“You’re lying,” she said, but her voice trembled.
Just then the cops arrived, the sirens so loud it drowned out all voices. The detective walked inside, took one look, and shook his head. “I’m glad he’s caught.”
The gunman, at this point, was lying on the ground with his eyes open. As the cops stood him up, they had to unclip his hands and feet, and one of the cops came over with handcuffs. Immediately Rural started to fight them. Before they knew it, he suddenly had a gun in his hand. He pointed it at the cop that he’d taken it from. “Now back up slowly.”
The cops slowly backed up. Rural looked over at the others. “I’ll leave now,” he said. “Don’t follow.”
“That’s not possible,” the detective said. “You’ve already killed somebody,” he said. “We can’t let you go free.”
“Too damn bad,” he said. He looked over at the sister and sneered. “You should be locking her in jail. She’s a true psycho,” he said, “but that’s probably not happening either. Bitches like her always seem to get away with anything.”
And then suddenly he opened fire on Bernie. And he turned the gun just as fast on himself, even before the cops opened fire.
In the shocked silence, Addie smelled the gunpowder.
Chapter 14
Addie raced to her sister’s side. But it was too late. A bullet hole was in the center of the woman’s head. Addie crouched in front of her sister’s body, overwhelmed with pain, shock, grief, all trying to work up through her shoulders. No matter what her sister had been like, she was still her sister. As Addie sat here, the tears rolling down her cheeks, a dog’s muzzle slipped up under her arm. She reached down and grabbed Bernie into a great big hug. “Well, you’re safe now, sweetheart. At least you’re safe.”
The dog licked her face gently several times, and she felt some of her grief easing back slightly. This was just such an awful scenario that she had no words for it. She felt … relief. Should she feel that way? Now? Her first voluntary emotion? She had a nagging sense of regret, for what her sister could have been, given different circumstances. Maybe if the family had spoken up earlier, gotten her professional help in terms of long-term hospitalization, they might have avoided this ending? Yet Addie knew, with her nursing background, that treating a patient with multiple mental illnesses made it so much more difficult. The drugs had side effects, didn’t work well when combined, masked the symptoms instead of curing them, dulled the patient, even led to suicide when weaning the patient off the drugs. It was a medical conundrum.
She slowly stood, looked at Tucker. He stared at her in worry; she offered a weepy smile. He opened his arms, and she raced into them. She burrowed tight against his chest. “I know she was mean, and she was a bitch,” she whispered, “but she didn’t deserve this.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he said. It took a moment to explain to the detective everything that had gone on.
He stared. “What a hell of a mess,” he said.
Addie turned to look at the gunman and the bloody mess around him—Rural was definitely dead too—and Addie immediately turned and buried her face against Tucker’s chest. She’d seen enough gunshot wounds in the ER to recognize the devastation. Death spoke a universal language and equalized all people. “Why did it take two more deaths to end this?” she asked nobody in particular. “I can’t live here anymore.”
“No,” Tucker said, “we’ll find temporary quarters elsewhere.”
“But we gave up the hotel.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll find a new place.”
She nodded slowly turned to look at the detective. “I don’t know what you would have done with my sister.”
“Why?” He looked from her sister’s body back to Addie again.
“Because she fabricated the whole thing about the dog biting her to get the dog killed.” It took a bit to explain, but she managed to tell him about all the abuse her sister had piled on the poor dog.
He looked at her in shock, shaking his head as he peered at the dead woman, and then turned back to Addie again. Then he said, “I know it’s not the right thing to say, but I’m really not unhappy that another bad person is gone right now.”
“I know,” Addie said. “She had so much potential, but she used it for everything evil,” she said. “Still this will be really tough on my parents.”
At that, Tucker held her close and said, “They’re coming home today, right?”
“Today or tomorrow. I don’t know which,” she said. “We’ll have to contact them to let them know.”
“And I’ll be there to help you with that,” he said firmly.
She smiled and said, “You want to pick that location for a new place for us to live, because I no longer want to be here.”
He leaned down, kissed her gently, and said, “I can do that.”
She whispered, “Soon?”
“Soon,” he said. “I’m staying with you until this is over with,” he said. “Not to worry.”
She smiled, looked over at the detective. “I know you need statements, and you probably have a mess of questions, so I have to stay here a bit longer. I understand that,” she said. “But I just want to go upstairs and lie down for a bit.”
“You do that,” he said. “We’ll touch base later.”
“Good,” she said, and she, with the dog at her side, walked upstairs and stretched out on her bed. She was so confused. A part of her had hated her sister, despised her. But, when the chips were down, she was still her sister, and her sister was gone, and Addie didn’t know if she should feel relief or absolute agony. And it just didn’t make any sense. The tears, once started, poured until the well finally emptied. She was dry-eyed but still shaking. In the meantime, she had a whole new future to look after. One that she cared about. One that she wanted to look after and to watch it grow. She looked down to see the dog at her side, worrying. She smiled, patted the bed, and Bernie immediately jumped up beside her, laid down, and Addie hugged Bernie close.
“We’ll be together from now on, Bernie. It’s okay.” The dog waffled gently and leaned in. “I know you were a warrior once too,” she said, “but your injuries sidelined you. I know you wanted to attack her, and that would have been bad for you,” she said. “It would have given my sister just what she needed to make sure that you didn’t get to live anymore,” she said, “and that I didn’t want to happen.”
She heard footsteps coming upstairs and watched as Tucker walked in with a worried look on his face. She smiled and sat up and said, “Bernie was comforting me.”
He smiled as he looked down at the two ladies. “My two favorite females in the world.”
“Well, outside of your sister,” she said gently.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“And the police?”
“They’ll be here for a while,” he said, “but the bodies are gone, and I thought maybe we should go out for a meal or at least move to another hotel to spend the night.”