a menacing black tip that would flare out once it hit soft tissue.
“For Paul,” she whispered, her voice sounding hoarse and desperate.
The last bullet would be for her husband, who had died a long time ago, back when he was a boy and his father had taken him out to the barn for the first time. Back when he’d told Claire that he’d had a happy childhood. Back when he’d stood in front of the justice of the peace and sworn to love and cherish her for the rest of his life. Back when he’d so convincingly held on to her hand as he pretended to die in the alley.
No pretending this time.
Claire clicked the cylinder into place. She tested the gun, holding the barrel straight out in front of her, curling her finger around the trigger. She practiced pulling back the hammer with her thumb.
This was the plan: She was going to pour gasoline around the Fuller house—just the bedrooms, the front porch, and under the bathroom, because she was betting that Paul was keeping Lydia in the garage and she wanted to stay as far away from her sister as possible. Then she was going to light the gasoline. Then Paul would smell the smoke or hear the flames. He would be terrified, because fire was the only thing that ever really scared him. As soon as he ran out of the house, Claire would be waiting with the gun in her hands and she would shoot him five times, one for each of them.
Then she would run into the house and save Lydia.
The plan was risky and most likely crazy. Claire was aware of both of these things. She also knew that she was literally playing with fire, but there was nothing else she could think of that would get Paul out of the house, taken unaware, long enough for her to act.
And she knew it had to happen quickly, because she wasn’t sure that she could pull the trigger if she gave herself too long to think about it.
Claire was not her husband. She could not so casually take another human life, even if that life had been drained of its humanity.
She tucked the gun into the front of her jeans. The barrel wasn’t long, but the cylinder dug into her hipbone. She moved it to the center, just along the zip, but that was worse. She finally shifted the weapon to the small of her back. The granny panties her mother had bought bunched up around the cylinder. The barrel went down the crack of her ass, which was mildly unpleasant, but none of her pockets were deep enough and she knew that she would be screwed if Paul saw the gun.
She opened the trunk. She unzipped the backpack and searched for the Mylar emergency blanket. The packet the blanket came in was small, but when she unfolded it, she saw it was the size of a large cape. The waterproof matches were on top of the flares, which were all on top of a thick paperback.
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
As Helen might say, poets weren’t the only unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Claire wrapped her stash in the foil blanket. She opened the four boxes of water. Her shirt was still damp from running through the rain. Still, she doused herself with water. The chill struck her immediately, but she made sure she covered her head, back, and every inch of her shirtsleeves down to the buttoned cuffs. She poured the rest of the water on the legs of her jeans.
She grabbed the blanket and the four-gallon gas can.
Gas sloshed around inside the large plastic can as she lugged it through the forest. A permanent mist of rain seemed to be trapped under the tree canopy. She heard a distant rumble of thunder, which seemed appropriate given the task she’d laid out. Claire squinted ahead. The sky was getting darker by the minute, but she could make out a powder-blue Chevy parked behind a row of trees.
Claire put down the gas can and blanket. She drew the revolver. She cocked the hammer. She approached the car carefully in case Paul or one of his cronies was inside.
Empty.
She uncocked the gun. She tucked it into the back of her jeans. Habituation. The gun didn’t feel so strange anymore.
She pressed her hand to the hood of the car. The engine was cold. Paul had probably been staying at the Fuller house from the moment Claire