Winnie moaned again; she wasn’t going to die a victim of her brother’s anger, she was going to choke to death on her own vomit. Dakota turned, and his dead eyes found her as she keeled over on the carpet. He watched her for what felt like an eternity, and then he knelt in front of her and yanked the gag out of her mouth. Winnie rolled to her side, gasping for air. She could smell the stink of vomit and now there was another smell—blood. She could see it on the wall, sprayed like a Rorschach test, Terry slumped below.

“Come to think of it, sis, I didn’t see you pregnant.”

Chills ran across her limbs like insects.

“I—we didn’t tell anyone, remember? After the miscarriages, we kept it to ourselves until the last trimester. And you lived in Tacoma then. That’s why we didn’t see each other.”

Please God, let him accept the truth. Her voice sounded like it was grating over gravel; she didn’t know how much of it she had left to use.

He shook his head like she had it all wrong. “You didn’t even have the baby shower until after he was born. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? I remember having to drive Manda there because she was nine months pregnant and couldn’t reach the steering wheel around her belly. I walked her in and there you were, all slim and put-together like you’d never been pregnant.” He smiled dully. “Manda even leaned over and whispered in my ear about how good you looked for having just given birth.”

Winnie was balanced on her knees. A trickle of saliva hung from her chin, but she made no move to wipe it away. Her twin brother was lifting the gun. She couldn’t think clear thoughts; she was still trying to understand what had happened that had led up to this.

“This isn’t you,” she said, before her throat closed in panic and she started to cough. “This isn’t my brother. Dakota, please—”

32

JUNO

Juno leaned over Nigel, for once not feeling the cracking pain pinching into her back like talons, and focused on reaching her stiff fingers into the pockets of his running shorts. They were empty except for his headphones. He’d either dropped his phone outside or Dakota had taken it along with Winnie’s, which was as missing as Dakota’s mind. She heard shouting coming from the apartment, saw Nigel’s blood swimming around her feet. Her vision shook like Jell-O, and Juno thought she was going to keel over. The Crouch family portraits stared at her from the wall. She felt her survival instincts kick in.

Slow but steady, she thought, taking a step toward the front door. Sam was safe—or safer than he would be in the house; he was the only person she cared about, anyway.