“I open this door and you don’t say a thing, you hear me?” She leveled the gun at my face.

  I nodded. She lowered the gun and turned the doorknob.

  Any other patient, like the man before me on the hospital bed, would have been pushed into a nursing home or a state facility years ago, except for the money Eve—or someone—spent to care for him at home.

  He was severely brain-damaged; his eyes were wildly askew; his yellow teeth were ragged and crooked as his mouth hung open. A tube was attached at his throat to help him breathe and two others beneath the bed collected urine and feces. A monitor beside the bed kept track of his heartbeat and his oxygen levels.

  “This is Andy,” Julia said, taking one of his thick hands. He turned his head slightly toward her and groaned in greeting.

  I reached over and patted his leg. It felt misshapen and shrunken beneath the hospital blanket. I remembered Earlene’s comment about Eve having to spend much of her salary on healthcare for her mother and this house. A good chunk of it had to go to caring for this poor man.

  Earlene’s words echoed in my head: “You don’t know what’s behind those awful doors.”

  Despite the warning, I had to speak.

  “Why keep him such a secret?” I asked. “Your sister could have had help from the state. He could have been cared for someplace that wouldn’t have been so stressful on her or your family.”

  She shoved me out the door into the hallway. I tumbled against the wall and sank onto the floor. My arm popped as I hit the hardwood floor, shooting pain up my arm. Julia slammed Andy’s door shut. I tried to sit up but her wide, thick hand pinned me by the neck against the flowered wallpaper.

  “I told you not to say anything!” she screamed, waving the gun in my face.

  “But what about Andy? What about him?”

  “And let the world know the Dahlgren family weren’t the most perfect in Jubilant Falls?” Julia’s words were bitter and sarcastic. “No, we couldn’t let the truth about this family and its golden girl get out.”

  “But you love Andy, don’t you?” I gasped, despite the pressure on my throat. “You’re the one who protected him, aren’t you?”

  She leveled the handgun at my nose. “What do you care?”

  “This is Jimmy Lyle’s son, isn’t it?” I continued to rasp. “Jimmy didn’t die in the seventy-four tornado, did he?”

  Outside, I could hear the deputy shouting, demanding we come to the door, but Julia didn’t react. In the distance, sirens blared. I hope help gets here in time, I thought. If I could keep her talking, it might buy me some time.

  “Yes, he’s Jimmy’s son. My parents wanted to let him die in that Texas hospital. Eve said if we didn’t take him back to Jubilant Falls and care for him, she would tell the whole world how his father was murdered.”

  She released her grip on my neck. Holding my broken arm close to my chest, I pushed myself into a sitting position with my feet and my one good arm.

  “How did Jimmy die?” I winced in pain.

  Julia sank against the wall next to me, the gun in her hand, hanging between her heavy legs. Fear kept me from running—fear of what her feral, quick reflexes would do to me and fear that, with my injury, I couldn’t react quick enough. But I also wanted to hear the story that kept me awake nights for the past forty years.

  “When Eve came home and said she was pregnant, our father threw a fit. He’d worked his way up at Traeburn Tractor from the line, where Grandpa Dahlgren started, to vice president and he wasn’t going to have anything like a pregnancy, or some disgusting teen-age shotgun wedding, ruin how he thought he should be perceived. That night before the tornado, my father, Eve and Jimmy got into this horrible argument. Dad was convinced Jimmy had ruined Eve’s life and by extension, his. My parents pushed Eve into everything and when she didn’t succeed, Dad beat her. He was reaching up to hit Eve that night, but Jimmy grabbed his arm and told him to never to that again.”

  So her dad hit her, just the way Eve would physically abuse the other cheerleaders, like Angela Perry. That also explains how and why she led Jimmy Lyle around by the nose. But it sounds like Jimmy stood up for his girlfriend that night and it cost him his life.

  “Did he ever beat you?” I looked over at her.

  She shrugged. “Why do you care? I got my share for being the stupid and ugly one—they sent me away to boarding school early, hoping to hide me. I flunked out before the tornado and never graduated from high school. It doesn’t matter anymore. The day of the tornado, Dad went looking for Jimmy. He wanted to settle it once and for all. Nobody was going to make him look bad, like Jimmy did the night before. Dad found him working in his grandfather’s pasture, just as the storm came up. Dad got into it with Jimmy again and he killed him, simple as that. Dad got home just before the tornado struck. He was covered in blood and soaking wet from the rain.”

  “Jimmy was found with a posthole digger through his chest and a tree branch on his skull,” I said.

  “I heard Dad tell Mom he knocked him out and shoved the posthole digger into his chest. The branch must have fallen on his head during the tornado. For the rest of his life, Dad was terrified he’d get caught. But Eve, little golden girl Eve—she turned the tables on the situation. She’d always been like that—if she could turn something to her advantage, she would. From that day forward, we all danced to Eve’s tune. Even though we both wanted to keep Andy, nobody ever paid two cents worth of attention to me because I wasn’t as pretty as Eve. And look at me today. I’m the only one left in this miserable place. I’m the one holding everything together.”

  “Did Eve pay for everything?” I pressed my arm against my chest as more pain radiated to my elbow. If I could keep her talking, maybe I could get out of this, somehow.

  “Oh, yes. After Traeburn Tractor closed and Dad couldn’t find a job to pay for Andy’s medical care, Eve threatened to expose him, even though she was already working and sending money home. So he took the coward’s way and blew his brains out. Unfortunately, that left Eve as the only income and god knows we couldn’t move from this house without exposing the biggest, nastiest secret of all. She declared that somebody in the family has got to stay here with Andy, so here’s Betty and me, stuck in this house once again. She paid me well to make sure I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  “Does Karen know the truth about Andy?”

  Julia smirked. “Of course not. She thinks he’s my poor retarded brother.”

  “Who killed Eve?”

  Before she could answer, Judson Roarke’s voice blared through a bullhorn: “Let your hostage go, Julia. Come out with your hands up and we can end this without anyone getting hurt.”

  She jumped to her feet and yanked me up by my shirt, pushing me toward the window. I screamed in pain. Her arm hooked around my neck again and she shoved the gun perilously close to my face.

  Down in the manicured circular driveway, there was a line of sheriff’s cruisers, a township fire department ladder truck, and an ambulance. The county’s SWAT team, with weapons drawn, had assembled in front of those vehicles. At the back of the cruisers, Charisma stood next to Dr. Huffinger and Gary McGinnis, who wore a Kevlar vest.

  “Do as they say, Julia, let me go,” I said. “Please. Let me go.”

  “Shut up!” She pressed the barrel against my cheek. She turned to the window and kicked it out, the glass tinkling on the concrete below. Weapons—service revolvers, automatic rifles—pointed toward the window in one synchronized movement. Judson Roarke waved them down.

  “I’m not coming out!” Julia screamed. “If you come in, I’ll kill her. You hear me?”

  She pulled me away from the window and pushed me back down the hall, toward another narrow door.

  “Who killed Eve, Julia? Did you do it?” I demanded as I stumbled against the wall.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for my darling sister. She got to go out on Saturday night with that idiot Earlene and I’d just about had it. Eve got to go out, Eve got to do what she wanted, live where she wanted and I’m stuck here with her child and our mother.”

  “So what did you do?” I leaned against the wall long enough to catch my breath and hold my broken arm close again. Intent on telling her story, Julia kept talking as she held the gun close to my face.

  “I told her I’d made an appointment on Monday to get the oil changed in my truck and we needed to drop it off at the mechanic’s Sunday night. She followed me in that Lincoln. She gets a fancy car that sits here when she’s back home in Texas and what do I drive? A piece of shit Franken-Ford I got to baby every step of the way. After I dropped my truck off, she decides she doesn’t feel like driving and hands me the keys, like I’m some peasant here to serve the queen. We were sitting behind the mechanic’s shop and she started bitching about how much sacrifice she makes and how hard her life is and I’d had it. I’d just had it.”

  “You stabbed her, didn’t you?”

  “Not before I choked the shit out of that bitch. She fought me though—kicked through the damned windshield.”

  “Did you drive her car to the park then?” It was Monday afternoon before Eve’s body was found. The murder occurred Sunday night. A dead woman wouldn’t have lain unnoticed in a public park on a hot June day until after three. She would have been seen sooner.

  “No, I drove home and parked the car in the air conditioned garage. On Monday, I left it in the park and walked over to the mechanic to pick up my truck.”

  “Why didn’t they find your fingerprints in that car? My boss did a night in jail because police found her prints.”

  Julia grinned at me. “Of course, my fingerprints were there—and they should be! I’m Eve Dahlgren’s ever-supportive sister, like I told the cops. I’m staying home with my poor mother and retarded brother to care for the family farm. And they bought it. Just because my sister let that gullible Earlene Whitelaw drive her car isn’t my problem. They won’t find any prints on the knife, though. I wiped it before I threw it in the sewer.”

  So Gary McGinnis knew Eve had a sister? How did I not know that? Why didn’t he tell me?

  “You were going to let Earlene Whitelaw take the fall for killing your sister, weren’t you?”

  Julia smirked. “If you and your reporter hadn’t gone digging, my family would have continued doing what we do best: getting away with murder.”

  Still pointing the gun at my face, Julia turned the knob and pulled open the narrow door. Curving stairs led up to a dark attic.

  “Get up there.” She pushed me from behind and I fell across the wooden stairs, screaming with pain. The door slammed behind me. I gasped as I heard the old skeleton key turn in the lock.

  “Let me out! Let me out!” I pounded on the door with my good arm.

  There was the sound of sloshing outside the door. I stopped pounding as a familiar odor filled the air.

  Gasoline.

  “Julia! Don’t do this! Please! Let me out! Let me out!”

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I found the light switch near the stairs. A single yellowed bulb glowed at the top of the stairs and I quickly made my way up into the attic. The attic was filled with old furniture and holiday decorations. I ran to the narrow triangular window at the front of the house and began pounding on the glass with my good arm, hoping the folks in the yard could see me.

  Did they? I couldn’t tell—all I could see was Roarke speaking on the bullhorn, trying to connect with Julia.

  There was a whoosh of fire igniting in the hall; smoke began to curl through the wide cracks between the door and the frame.

  Two shots rang out on the other side of the door. Had Julia just shot Andy and then herself? Was the twisted history this family had kept inside these doors now finished? Or was it the police, using a flash-bang grenade to gain access to the house?

  I ran back to the window to see law enforcement rush toward the porch and into the house.

  Down the stairs again, I began to pound on the door, despite the growing smoke. I needed to get out before the fire found Andy’s oxygen tank.

  I groaned in a combination of pain and frustration, running back to search for something to get police attention. Could they come through the flames on the second floor? I didn’t know. In one corner was an old kitchen chair, but it was heavy. I would need two arms to pick it up and shove it through the window.

  Smoke grew thicker in the attic, stinging my eyes and burning my lungs. My head spun with the chemical smell of the burning varnished wood. I tried to make my way back to the window, feeling my way as I crawled along the old wooden floor. Flames flashed through the attic door and at my back, knocking me on my face.

  The attic window shattered—it was a firefighter at the end of the bucket truck.

  Chapter 34 Charisma

  “Are you OK? Did she shoot you?” I rushed up to the gurney carrying Addison to the waiting ambulance. I’d heard two gunshots and assumed—like the assembled law enforcement—that one of the victims was my boss.

  I’d never been so happy to see someone who’d gotten the raw end of any deal of mine. Her arm was in a splint, but she reached up with her good hand to pull off the oxygen mask from her face and grabbed my sleeve. Her voice was raspy and jagged from the smoke.

  “Julia killed Eve—she told me so herself! She also told me Jimmy Lyle didn’t die in the tornado—her father killed him when Eve told him he was pregnant.” Addison started to cough and gasp. The EMT beside her placed the oxygen mask back over her face.

  “Betty told me that Eve killed Bob Martz, too,” I said. “I’ve got it all written down.”

  Addison pulled the mask off again. “Get back to the newsroom. Get this story written and up on the website. Nobody else has this story. We need to be the first,” She began to cough again.

  “Please don’t talk any more, ma’am,” the EMT said, reaching to place the mask on her face again.

  She waved him off and swung her legs over the side of the gurney. “Let me finish! Don’t forget the rest of your story, too,” she rasped. The coughing began again; this time, she lay back and allowed the EMT to replace the oxygen mask.

  “Of all people, you didn’t think you could shut her up, do you?” Gary McGinnis grinned at the medic. “Let me ride with you guys and get her statement. I have a feeling she won’t stop talking even on the way to the hospital.”

  I stopped to watch, as Addison was loaded into the back of the ambulance and Gary jumped in the back of the ambulance with her.

  How could one house contain so much destruction for so long?

  I turned to watch the firefighters fight the fire in the old house. Would it survive the flames or would it collapse in on itself?

  I looked over at Leland, who was talking to Judson Roarke. Maybe he was filling the sheriff in on what he’d found out about Eve’s son, Andy. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was telling Roarke about me. I didn’t care. I needed to tell this story of these three murders.

  Then I needed to leave town.

  I had half of my story left to tell, but right now I wasn’t sure I could do it. Maybe Dr. Bigmouth could fill Addison in on the rest of what he’d found out about me, I thought sourly.

  I stood in silence watching the firefighters contain the upper-story flames. The lower story looked like it might survive, but flame were now shooting out of the attic, where Addison was found. As the water hoses bombarded the old brick home, Leland sidled up beside me.

  “Hate to see a place like this go up in flames,” he said tentatively.

  “Uh-huh.” I stepped away in self-protection.

  “Charisma,” he began softly. “We’re both a lot like this old house. We’ve seen some serious injuries; we’ve seen some grievous pain. But we need to go on despite the scars we carry. This house may be burned, but it will be rebuilt. You can, too, Charisma. You performed like the pro the world remembers just now. We just solved three murders, one of them forty years old! You can’t hide forever, and, despite what I did to you, I want you to be whole again. I want you to be happy.”

  “Well, that’s your problem isn’t it?” I shot back. “I’ll be happy when I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

  “Charisma, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t fix this.”

  I turned to see the coroner’s van pull up the drive and pulled a notebook from my pocket. Leland could apologize forever—I had a story to finish. I stepped away from him and touched the fire chief on the sleeve, pointing to the coroner’s van.

  The chief nodded. “We have two victims: A female in her fifties, believed to be the suspect who took Mrs. McIntyre hostage and a male, late thirties, maybe early forties, who was found in a hospital-style bed, so probably unable to fight back. It looks like a murder-suicide. We don’t know if she shot him before she started the fire or after. I suppose Mrs. McIntyre could tell us that. We’ve got the state fire marshal on the way.”

  “Addison could have been the third victim,” I said simply.

  “Yes she could have.”

  I made a few notes and walked back to my car.

  Andy must have lived in the house; the male body had to be his. Eve must have brought her son home to care for him, then left town to get her degree and follow her career, leaving her sister here to care for their home, their mother and her son. What kind of life had Julia Dahlgren led?

  I needed to head back to the newsroom and get started on this story, before the TV stations from Collitstown showed up. I had the fire chief’s cell phone number. I could call him later for the final details.

  Shit. I have to take Leland with me.

  I walked back to the fire truck, where he was watching the flames and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “If you want a ride, I’m going back now,” I said bluntly, gesturing toward my red sedan.

  Without speaking—or perhaps realizing I wouldn’t respond to anything he said— Leland got into the car and buckled into the passenger seat. We drove silently back into Jubilant Falls; I stopped the car in front of the Holiday Inn and he got out without saying goodbye.