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 left.
Why would he go anywhere else? He had the sheriff to protect him.
She retrieved the blanket and gas can and continued her walk toward the house. The brush was thick. Claire felt a moment of panic where she wondered if she’d gotten off course, but then she saw the green roof of the house. She walked in a crouch. The windows were still boarded up with weathered plywood. Claire stayed low anyway, because she knew that there was a slit in the den windows that showed the driveway, so it followed that there would be others.
The overgrown back yard hadn’t had time to absorb the slow, sloppy rain. Claire heard dry grass crackle under her feet. The swingset groaned as a strong wind swept through the open field where the Amityville barn had been. Claire kept clear of the area. She used her feet to press down a patch of tall grass to create a staging area for the blanket and its contents.
She studied the back of the house. The plywood board she and Lydia had pried off the kitchen door was leaning up against the side of the house. They had left it on the ground where they’d dropped it. She assumed Paul had neatly leaned up the board beside the door. He had probably straightened up inside the house as well. Or maybe he’d left the silverware strewn across the floor as a sort of alarm so that he would know if someone tried to enter the house.
Claire was more worried about getting Paul out of the house than her going in.
She bent down to the gas can and took the cap off the flexible spout. She started to the left of the small back porch off the kitchen, dripping gasoline down the slats of wooden siding that covered the exterior of the house. Claire worked carefully so that the gas got into the seams between the boards. She raised up the can every time she passed a window, soaking the plywood as much as she could without making too much noise.
Claire’s heart was pounding so loudly when she walked up the front porch steps that she was afraid the noise would give her away. She kept her eyes on the garage. She tried not to think about Paul in there with Lydia. The roll-up metal door was still padlocked from the outside. The hasp was secure. His murder room. Lydia was locked inside his murder room.
Claire turned back around. Quietly, she made a half-loop back around the house, double-checking her work underneath the boarded-up windows. By the time she was finished, she’d poured a crescent of gasoline around the left side of the house, covering the front porch, the bedrooms, and the bathroom. Only the kitchen and garage were left untouched.
Step one: complete.
Claire returned to the foil blanket. She knelt down. She was sweating, but her hands were so cold she could barely feel her fingers. She said a silent apology to her mother the librarian as she ripped apart the Shelley collection. She wadded and rolled together the pages into a long wick. She unscrewed the spout from the gas can. She shoved the wick inside, leaving around six inches of exposed paper.
Step two: ready.
There were two long flares from the backpack. Claire kept both in her hand as she walked to the front of the house. She stood underneath the sewing room. The empty street was behind her. At the gas station, she had read the instructions for lighting the flare. It worked the same way as striking a match. You pulled off the plastic cap and struck the sandpaper side to the top of the flare.
Claire pulled off the plastic cap. She looked up at the house. This was the moment. She could stop now. She could go back to her car. She could call the FBI in Washington, DC. Homeland Security. The Secret Service. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
How many hours would it take for them to get to the house?
How many hours would that give Paul alone with her sister?
Claire struck the top of the flare. She jumped back, because she hadn’t anticipated such an immediate, blazing plume of fire. Sparks dripped at her feet. The flare made a spurting sound like a faucet turned on full blast. She felt a quiver of panic at what she was doing. She’d thought there would be more time, but the fire was rapidly eating away the seconds. The gasoline had caught. Reddish orange flames licked up the side of the house. She dropped the flare. Her heart was in her throat. She had to move quickly. This was happening now. There was no going back.
Claire jogged around to the side of the house. She struck the other flare and dropped it underneath the master bedroom. There was a whooshing sound, a puff of hot wind, and the flames roiled along the gas trail up to the plywood boards covering the window.
The heat was intense, but Claire was shivering. She ran back to her staging ground and wrapped the Mylar cape around her shoulders. The crinkly material barely covered her upper body. She looked up at the sky. The clouds were moving fast. The rain had gone from a fine mist to big, fat drops. Claire hadn’t counted on the rain. She watched the side of the house to make sure the fire was taking. White smoke spiraled high into the air. Orange flames licked out from behind the plywood.