"My girlfriend wanted him. She was always sayin' she couldn't have a baby, and when I tol' her no, she split with him."

Ellen needed to stall, to give herself time to think. "Was that Amy? Was Amy Martin your girlfriend?"

"Yeah. The dumb b.i.t.c.h."

"You killed Amy?"

"Duh," Moore answered.

"And the lawyer, too? Karen Batz?"

"Sure."

"But why? Did she know?"

"I wasn't leavin' a loose end. If she figured it out, she woulda squawked. Carol woulda had the best lawyers money could buy, and I woulda gone to the joint."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Carol's gaze bored into him. "That was my baby! I thought about him every minute! You ruined my life!"

"You ruined your own life, you brat. You went through your money like water."

"This isn't about me, it's about you. You told me you'd give the baby back. You lied! You took him!"

Ellen kept thinking about how to save Will. Sooner or later, she'd get an opening.

"Do you know what you did?" Carol scrambled to stand up, and Oreo Figaro walked into the dining room. "You almost killed killed my husband. You my husband. You ruined ruined my marriage." my marriage."

"You shoulda told him the truth, then. You shoulda said to him, 'Honey, wifey-poo isn't the good girl you think.' 'I used our kid to pay for my little hobby.' "

"She used her kid?" Ellen said, stalling. "She did it?" did it?"

"Yeah, it was all her idea." Moore sneered. "You didn't think that, did you? You didn't figure that out. Little Miss Goody-Goody here, she gambled up all her money, so she needed to tap her kid's."

"Shut up!" Carol shouted, but Moore ignored her.

"She knew me from the casino, Miccosukee. I was parkin' cars for rich b.i.t.c.hes, and she hired me to kidnap her kid. She got the ransom from the kid's trust fund. She told me the nanny would be there and-"

"Stop it, stop it!" Carol shouted louder, startling Oreo Figaro, who ran under the dining room table. "You weren't supposed to kill her. You weren't supposed to keep the baby!"

"Enough!" Moore gestured with the gun, his gaze shifting toward the kitchen. "You wanna see your son? He's in there."

"He is?" Carol's face flooded with happiness. She rushed to the kitchen, and the sudden movement sent Oreo Figaro scooting to Ellen.

Just then a lethal glimmer flickered through Moore's eyes. Ellen didn't have time to think, only to act.

And everything happened at once.

Chapter Seventy-seven.

Carol reached the kitchen threshold and saw Will, lying on the floor. "My baby!" she cried.

Moore raised the gun and aimed it at the back of Carol's head.

Ellen scooped Oreo Figaro off the floor and threw him right at Moore's face.

"Reowwh!" The fat cat screeched in protest, his thick body twisting this way and that, and the surprise knocked Moore off-balance. He raised his hands and fell backwards. The gun fired into the ceiling. Oreo Figaro fell to the floor, righting himself and scampering off.

Ellen launched herself like a missile, aiming for Moore's gun. She barreled into him, and he staggered backwards into the kitchen. She grabbed the gun with all her might and struggled to wrest it from his grip.

"Get offa me!" Moore howled. He held on to the gun, whipped Ellen around, and slammed her into the doorway. Her head banged against the wood but she hung on to his wrist, fighting for the gun even as he pointed its muzzle at Carol, who had picked up Will and was taking him out the other doorway.

"RUN!" Ellen screamed.

"Shut up!" Moore threw her against the stove, shaking her hand loose and training the gun on Carol.

Carol looked over her shoulder, and in one motion, put Will on the landing behind her, blocked him with her body, and raised her arms protectively, facing Moore. She shouted, "Don't you dare hurt my son!"

Moore squeezed the trigger, firing point-blank, and Ellen screamed in horror.

Carol's chest exploded in wool tatters. Her mouth dropped open. Her head snapped forward. She dropped onto the kitchen floor, crumpling at the knees, her legs grotesquely askew.

"NO!" Ellen hurled herself at Moore, but this time, in her hand was the cast-iron burner from her stovetop. She swung the burner as hard as she could into Moore's face. The spiked end speared his forehead, and a gaping hole appeared. In the next second, it spurted a gruesome freshet of bright red blood. Moore's eyes flew open, and he slumped against the wall, then slid down, insensate.

Ellen heard herself shouting something, but even she didn't know what she said. The gun fell to the floor, and she picked it up and aimed it at Moore as he landed in a sitting position. She pointed the gun at him, not knowing whether to shoot him or save him. A crooked grin crossed his face before his eyes cut away and his gaze fixed.

Ellen hurried over to Carol, picking her up with care and feeling under her chin for a pulse. There was none. Blood soaked her coat from the hole in her chest, right over her heart.

Ellen leaned Carol back down on the floor, bent over her and listened for breath. No sound. She opened Carol's mouth and began to breathe air into her, but it was too late for CPR. She tried anyway, but it was no use. Carol's head fell back, too loose on her neck, her mouth hanging open, and Ellen heard herself moan, stricken. She set her down on the floor carefully, saying a silent prayer.

Will.

Ellen half crawled, half stumbled to the landing, where Will lay bundled, sobbing. His terrified eyes met hers, so much like Carol's that for a minute, it gave her a start. She picked him up and hurried out of the kitchen with him, shielding him from the grisly scene and telling him everything was going to be all right. She hurried him into the living room and sat with him on the couch, putting him on her lap and comforting him as she unpeeled the duct tape from his mouth. She started slowly, but he cried even harder, his nose bubbling.

"Hold on, sweetie, it'll only hurt for a second." She yanked off the duct tape, letting it fall, and he erupted in the full-blown wail of a newborn.

"Mommy! Mommy! It hurts!"

"It's all over now, it's all over." Ellen kept talking to him, grabbing a Kleenex from the coffee table and wiping his nose. The tape had pulled some of the skin around his mouth off, leaving it irritated and sticky, and the adhesive made an ugly pattern around his lips.

"It hurts!"

"Here we go, it'll stop soon." Ellen dried his eyes with a new tissue, then tried to comfort him as she untaped his hands and feet, the stench of gasoline filling her nostrils. She was sliding him out of his wet snowsuit when she caught a glimpse of blood dripping behind his right ear.

G.o.d, no.

"It's okay now, honey," she said, but his tears kept flowing. She pulled a Kleenex from the box, held it to the wound, and flashed on Moore's big boot crushing Will's face in the same spot. She felt stricken, but masked her emotions. She didn't know if Will was bleeding internally, inside his ear or even behind his eye. He needed an ambulance. She pressed the tissue to his wound, hurried with him to the living room phone, and called 911 with Will crying in her arms.

"What is your emergency?" the dispatcher asked, and Ellen collected herself, composing a lead paragraph on the spot.

"An armed intruder broke into my house tonight. He tried to kill me and my son, and I killed him in self-defense." Ellen felt her throat catch. She couldn't believe her own words. She had never harmed another human being, much less killed one. "He shot and killed a woman named Carol Braverman. He also injured my son, who's three, and he's bleeding from behind his ear. I need an ambulance right away, and the police."

"You say there were two two people killed?" people killed?"

"Yes. Listen, I need an ambulance for my son. His head was ... stepped on and it's bleeding. He's crying, and I'm worried."

"Mommy!" Will cried harder, and Ellen struggled to hear the dispatcher.

"Keep him awake, and the ambulance will be there right away. You can stay on the line until they get there."

"Mommy! Mommy!" Will cried, louder.

"No, that's okay. I'd rather take care of him. Just hurry, please, hurry!" Ellen hung up, hugged Will close, and rocked him a little like the old days until his tears finally slowed. She grabbed a few more Kleenex and cleaned him up, then got a fresh one for the wound behind his ear. "What hurts, honey? Tell me."

"My head!"

Please, G.o.d, no. "That's why we're going to the doctor, so he can fix it." "That's why we're going to the doctor, so he can fix it."

"Dr. Chodoff?"

"No, a special doctor."

"I want Dr. Chodoff!" Will sobbed.

"Let's get your coat," Ellen said, narrating her actions to calm them both as she walked to the closet, took his corduroy hoodie from a hook, and sat back down on the couch with him, slipping his arms into the puffy sleeves, getting him ready. His sneakers reeked of gasoline, so she took them off.

"Stinky shoes, huh?" Ellen asked, as part of the narration, and Will nodded, his small chest shuddering from his final sobs. She touched lightly behind his ear, and in the lamplight she could see a large cut on his scalp, bleeding. She prayed there wasn't a skull fracture and reached for another tissue, pressing it over the wound.

"Mommy, what?"

"You have a boo-boo behind your ear. We're going to take a ride to the doctor. We have to get you looked at."

"Who was that man?"

"In the kitchen? A very bad man. A terrible man, but he's not going to hurt you anymore."

"Did he hurt you, Mommy?"

"No, I'm okay. So are you. You're going to be fine after we see the doctor." Ellen cuddled him, and Will rubbed his eye with a balled-up fist.

"My head hurts."

"Stay awake, okay, honey?" Ellen jiggled him a little and talked to him about nothing, even as the bright red blood from his cut soaked Kleenex after Kleenex until they looked like the tissue-paper poppies he made in school. She hid them from his view until the bleeding finally slowed, which only worried her more. Oreo Figaro wandered in, sat down in front of the couch, and tucked his legs underneath him.

Will sniffled. "You hurt Oreo Figaro, Mommy."

"No, I didn't. I knew he'd be okay."

"You throwed him."

"I know." Ellen didn't correct his English. He could make all the grammar mistakes he wanted, from here on out.

"That wasn't nice."

"You're right." Ellen turned to Oreo Figaro. "I'm sorry, Oreo Figaro."

The cat signified his forgiveness by looking up and blinking, and he kept watch over them both until the police cruisers arrived, their red lights slashing the cozy living room with bloodred splotches, spattering the stenciled cows and country hearts.

"What is that, Mommy?" Will asked, twisting to see.

"It's the police, here to help us, buddy." Ellen rose and looked out the windows to the street, which had been transformed to a staging area. Police cruisers were parking out front, their exhausts billowing into the snowy air and their high beams slicing the dotted darkness. Uniformed cops sprang from the cars, black figures against the whiteness, running up her front walk to the porch.

"Here they come, Mommy."

"Right, here they come." Ellen crossed to the door as the cops hustled onto the porch, their shoes heavy as soldiers as they reached the front door.

They were coming to save Will.

And to destroy the only life he knew.

Chapter Seventy-eight.

Ellen opened the door, and police filled the living room and immediately began looking around, hurrying into the dining room and toward the stairs, their shoes heavy on the hardwood. Outside the window, she saw flashlights flickering as cops searched her front and side yards. Will quieted in her arms, gazing wide-eyed at an older cop with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses who took her aside, his hand on her elbow.

"I'm Officer Patrick Halbert," he said. Snowflakes dusted the shoulders of his nylon jacket. "You're the homeowner who called 911?"

"Yes." Ellen introduced herself. "Where is the ambulance?"

"On its way. Are you injured, ma'am?" Officer Halbert looked at her coat, and she realized that there was blood all over her.

"No, this isn't my blood. It's my son who's hurt. When will the ambulance get here?"

"Five minutes, tops." Officer Halbert's tone sounded official, but under the wet patent bill of his cap, his eyes looked concerned and they scanned Will, up and down. He asked, "Now, you told our dispatcher it was a home invasion?"

"Yes, it was."

"Is there anyone else in the house?"