I hauled out the camera, took off the lens cap, and fired it up.
With a shaky breath, I stood up in the flower bed and peered through the camera lens.
They were in the kitchen, Mr. Rollins prowling back and forth. “I told you I expect dinner on the table when I get home,” he barked loud enough for me to hear.
“It’s almost midnight, asshole,” I muttered under my breath.
I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Rollins in a nightgown as she scurried past the kitchen door, shoulders hunched.
He caught her by the elbow and slapped the plate out of her hand with a crash.
A dog barked next door, one of Mrs. and Mr. Clemson’s Saint Bernards, scaring the heck out of me.
Mr. and Mrs. Rollins disappeared from view, and I used the opportunity to pull out the cordless phone. But there was no dial tone. I was too far away from the base.
He was shouting again inside, but I couldn’t see anything. Shit. I needed to get a better view. Camera still rolling, I looped the bag over my shoulder and took off running around the side of the house. In the dark, I banged my hip off the rusty grill. But that pain was nothing compared to what Ansel Rollins was inflicting right now, I reminded myself.
I limped around into the backyard to the rickety, rotting deck off the back of the house, and there, through the sliding glass door, I saw them. He backhanded her across the face hard enough that I gasped. His brutal grip on her arm kept Mrs. Rollins from folding to the floor.
“You disgust me, woman,” he said and hurled her into the kitchen table. “You make me fucking sick.”
This had to be enough evidence, I decided, feeling pretty sick myself.
Mrs. Rollins was crumpled in a dining chair like a wadded-up piece of paper. Silent sobs shook her frail shoulders. I hated him. I hated Ansel Rollins for ever existing. For treating his wife like that, for forcing his son to stand between them. I hated the man with every fiber of my being.
“If you don’t quit your bawling, I’ll give you something to bawl about,” he slurred.
Stop crying, Mrs. Rollins. Please stop crying.
Suddenly, the woman’s head came up. I saw her mouth moving but couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“What did you say?” he snarled.
“I said, I have nothing because of you,” she said, getting to her feet on shaky legs. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks.
Oh God. I tried the phone again, but there was still no dial tone.
“The only reason you have anything is because of me.” He moved into view, and every muscle in my body went tight when I saw what he was holding. He was drying a long, serrated knife on a dish towel.
I remembered Lucian’s bloody arm. Assault with a deadly weapon.
I left the camcorder on the deck, angled toward the door, and ran. I was inside my house in seconds, dialing the phone and flipping light switches.
“Mom! Dad! He’s hurting her again,” I shrieked from the foot of the stairs. A light clicked on upstairs. “We have to stop him!”
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Ansel Rollins is attacking his wife with a knife again, and if Wylie Ogden doesn’t arrest him this time, I’m going to sue the entire police department,” I shouted into the phone. I had to get back. I had to stop him or bear witness.
I heard my parents’ muffled voices coming from upstairs.
“Hurry!” I said before dropping the phone on the floor and bolting back out the door.
The tree frogs were still chirping outside, but I barely heard them as I sprinted across our driveway and into the Rollinses’ backyard.
I landed on the deck with a flying leap. Through the glass door, I spied them. He had her pinned to the table, the knife to her throat. There was blood on the linoleum.
Dogs were barking frantically now, but the rest of the neighborhood was still.
I had no choice. He had to be stopped. I had to stop him.
I picked up an old, cracked clay pot and, with a primal scream that came from the depths of my soul, hurled it into the glass.
The door shattered, sending shards of glass and clay everywhere.
Someone was calling my name. Multiple someones from the sounds of it. But I couldn’t scream back. I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot as Mr. Rollins stared at me through his busted door.
We locked eyes, and I poured every ounce of hate that I carried inside into that one look.
“You’re gonna pay for that, you little fucking bitch.”
I was shaking with fear, with rage. “Fuck. You. You stupid, worthless piece of shit!”
He lunged for me, and I felt pain around the edges of the rage. I fought him as the shouting got closer, as the sirens finally cut through the night, as the tree frogs stopped.