Page 40 of Atonement

There was a bulletin board on the wall behind me, with a stack of paper and a pen sitting on a clipboard just below it. I scribbled a quick note to the caretakers to make sure they took her out of the stall the next day for some exercise, then tapped it to the board and waved nervously at the horse (before chastising myself forwaving at a fucking horse), then left the barn.

I’d always locked the door to my house, even knowing Conrad had a key, but after Shawn was murdered I lost all illusion that I was safe as long as my father was alive and didn’t even bother closing the garage door when I got in my car to drive to his house the other night. Leaves swirled over the concrete floor and gathered in corners, driven by the wind. It didn’t matter. We were never coming back here. Cracking open the door, I paused to listen for a few moments in case anyone had been planted here to wait for me. But the house felt empty. I swung open the door the rest of the way and stepped inside.

There was only one thing I needed before I headed to the main house. I walked quickly up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and jogged down the hallway. The one item untouched in my bedroom was taped to the bottom of my bedframe. I rarely touched it anymore, especially since I decided to attempt suicide in a bloodless fashion in order to spare Maddie the sight. I dropped to my knees and felt underneath the bed, but the only thing my hand met was the empty gun holster.

“Looking for this?”

I stood slowly, Anita coming into view over the top of the bed as I did so. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame as if to chat casually, but held my unlicensed firearm between two fingers in her left hand.

“You’re going to blow your foot off with that if you’re not careful,” I said, keeping my voice light as if it hadn’t given me the surprise of my life to hear her voice.

“I know how to use a gun, Meyer.” She rolled her eyes and switched it to her right hand, putting her finger on the trigger but pointing the muzzle at the ground. “A girl has to know how to protect herself.”

“I don’t think it’s you who needs protection.”

She smiled wide, her teeth like fangs. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. I’ve beensofucking bored hiding in your basement. And what was up with that two-day bender you went on?”

A couple steps closer. “You don’t know about Shawn?”

She frowned. “What about Shawn? That’s close enough.” She lifted the gun slightly, and I stopped about six feet away.

“Conrad killed him. Or maybe it was Joshua, I’m not sure. Regardless, Dad gave the order.”

She sighed and had the good grace to look a little sad. “That’s too bad. He was my fall guy for all this. Sooner or later, Daddy would have turned him over as the one responsible.” The gun waved wildly as she threw up her hands. I stepped forward while she was looking at the ceiling. “Now I have to come up with something else.”

She and our father really did share a brain. “Conrad has already figured it out.”

“Oh?”

“He made it look like Shawn committed suicide.” My stomach turned to a rock as images rose to my mind, unbidden, of my best friend cut open and bleeding out in my car. “I cleaned up the body, but one of his buddies is already talking to the police, greasing palms, convincing anyone with a modicum of power that he killed himself out of fear that he’d end up in federal prison for the rest of his life.” The marks around his neck and his defensive wounds would be written out of the autopsy after a generous donation to the Medical Examiner’s bank account. Anyone would look the other way for that kind of money, and even if they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t say no to the threats that followed.

She sighed in relief. “Oh, well, thank God for that.”

I took a step forward, ignoring the glare she gave me as she raised the gun to the level of my chest. I had to get close enough to her that when I finally snapped and tackled her, she wouldn’t have enough time to pull the trigger.

“He really liked you.” I couldn’t count how many times I’d warned Shawn of my sister’s psychopathic tendencies, but he’d always brushed them off. “You don’t know her like I do,” he’d say. With him, she put on a mask that she never bothered to wear around anyone else. He fell for it so hard it killed him.

Her smirk took up her entire face. “I know. That’s why this worked so well.”

“How the hell did you get contacts with terrorists?”

“I don’t just sit around painting my nails all day at work. I learned computer code.” She smiled wider and raised one eyebrow. “Then I got onto the Dark Web.”

“You sound like a Bond villain.”

“I know, right?” She chuckled. “Your girlfriend said the same thing right before I smashed her head into the dock. You two are so cute.”

“How did you become like this?”

“How did younot? I’ve watched you get your ass kicked more times than I could count over the years, and you’re still a total wuss.”

“Being kind is not a weakness, Anita.” I coughed a little at my words. Was I kind? Certainly no one had ever used those words to describe me before. “At least I’m not a fucking sociopath.”

“Well.” She pulled the trigger. “I guess we’ll see who comes out on top.”

I froze, waiting for the sound of a gunshot or the pain of a bullet wound to spread through my chest. But there was nothing, not a sound besides the click of the gun as Anita fired at me again and again.

Move. Now.I lunged forward, catching her around the waist and driving her into the wall on the other side of the hallway, savoring the whoosh of air from her lungs as one of her ribs cracked next to my ear. While she was still surprised, I threw her to the ground and wrapped my arm around her neck. She clawed at my arm, but I couldn’t even feel her nails in my skin.

---