Final Option

in the lock of the trunk, I found myself praying that the overhang wouldn’t get in the way.
    I don’t remember what Tim said when he opened the trunk. All I remember is the flood of moonlight, bright after the darkness of the trunk, and the slow-motion impact of the bullets as they tore their way into Tim Hexter’s chest as I pumped the trigger of the almost forgotten .38 automatic I’d managed to extract from the bottom of my purse.
    I had planned to shoot every bullet in the gun, but after the third shot he staggered and fell over on top of me, dead. I felt the warmth of his body, the sickening wetness of his blood as it gushed on top of me, warm and sticky.
    Suddenly I was suffocating. I was screaming. After the moments of calculation and control in the trunk, something inside of me broke loose and I scrambled, starved for air, heaving the dead weight of him off of me.
    I stumbled away from the car. My legs were cramped from what must have been hours in the trunk and trembling so that the ground seemed to pitch beneath me like a boat at sea. I staggered until my hand felt something rough. The bark of a tree.
    I grabbed it with both hands and threw up.
     

CHAPTER 25
     
    When I think back on the murder of Bart Hexter, I always begin with our aborted Sunday morning meeting and end with the bullets tearing into Tim Hexter’s chest. That is where the story ends in my mind, in my dreams, and sometimes even in my nightmares. But, of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Events dragged on over hours and days—macabre, tedious, and with flashes of burlesque.
    It took me some time before I was able to convince myself to return to the car. There was, of course, no other alternative. It was dark. I had no idea where I was. I was covered with Tim Hexter’s blood. I’d thrown up on my shoes.
    I walked around the front of the car. There were no keys in the ignition. I went to the trunk and looked in the lock. It was empty. Tim’s body had fallen head first into the trunk, but his legs hung out grotesquely. I looked away and got down on all fours, groping through the grass in the hopes that he’d dropped the keys before he fell. No luck.
    Screwing up my nerve I forced myself to go through his pockets until I finally found what I was looking for—the keys to his car. Then, without allowing myself to think about it, I shoved his dead legs into the trunk and slammed down the lid—just like he must have done to me.
    I got behind the wheel of the car and followed the road until I came to a gas station. There, while the teenage attendant looked on, aghast, I dialed 911 from the pay phone and told the dispatcher I had a body in my trunk.
    I was not feeling well at all. I was dizzy and freezing cold, and I felt like I had a thousand butterflies dancing in my stomach. Within minutes there were policemen everywhere—sheriff’s department, highway patrol, squad cars, and the paramedics. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get in on the excitement.
    They took me to the sheriff’s department where I used my one phone call to dial Stephen Azorini. I may not understand my feelings for Stephen all the time, but I knew that when Russell lay dying in his hospital bed, it was Stephen who kept me sane, holding my hand and that of my husband down the darkest road I ever hope to travel. If I ever needed that kind of unfailing friendship, I knew that he would be there.
    The rest of that night is all a blur. There were detectives and doctors and district attorneys. At first they couldn’t decide whether I was a crazed killer or a brave victim who’d foiled her attacker, so they tried treating me both ways. I explained the whole convoluted mess until I was shouting with frustration. After I’d been through it a dozen times, Ruskowski showed up, and I had to go through it all again.
    It was close to four in the morning when they finally let me go. Stephen was waiting for me, alone on a folding chair in the hall. I was so glad to see him that I felt weak in the knees.
    “They said you’d need a ride home,” he said, almost apologetically. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    I looked into his handsome face, and a tremendous weariness came over me. First thing in the morning, I knew, I would be calling Elliott to tell him everything that had happened. Right now it all seemed too much to begin.
    “No,” I replied gratefully. “Not now.”
     

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