River’s End

bought her for her birthday. She was lying there in the blood and the glass. I tried to pick her up. The scissors were in her back. I pulled them out.”
    Hadn’t he? He thought he’d pulled them out, but couldn’t quite remember. They’d been in his hand, hot and slick with blood.
    “I saw Livvy, standing there. She started running away.”
    “You went after her,” Frank said quietly.
    “I think—I must have. I think I went a little crazy. Trying to find her, trying to find who’d done that to Julie. I don’t remember. I called the police.” He looked back at Frank. “I called the police as soon as I could.”
    “How long?” Tracy pushed away from the wall, stuck his face close to Sam’s. “
    How long did you go through the house looking for that little girl, with scissors in your hand, before you broke down and called the cops?”
    “I don’t know. I’m not sure. A few minutes, maybe. Ten, fifteen.”
    “Lying bastard!”
    “Tracy—”
    “He’s a fucking lying bastard, Frank. He’d’ve found that kid, she’d be in the morgue next to her mother.”
    “No. No.” Horror spiked in his voice. “I’d never hurt Livvy.”
    “That’s not what your wife thought, is it, Tanner?” Tracy jabbed a finger into Sam’s chest. “She put it in writing that she was afraid for you to be alone with the kid. You’re a cokehead, and a sorry son of a bitch, and I’ll tell you just how it went down. You thought about her in that big house, locking you out, keeping you away from her and your kid because she couldn’t stand the sight of you. Maybe you figure she’s spreading her legs for another man. Woman who looks like that, there’s going to be other men. And you got yourself all coked up and drove over there to show her who was boss.”
    “No, I was just going to talk to her.”
    “But she didn’t want to talk to you, did she, Tanner? She told you to get out, didn’t she? Told you to go to hell. Maybe you knocked her around a little first, like you did the other time.”
    “It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her. We were arguing.”
    “So you picked up the scissors.”
    “No.” He tried to draw back, tried to clear the images blurring in his head. “We were in Livvy’s room. Julie wouldn’t have scissors in Livvy’s room.”
    “You were downstairs and you saw them on the table, sitting there, shiny, sharp. You grabbed them and you cut her to pieces because she was done with you. If you couldn’t have her, no one was going to have her. That’s what you thought, isn’t it, Tanner? The bitch deserved to die.”
    “No, no, no, I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have.” But he remembered the feel of the scissors in his hands, the way his fingers had wrapped around them, the way blood had dripped down the blade. “I loved her. I loved her.”
    “You didn’t mean to do it, did you, Sam?” Frank picked up the ball, sliding back into the seat, his voice gentle, his eyes level. “I know how it is. Sometimes you love a woman so much it makes you crazy. When they don’t listen, don’t hear what you’re saying, don’t understand what you need, you have to find a way to make them. That’s all it was, wasn’t it? You were trying to find a way to make her listen, and she wouldn’t. You lost your temper. The drugs, they played a part in that. You just didn’t have control of yourself. You argued, and the scissors were just there. Maybe she came at you. Then it just happened, before you could stop it. Like the other time when you didn’t mean to hurt her. It was a kind of accident.”
    “I don’t know.” Tears were starting to swim in his eyes. “I had the scissors, but it was after. It had to be after. I pulled them out of her.”
    “Livvy saw you.”
    Sam’s face went blank as he stared at Frank. “What?”
    “She saw you. She heard you, Sam. That’s why she came downstairs. Your four-year-old daughter’s a witness. The murder weapon has your prints all over it. Your bloody footprints are all over the house. In the living room, the hall, going up the stairs. There are bloody fingerprints on the doorjamb of your little girl’s bedroom. They’re yours. There was no one else there, Sam, no burglar like you tried to tell us yesterday. No intruder. There was no sign of a break-in, nothing was stolen, your wife wasn’t raped. There were three people in the house that night. Julie, Livvy and you.”
    “There had to be someone else.”
    “No, Sam. No one