“Shut up!” Ronda snapped, cutting Dulcie off. “Don’t listen to her, Tinker. She’s the one who told you she wanted her mother dead, remember? She’s the one who’s to blame for this.”

Dulcie caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Russell had entered the schoolhouse and was sneaking along the cloakroom wall behind Tinker and his mother. Dulcie’s heart soared, then came crashing down. Ronda had a gun. She had to warn him. Or at least distract Ronda.

“Once we take care of things,” Ronda was saying, “I can leave Ben for good, just like you’ve always wanted me to do, Tinker.”

“You didn’t stay with Ben because of Tinker,” Dulcie said. “Ben must know the truth. That’s why you stayed with him. He was blackmailing you, but not about Tinker.”

Tinker suddenly went pale. “No, tell me that isn’t why you had me...” His voice broke and Dulcie felt as if she might be sick.

“Ben was a bastard,” Ronda said to her son. “You did the world a favor.” She glanced down at her bleeding side. “Look what your precious Angel did to me. She tried to kill me because of you.”

“She’s lying, Tinker,” Jolene said, sounding more calm than Dulcie right now. “Your mother took the knife from me and stabbed herself in the side.”

“That’s a lie,” Ronda snapped then laughed. “Why would I stab myself?”

“She has a gun,” Jolene said. “Would I stab a woman holding a gun? She is going to blame all of this on you, Tinker. She’s going to let you take the fall for all of it.”

Tinker looked to his mother. Like Dulcie, he must have seen Ronda’s hand holding the gun waver as she considered turning it on her son.

Russell had moved closer, his eyes on Dulcie. She knew it was now or never. She looked down at the knife on the floor, then up at Russell. He nodded.

Things got crazy after that. Dulcie shoved her sister and kicked out at the knife. She heard it clatter across the old wooden floor toward Russell as she threw her sister and herself behind Jolene’s large desk.

The gunshot boomed in the small school. Behind Dulcie, the blackboard shattered, raining down onto the floor beside them. A second shot followed and a third on its heels.

Dulcie was on her feet, terrified what she would see when she rose from the floor.

Over the sound of pounding rain, she saw Russell standing over the bodies of Tinker Horton and his mother. Tinker still had the gun that he’d taken from his mother in his hand. Ronda lay on the floor next to the computer, the words she’d typed still visible across the room.