Support groups meet in neighborhood rec centers. The lighting in the hallway, outside the meeting room, is a shade darker than the light inside the meeting room. The box of pastries is open when you enter the room. No one knows who opened the box first. There is coffee. There are posters on the walls that advise the reader to wear condoms, get vaccinated, donate, ask for help, volunteer. GOOD THINGS!!!
The chairs in the meeting room are arranged in a certain pattern depending on the issues of those in attendance. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings chairs will be in rows, facing forward in one direction. There will be an isle down the middle. A room reserved for a meeting of cancer patients and/or survivors will have chairs in a circle, close enough that those seated can give pats on shoulders and hold frail hands.
Survivors of physical abuse will find a room with chairs that are also in a circle, so that no one will have anyone seated behind them. The circle will be larger, with enough chair that those seated will not be forced to sit with a person on both sides of them. Those chairs will not be close enough for those in attendance to easily touch.
At Lynette’s first meeting of abuse survivors she sat where the seats to her left and right were empty.
Lynette stood and introduced herself to the group. She identified herself as a survivor but didn’t share beyond that. Lynette sat silently not listening to anything that was said. She was too busy trying not to be obviously watching the redhead across from her, who was very obviously watching Lynette the whole time.
Natalia waited by the door for Lynette. They found better pastries and coffee at a diner a block over. Lynette’s eyes dared Natalia to judge her when she told her that she had been severely abused by every boyfriend she had since she was 16 years old. Natalia tossed out the fact that she was a recovering cocaine addict in between naming her favorite movie and commenting on how good the coffee was at the diner a block over.
Lynette raised her a propensity to find a way to destroy anything good that tried to last in her life. Natalia was pregnant by a man who had killed himself the week before.
Lyn called Nat brave for keeping the child of a man who stole everything she had, then tried to poison her so she would have a miscarriage, before blaming her for his misery in his suicide note.
Nat was the first person that Lyn told the details of her worst relationship. The one where Lyn’s boyfriend held her hostage, tied up in a toolshed for a day, gleefully beating her.
They laughed through tears at their combined level of traumatic memories and self-destruction. They met for dinner the next day. Natalia moved into Lynnette’s apartment the next week. They married the next month.
Their bond came with honest dialog. Lyn and Nat did not lie to each other. When Nat got high with an old girlfriend she told Lyn. Lyn went with Nat to an NA meeting that night. When Lyn cheated with her yoga instructor, she admitted her mistake and the two started spending every free moment together.
It helped that they both worshipped their son, Nathaniel. When he was born both Nat and Lyn refocused their lives. They set their schedule around work, their son and what was left over was alone time for the two of them.
Lyn was apprehensive but supportive of Nat when she decided to contact Nathaniel’s late father’s grandparents to tell them they have a grandchild.
That proved to be a mistake when the newly informed grandparents immediately hired lawyers to sue for custody of their newly discovered grandson.
Nat was supportive of Lyn when she went back to trafficking drugs for some low-level cartel member named Ernesto. With Nat having to stay home because the two could no longer afford daycare, Lynette losing her job and having problems finding another that was worth a damn, the economy swirling the bowl on its way down the drain and an affluent couple pouring money into the legal system to take away their child, there wasn’t much to argue about.
The three endured the stress of Lyn taking weekly trips to the border to drive U-Haul trucks full of narcotics up the coast. The money was a godsend. Most evident when their lawyer called with the news that he had finally had the grandparent’s custody petition dismissed. That night Lynette retired from her job driving truckloads full of illicit substances. The next day she enrolled in a program to get her license to drive legal cargo. She received her commercial driver license in a matter of weeks.
And the world was finally right side up.
Nathaniel wasn’t breathing.
Lynette had peaked into Nate’s crib as she often does when she’s home. She didn’t know how long it had been since his last breath. Lyn did the CPR that she learned at Mommy and Me parenting classes. Nate was breathing by the time the EMTs arrived.
Nat was quiet on the ride to the hospital. She hugged Lyn’s arm and cried inside the speeding ambulance. At the hospital Lyn asked questions and ran down Nate’s meager medical history to the nurses. Nate was a healthy, happy baby, until now.
Nate needed an operation to fix the muscles around his little lungs. The operation would cost more than they could afford in five years of truck driving. Their insurance denied their claim.
So, Lyn went back to Ernesto, hat in hand, expecting him to laugh at her need. Instead, he told her about his own bills. Ernesto told Lynette that a mutual acquaintance of theirs had disappeared with a large shipment of drugs. Ernesto seemed unfazed by the implications of owning seven figures to the cartel with no way to pay it back. Ernesto had a plot. The plot would pay her bills and his.
“A kidnapping”, he said. “Quick and easy.”
Lynette went home and told her wife a lie. Lyn said that she had ran into her former employer and that he had told her about his predicament.
Nat, remembering Lyn’s stories of Ernesto’s ever more erratic behavior and wild, drug fueled moods wings. Nat told Lyn that only a fool would get mixed up with him after knowing what he was capable of.
They laughed.
Nate was in Lyn’s arms when he stopped breathing for the second time.
Mom and son were watching TV on the sofa. Nate’s little head suddenly fell forward. He nearly rolled right off Lyn’s lap onto the floor.
Ernesto was ready. He told Lyn where to be and when to be there. Lynette knew that if she showed up at that place at that time there would be no turning back. Once she knew what Ernesto was planning, she could not say no.
Things went smoothly from the start. Ernesto told Lyn the who, what and where. The plan was well thought out. Snatch a girl from a wealthy family, send a note, collect the ransom, let the girl go. Ernesto had the car, nondescript clothing, a hideout, clean cellphones, everything ready when she arrived. He had a small gun with a small clip for her and a big one with a bigger clip for himself. Just in case.
Ernesto was as calm as any professional criminal at work. Friday he and Lynette sat a block away from a prestigious, expensive high school at lunchtime. They waited for the girl to take her midday stroll around the park. She appeared just when Ernesto said to expect her. The weather was scorching hot. The streets were empty. Ernesto hopped out of the getaway car behind Marguerite. The only person in sight was one homeless woman who was feeding the ducks by the parks small pond.
Lynette watched Ernesto approach the girl from behind. She glanced around. Only then did she notice the bicycle cop on the other side of the pond.
Lynette stopped breathing.
Ernesto’s arm fell, the girl crumpled.
Lynette pulled calmly to the curb. She checked the bike cop and saw he was looking in the other direction. Lynette helped Ernesto toss the small girl into the backseat of the getaway car. Another glance. The cop was looking at the homeless woman. Lynette got back behind the wheel. The rear door closed. The driver’s door closed and Lynette drove away in no hurry.
Lynette smiled at how easy it all was.
Then the popping sounds of thumped meat began. Lynette adjusted the review mirror. She saw Ernesto’s hand come up. His fist was smeared with blood. When it fell out of her view it thumped again and again.
Lynette felt those thumps, on the floor of a tool shed.
She called Ernesto. He stopped. Lynette reminded him to send the ransom note. The thumping didn’t come again.
The ride to the hideout was quiet. The smell of blood was strong inside the air-conditioned car. Lynette did not look into the backseat. She kept her small gun on her lap as she drove.
Marguerite was unconscious when Lynette stopped the getaway car at a finished home in an unfinished subdivision on the outskirts of the city. The construction workers had left for the day so the site would be empty until Monday.
When Lynette got out of the getaway car her small gun fell off her lap. It landed at Ernesto’s feet. He told her that she wouldn’t need it. He took the magazine out of it before tossing the gun back into the getaway car.
Ernesto toted Marguerite into the hideout like an armload of donated coats. Inside the getaway car’s trunk there was bottled water and rolls duct tape. Inside the house there was a wooden chair. Ernesto used two rolls of the duct tape to secure Marguerite to the chair, ankles to its legs, hands behind its back, around her chest and stomach, around and around her mouth. The scene took Lynette back to her worst memory.
Lynette was 18 years old. All her previous experience with men had trained Lynette to believe that a real man was aggressive and controlling. She thought that when a man choked and hit a woman it came from his desire to teach her to be better.
Then one evening, Lynette woke up in the dark, covered in bruises, her clothes plastered to her skin by dried blood. Her mouth was covered by duct tape. Her ankle and wrists were already chafed from extension cords tied too tight. Her boyfriend stood over her with his calm eyes and huge hands, waiting for her to wake up, so he could hurt her some more.
That was the last time Lynette was alone and helpless.
“Hey wife.” Lynette whispers, “I can’t be long.” Her voice is muffled in the houses walk in closet.
“Hello wife.” Natalia says, a smile in her voice. “Where are you?”
Lynette presses her back to the wall of the walk-in closet and slides down until her butt touches the new carpet. She blows an exasperated sigh at her cell phone and tells her wife a lie, “I’m still in Chicago. The truck that the company assigned me wasn’t gassed up when I got here so I had to wait my turn at the pumps. Then, just when I was about to head out to go pick up my first load the battery died. Waiting on the fresh battery got me caught by the storm. I’m stuck here until it passes.”
“Aww. I hate that for you. And for me too. That storm is coming this way.” Natalia says.
“I know. Did you get everything done? Did you mail in our early voting forms?”
“I did. And you won’t believe who you voted for.”
“Dude.” Lyn says.
Lynette laughs a muffled laugh, listening all the while for creaking floorboards and turning doorknobs. She laughs for the first time in two days. She listens for footsteps on the stairs saying, “Did you get the prescriptions filled okay?”
“I got all of Nate’s meds, but not the Albuteral. It went up… again. We can’t afford the new price.”
“What if you have an asthma attack?” Lynette listens for approaching madmen.
“I’ll manage. I don’t have a choice. Where are you spending the night?” Natalia asks.
“I got a motel room with another driver. We both gotta wait until tomorrow so we went half. That’s why I’m being quiet.” Lynette lied. “She’s asleep so I’m in the bathroom.”
“She? She who? Who are you sharing a room with?” Natalia’s voice is higher, louder.
“No one you know. Why?” Lynette turns her head so one ear is towed the closed sliding closet door. Every time she speaks, she imagines she’s missing the sound of Ernesto moving toward her.
Natalia hesitates “I’m just wondering. I’m always afraid you’ll cheat stain.”
“Everything I’m doing is for you and Nate.”
“I have a right to be suspicious.” Nat says.
“Yeah.” Lynette sighs across her cellphone again. “You do.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. What are you two doing?”
“Donnie’s asleep. I brought his crib into the living room so I can watch him. I’m watching the nightly news.”
“Anything interesting?” Lyn asks.
“You haven’t seen it?”
“Seen what?” Lyn asks, listening.
“You didn’t see. Oh, Baby. I’m gonna get us so paid.” Nat says laughing too loud.
“Okay. How?” Lyn asks.
“Your ex-boss went crazy.”
“Which one? Eugene form Blimpies?” Lyn asks.
“No. Ernesto from Guatamala.” Nat says.
Lynette’s guts turn to ice water.
“Lyn?” Nat says. “Lyn!”
“I’m here, I’m here.” Lyn says, mouth suddenly dry. “What…what are you talking about?” she stammers.
“Erny. Your old Heffe. He tried to do a kidnapping, but of course he fucked it up spectacularly. Didn’t you see?”
“What are you talking about Nat?”
“That dumbass snatched a high school girl off the street, but get this, he snatched the wrong girl. Can you believe that?”
“No. That doesn’t sound right at all.” Lyn whispers.
“Well believe it anyway, because it’s true. He fucked up bad, Baby.”
“How do you know any of this?” Lyn asks.
“Because it’s been on every channel for two days. The Feds, city cops, state cops, everyone is looking for him. How could you not see it?”
“I had to do the orientation for the new company first” Lynnette quickly lied, “then they had me waiting for a truck, then I had to take it back because of the battery, oh and I forgot the part where hey discovers that the inspection stickers were expired. It has been two solid days of one thing after the other.”
“Aww. I hate that you have to go through all that.” Natalia is talking faster, louder. “If I could, I would change places with you in a heartbeat. After all you’ve been through. You don’t deserve to-“
“Baby, Baby, please. Focus.”
“Huh?” Nat snorts to clear her nose.
Lynette’s heart breaks. She knows what her wife’s short attention span and rapid, loud speech means She has heard that snort before. Her sense of dread is growing in more directions every moment.
“Okay, Nat. Start from the beginning” Lyn says
“Alright.” Nat tries. “So, this dickhead kidnapped a girl from her high school. Him and some other asshole bashed her head in and stuffed her in a car and drove off. Then, he sends an email to these rich people saying he’s going to kill their daughter.”
“Oh my god.” Lynette gasps.
“But he sent the email to the wrong parents.” Nat laughs.
“Oh my god. The wrong family got the ransom demand.”
“No.” Nat almost yells, “There was no ransom demand. It was just a message saying that he’s going to kill Bitsy. But he called her Margarete.”
“No demand? That’s impossible.” Lyn said, then “Wait. Who’s Bitsy?”
“That’s the girls name. He sent the note to a girl named Marguerite’s parents. But the girl in the photo is a completely different person. Her name is Bitsy.”
“That makes no sense.” Lyn thinks out loud.
“Of course it doesn’t. He’s insane.”
“I can’t believe he did that. He must have sent a demand for money. It makes no sense.”
“I don’t think he wants money. I think he’s graduated to terrorism. I think that the family of that other girl Marguerite owes the cartel and Ernesto’s doing this shit to play his debt to them. But he messed that up too, so they’ll probably kill him anyway.”
“Oh God. Oh God no.” Lyn whispers.
“Oh Baby. I’m so sorry. I know this is hitting close to home for you. Let’s change the subject.”
“No. I need to know. What else?”
“Lyn, this is too close to what you went through. Wait til you get home. We’ll talk then.”
“No.” Lynette says. “I need to know this.”
“None of this is your fault, Baby.”
Lynette begins to cry. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“I was just…I mean.”
“No Baby. I didn’t mean it like that. You know me. But you don’t know him. I thought I did but I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Nat begins to cry. “We needed the money. That’s it. You did it for Nate and for me. I know you would never have dealt with that psycho if you thought he’d do this kind of thing.”
“Oh Nat.”
“You’re a good person Lyn.”
Lynette moves the phone from her mouth and sobs.
Nat continues.
“Okay, so the girl was seen walking by the park at lunch time. A homeless woman was in the park and saw the kidnapping. She said there were two people but they both had on black hoodies. She described the car and she saw a tattoo on one kidnapper’s forearm.”
“The fucking homeless lady. You gotta be kidding me.” Lyn laughs.
“How crazy is that, right?” Nat chuckles, too.
“Tell me what the homeless lady saw.”
“She said she was in the park minding her own business, but the cops said she got arrested for resisting arrest, killing a duck in the park and, believe it or not, menacing the other ducks. Can you believe that? Menacing ducks? I mean, seriously?” Nat says louder. “There is no way that is a real thing. Who the fuck-?”
“Baby, focus. What did the homeless lady say she saw?”
“Okay. So, the homeless woman, said that she told the cops that she saw a girl get abducted, but they didn’t listen. Now she’s on every other channel talking about how she tried to tell some bicycle cop about Bitsy getting taken but, instead, the cop tasered her and let the kidnappers get away.”
“That’s…” Lyn stops, takes a deep breath, ” But still, how do you know it was E?”
“That is the best part” Nat says, “Everyone knows it’s him because I knew it was him. I’m the one who told the FBI it was him, Baby. That’s why we get the big reward.” Talking fast and faster, laughing more, louder.
Lynette hears Nate stir.
“Are you high?” Lyn whispers.
Too long pause. ” What? No why?”
“You’re talking fast and loud and you just…sound wild.”
“I had a cappuccino. I’m just wired up on caffeine. That’s all.” Nat says.
“Oh. Okay. Sorry, Baby.”
Nat sighs. “We keep each other sane. Don’t stop now.”
Lyn smiles. “Tell me how you IDed E.”
“Okay, so, the FBI showed a traffic camera shot of some random car running a red light and in the car beside it was the kidnappers car and then there was a shot from a parking garage showing one of the kidnappers stealing the car and the guy in the photo stealing the car had that ugly tattoo on his forearm then they showed the photo of Bitsy that the kidnappers sent to the wrong family and the hand is gripping a handful of Bitsy’s hair with that ugly tattoo on E’s forearm in the photo.” Nat is out of breath from the marathon sentence.
“Oh, God.” Lyn gasps “He must have taken the photo in the back of the car.”
“Yeah. That’s what they said on the news. You said you hadn’t seen it on the news.”
“You told me the picture was from the car.” Lyn lied to her confused wife.
“Oh. I did?”
“Yeah.” Lyn sighs. “Caffeine’s got you trippin’.”
“I know right? So much caffeine.”
“So, he sent a photo of Bitsy’s all beat up.” Lyn prompted.
“Yeah, and the girl in the photo has got a gash in the center of her forehead that look like Harry Potter’s lightning bolt, but with blood oozing out of it.”
“Jesus Christ.” Lyn thought the same thing when he saw the cut on Bitsy’s forehead.
“Oh. That was too much. I’m sorry.”
“Stupid!” Lyn hisses.
“I know right,” Natalia says, “how dumb. So the girl he took, Bitsy, her family is so poor her dad had a laundry service and her mom was a party planner they were doing so good last year that they took out loans to pay for Bitsy’s college she’s going to be 17 in the fall, graduating early, right, but no one has personal laundry or party planner money right now so they both have two jobs each just to keep up the payments on their loans and bills and stuff and their house which isn’t worth shit as of recently.”
“Shit.”
“It gets worse. Are you ready?” Nat asks.
“Yeah. I’m ready.”
“Bitsy’s family leveraged everything on their daughter’s education then everything they leveraged lost its value same as everyone else, so now she’s their only child and their only hope for their future too so that fucker literally has everything those people care about hidden somewhere doing God knows what to her.”
“Shit!”
“How sad right?”
“Yeah. Hey…slow down some.”
“Okay.”
Sigh. “What else is there?”
“There’s good news for us.” Nat takes a breath, “The rich family that got the death threat, they put up a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to Bitsy’s return and the kidnapper’s identity. And they also pledged to help Bitsy’s family no matter what. So, guess what I did?”
“What?” Nat said.
“I told them about Ernesto.”
“Did you?”
“I did. I called the number as soon as I saw that tattoo and told them all about our drug dealing friend. Minus your involvement, of course.”
“Baby, it will still lead to me.”
“No. I was smart.”
“I bet. You’re always the smart one.”
“I told the FBI that I had had dealings with him back when I was a deadbeat junky. I said I saw that tattoo lots of times when I was scoring drugs from him all by myself.” Nat has
a smile in her voice.
“Jesus Christ, baby. You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“Oh yes I do. I called and told them who that tattoo belongs to, and they said I was eligible for the full reward. How great is that?”
“He never sent the ransom note.”
“I know this a lot, but I thought you would be proud of me.”
“I’m just thinking about that girl, Bitsy.”
“She isn’t our problem, Lyn. We can’t save her.”
“What if we could though?”
“Lyn.”
“I started selling drugs because I didn’t care who I hurt. Because no one cared who hurt me.”
“Lyn-“
“But it’s all just a cycle. It’s a chain where I hurt so I hurt others, who hurt others.”
“We can’t save the world until we save ourselves.” Nat starts to cry.
“We can save the world from us, though.”
“What is going on with you?” Nat says.
“I can’t let him hurt her anymore.”
“Who are you talking about? Lyn?”
“You’re high. I can tell.” Lyn says.
“What? No.”
“You’re talking really fast and loud.”
“Oh no…no, I told you, I had a Red Bull.”
“Yeah. You did. Its late though.”
“I’m staying up celebrating. We’re going to get paid. Aren’t you happy?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just… it has been a long two days. And now all this.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry too. But things will get better when we get that money, right?”
“Yeah. All we need is money.”
“Things are looking up, Baby.”
“All because of you, Baby.”
“So, who do you think Ernesto’s accomplice is?” Nat asks.
“Must be someone with nothing to lose.” Lyn says.
“Has to be someone who doesn’t know him. No one who already knows him would be so stupid.”
“It’s time for me to go.” Lyn said.
“Get some sleep. Dream of me.” Nat says.
“I will. And you lay off the Red Bull.”
“The what? Oh. Yeah.”
“Kiss Nate for me.”
“I will. Call me when you’re on the road.”
“I love you, Baby. Goodbye.”
5 Complicity 3 Lynette
Page 5
By Shedrick Hutson
#1016101
February 28, 2026
Lynette got up off the new carpet inside the walk-in closet. The sliding door to the closet slid open without a sound. The master bedroom of the new house was the furthest from the stairs. Over the past two days Lynette had learned to listen for the creaking of floorboards and the clicking of new locks and doorknobs turning. She had been outside on look out and stood watch at every window of the house. She chose the furthest room so she could hear Ernesto coming from as far away as possible. And also, so she wouldn’t hear the thumping of meat or the girl squeal in pain through her duct tape gag.
Lynette has walked outside and around the house and to check on the getaway car, where she found her small pistol and the secret it held.
When Ernesto took away her gun, he removed the magazine full of bullets and put it into her pocket, then tossed the small gun into the car. But Ernesto didn’t know that there was one bullet already in the gun’s chamber.
Lynette took the hard lump of metal out of her bra. The moonlight through the bedroom’s window turned the small gun into a black lump in her hand. The gun feels heavier than it did when it was fully loaded. Lynette shoves the gun into her waist at the small of her back.
Lynette takes two deep breaths.
Her ears ring in the silence. The world is listening for her.
The bedroom door’s lock is loud like all new locks. The click of its inner workings sounds like the chamber opening to reveal it’s one bullet.
The upstairs hallway is darker than she remembered. Lynette knows where the other two-bedroom doors are, the bathroom door, but she can’t see them. She hesitates not sure if a shadow is a shadow.
She takes two deep breaths.
Her eyes adjust to the gloom. The hallway is empty.
Lynnette takes two deep, shaking breaths. They don’t seem to make it to her lungs.
She steps into the hallway wondering how the cost of wall-to-wall carpet factors into the price of a brand-new house. The house makes a sound of settling construction as if to say, You don’t want to know. There is a creaking and popping of new boards talking, moving, warning.
At the end of the hallway is the stairs. A light shines up from downstairs. Lynette looks down the stairs. No one is looking up at her.
At the bottom of the stairs is the living room with its high ceiling and tall windows.
Everything in the room is the same as she’d left it. The girl is still duct taped to the chair.
The chair is still in the middle of the room facing a window. The one lamp with its one bare lightbulb is still beside the girl’s chair shining on her battered bloodied face.
The only difference is that it is no longer Ernesto the drug dealer kneeling beside some rich, spoiled child named Marguerite. It was all the men that Lynette had ever been victimized by kneeling beside a helpless victim. And there is fresh blood on Bitsy’s chin.
For Lynette life had become simple. She was going to stop this cycle of pain that she had participated in for so long, here and now. She had one shot to break this chain, and she was going to take it.
Ernesto knelt close to Bitsy’s, close to her duct taped mouth as if waiting for her to whisper something. He stared into her swollen shut eyes. He waited at her blood crusted face for some secret to be revealed. His hand ran up and down her bare shin. His lips are parted.
Maybe the secret is his for her. I’m going to kill your daughter, like his email said.
Bitsy is not listening. For however short a time, she has escaped into unconsciousness.
Lynette leaned against the wall beside the stairs with her hands behind her back. She touches the gun on her waist.
Ernesto looked over his shoulder at Lynette. She stands like nonchalant but not at all.
Her body is a taunt wire stretched between what she must do and what she is most afraid to do.
Ernesto stands. He smirks at Lynette. He looks her up and down. His eyes narrow.
Lynette leans away from the wall hands still behind her. She is the picture of cool casual, but not at all.
Ernesto draws his gun from his waist, slowly, watching Lynette. He holds it hanging
down pointed at the floor. He looks down at Bitsy.
“Time to cut bait.” he says
Lynette is shocked. Ernesto’s Spanish accent is gone.
He places his large gun between Bitsy’s chin and chest. He pushes her head up so Bitsy’s head tilts back. Ernesto looks down into Bitsy’s bruise-stained face.
“Cut bait? What does that mean?” Lynette asks.
Ernesto let’s Bitsy’s head drop back down to face her own lap. He shakes his head looking disappointed at his captive. His lips press into a hard cruel line. Ernesto looks up at Lynette. He smiles, cocks his weapon and places it at Bitsy’s temple.
Bitsy’s eyes open a crack seeing nothing.
Lynette draws her small gun. She holds it with two hands and points it at Ernesto’s face. Her hands shake.
Ernesto focuses on Lynette’s pistol. His thumb plays around his own trigger, rubbing up and down its short quarter moon.
“Don’t.” Lynette says. It takes her two tries to cock the hammer back.
She is crying.
Ernesto points his gun at Lynette’s face.
Lynette opened her mouth to speak.
Bitsy screams at the duct tape over her mouth.
Ernesto clichés. His shot entered Lynette’s head between the eyebrows. It goes out the back of her head into the stairwell wall.
Lynette flinches. Her one small bullet hits Ernesto’s smiling month. It shatters takes out his front teeth and severs his spine at the base of his skull.
Lynette’s body falls sideways in front of Bitsy’s chair.
Ernesto’s body sinks straight down, boneless beside Bitsy. His legs are awkward under his limp body.
To be continued…
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