"What?"

"You're going to be richer than the old man."

"s.h.i.t fire. That's great. Maybe I'll dig the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d up and prop his skeleton at the dinner table. p.i.s.s in his coffee cup."

"He always did love you best."

"Naw. That was Momma."

"You would have killed her if I hadn't gotten to it first."

"Well, you beat me at one thing, I reckon."

The Johnny Cash was winding down in a repet.i.tive guitar riff. Joshua stopped the car and killed the engine. "Here we are."

He opened his door and the dome light blinked on. Renee could hear the river churning below. She recalled her drive over the bridge and pictured the water thirty feet below. It wasn't a far enough fall to kill her unless her head hit a rock. But bad luck followed the Wells family.

And, sometimes, you had to make your luck.

Joshua left the door open after he exited, and the dome light cast a dirty yellow glow. Jacob grabbed Renee's wrist, his face a mask of wicked joy. She didn't struggle. These two men had already torn her to shreds. There was nothing left worth fighting over.

Joshua opened the back door. "Bring her on."

Jacob's Southern accent returned, a bizarre replica of his brother's. "Reckon we ought to bash her head in first, or just chuck her over the side?"

"You want to make sure. It ain't the kind of thing you leave up to chance. What if she turns up alive six miles downstream?"

"That would be sand in the craw, all right."

"You do it. You'll enjoy it more than I will."

"Why, thanks, Josh. I appreciate it."

"I'm Jacob, remember? Don't go getting all confused on me, or we'll never get the story straight."

"Right, Jake. You're the Wells now. I'm just pig s.h.i.t, rolling around with a Mexican wh.o.r.e in a Tennessee trailer park."

"And you're going to love every minute of it. I know I did, but now it's time for the big switcheroo."

Jacob's hand tightened around Renee's wrist, sending sparks of pain up her arm. Joshua handed his brother something, and Renee saw its rusty bulk in the dome light.

A pipe wrench.

She could almost see the police report: Blunt head trauma, followed by asphyxiation due to drowning. Blunt head trauma, followed by asphyxiation due to drowning.

Jacob's latest accidental victim.

And who would be next? Joshua? Carlita? Or would he plant more seed, each sprout insured for a million dollars?

"Hold her for a sec." Joshua got out of the driver's side and went to the back door. He yanked it open and leaned in, his breath sour with beer and cigarettes and the lingering tang of salsa. "Come here, sweetie."

Renee backed away, kicking, until she was across the seat. Joshua climbed in, and now she recognized that perverse grin, one glimpsed in the dim light of a night nearly a decade ago. The night of Mattie's conception.

She shoved her foot toward his face. He caught it and his eyes twinkled in the greasy dome light, the cut on his forehead oozing blood again. "Hmm. She still got a little fight in her. Tempting me to go one more round. What say, brother, wanna watch just for old times' sake?"

Jacob yanked her wrist. "I can fantasize about it later. Right now, we better get her in the river."

Joshua's face sagged, his smoker's wrinkles deepening. "Reckon so. Give the water more time to wash away evidence."

"Besides, we'll still have Carlita."

Renee wondered if they would play this sick game the rest of their lives. Swapping partners, playing with money and murder, tricking each other. But that was the future. She had none.

Joshua dragged her by the ankle. She grabbed for the armrest but it came off in her hand. Her fingernails broke as she clawed at the nylon seat covering. No saving grip there.

Jacob released her and got out of the car to join his brother. She knew this was her final chance. The pa.s.senger door was open, though it seemed miles away.

She twisted upward, reaching for the front seat, but Jacob had her other leg now and she was being worried between them like a butcher-shop bone in the mouths of two dogs.

"Treat her like a wishbone, brother," Jacob said.

"I'm wishing for two million G.o.dd.a.m.ned dollars. On three. One... "

She wriggled, nothing.

"Two... "

"Jacob," she said. "Honey?"

But the word was a lie. Even his name was a lie. He had always been Joshua.

"Three."

She was jerked into the moist night.

"Do her," Joshua said.

He had Renee pinned to the rail, shoulders leaning toward the river, facing the whispering, frothing water below. Jacob tested the heft of the pipe wrench. How would she hit if she had actually fallen?

No, not "if." When.

Think it out, Jakie, just like always. Momma's cane... an accident. Could have happened to anybody. Anybody with a murderous son, that is.

Christine. That one had been the saddest. But she was barely formed, not even talking. All I did was save her from the life of a Wells. So that was a mercy killing.

Mattie. Too bad about her. But she was Joshua's fault all the way, from sperm to burn victim.

The moon was out, the clouds like violet sheep counting down to a restless sleep. He wondered if blood would spatter onto the bridge railing. He'd have to strike her at an angle, so the pattern would fly out and into the water.

"Smash her up," Joshua urged. "Just like you did the chickens."

The wrench grew heavy in Jacob's hand. "I didn't do the chickens."

Joshua, holding Renee's arms behind her back, his crotch pressed against her rear, gave a thrust of his hips, causing the wooden railing to squeak with their combined weight. "h.e.l.l, yeah. You went donkeys.h.i.t, brother. Chopping their heads off, licking blood from the hatchet--"

"Stop it."

Red. The night had gone from purple to red.

"You're one sick f.u.c.k, all right."

"Shut up. That wasn't me. It was never me."

"Tell it to the judge. I got a date with two million bucks."

"I was only doing what you'd do, if you had the brains." Jacob gripped the wrench so tight his hand hurt. The metal was slick with his sweat. He thought of the fingerprints he would leave behind. And the DNA, which he shared with Joshua. The DNA one of them had pa.s.sed to Mattie.

And maybe Christine. He didn't know how often Joshua had slipped into his bed over the years.

The blood in the Chevy would be Joshua's. The cops would figure it out. Even though Jacob had the same blood.

"Do it, Jakie," Renee wheezed from constricted lungs. "Just like we talked about."

Joshua turned toward him, his face as twisted as the rubberized troll heads hanging from the rearview mirror. Confusion. The dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been late out of the womb, and had always been two steps behind his entire life.

Jacob swung the wrench.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

"Blood everywhere," Jacob said, mopping at the stains on the railing.

"No murder is perfect."

"And you should know."

"Live and learn. I guess you should go get Carlita. Think you guys will be happy together?"

"What do you care? You're getting what you want."

"Sure." With Joshua dead, Jacob would inherit the house. As Jacob's wife, no one would question her receiving it in the divorce settlement.

Jacob leaned over the railing. "He's downriver now. As drunk as he was, n.o.body will question a fall."

Renee glanced at her husband's exposed neck, alabaster in the moon's warm glow. The wrench lay on the seat of the Chevy. She could have it out and bring it down in a matter of seconds.

No. She loved him. And because she loved him, he owed her plenty.

Besides, another "fall" would be too coincidental. Divorce would be much cleaner.

Jacob didn't know it yet, but Renee planned on taking the two million, too. It wasn't blackmail. It was simply the price of pain and suffering.

"Go to Carlita," she said.

Jacob came to her, took her hands. He almost kissed her. Then he glanced up at the hill, where the Wells house stood dark and brooding, as if remembering some memory tucked in a far, dusty closet. The first flickers teased the windows, and smoke drifted on the air. Davidson and her crew would be on the way soon, late as always, left to sift through the ashes of the Wells family secrets.

"See you in court," Jacob said. He walked around the Chevy and slid behind the steering wheel. He looked at home there.

He grabbed the wrinkled pack of cigarettes and stuffed one in his mouth. He lit it, then reached under the seat and pulled out a beer. Warm, it sprayed foam all over his pants when he pulled the tab. He reached up and tapped the twin rubber heads, sending them swinging.

Jacob would never be Joshua, but he would enjoy trying.

He reached for the ignition and the engine burst to angry life. He shifted and backed the car off the bridge, waving before turning off the dome light.

Renee watched the headlight beams bouncing up the road.

She patted her belly.

She'd never mentioned it to Jacob. Three months along.

Of course, on one of those dark nights, it could have been Joshua who entered her bed and rode her into pregnancy. Stranger things had happened.

Not that it mattered.

A Wells was a Wells, after all. One was as good as the other.

And, if things didn't turn out as planned, there was always life insurance for the child.

A woman lived and loved, and a woman often lost. But, no matter what, a woman always learned.

THE END.

About the Author.

I have written 12 novels, including The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration, The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration, and and The Skull Ring The Skull Ring.