“Shut up!” Paul yells, but he’s looking at Jet, who is crumbling before our eyes. Red blotches have appeared on her face and neck, and tears are pouring down her cheeks. It’s a reaction to what she sees in our faces, I realize, a reflection of shame and revulsion.
“He’s lying,” she says in a tiny voice. “I mean . . . not about that. You’ve both been with me. But I’ve never done that with him. Never. How can he know that?”
“How indeed,” Paul says in a dead voice.
“Please,” she beseeches us. “Please believe me! He must have watched us with cameras or something. He’s been stalking me. You can’t believe him.”
Paul looks back at her with something akin to pity. “I wouldn’t have. But there’s no other way he could know that.”
“There has to be! This is sick. Please—”
“Boo-fucking-hoo,” Max says in a mocking voice. “At least now we know where we stand. All that matters now is Kevin. And I know one thing: this whore is never getting custody of that boy again.”
Jet looks wildly from Paul to me, like an accused witch in search of a champion.
“She’s his mother,” I say quietly.
“Lots of whores are mothers,” Max observes. “What’s your point?”
“Help me,” Jet begs, looking from Paul to me.
Max steps toward the back door. “Time to put an end to this bullshit. Come out to the patio, Paul. I don’t want these con artists to hear what I’ve got to say to you.”
Alarm bells are clanging in my head. “Don’t do it, Paul. Do whatever you want about Jet, but send Max home. Something’s not right.”
“You ain’t right, Goose,” Max says, raising his gun and aiming across the table at me. A trace of a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “The only person in here who follows your orders is Jet, and you were third in line, ace. I wonder who’ll be next. You look like you might have soured on her a little bit.”
He looks at Jet, contempt written on his face. “Can’t say I blame you. She’s been aging out of her prime for a while. She might perk back up after we relieve her of her motherly duties, though. Get a little nip and tuck where it counts.”
“You won’t get Kevin,” she says with the last remnant of her defiance. “I’m the best lawyer in this town. I’ll stop you.”
Max grins. “I’d say that depends on the judge, darling. And I own the judges in this town. Not to mention, I’m the boy’s father.”
Fear morphs into panic on Jet’s face. But something in Paul’s posture changed during Max’s last words.
“You’re forgetting one other thing,” Max says. “The only thing that really matters. In seven months, Kevin turns thirteen. Then he gets to decide who he lives with. And I took care of that a long time ago.”
I can’t bear to look at Jet while she realizes what this means for her future. Max’s been coaching Kevin’s teams since the boy’s first season of T-ball, guiding him into what’s now a perpetual spotlight of hero worship, even at twelve. Max owns and drives the luxury RV that ferries Kevin’s traveling baseball team all over the Southeast. But what must Paul think of this picture Max is painting? Where does he fit into it?
“All right, outside,” Paul says gruffly, walking toward his father.
Max reaches for the doorknob. “About damn time. I’ll tell you how I see—”
“Max?” Jet calls.
He’s still grinning when he turns, and his chest blooms scarlet before I hear the first gunshot. Staccato concussions send me reeling against the wall. Jet has snatched up my pistol from the floor. She fires four times, and at least three rounds plow through Max’s upper body, spinning him wildly and dropping him on the floor by the back wall.
“What the fuck!” Paul shouts, whipping up his pistol and aiming at Jet. “You killed him!”
“Yes!” she shrieks, the gun shaking in her hands. “He’s a liar! He can’t do that to me!”
“Paul, don’t shoot her,” I beg, stepping in front of Jet and throwing up my hands. “We don’t know what happened.”
He shakes his head in stunned fury. “I saw what happened! She killed him to shut him up. She was scared he’d tell me more.”
“I don’t think so,” I say quickly, staring at Max, who lies faceup at his son’s feet. “He pushed her past her limit, man, saying he’d take Kevin away. But it’s more than that . . .” The truth comes to me as I watch Max convulsing on the floor. “He was going to kill you. If you’d gone out on that patio, you’d be dead now.”
Paul’s face tightens in confusion, but he looks down at his father. “What are you saying?”
Max lurches up off the floor and gasps, then claws the air as though trying to pull himself to his feet. Watching him fight for life, I realize there’s no other possible reason he could be here.
“He came here to get Kevin,” I explain. “And for him to get Kevin, you and Jet had to die.”
A grating rattle issues from Max’s throat, then fades into a gurgle.
“He’s trying to talk,” Paul says. He drops to his knees and takes his father by the shoulders. “Can you hear me? Pop?”
A wet wheeze is Max’s only answer, but his eyes are wide with urgency. I don’t want Max Matheson voicing one more word. That bastard has the persuasive powers of Satan. But I can’t very well finish him off while his son kneels over him with a pistol.
Max is shivering. Watching him bleed out, I remember how cocksure he was in this very room only two nights ago. Why couldn’t I see then that he’d come not to protect his son’s marriage, but to warn a rival away from the woman who held him in thrall?
“Did you kill Mom?” Paul asks, leaning low over his father’s face.
Of all the things he could have asked . . . it’s his mother that dominates Paul’s thoughts now. Maybe he’s already written Jet out of his life forever.
Max’s head jerks up, falls back. “Shot . . . shot herself,” he chokes out. “Cuh-couldn’t believe it.”
“What about Jet? Tell me the truth. Did you force her?”
Almost any father would lie at this point, even if the lie would damn him in the eyes of his son. Because a lie would give his son a second chance at life. But Max has always lived for himself alone. Glancing left, I see terror in Jet’s face. She jumps as Paul slaps his father’s face to bring him around.
“Nuh,” Max groans, a guttural monosyllable. “She gave it to me. We made that boy, her and me . . . that beautiful boy.”
Paul swallows something sour, but he holds his place, unflinching, fighting to get the truth.
“I had to,” Max croaks. “Had uh . . . do what you couldn’t. Carry on the line. Don’t blame me for that . . . or her. She loved me, you damn fool. Now you . . . gone and ruined it. You’ve took that boy’s real daddy from him.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” Paul asks in a cracked voice.
Max’s eyes go wide, but instead of fear they hold inchoate fury. “Goddamn,” he rages. “This isn’t right. He’s the son you never were to me. And now . . . this.”