was. The pops of the gun were so loud Winnie’s vision seemed to tremble, and when the air settled, her husband was dead. Winnie was puzzling over the fact that her knees had hurt when Dakota shoved her down, hurt like it wasn’t a dream. She could see a stream of red pooling underneath Nigel; his shirt had been white, hadn’t it...? She reached to touch the blood; if it was warm, this wasn’t a dream. You couldn’t feel warm in a dream. Winnie opened her mouth to scream; in that moment her head suddenly exploded with pain and everything went black.
* * *
Her eyes opened gently, but what came after she opened them was the most painful moment of her life. Her head felt like someone had opened her skull and poured hot coals inside. Pressing the heel of her hand to her right eye, she struggled to sit up. When her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was Terry Russel, sitting across from her on the floor of the blue bedroom, the one in the apartment. She wasn’t dreaming, and that meant that Nigel was dead.
Winnie felt the pain straight down her middle; it tore out of her mouth in what should have been a cry of anguish, but, muted by the gag in her mouth, came out as no more than a muffled sob. Her hands were bound behind her back with what felt like duct tape. She couldn’t see; beneath her tears, her eyes strained to focus on anything other than Terry Russel. She moaned again, this time in frustration, and blinked furiously to clear her eyes. Where was Samuel? The panic drove her to her feet, which she was relieved to see were not bound. She wobbled unsteadily before rushing for the door. Winnie couldn’t reach the doorknob with her hands bound. She had no doubt it was locked from the other side, the house side. Nigel had insisted they put a solid lock on the door to the separate apartment in case they did decide to take on a renter; they could make sure the tenant couldn’t get into the main house, he’d said, by dead-bolting the door from the Crouches’ side. She looked around at the kitchenette and bathroom door. On the other side of the locked door was Nigel’s den. She could picture the Lovesac, the ridiculously overpriced couch he loved so much. At the thought of her husband she bent over, pulling short breaths in through her nose. Focus. Samuel... Samuel... Samuel... Focus.