Rachel limped through the front door like someone had taken a golf club to every bone in her body. They had moved to a nine-hundred-square-foot single-level ranch-style home in Torrington, an hour north of Darien. It had two small bedrooms, a narrow living room, a galley kitchen with off-white laminate countertops and old appliances, and a small backyard where Eric could kick a soccer ball and not much else. They ate breakfast and dinner at a coffee table. The kids were growing. They could not last here long.
The backyard was fenced in. It hadn’t been when they’d moved in, but Rachel had had the cedar pickets built and painted within the week. She didn’t need people staring at her kids. Nobody in Torrington knew who they were, and Rachel aimed to keep it that way.
Rachel paid Essie and thanked her. She got a glass of water from the kitchen and sank into the brown polyester sofa. She downed the entire glass in a single gulp, caught her breath, and went to check on the kids.
Her daughter was fast asleep in her daybed. She slept on her side, curled into a little C shape. She clutched her Baby Stella doll, with its removable pacifier stuffed in its mouth. They looked like little pink twins. It took every ounce of willpower not to wake her daughter up, hold her to her chest, and cry for hours.
Her son was on his bed, buried in yet another thick paperback. The cover featured a young man sitting in the gnarled branches of a tree with a human face. She knew it wasn’t easy for him, sharing a room with his sister, but none of what had happened was fair. This was a small inconvenience compared to everything else. Besides, they’d move soon enough.
“What are you reading?” she whispered. She was amazed that he could finish such a doorstop. He held his page with his finger and turned the book so the cover faced Rachel. “The Two Towers. Any good?”
He nodded his approval.
“What did you have for dinner?”
“Essie ordered in pizza. Meatball. There are a few slices left.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
A hot shower, clean pajamas, and a few slices of pizza sounded heavenly.
“Hey, Mom?” he said.
She looked back at her son. “Yes, hon?”
“Are we going to stay here?”
Rachel smiled at him and said, “For a little while. But then we’ll get a house where you and your sister can each have your own room.”
He nodded, placated. Then he said, “Will things ever be back to normal?”
This question took her by surprise. Without thinking, she said, “Yes. Yes, they will.”
Her son turned back to his book. “No they won’t.”
She sighed. No, she thought. They won’t.
CHAPTER 15
Today
Before Rachel’s brain had time to process the fact that she’d just fired a buckshot shell into Nicholas Drummond’s brother-in-law, she heard a pounding at the front door.
“Ashby PD!”
Rachel moved away from Christopher Robles. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere. She kept the shotgun trained on him and moved to the front door.
“My name is Rachel Marin,” she shouted. “I’m the owner of this house. An armed man trespassed on my property and forced his way inside. I am a licensed gun owner, and I shot him in self-defense. His name is Christopher Robles. He is alive and has been disarmed and is currently incapacitated, but he needs immediate medical attention.”
“Ms. Marin,” a man’s voice replied from the other side of the door. “Please put your weapon down on the ground, let us into the house, then stand back with your hands raised above your head.”
“All right. When you enter, there’s a staircase right in front of you in the foyer. The man is on the steps. He was carrying a SIG Sauer P226 and a tactical hunting knife. I’ve disarmed him of both. I’m placing both of his weapons, and mine, a Mossberg 500 shotgun, on the floor next to the door. I will then open the door.”
“We’ve called paramedics. Let us inside.”
“OK.”
Rachel placed the Mossberg, the SIG Sauer, and the knife off to the side of the front door. She opened the door, then stepped back and placed her hands up so the officers could see she was unarmed. A gust of cold wind blew inside, and Rachel shivered. The streetlights cast a pale glow into the darkened home.
Four Ashby PD officers entered. Two of them immediately went over to the steps to check on Robles. One of the officers, a bald black man with a neat goatee in his midthirties, took out a notepad. The other, a fortysomething Asian man with his hair tied in a short ponytail, stepped outside and went to fill in the EMTs. Rachel knew that following a shooting, the house would be crawling with police and medical personnel.
Why in the hell did Christopher Robles break into my house?
The black officer spoke in an even, sympathetic voice. “Ms. Marin, I’m Officer Lowe. Tell me what happened, in detail.”
“I was upstairs with my children when we heard a gunshot and a window break downstairs. I told my children to hide in our basement. When my security system administrators called due to the broken window, I told them to contact 911 immediately.”
She told him that Robles had been armed and made an aggressive move toward her with the gun, leaving her no choice but to shoot him.
“You have experience handling shotguns?” Lowe asked, somewhat incredulously.
“I do. And I am fully trained and licensed. I purposefully aimed for his shoulder.”
“You wanted to incapacitate him. Not kill him.”
“That’s right.”
“Gun like that has a lot of stopping power.”
“That’s why I use it. Someone breaks into your house with a gun and a knife and intent to use them, you don’t want to have to worry about getting off multiple shots to bring them down.”
Lowe shook his head, amused. “Glad I’m not on your bad side, Ms. Marin.”
An ambulance pulled into the driveway. Three EMTs entered with a stretcher. Robles screamed bloody murder as they placed him on the board and strapped him down. One of the EMTs handcuffed his noninjured wrist to the stretcher.
“My kids,” Rachel said to Officer Lowe. “They’re in the basement, hiding. I need to let them know they’re safe.”
“All right, go ahead. But we’ll need to take you down to the station to make an official statement. Do you have an attorney?”
“Yes . . . do you think I need one?”
“Can’t hurt. If this went down the way you said it did . . .”
“It did,” Rachel said.
“All right. Go get your kids. An officer will accompany you while we secure the house and make sure there are no more intruders.”
“Thanks, Officer. Just need to go upstairs to switch on the breakers so you have light to work with.”
The other cops had already begun taping off the staircase, waiting for forensics and ballistics to arrive.
Rachel slid past them and turned the breaker switches back on. Then she went to the basement door, entered the security code, and opened it. She went downstairs and came to the metal security door. Through a ten-by-ten-inch window in the door, she could see Eric and Megan seated. When they saw her, they leaped up and ran over. Rachel opened the security door and gathered her children into her.
“It’s over,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”