Page 20 of Daniel Watson
“I’ve wanted to end my life every day. There are days when I don’t want to get out of my bed or take a shower. I find life, my life to be worthless. I couldn’t keep my babies safe. What kind of woman can’t keep her children safe? A bad mother is who.” Cassie stood up and started to reach for the other woman. She then backed away from her when the gun suddenly appeared. “No, stay away from me. I know what I’m doing. Just eat the cake.”
She looked down at the cake and then at what she had assumed was her husband slumped over the marker for their child. She didn’t know what she was going to do but Cassie was not going to taste that cake. Not even at gunpoint.
“You killed your husband.” She said that he was worthless anyway. “How did you come to that conclusion? He’d been with you every time you’ve come here. That has to be something.”
“He comes here so that I don’t get to do this. But I fooled him, didn’t I? He thought that I’d just shot him in the head, but poisoning him was so much…He should have killed me when it happened.” She asked her what she meant. “I killed my own family. Rusty blames me every day. Oh, he’s too smart to come out and just say that I did it, but I know what he’s thinking. That I’m a fucking murderer and should be put down like the dog that I am.”
“And what does that have to do with killing me?” She told her that she was going to be taking her misery away for her, too. “I’m not miserable. I’m happy. Sad at times, but I’m not miserable at all. I come here to tell my brother about the things that had happened this week. Tell him what he’s missing. I know that he can’t hear me, but that doesn’t stop me from telling him. It’s a comfort to me. Please put the gun away, and no one else has to be hurt.”
“What if I put my gun to my own head?” Putting her statement to good use, the gun was at her head before she could blink. “I want to die. No one will allow it. What am I going to do?”
She didn’t want to die. She had when Bradley had been murdered, all she wanted to do was to end her life, so she sort of knew what the other woman was going through. Then she thought of the story that Tabby told her about meeting Joey for the first time. And smiled.
“Go ahead. Shoot yourself in the head. I won’t stop you.” The other woman looked confused. “Unless you’d rather I did it for you. I don’t mind. I’ve killed before. As a Federal Officer, I’ve seen my fair share of deaths. Caused quite a few of them as well.
“You’re a murderer?” She told her that all the deaths that had been done by her had been done to keep the world safer. Putting out her hand, Cassie asked for the gun so that she could shoot her. “You’d do that? Kill me?”
The gun was wavering enough that Cassie thought that she could snatch it from her without much effort. And no one else could be harmed. Telling her again that she’d do it had the woman backing up. Cassie took two steps toward her with each step that she took back.
“Unless you want me to use my gun.” Just as she finished the sentence, Cassie had her gun pointed at the woman’s head. “There is no way I’d be able to miss from this distance. It would be a clean shot if that’s what you want. Using your gun would save me a great deal of paperwork. Seeing how you’ve already killed your husband—where are your other children? I just remembered your name being in the paper now. Victoria Coulter. It was mentioned in the paper that you had five little ones at home. Tell me what you did to them, and I’ll make sure that if you didn’t kill them too, they get put into a good home.”
“He hid them away from me.” Cassie felt a relief all over her body, hearing that the children were at least safe. “He’s a dirty bastard for doing that, don’t you think? It’s why he had to die. They all have to—what are you doing? Put that phone away.”
“I’m calling the police to have them go and look at your house to find the others. I’d surely hate for them to hear that their own mother had planned to kill them, too. Plus, their dad. You just hang on—Hello, yes, my name is Major Cassandra Watson, FBI. I have an address to give you for you to check on the welfare of the children of Hank and Victoria Coulter. I’m standing in front of her, and she has a gun pointed at me. I have one pointed at her as well.” She was never so glad to hear Joey Phillips, her brother-in-law, put on the call for her. He asked her if she was all right. “I am, so far. Mr. Coulter is dead, I believe. Victoria poisoned him, she told me. And I have a slice of the same cake near me that she was insisting that I eat as well.”
“Did she give you a reason why she killed her husband?” She told Joey what she’d said about him hiding the children from her so she’d not kill them. “And what did she say about killing you.”
“She believes that I’d feel better about losing my brother if I was dead. She has also threatened to—what was that, Victoria?” She told her that she wanted her children to be brought to her. “I don’t think that’s even remotely going to happen. Since everyone in the station knows that you want to kill them, too. No, it’s just you and me now. And Joey. If he comes here, he’d going to blow your head off for you because he loves me and is that good. You’ll see. In just a few minutes, you’ll be wishing that you’d stayed home today. Or not. I don’t give a rat’s ass how you feel about being shot in the head.”
“Cassie, honey, you probably shouldn’t piss off a woman holding a gun to your head. It might make her pull the trigger.” She said that she was pissed off that she’d made it so that she’d not get to talk to her brother. “You’re near your brother’s headstone? Thank you for that. My ETA is four minutes. Do you think you can hold her off for that long?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. If you’re going to use that high-powered rifle, then I’m going to need to know when so I can move out of the way.” Cassie knew that there wasn’t any way that she’d be in the way unless she stepped in front of Victoria. But if she could get the woman to give her the gun because she was afraid, then no one else had to die today. “Victoria, you’re to stand very still, all right? They don’t want you to be moving around when he kills you.”
“What are you talking about? No one is going to kill me.” Just then, a cruiser pulled into the parking lot just behind her car. “You really called the police on me? You bitch.”
“Give me the gun, and I promise you that I’ll tell the police that you cooperated with me. Otherwise, the man that you can see lining up his shot on the top of the cruiser is going to kill you. And I promise you, neither one of us will lose any sleep with you being dead.” She looked at the cruiser and then down at the red dot on her chest. “He will kill you, Victoria. There is no doubt about that.”
“Here. You win this time. But next time, I’m just going to shoot you and be done with it. Tell that man to stop putting dots on me.” She took the gun away from her and put her hands atop her head like she asked her to do. “You’re the meanest person that I’ve ever met. Even meaner than my mother-in-law, I’m thinking.”
Flipping her over after putting her on the ground, Cassie had to lean over and puke her breakfast up before she could cuff the younger woman. By the time she was in cuffs, the other officers were there and she was helped up by Joey. All the time Victoria was being read her rights, she was telling them what a bitch she’d been to her.
“Are you all right?” She told Joey that she didn’t know. “I’ve had Caleb bring in Daniel instead of him driving. He’s a lousy drive to begin with. Being scared out of his mind would make him have an accident.”
“Do you think that he’ll be mad at me? While make-up sex is wonderful, I don’t want him to ever…she was going to kill me with that cake, Joey. She didn’t have any idea who I was, but she was going to kill me.” He held her to his body while she cried. “I don’t want to die, you know that, don’t you? Also, I need to stop coming out here to talk to Bradley. He’s more than likely pissed off at me too. Don’t you think?”
“I hope so. No one is pissed off at you. Terrified out of their minds but not mad. Honey, that was the scariest call I’ve ever taken. You saved that woman’s life.” She nodded, still leaning on him. “When Daniel gets here, just let him talk or yell at you. Then allow him to check you over. Nothing has happened to you, but he won’t believe that until he sees it for himself.” She told him that she’d do that.
“All I could think about was how I’d not gotten to babysit my granddaughters yet. How I hadn’t baked any cookies with Luke in a very long time.” She looked up at him. “I’m going to retire from the FBI starting now. I don’t want to be pulled from my family ever again. I know that I could be shot without being in the Feds, but I think that I’d stand a better chance of living if I was just a normal person like a parent who volunteers at school. Maybe I’ll drive one of the school buses or something just to be near them.
Cassie was happy that he wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing with what she was saying. What she wanted more than anything right now was Daniel. She looked down the hill from where they were standing and saw him.
Taking it easy so she’d not fall, she made her way to him as he came up the hill to her. She was sobbing, coming so close to losing all the time that they had left together. When he was close enough to touch her, he picked her up in his arms and swung her around several times before putting her on her feet to kiss her.
“I love you so much.” He told her that he loved her too. “I’m done with the feds. I want to live my life with you. Seeing the world and playing with the babies for whatever time we have left. Can you handle that?”
“Yes. Forever, love. Forever.”
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