Page 133 of Poison Wood

Eleanor swings the gun in his direction, shucks it, and fires again. His shoulder bursts in an explosion of tissue and bone. Johnny howls and falls to the floor, and Eleanor wastes no time swinging her gun in my direction. She’s fired twice. She could have at least two shots left.

“Wait,” Summer yells in a hoarse voice.

But I have no intention of waiting as her mother walks up to me. Rosalie was wrong. It’s the sins of the mother at work here, not the sins of the father.

My eyes dart to my father’s gun, but I can’t get to it. I can get to something else, though.

“Mom,” Summer yells in a voice that sounds more animal than human.

Eleanor flinches and looks back just long enough for me to act. I yank my Taser from my bag, flip it on, and strike. I aim center mass. Dead in her chest.

Eleanor screams and drops the gun. She falls to the floor, convulsing.

Summer screams again, but I don’t take a second to think about what has just happened. I grab the gun closest to me and hold it over Eleanor’s shaking body.

“Get my phone from my purse, Summer, and run until you get a signal. Tell 911 to send multiple ambulances. I’ll kill her if you don’t.”

Summer scrambles off the floor, grabs my phone, and runs.

Rosalie’s chest is still moving, as is my father’s. Johnny has somehow dragged his way to his sister’s side. I keep the gun pointed at Eleanor, my hands covered in my father’s blood. And we stay that way, protecting the people we love, until I hear someone breaking into the cellar doors.

Paramedics race in and start tending to my father, Rosalie, Johnny, and Eleanor. Stretchers are brought in, and I fight my way into the ambulance with my father even though the police are telling me they need to talk to me.

A paramedic starts an IV in my father’s arm, and another shuts the doors. Red and blue lights slice through the night and bounce off the walls of Poison Wood. Sirens wail as we pull away. I take my father’s hand and squeeze it, watching through the back windows of the ambulance as the molded brick structure of Poison Wood grows smaller and smaller.

Until it’s gone.

Epilogue

Miami Beach, Florida

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

6:40 p.m. EST

I’m late.

I check my phone and know I’m going to hear an earful when I show up. But I have a stop to make first. I press the button on the gate phone I’m parked next to, and when the giant black iron gates swing open, I drive through.

Marshall Sanders’s palatial home sits on five acres of Star Island. A pond with a bronze statue of a dolphin greets me as I approach the sprawling home.

Marshall and Jasmine are waiting for me by the front entrance.

I kill the engine to my rental in the circular driveway, check the time again, and hop out. I haven’t seen them in three months, since we were all in a police station together, giving statements.

Jasmine runs to me, Heather’s gold locket still around her neck. “Hi.”

I bend down to her. “Hi.” She wraps her thin arms around me, and I return the hug. “Brought you something,” I say, pulling a small wrapped box from my tote.

“What is it?” she says.

“You have to open it.”

She rips into the wrapping paper as she follows me around the car to the front of the house.

“How are you surviving?” Marshall says.

“I like that question,” I say.