But I don’t go. She’s not even looking at me. She’s slumped on that floor with her bloody knees, and she looks so much like a child that for a second, I feel like the adult.
I’m not. I’m scared shitless. But in that second, I make a decision.
If she can’t con her way out of this, with her manipulation and power and the way she twists people around her gold-banded fingers like it’s nothing, then I will.
“She didn’t take your money,” I say, and now he’s completely turned toward me, so she’s at his back. Move! I think, but she doesn’t. It’s like she’s given up.
But I can’t.
“I took it.”
I didn’t. I have no idea what money he’s talking about. But I don’t care. Anything to get him away from her.
“Bullshit.”
It’s a miracle, but I keep my face bored as I shrug. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I guess I’ll keep the cash. It was eighty-seven thousand dollars, right?” It’s foolish to throw out a number, but it’s the one I overheard him saying into the phone earlier. And I need something to really clinch it after such a gamble.
So I do the thing you should never, ever do.
I turn my back on him and the gun.
“Don’t walk away from me, young lady!”
Relief twines in me. Oh thank God I was right.
His voice slurs just enough to tell me he’s still the careening kind of drunk. He’s sloppy slow when he’s like this. I just need to get him away from her.
I look over my shoulder. “I thought you wanted your money.”
I tremble as I walk away, out of the office, down the hall.
But he follows.
— 51 —
Transcript: Lee Ann O’Malley + Clear Creek Deputies
August 8, 12:17 p.m.
Deputy Reynolds: Butte County deputies left their station about five minutes ago. If we can just keep everything calm until they— O’Malley: It won’t stay calm.
Deputy Reynolds: You don’t know that.
O’Malley: Something’s coming.
Deputy Reynolds: What’s that in your hand? Is that what you were hiding earlier?
O’Malley: Nora gave the little girl a message for me.
Deputy Reynolds: And you didn’t think to show it to me until now?! What does this even mean—He has an ace up his sleeve?
O’Malley: I don’t know, Jess. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
Deputy Reynolds: I can’t believe you.
O’Malley: I’m telling you now.
Deputy Reynolds: Smoke. Shit! Smoke!
O’Malley: What? Oh my God!
Deputy Reynolds: Hey! Hey! Fire! Get on the radio.
[Scuffling noises]
Deputy Reynolds: Holy shit, Lee!
O’Malley: My kids are in there!
[Scuffling]
O’Malley: Let me go, Jessie. Let me go!
Deputy Reynolds: You’re not running into a burning building! Are you— Oof!
[Yelling]
Deputy Reynolds: Lee! Lee!
[End of transcript]
— 52 —
12:16 p.m. （184 minutes captive）
1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys, 1 hunting knife, 1 chemical bomb, 1 giant fire starter, the contents of Iris’s purse
Plan #1: Scrapped
Plan #2: On hold
Plan #3: Stab
Plan #4: Get gun. Get Iris and Wes. Get out.
Plan #5: Iris’s plan: Boom!
At first, it works exactly like Iris says it will. She lights the fuse and the flame travels up to the garbage-can fire starter. It flares up. The sanitizer-soaked toilet paper fills the room with so much acrid black smoke, I’m choking underneath the handkerchief. I bang on the door. Fifteen or twenty heart-stopping, hard-to-breathe seconds later, I hear him start to move whatever’s blocking the door away.
Iris picks up the bottle bomb and shakes it vigorously. The plastic starts to swell under her hands, the chemicals building up the pressure, but she still holds on.
The door swings open, the smoke billows out, and Red Cap starts coughing. Iris chucks the bottle right at the sound, there’s a yell, a fitz-ing sound, and then bam! It explodes, in a forced projectile zing, spraying more smoke.
His scream is hellish—nails on a chalkboard have nothing on it—but I don’t let it stop me. I plunge forward into the smoke; it’s still pouring out of the bathroom, and Red Cap is on the floor, three feet down the hall, and it’s bad. It looks like it got him right in the stomach, and his hands aren’t just bloody; they’re raw, like the skin’s been stripped from them.
Where’s the gun? On him? He had the shotgun last time I saw him. Is it on the floor? Smoke pulses out behind me, and I cough. My eyes water, trying to wash away the feeling, and I turn to find Iris.