Hart didn"t turn; he continued staring out the window. "You can"t talk me out of it, so don"t even try."
Garth pocketed his key. "If you"re so G.o.dd.a.m.n worried about this, then we need to talk about it before you do something you"ll regret. What good is it going to do anybody for you to tell the truth about what happened to Blake? It won"t bring him back. It won"t bring Enid back. All it"ll do is destroy us, both of us, you and me, boy."
"Lying all these years has already destroyed me."
Garth moved quietly across the room and stood directly behind his nephew, only a few feet separating them. He couldn"t let Hart tell Audrey and Wayne the truth. If he did...He won"t. You can talk him down, persuade him to do what you want him to do.
"You don"t want to hurt the people you love," Garth said. "Think what it will do to Wayne if he knows. And Audrey...do you think she"ll ever be able to forgive you? You don"t want to lose her love, do you?"
"If Wayne knows the truth, maybe he"ll stop blaming all the wrong people." Turning halfway around, he glared at Garth. "Audrey will understand. She"ll forgive me. She remembers how things were. We were just a couple of little kids. We trusted you."
"You can still trust me. Haven"t I always taken care of you? Didn"t I take care of you and Audrey that day?" When Garth took a tentative step toward his nephew, Hart moved away from him, closer against the window.
"I called her," Hart said.
"Called who?"
"Audrey."
"What did you tell her?"
"I asked her to come here. She"s on her way now."
"d.a.m.n it, boy, you can"t do this. If you won"t consider what will happen to you, at least think about me. This will ruin me. I"ve been a police officer all my life. I"ve done a lot of good for a lot of people. That has to count for something. If the truth comes out, I could go to prison for what I did. And you know what happens to cops when they"re locked up with the guys they put away."
"You can"t talk me out of this." Hart turned his back on Garth and faced the window. "I"ve made up my mind. I should be able to see Audrey from here when she drives up. She"ll be here soon. She"s never let me down."
"Neither have I," Garth told him.
"They won"t send you to prison. You only did what you thought was best for all of us, especially for Mama. They"ll understand."
"Yeah, maybe you"re right. Maybe they will understand." Garth slipped his hand inside his jacket and carefully eased his Smith & Wesson from the shoulder holster.
He loved Hart, loved him as if he were his own son. He"d spent the past twenty-five years taking care of his nephew, looking out for him, getting him out of trouble, helping him every way he knew how. And now the boy was going to betray him.
Hart wasn"t leaving him with any choice. He couldn"t allow him to tell anyone what had really happened to Blake.
Do what you have to do.
It would be easy enough to explain what happened. Hart was an alcoholic and a drug addict, a guy with severe emotional problems since childhood, a man tormented by his brother"s disappearance and his mother"s suicide. Finding out that Blake hadn"t been one of the Baby Blue toddlers had sent him over the edge.
I can say that I wasn"t surprised he took his own life, that I expected it for years, that I have lived in fear that it would happen eventually.
Garth crept up behind Hart and placed his left hand on Hart"s shoulder in a comforting gesture. "We"ll watch for Audrey together."
"And we"ll tell her the truth together," Hart said.
"That"s right. We"ll tell her the truth." Garth brought the gun up slowly to Hart"s temple. When he pressed the muzzle against his nephew"s head, Hart lifted his hand and clutched Garth"s hand that held the pistol.
Garth pulled the trigger.
Hart gasped and gurgled; and then as he slumped downward, Garth supported his weight for a moment before stepping back and letting his nephew"s body fall to the floor. Not taking time to even look at Hart, he worked quickly. He had to make this look like a suicide, one that he had tried to prevent.
He had my gun. He pointed it at his head and said he couldn"t go on living. He confessed that he had killed Blake accidentally and that Enid had done something with Blake"s body in order to protect him. He said he thought she buried Blake in the backyard somewhere, weeks afterward, maybe even the day she killed herself. Oh, G.o.d, I tried to stop him. I grabbed him from behind and had my hand on the gun when he pulled the trigger. See, his blood is still on me.
Yes, that"s how he would explain Hart"s death. A suicide.
He"d barely had time to set up the scene before he heard a car door slam. He glanced out the window. Audrey was there.
Garth reached for the telephone, dialed 911, and said, "Help me, please. Send an ambulance immediately. My nephew just shot himself."
The doorbell rang while Garth was making the call. He let it chime again and again. The door wasn"t locked. She would let herself into the house.
"Oh, G.o.d..." Garth hurried over to Hart, dropped to his knees, and cradled his nephew in his arms.
The front door opened. He looked up, put a stricken expression on his face, and cried out, "Oh, G.o.d, Audrey, he"s killed himself."
She rushed toward them and stopped suddenly as she looked down at Hart. "No, no..."
"I tried to stop him," Garth told her.
"We have to call for help," she said.
"I"ve already called nine-one-one, but it"s too late. He"s gone, Audrey. We"ve lost him."
"But why?" Audrey shook her head. "I don"t understand why he would kill himself. It doesn"t make any sense."
"He couldn"t live with the lies," Garth said as he rose to his feet. "He confessed to me that he accidentally killed Blake and that Enid covered it up by pretending that Blake had disappeared. That"s why she killed herself. Because she knew one of her sons had killed the other one."
Suddenly, Audrey"s mind went back twenty-five years, to that fateful day.
She didn"t understand why Hart was acting so weird.
"It"s my fault," Hart said. "It"s all my fault."
"What"s your fault?"
"Blake...my fault...all my fault."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about. What about Blake? What"s your fault?"
"I was supposed to take care of him. If I"d done what I was supposed to do, then it wouldn"t have happened."
"What happened? Why was Enid screaming? Why is Uncle Garth here?"
"Blake"s gone....
"What do you mean he"s gone?"
Ignoring her as if she weren"t there, Hart ran toward the nursery, lifted his fists, and beat on the closed door. "Mama...Mama..."
Audrey hurried to him and when she laid her hand on his shoulder, he turned and stared at her, his eyes filled with tears.
"Where is Blake? What happened to him?" she asked.
"Mama...She didn"t mean to. Uncle Garth said she didn"t mean to. We can"t tell anybody...."
Audrey backed away from Garth. "You"re lying."
"What did you say?"
"I said you"re lying. Hart didn"t kill Blake. You know he didn"t. You were there that day. You know what really happened. If anyone killed Blake, it wasn"t Hart."
"Are you remembering or just guessing?"
"A little of both."
"You"re wrong, Audrey. I"m telling you that Hart killed himself because he"d been lying all these-"
"Stop saying that! Hart did not kill Blake. You know he didn"t. If anyone killed Blake that day, it was Enid. Oh, G.o.d, it was Enid, wasn"t it? And Hart knew the truth." With realization bright in her eyes, Audrey shivered.
"I"m not going to let anybody ask you and Hart a lot of questions that will upset y"all. I"ll protect you, both of you. Just do what I tell you to do. Do you understand?"
She nodded. "Yes, Uncle Garth."
"And if you need to talk to somebody about what happened today, you talk to me, okay?" He searched her eyes as if trying to decide whether or not she understood. "If you don"t do exactly what I tell you to do, I can"t protect you and Hart. We don"t want anybody thinking it was your fault, do we? If that were to happen, they would take you away, you and Hart, and there wouldn"t be anything I could do to stop them."
Enid"s anguished screams and mournful weeping replayed itself over and over again in Audrey"s mind as she huddled near the fence in the back yard. Audrey squatted on her knees and curled up as small and tight as humanly possible, hoping no one could see her.
Blake was gone.
Uncle Garth said someone had stolen her baby brother.
But she knew that was a lie. No one had stolen Blake. He hadn"t been kidnapped.
"You knew the truth, didn"t you?" Audrey glared at Garth. "You"ve always known what really happened to Blake."
"Yes, I"ve always known," Garth admitted. "Enid didn"t mean to kill Blake. He woke from his nap crying. He had an ear infection, if you remember. She told him to stop crying, to go outside and find you or Hart. And when he wouldn"t leave her and clung to her, she shook him, and when he cried louder, she put her hands around his throat and strangled him."
"Oh, Blake...Blake..." She swallowed a mouthful of tears. "Did-did Hart see what happened?"
"No."
"Were you there when it happened?"
"I arrived afterward. I had stopped by to check on Enid. Wayne had asked me to run by on my lunch break because he was worried about her and he couldn"t get away to go home. He said since Blake had been sick and fretful, she"d been more on edge than usual. When I arrived, I found Enid sitting at the top of the stairs. She was holding Blake in her arms. I couldn"t help him. He was already dead. And before I could handle the situation, Hart came in the house to check on Blake."
"We have to do what Uncle Garth tells us," Hart said. "We have to!"
Audrey nodded. It was a sin to tell a lie. But if they just pretended they didn"t know what happened to Blake, they wouldn"t really be lying, would they?
"They"ll take Mama away and do horrible things to her." Hart clutched Audrey"s hand. "And Uncle Garth said he didn"t know what they might do to you and me. We-we were supposed to be taking care of Blake. It"s my fault...it"s all my fault."
"No," Audrey told him. "It"s our fault."
"We can never tell anybody. Promise me. Pinky swear."
Audrey lifted her hand, curled her pinky finger, and held it out to her stepbrother. Hart wound his pinky finger around Audrey"s and they made a solemn oath to do what Uncle Garth had told them to do.
"Our baby brother Blake was kidnapped," Audrey said.
"Somebody came into the house and stole him."
Oh, G.o.d, she remembered! All the nightmares had been real. Fear for herself and Hart had forced her to submerge the truth deep into her subconscious. As a child, she had been forced to lie and that lie had eventually become her reality.
"You remember, don"t you?" Garth asked.
"Yes, I remember."
"Everything?"
"Yes, everything. How could you have done that to us, to Hart and me? You scared us to death. You made us believe that if we told the truth, we"d be taken away and punished."
"I did what I had to do to protect my sister," Garth said. "I told Hart why we could never tell anyone what really happened. When he agreed, I had him walk his mother back upstairs and stay with her while I carried Blake"s body into the bas.e.m.e.nt. I temporarily buried him at the bottom of the freezer. I managed to completely cover him with frozen food."