Safe Haven(38)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

Katie saw the headlights of a car on the road, moving as fast as a race car. She wanted to get to the road, to flagthe car down, but she knew she wouldn’t reach the road in time. Surprising her, the car suddenly began to slow,and all at once, she recognized the jeep as it careened into the lot, recognized Alex behind the wheel.

Roaring past her, toward Kevin.

The sirens were getting closer now. People were coming and she felt a surge of hope.

Kevin saw the jeep coming and raised the gun. He began firing, but the jeep kept coming toward him. He leapt outof the way as the jeep roared past, but it clipped his hand, breaking all the bones and knocking the gunsomewhere into the darkness.

Kevin screamed in agony, instinctively cradling his hand as the jeep careened forward, past the burningwreckage of the store, skidding on the gravel and crashing headlong into the storage shed.

There were sirens in the distance. He wanted to chase Erin but he would get arrested if he stayed. The feartook over and Kevin began to limp and jog to his car, knowing that he had to get out of there and wondering howeverything had gone so wrong.

Katie watched Kevin tear out of the lot, gravel spinning, onto the main road. Turning around, she saw that Alex’sjeep was half buried in the storage shed, its engine still spewing exhaust, and she raced toward it. The fire cast itsflickering light on the rear of the car and she felt panic rising inside her, as she prayed for Alex to show himself.

She was closing in on the car when her foot hit something hard, making her stumble. Spotting the gun she’dtripped on, she picked it up and started toward the car again.

Ahead, the door of the car pushed open slightly, but it was blocked by debris on either side. She felt a surge ofrelief that Alex was alive at the same instant she remembered that Josh and Kristen were missing.

“Alex!” she cried. She reached the back of the jeep and started to pound on it. “You have to get out! The kidsare out there—need to find them!”

The door was still jammed but he was able to roll down the window. When he leaned out, she saw he wasbleeding from his forehead and his voice was weak. “They’re okay… I brought them to your house…”

Ice flooded her veins. “Oh, my God,” she croaked out, thinking, No, no, no… “Hurry up!” She pounded the rearof the car. “Get out! Kevin just left!” She could hear the raw fear in her own voice. “That’s the direction he went!”

The pain in his hand was beyond anything he’d ever experienced, and he felt dizzy from blood loss. Nothing wasmaking any sense, and his hand was useless now. He heard the sirens coming but he would wait for Erin at herhouse, because he knew she would be home tonight or tomorrow.

He parked behind the other, deserted cottage. Strangely, he saw Amber standing behind a tree, asking if hewanted to buy her a drink, but then her image vanished. He remembered that he had cleaned the house andmowed the lawn but he had never learned how to do laundry and now Erin was calling herself Katie.

There was nothing to drink and he was getting so tired. Blood stained his pants and he realized that his fingersand arm were bleeding, too, but he couldn’t remember how that had happened. He wanted so much to sleep. Heneeded to rest for a while because the police would be searching for him and he needed to be fresh if they gotclose.

The world around him was growing faint and distant, as if viewed through the far end of a telescope. He heardthe trees swaying back and forth, but instead of a breeze, all he felt was the hot summer air. He began to shiver,but he was sweating, too. So much blood, and it drained out of his hands and arm, wouldn’t seem to stop. Heneeded to rest, couldn’t stay awake, and his eyes began to close.

Alex slammed the jeep into reverse and revved the engine, listening to the wheels spinning, but the jeep wasgoing nowhere. His mind raced frantically with the knowledge that Josh and Kristen were in danger.

He lifted his foot off the gas, engaged the four-wheel drive, and tried again. This time the jeep began to move,the side mirrors ripping off, debris scraping and bending its body. The jeep came free with a final lurch. Katiepulled futilely at the passenger door until Alex rotated in his seat and kicked at it, flinging it open. Katie jumped in.

Alex turned the jeep around and accelerated hard, gaining the road as the fire trucks pulled in. Neither said aword as he slammed the pedal to the floor. Alex had never been more frightened in his life.

Around the bend, the gravel road. Alex turned sharply, the car skidding out. The rear fishtailed and heaccelerated again. Up ahead, he spotted the cottages, lights glowing in the windows of Katie’s. No sign of Kevin’scar, and he exhaled before he even realized he’d been holding his breath.

Kevin heard the sound of an engine coming down the gravel road and he jerked awake.

The police, he thought, and he automatically reached for his gun using his crippled hand. He screamed in painand confusion as he realized that the gun wasn’t there. It had been on the front seat but it wasn’t there now andnone of this made sense.

He got out of the car and looked up the road. The jeep pulled into view, the one from the store parking lot, theone that had almost killed him. It came to a stop and Erin leapt out. At first he couldn’t believe his good fortune, butthen he remembered that she lived here and it was the reason he’d come.

His good hand was shaking hard as he opened the trunk and removed the crowbar. He saw Erin and her loverracing to the porch. He staggered and limped toward the house, unwilling and unable to stop, because Erin washis wife and he loved her and the gray-haired man had to die.

* * *

Alex skidded to a stop in front of the house and both of them jumped out simultaneously, running for the door,calling the kids’ names. Katie still held the gun. They reached the door just as Josh opened it, and as soon as hesaw his son, Alex swept him up in his arms. Kristen came out from behind the couch and rushed toward them.

Alex opened his arms to her as well, catching her easily as she jumped.

Katie stood just inside the doorway, watching with tears of relief in her eyes. Kristen reached out for her, too,and Katie moved closer, accepting Kristen’s hug with a blind rush of happiness.

Lost in the tidal wave of emotion, none of them noticed Kevin appear in the doorway, crowbar raised high. Heswung hard, sending Alex crashing to the floor and the kids stumbling and falling backward in horror and shock.

Kevin heard the satisfying thud of the crowbar, felt the vibration up his arm. The gray-haired man lay crumpled onthe floor and Erin screamed.

In that instant, Alex and the kids were all that mattered to her, and Katie instinctively rushed toward Kevin, drivinghim back out the door. There were only two porch steps, but it was enough, and Kevin toppled backward into thedirt.

Katie spun around. “Lock the door!” she screamed, and this time it was Kristen who moved first, even as shescreamed.

The crowbar had fallen to the side and Kevin struggled to roll over and stand. Katie raised the gun, pointing itas Kevin finally made it to his feet. He swayed, almost losing his balance, his face a skeletal white. He seemedunable to focus and Katie could feel the tears in her eyes.

“I used to love you,” she said. “I married you because I loved you.”

He thought it was Erin, but her hair was short and dark, and Erin was a blond. A foot lurched forward as healmost fell again. Why was she telling him this?

“Why did you start to hit me?” she cried. “I never knew why you couldn’t stop even when you promised.” Herhand was shaking and the gun felt so, so heavy. “You hit me on our honeymoon because I left my sunglasses bythe pool…”

The voice was Erin’s and he wondered if he was dreaming.

“I love you,” he mumbled. “I’ve always loved you. I don’t know why you left me.”

She could feel the sobs building in her chest, choking her. Her words flooded out in a torrent, unstoppable andnonsensical, years’ worth of sorrow. “You wouldn’t let me drive or have any friends and you kept the money andmade me beg you for it. I want to know why you thought you could do that to me. I was your wife and I loved you!”

Kevin could barely stay upright. Blood dripped from his fingers and arm to the ground, slippery anddistracting. He wanted to talk to Erin, wanted to find her, but this wasn’t real. He was sleeping, Erin was beside himin bed, and they were in Dorchester. Then his thoughts leapfrogged, and he was standing in a dingy apartmentand a woman was crying.

“There was pizza sauce on his forehead,” he muttered, stumbling forward. “On the boy who was shot, but themom fell down the stairs and we arrested the Greek.”

She couldn’t make sense of what he was saying, couldn’t understand what he wanted from her. She hated himwith a rage that had been building up for years. “I cooked for you and cleaned for you and none of it mattered! Allyou did was drink and hit me!”

Kevin was swaying, like he was about to fall. His words were slurred, unintelligible. “There were no footprints inthe snow. But the flowerpots are broken.”

“You should have let me go! You shouldn’t have followed me! You shouldn’t have come here! Why couldn’t youjust let me go? You never loved me!”

Kevin lurched toward her, but this time he reached for the gun, trying to knock it away. He was weak now,though, and she managed to hold on. He tried to grab her, but he screamed in agony when his damaged handconnected with her arm. Acting on instinct, he threw his shoulder into her, driving her against the side of thehouse. He needed to take the gun away from her and press it into her temple. He stared at her with wide, hate-filledeyes, pulling her close, reaching for the gun with his good hand, using his weight against her.

He felt the barrel graze his fingertips and instinctively scrambled for the trigger. He tried to push the gun towardher, but it was moving in the wrong direction, pointing down now.

“I loved you!” she sobbed, fighting him with every ounce of rage and strength left in her, and he felt somethinggive way, momentary clarity returning.

“Then you never should have left me,” he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. He pulled the trigger andthe gun sounded with a loud crack and then he knew it was almost over. She was going to die because he’d toldher that he’d find her and kill her if she ever ran away again. He would kill any man who loved her.

But strangely, Erin didn’t fall, didn’t even flinch. Instead, she stared at him with fierce green eyes, holding hisgaze without blinking.

He felt something then, burning in his stomach, fire. His left leg gave way and he tried to stay upright, but hisbody was no longer his own. He collapsed on the porch, reaching for his stomach.

“Come back with me,” he whispered. “Please.”

Blood pulsed through the wound, passing between his fingers. Above him, Erin was going in and out of focus.

Blond hair and then brown again. He saw her on their honeymoon, wearing a bikini, before she’d forgotten hersunglasses, and she was so beautiful that he couldn’t understand why she’d wanted to marry him.

Beautiful. She was always so beautiful, he thought, and then he was tired again. His breaths became raggedand then he started to feel cold, so cold, and he began to shake. He exhaled once more, the sound like air beingreleased from a tire. His chest stopped moving. His eyes were wide open, uncomprehending.

Katie stood over him, shaking as she stared down at him. No, she thought. I’ll never go with you . I never

wanted to go back.

But Kevin didn’t know what she was thinking, because Kevin was gone, and she realized then that it was finally,truly, over.

41

The hospital kept Katie under observation for most of the night before finally releasing her. Afterward, Katieremained in the hospital waiting room, unwilling to leave until she knew Alex would be okay.

Kevin’s blow had nearly cracked Alex’s skull, and he was still unconscious. Morning light illuminated thenarrow rectangular windows of the waiting room. Nurses and doctors changed shifts, and the room began to fillwith people: a child with a fever, a man having trouble breathing. A pregnant woman and her panicked husbandpushed through the swinging doors. Every time she heard a doctor’s voice, she looked up, hoping she would beallowed to see Alex.

Bruises mottled her face and arms, and her knee was swollen to almost twice its usual size, but after therequisite X-rays and exams, the doctor on call had merely given her ice packs for her bruises and Tylenol for thepain. He was the same doctor who was treating Alex, but he couldn’t tell her when Alex would wake and said thatthe CAT scans were inconclusive. “Head wounds can be serious,” he’d told her. “Hopefully, we’ll know more in afew hours.”

She couldn’t think, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop worrying. Joyce had taken the kids home from thehospital and Katie hoped they hadn’t had nightmares. Hoped they wouldn’t have nightmares forever. Hoped Alexwas going to recover fully. Prayed for that.

She was afraid to close her eyes because every time she did, Kevin reappeared. She saw the smears of bloodon his face and shirt, his wild eyes. Somehow, he’d tracked her down; somehow, he’d found her. He’d come toSouthport to take her home or kill her, and he’d almost succeeded. In one night, he had destroyed the fragileillusion of security she had managed to construct since she’d arrived in town.

The terrifying visions of Kevin kept coming back, recurring endlessly with variations, sometimes changingentirely; there were moments she saw herself bleeding and dying on the porch, staring up at the man she hated.

When that happened, she instinctively groped at her stomach, searching for wounds that didn’t exist, but then shewas back in the hospital, sitting and waiting under fluorescent lights.

She worried about Kristen and Josh. They’d be here soon; Joyce would bring them in to see their father. Shewondered if they would hate her because of everything that happened, and the thought made tears sting hereyes. She covered her face with her hands, wishing she could burrow into a hole so deep that no one would everfind her. So that Kevin would never find her, she thought, and then remembered again that she’d watched him dieon the porch. The words He’s deadechoed like a mantra she couldn’t escape.