LITMIR.BIZ

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walked back around the house to find all his guests had arrived. He showed the medical examiner upstairs, and encouraged the crime-scene techs to start outside with the ladder and cut window, then returned to the living room. He hoped Faith was up to talking to him now.

      Don was back in his hospital bed, the sheet and a thin blanket over him. On the sofa, Charlotte sat beside Faith, holding her hand. Gray stood with his back to the window, watching the two women. They all looked at Ben when he walked in.

      “He got in through the laundry room,” he told them. “Took out the window glass neat enough, I’m betting he used a cutter. He either found a stepladder in one of the outbuildings or brought his own. It’s still standing under the window.”

      “We have one,” Don said. “It’s damn near as old as the girls. Getting pretty rickety. Wood, with lots of paint splatters.”

      Ben shook his head. “This one’s wood, but newish. Maybe he picked it up at his mom’s house.”

      “Oh, no,” Faith breathed. “Has anyone told his mother yet? “

      Trust her to worry about someone else.

      “No,” he said. “I’ll do that eventually. The medical examiner is here right now, and the photographer is taking pictures. It’s going to be a few hours before we can move the body out of here.”

      Faith seemed to shrink. Ben felt cruel, but had no choice but to keep on being cruel.

      “I need to ask you some questions,” he said.

      She swallowed and raised her gaze to his. “Your, um, officer tried earlier, but I …” She closed her eyes briefly.

      “I couldn’t.”

      “I understand.” He tried to make his deep, rough voice as gentle as possible. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened in your own way?”

      “Yes. Okay.” She did, with some stumbling and halting and trembles. Something had woken her up, she didn’t know what. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I wake up every time Daddy goes to the bathroom, or a truck rumbles by on the highway, or the house settles.”

      Ben nodded.

      At first she’d thought that’s all it was, one of those sighs an old house makes. Then she heard a creak, and what she thought was something brushing the wall outside her bedroom. So she’d reached for her phone.

      “And then I saw him in the doorway. It was dark, but he was darker, and I knew it was too late to call anyone.” Her breath came in agitated pants. It was all Ben could do to stay five feet away and let Faith’s sister comfort her. “I told you I keep my gun under the extra pillow at night.”

      All he could do was nod again. His entire body seemed to be locked tight, absolutely rigid. All he saw was Faith, her blue eyes dark with remembered fear. He had his back to Don, and Gray and Charlotte were no more than blurs on the periphery of his awareness.

      “I pulled it out and lunged to turn on the lamp. He was rushing forward, a knife in his hand. He was almost at the bed …”

      Charlotte made a soft sound of distress. Gray jerked, breaking Ben’s concentration.

      Faith was hunched as small as she could make herself, her gaze still pinned to Ben’s as if she couldn’t look away. “I pulled the trigger,” she finished, barely audible. “Twice. Or … or three times. I don’t remember.” The blankness was coming back into her eyes, shock tugging her back under. “I saw … blood. He … he staggered and dropped down.”

      “What did you do then?” Ben asked quietly. His hands, he realized, were balled into fists at his side. He could only imagine what her father was thinking and feeling.

      “I screamed and scrambled off the far side of the bed. I fell down. I looked under the bed and I could see him on the other side.”

      “Your gun?”

      “It was still in my hand.”

      “All right,” he said. “Then what?”

      “I pushed myself to my feet and made myself circle the bed. I was holding the gun. You know. But my hands were shaking so much, I could see it wavering up and down.”

       God.

      “Did you touch him?”

      She shook her head. “I could see his face….” What little color she’d had disappeared, just like that, and suddenly she sprang up. “I’ve got to … Got to …” She clapped a hand to her mouth and fled.

      Char raced after her.

      “Couldn’t this have waited?” Gray asked.

      Ben looked at him. “You know it can’t.”

      He knew he hadn’t succeeded in hiding everything he felt. Nobody was that good. Gray studied him for a moment, then dipped his head in acknowledgment.

      None of the three men said another word. Five minutes passed before the two women returned, Faith leaning on her sister. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and let herself be settled on the couch again, the comforter wrapped around her.

      Without prompting, Faith resumed her tale. “I edged out of the room, even though I wanted the phone on the bedside table. I was afraid to get that close to him. I knew he was dead, but … I guess part of me still thought he’d wake up and grab me. Dumb.”

      “Not dumb. Smart. He could have been faking it. Getting away, calling the police, that was smart.”

      After a minute she nodded, although Ben doubted she was convinced.

      Her voice was grave now, and small, like a child telling a story about something so bewildering and horrific she didn’t really understand it herself. “I ran downstairs. I fell the last few steps.” Faith paused. “I suppose I’ll have bruises. I can’t feel anything right now.”

      “Did you call from the kitchen?”

      She shook her head. “Dad was yelling my name and I went to the living room. I told him what I’d done and he said he’d call, but I thought I should do it. And then I waited here until there were knocks on the back door and someone yelling, ‘Police.’”

      “The shots are what woke me,” her father said, and Ben turned so he could see him. “And Faith screaming.” He shuddered, not surprisingly. There was a lot of that going on tonight. “I reached for the phone and managed to knock it to the floor. By the time I got out of bed and found it, Faith had rushed in here.” He looked at his daughter. “I took the gun from her. I guess you’ll find my fingerprints on it, too. But the way her hand was shaking …”

      Ben had already spotted the Colt, lying on the bedside table. “Did you take it by the barrel or by the grip?”

      “Ah …” Don mimicked reaching out, and they established that he had never held it by the grip or touched the trigger.

      Ben turned back to Faith. “Did you see that it was your ex-husband before you shot him?”

      “Yes.”

      “How was he holding the knife when he came at you?”

      She stared at him.

      He took the TV remote from the bedside table and demonstrated the two choices, blade pointing up, as Hardesty had undoubtedly held it when he’d sliced Charlotte, or down, with the clear intention of stabbing from above.

      Gray moved to lay a big hand on his fiancée’s shoulder. He didn’t like the memory of what that knife had done to her.

      “Down,” Faith said, lifting her hand. “He was going to stab me.”

      “You did what you had to do,” Ben told her, as calmly as he could. “You’d be dead if you hadn’t shot him.”

      Unbelievably, she began to shake her head and kept shaking

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