The Winslow Incident (60 page)

“The flour looked kind of grayish,
but I didn’t know why. How could I know?”

“Shut up, Sean!” Hazel cries.
Deeper and deeper he digs.

“You should’ve known.” Doc Simmons
scolds with the bone. “You work at the bakery.”

Hazel screams at Simmons, “Should’ve
known? You
did
know, you lunatic. And what did you do about it? You’re a
coward, Simmons!”

“You knew too!” Simmons yells
back. “What did you do about it? Either of you?”

“Enough of this nonsense!” Gus
Bolinger shouts. “This is ridiculous—”

Tiny Clemshaw strikes Gus on the
nape of the neck with the butt of his shotgun and Gus drops. Clearly Tiny and
his shotgun have had enough of Gus Bolinger’s nonsense as well.

“I tried. I’m sorry. I tried,”
Sean is saying.

But it’s difficult for Hazel to
hear him over the gasps and accusations and the rope creaking in the breeze of
the fans and the men checking the loads in their guns and the clanging in her
own head:
Blame.
Clang.
Will.
Clang.
Be placed!
Clang-clang!

At last she reaches Sean at the
fireplace and shoves him behind her, as if her slender body might physically
protect him. “Don’t say another word,” she hisses at him under her breath. Then
she addresses the crowd, which seems to grow larger and uglier with each
passing moment. “Let’s get this straight. It’s Fritz Earley’s fault the flour
was bad and Zachary Rhone’s that the bread got delivered.”

“Mighty convenient,” Mathers says,
“seeing as neither one is alive to defend himself.”

“Did Rhone hold a gun to your
head?” Tiny Clemshaw gestures at Sean’s head with his shotgun. “What about
you?” He points the gun at Hazel. “I saw you in the delivery van too.”

Feeling helpless, Hazel looks at
Sean, but he’s busy staring at Fritz Earley’s body in the lobby. She sees
firearms sited on them from every direction and wonders,
Where did all these
guns come from?

“Let’s see this bad flour!” Kohl
Thacker can’t stand still.

“Too late for that.” Kenny narrows
his eyes at Sean. “Seeing as Adair here burned the bakery clear to the ground.”

“Did you set the bakery on fire,
son?” Mathers asks Sean.

“Yes, but not to—”

“He burned the bakery to destroy
the evidence!” Kenny says.

“And killed Zachary and Melanie
Rhone to keep them quiet,” Clemshaw adds.

“He’s killed before,” Mathers says.
“Told us so himself.”

“Stop stop stop!” Hazel screams.
Backed against the fireplace, she shields Sean with her arm, trying to deflect
their words. “He was forced to hurt Hawkin Rhone to protect me. But Sean has
never hurt anybody else.”

Doc Simmons is toying with the
skull. “Except for all those little children he poisoned to death.”

“There are no dead children!”
Hazel shouts.

“Hazel,” Mathers’ tone takes an
especially grim turn, “we saw you with the Rhone girls right before they disappeared
too.”

“Tell us where their little bodies
are stacked,” Kenny orders.

Hazel’s eyes drift to the empty
noose . . . and she suddenly worries that the promise she made to James
Bolinger in Matherston will prove unbearable to keep.
“Don’t tell anybody
we’re here,”
he’d beseeched her in such desperation,
“I can’t let them get
us—it’s really scary there.”

Hazel returns her attention to the
really scary mob before her. “The children are safe,” she says, willing her
voice to sound more commanding and less terrified. “And they’ll keep safe only
if they stay hidden from you until you’re feeling like yourselves again.”

“She’s telling the truth,”
Patience cries. “I swear on my Gram Lottie’s grave!”

Kenny steps close enough to Hazel
that she can smell his sour milk breath on her face when he says, “Prove it.
Show us one kid and we’ll believe you.”

Hazel swings toward Sean, tightly
pursing her lips at him,
We cannot tell.

And yet when Sean nods his
understanding, she’s tortured by how soft and exposed his throat
looks—not red or raw or ragged. Uncertainty slices through her.

“Where are they?” Kenny asks
almost cheerfully.

Sean gives Hazel a slight shake of
his head.

So she takes his hand in hers and says
to Kenny—says to them all— “I won’t tell you.”

Hazel sees Patience ducking out of
the ballroom and immediately understands that she’s headed to Matherston to
retrieve a brave child or two in an effort to dampen the fervor. But as
Patience disappears through the doorway, Hazel feels the corners of her mouth
tugging down, her eyes filling with tears. Because she knows that it’s already
far too late. She strengthens her hold on Sean’s hand.

“Go on, Hazel,” Kenny says, “what
are you waiting for?” Then he grins.

And in that horrible instant Hazel
realizes that Kenny knows exactly where the kids are hiding and how desperate
they are not to be found. And that if she won’t reveal their location, he will—but
only after Sean has already been punished for killing them.

A few dismal groans and the
scritch of the rope chafing against the chandelier save the ballroom from total
silence. Hazel has caught Kenny glancing at that empty noose many times. His
mouth set in a calculating pose, his rat eyes look at the rope, then at Sean.
Rope. Sean. She can feel Sean’s exhaustion in the hand she tightly
holds—he’s so weak from the sickness and the strange things he’s been up
to over the past few days that he’s shaking.
Protect me—

With a howl of terror like Satan
is reaching for his soul, Owen Peabody snaps free of the restraints around his
wrists and reaches to unbind his ankles. Rose hurries toward her husband only
to be mowed down by men rushing over to quash Owen’s liberation.

Hazel sees that Kenny is torn. He
looks longingly across the room, itching to join the fray, but his reluctance
to let his guard down on Hazel and Sean keeps him rooted to the spot.

“You’re sick, Kenny,” Hazel states
overly loud.

He startles, turns to her.

“Aren’t you?” she asks.

People swivel to look at him,
surprised.

“You’re one of the sickos now,”
she continues. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Those eyes flash fury. “Shut up, you
scheming bitch.”

“Hazel . . .” Sean pulls her
protectively against him.

She releases Sean’s hand and
pushes him back from her. “Let’s see your feet, Kenny.” She steps away from the
fireplace. “Are they turning black?”

He lunges for her.

She dodges him.

Then runs.

Darting out of the ballroom and
through the lobby, Hazel skips over Ivy’s legs and shoves Fritz Earley’s body
out of the way like a punching bag—not slowing to look over her shoulder,
not letting herself think about him giving chase, not daring to consider the
bullet that might split her spine at any moment. She dodges Hap Hotchkiss on
the lower stair and takes the steps three at once, climbing the red-carpeted
staircase of The Winslow for the last time, thinking,
She’s up here, she has
to be, it’s the only way.

Hazel hits the landing and starts
down the hallway, her mind racing: lure Kenny away from Sean, find Sarah, get
her shotgun, put an end to this madness, and most of all keep out of Kenny’s
clutches. She’s well aware of him pounding up the stairway behind her.

She’s faster than he is, so she
might make it—unless he shoots her in the back.

She keeps running, refusing to
glance over her shoulder, afraid that if she does, he’ll be right there,
reaching for her hair.

Hazel bursts through the door into
her grandmother’s quarters praying that Sarah will be right there, ready to
blast this maniac to kingdom come and that’ll be the end of him.

Instead, Samuel Adair is sprawled
on her grandmother’s sofa, a nearly empty bottle of Scotch clutched in one
hand. He gawks at her in drunken puzzlement.

The baseball bat rests on the
coffee table.

Panic seizes Hazel by the throat.
“Where’s my grandmother? What did you do to her?”

“In there,” Samuel swings the
bottle to indicate the bedroom.

Hazel can’t see a thing—the lights
are off in the bedroom, and the darkness fills her with dread.

“Grandma?” She steps forward,
fearful of what she might find.

Closer, her grandmother comes into
view. Her frightened, fragile-looking grandmother, shrinking into her rocking
chair.

“Hazel,” Sarah fervently whispers,
“you shouldn’t be here!”

Boot-steps clomp down the hallway,
floor-shaking thuds.

“Grandma—where’s your gun?”

“They took it—run!”

Hazel whips around to face the
doorway.

He’s here. Kenny, his rifle, his
hungry wolfish grin. And he says, “I’ve got a score to settle with you, Hazel
Winslow.”

“I’ve got a score to settle too!”
Sean shouts from the hallway.

“Sean, no!” Hazel screams. “Go
back!”

Kenny turns just as Sean comes
into view.

“You’ve had this coming for a long
time, Clark,” Sean growls. “Drop the gun and let’s go!”

Instead, Kenny raises the rifle. Sean
dives forward and punches him in the face.

More blood flows from Kenny’s ripe
tomato nose. He looks stunned.

Before Kenny can recover, Sean
hits him in the gut.

Kenny doubles over, groaning.

Sidestepping Kenny, Sean heads for
Hazel in the doorway. “Did he hurt you?” he asks, his eyes full of concern.

Behind him, Kenny is rising, and
Hazel shrieks, “Sean!”

Sean turns and Kenny smashes the
butt of his rifle against Sean’s jaw.

Looking as though he might pass
out, Sean staggers down the hallway, back toward the staircase, leading Kenny
away.

Hazel darts into the sitting room
and grabs the baseball bat. Samuel doesn’t try to stop her, only looks
confused.

By the time she returns to the
hallway Sean has reached the top of the staircase.

Kenny is right behind him.

Sean falls to one knee, head bent,
clearly struggling to remain conscious.

Taking aim, Kenny says, “I never did
like you, Sean Adair.”

“I warned you never to say his
name again!” Hazel sprints for Kenny.

He turns toward her.

“And I meant never!” She swings
the bat and connects with Kenny’s rat head.

The crack of wood against bone is
a sound she remembers all too well.

Her broken elbow bursts into
flames; the bat suddenly weighs a thousand pounds.

Kenny stumbles. His left eye rolls
back into place, but the right roams and pools with blood. “I got fired,” he
slurs. “Your fault!” His finger twitches at the trigger of the rifle.

“Stop!” Hazel orders. “You’re hurt—you
need to stop this right now.”

“Pard said I can never come back.”
He wobbles, white as a ghost, his right pupil zooming in and out like a camera
seeking focus.

“Stop now,” Hazel says forcefully.

“Your fault!” He squeezes off a
shot.

The bullet whizzes past Hazel. The
wall sconce behind her explodes.

Kenny fumbles with the rifle and
manages to chamber another round.

Hazel charges and buries the bat
in his belly.

Kenny flails backwards. His feet
tangle. He trips over Sean.

Then Kenny is tumbling down the
staircase, hand reaching for the banister that eludes his grasp.

People in the lobby scatter. Kenny
lands flat on his back on the cold marble.

This time neither eye rolls back
into place.

Hazel wants to run screaming from this
pest house of horrors, wants to grab her grandmother and Sean and take them far
from this place. All she manages to do is start shaking. Hard sobs escape her.
The bat slips from her hand and rolls in a semi-circle around the floor,
leaving a crescent moon of blood.

Sean reaches her and wraps his
arms around her trembling body. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”

“He was going to shoot you.” Hazel
bites her lip, tries to stop the sobbing.

“Yeah, he was,” Sean says.

“That Clark bastard had it coming,”
Samuel says.

Hazel spins. He has joined them in
the hallway. Her grandmother too, looking exhausted.

“You had no choice, Hazel,” Sarah
says. “Never second-guess what you had to do here.”

 Hazel rushes to give her
grandmother a one-armed hug. “Honey told me Samuel was holding you for trial.”
Hazel shoots a look of anger at Samuel.

“What the hell, Dad?” Sean is
massaging his jaw.