“Oh, Brigid,” whispered Abby, but the woman wasn’t done.
“I let you destroy my childhood,” she continued, focused back on Isaiah. “But you won’t destroy another child’s. I’ll kill you first. And, lucky for us all, Jeremiah’s not yours.”
“This is the Blackwood Sheriff’s Department.” Clay’s voice came over a loudspeaker, breaking the group apart. “I need you all to put your weapons down.”
Slowly, the men complied, setting down their rifles. All but Isaiah.
The crowd shifted again, and from out of the fog came the crunch of footsteps. A glance to the side showed Clay and his deputies, Luc with them, weapons raised.
“I want to see hands,” Clay yelled.
A sea of hands rose into the air, the men and women backing away from Isaiah.
Minutes passed, punctuated by the sound of walking on gravel, men and women switching sides, leaving just Abby, Brigid, Isaiah, and Mama.
“You, too, sir,” said Clay.
Silence.
“I want him to suffer,” said Abby.
“He’ll suffer in prison.”
“I want to press charges.”
Clay was a few steps away now, where Luc also stood.
“You can do that. But you don’t need to.”
“Against her, too. My mother.” She stared hard at the woman who was supposed to protect her and had instead thrown her to the wolves. “For whatever you’d call branding a woman against her will.”
“I believe I’d like to do the same,” Brigid said at Abby’s side; her voice was strong. Her eyes held Abby’s for a few moments as they waited for what came next.
“Yes, ma’am.” The footsteps crunched closer, and with a new energy, Abby watched Clay move—flanked by deputies—to Isaiah, who surrendered his shotgun. He looked small and scared facing off against someone he couldn’t bully. “Isaiah Bowden, you are under arrest for arson, assault, and battery…” Clay recited a litany as he led the man away.
With one last, long look at her mother, Abby turned her back on the only family she’d ever had and headed into a future that she couldn’t possibly begin to imagine.
28
Abby was down below with one of the deputies, giving her statement, and Sammy was playing out in the tractor cemetery, leaving Luc alone.
The fire trucks had left a couple hours before, and now there was just a single cop car parked in his torn-up drive, along with his truck, and the one they’d borrowed from that British bartender. They appeared gaudy among so much colorless devastation. Luc stood, looking at it all, alone with the filthy vestiges of his life.
God, that place—the Church’s Center. And the room where they’d hurt Abby… He squeezed his eyes shut, picturing the kids.
He sighed in relief that it was all over and they were safe, but there was pain in his chest for all the wrong that had been done. What a viper’s nest that place was. Too much to unravel, even though Clay’s task force—which he’d already begun to assemble—had started pouring in. He wondered how long it all would take.
From somewhere behind the barn, he heard the clanging of metal. For a second, he considered telling Sammy not to mess with his things. And then he remembered how pointless it was. Who cared if Sammy screwed the tractor up even more? Who needed a goddamned tractor, after all, if he didn’t have vines or even a place to live?
Another loud clang. He should check on Sammy. But still, he waited.
Without leaves on the trees, he could hear everything up here. Especially now, Luc thought, forcing his gaze to take in the charred mountainside, posts and vines and rocks mangled together, with the rare survivor standing intact above the rest. How did those bastards douse it all so fast?
With that amount of accelerant, you’d think the whole thing would be flattened—a clean slate, which would at least have the beauty of potential new beginnings. But no. Instead, it had the carbon-on-snow look of a movie battlefield, grim and gray and a filthy mess to clean up. And no matter how deep he reached, he couldn’t find the energy to do it. Part of him wanted to tear the surviving vines down, too—to drown them in gas and burn them with the rest. He might muster up the strength to finish the destruction. Rebuilding, however…
The sound of a vehicle forging up the drive broke through the dead silence of this lifeless hillside. Luc felt no curiosity. Nothing. It could be anyone coming up to see him. Anyone at all, and he had absolutely no more fucks to give. The last of them had been cremated by neighbors he wished he could wipe off the face of the earth.
The car—a pristine, white SUV—swung up the last curve, spitting gravel, and paused at the fork in the drive. Another cop, late to the party?Don’t see me, he prayed, keeping himself as still as his livelihood’s charred remains. When the car started a three-point turn, he thought his wish had been granted, only to be proven wrong when a deputy pointed the driver up here. It reversed and struggled up the steep slope to where he stood beside the winery. The only thing left standing.
