Blowout

them.
    “Thank you, Dillon,” Janet said. “Sit down, Martin. I’m going to go talk to the girls. They’re scared and I want them to know everything is all right. I’ll be right back.”
    Martin looked undecided, but for only a moment. “All right. I’m sorry, Janet, I didn’t mean to—the girls, God, I scared them to death. I’m so sorry.”
    She hugged him, kissed his cheek. “It will be all right. I’ll speak to the girls, make them understand, then I’ll be back. I’m going to leave them in the bedroom, it’ll make them feel safer, I think. Now, would you like some coffee, Dillon?”
    He smiled at her. “Tea would be wonderful.”
    “A real live tea drinker. Goodness, we’re coffee addicts in this house. I’ll be right back. You talk to him, Martin. You talk to him, tell him everything, and then listen.” She nodded, patted her husband’s shoulder, and lightly shoved him down into a big easy chair with a remote control pocket holder on the side, obviously his chair.
    Martin eased down into the chair like it was an old friend and stretched out his legs in front of him. As if by habit, he reached into the chair’s side pocket, felt the remote control, brought his hand back up. He didn’t face Savich yet, just looked down at the remote for several moments. Then he splayed his palms on his legs, as if trying to relax. He said, still without looking up, “I lost it. I just lost it. Like Janet said, it’s happened a couple of other times, but I never had a gun before.” He shuddered, drew a deep breath, and at last met Savich’s eyes. “I went out last week to a gun show in Baltimore, and I bought the SKB and a big box of shells.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know really. I felt I had to. Something was pushing me, like it had me by the throat. I felt like something bad was coming.”
    “Was it a memory, or dream, what?”
    “A dream where everything is black, and I’m hiding, where, I don’t know, but I do know to my soul I have to stay hidden. I know something horrible is happening, but I can’t move.”
    “Do you think it had something to do with your mother’s murder?”
    Martin looked toward the hole in the living room wall. “Everything was black. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even tell where I was. I didn’t even know my mother was murdered until I was eighteen.”
    “You didn’t know or you didn’t remember?”
    “I don’t really know which. All I knew was that she wasn’t there anymore. Sheriff Harms—I remember him really well—he was younger then than I am now—I saw him in my dream when I was eighteen. I actually saw my hand in his. Mine was so small and his was like a giant’s, I do remember that, and he was leading me downstairs and my father and a whole lot of people were there, looking very serious and sad. He handed me over to my father. Then I don’t remember anything, except that we were living in Boston, though I don’t remember moving there, or how or why. Mom was gone, and that was really hard, but my father said it wasn’t our fault she died, that he expected me to be a good, strong, young man.
    “After a while I didn’t really ask about her anymore or think about her, accepted that my father and I were in Boston, and I went to school and made friends like any other kid.
    “Like I said, I didn’t know anything about how my mother died until I was eighteen. About two months before I graduated high school, I began having nightmares—really violent dreams about people having their throats cut, people being stabbed in the chest—horrible dreams, blood everywhere, and I’d wake up screaming.” He paused, shuddering with memory. “I remember my father came in once. He didn’t say anything, even when I gasped out the dream I’d had. He stood there, stared at me like I was a freak, like he was afraid of me. Then he left, and he didn’t come back when I had the other dreams. I woke up alone and I stayed alone.” Martin looked at Savich. “It was around that time I realized something was really wrong.”
    Martin’s father hadn’t said anything about this to Sherlock. Hadn’t Townsend Barrister realized what the dreams meant? Of course he had.
    Savich sat forward on the sofa, his hands clasped between his knees. “Later, did you talk to your father about the dreams?”
    Martin shook his head. “I couldn’t, and besides, I knew he didn’t want to know. I’d look at him and my two little bratty and normal stepsisters at the dinner