Oh, it was wonderful, our years together.
My little plaything.
My little Pip.
But, end it must.
You must forget me.
How are you to fill your days without thinking about me?
Even I don’t know. Perhaps you will always think about me.
Live all your days with me on your mind, then.
Perhaps you won’t, but I think you will.
My Pip.
Every day, always. My Pip.
Stella
My first thought upon finishing the letter was that she didn’t write it. Someone else wrote it and signed her name. I didn’t know her handwriting, had never seen it. I did know her signature, though. She had signed all the paintings in the house, and I remembered each of those images with complete clarity. The brushstrokes vividly etched in my mind. The signature on the letter matched the signature on those paintings.
Stella
The style of the signature matched the text above—the penmanship, the ink, the curve of each letter, the cross of ator the swirl of ane. I didn’t want to believe they were written by the same hand, by her hand, but the closer I looked, the more certain of this I became, and by my sixth pass, I could no longer read the letter through the tears filling my eyes.
Oliver said, “Seven years ago, you and I sat upon that bench and I told you, ‘you will never have her. As much as you may one day desire her, she will never be yours.’ Do you remember?”
I said nothing.
My tears fell on the letter. A drop fell on the wordforget.I watched the ink as it pooled, spread, the word going blurry. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Inhaled the snot ready to drip from my nose.
“You were, and always have been, a game to her. A game that has finally reached its end. Not soon enough for my tastes, but finally, nonetheless.” She looked over at me and smiled. “I’ll tell her you cried. She’ll like that. Perhaps you’ll go home and slit your wrists.Iwould like that. Do you need a knife? I’m sure we can find one for you.”
The man in the driver’s seat was watching me again, a grin on his lips in the mirror. The woman beside him looked like she might burst out with laughter, her head hung low, her lips pursed tight, holding back.
I reached for the door handle. Before Oliver said another word, Stella’s letter was in my pocket and I was out the car—I ran off into the rain, into the night.
18
“Please stay in your vehicle, sir.”
Preacher heard the words a moment before he made out the shape of the man who uttered them, standing beside his car in a long, white trench coat, a hood pulled over his head. One hand on the butt of a gun in a holster at his waist, the other hand on Preacher’s car door, heavy rain falling all around.
Preacher put his shoulder down and opened the door of the GTO with such force, it nailed the man in his midsection and sent him sprawling on his back.
He followed the door as it opened, brought the gun up, braced the stock against his hip, then forced the barrel down into the man’s chest.
The man in the white trench coat looked like a turtle stuck on his back, all flailing arms and legs attempting to right himself. A slew of pleading words flowed from his pale face.
Preacher pulled the trigger.
With the barrel pressed tight against the man’s chest, his body acted like a makeshift silencer. He bounced as the explosion entered his chest cavity and expanded, no doubt turning his organs into mush. The blast escaped from the man’s back with enough force to spray water and the remnants of a few petals out in all directions.
In a single, fluid motion, Preacher raised the shotgun, jerked his arm hard enough to eject the spent shell and load a new one, and sighted the weapon on a second man in a white trench coat stepping out of the guardhouse next to the gate. This man also had a Sig Sauer P220. He managed to get it about halfway out of his holster before Preacher’s shotgun erupted in a second blast. A bright red bloom opened up in the man’s chest and ruined his nice white coat. The man looked down at the spot. Confusion filled his eyes as it grew. Then he collapsed in a puddle, partially obscured by the Pontiac’s left front fender.
