the second shot was fired. Tasha was standing in front of the house.
“She’s in there,” she told them.
A police officer asked, “Are you the one who called the police?”
Tasha nodded. “She was the only friend I ever had. Harlin killed her family, and I knew she wasn’t gonna make it without her husband and her kid.”
The police entered the house and found Harlin dead in the living room where Alessa had left him. They moved through the house quickly and found Alessa in the bedroom, sprawled out on the mattress.
Meanwhile, a firestorm of police and flashing lights outside the house was attracting attention from people in the neighborhood. On the front steps, Tasha sat wrapped in a blanket, being questioned by the police. She looked up, as a man and an older woman, neither in uniform, approached the front door. The policeman talking to her blocked their entry into the house.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said politely but firmly. “No one can go in there.”
Remo looked steadily at the officer. “I’m Alessa’s husband,” he said.
Tasha screamed, “No, you can’t be. Harlin said they killed you and your kid.”
Remo looked at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Two policemen now approached Remo and Ebby. They took them off to one side where an officer verified their identities. Then, with deep sorrow in his voice, the policeman said, “I’m sorry, sir. Your wife is gone. It appears that she shot herself in the head after killing the man who had abducted her.”
Ebby let out a gurgling cry of anguish before the words finally exploded from her lips. “O my God!”
Remo had fallen to his knees and was bent over with pain. “No, no, no!” he whispered to himself in a voice raw with torment.
The two of them sat on the pavement, holding on to each other and trembling with grief as a crowd gathered, silenced by the sight of their crippling anguish.
Hours later, the police drove Remo and Ebby back to the Outside Inn. At the apartment, Lucy was sitting on the floor playing a board game with one of the young residents who had agreed to look after her. They both looked up, and Lucy was startled by the expression on Remo’s and Ebby’s faces. Remo rushed to the girl and gathered her up in his arms. Ebby stood beside them, as he explained that Alessa was gone. Lucy cried from the depths of her being, clinging to Remo as though if she unwrapped her arms from his waist, she would tumble downward and never find her way back. Ebby placed her arms around the two, and the three of them stayed there, huddled together, united in their sorrow.
Later that night, as they sat together, Lucy asked, “Why did Alessa have to leave us? Didn’t she know that we would find her?”
Remo moved closer. “The man who took her away told her he had killed us both. I don’t think she wanted to live without us, Luce.”
By 2 a.m., they were all exhausted. Remo went to his room to get sleep. Ebby lay down next to Lucy in her bed, and they slept in each other’s arms. In the morning, when they appeared in the kitchen, an invisible shroud of gloom seemed to have descended on them. The apartment seemed a vast, empty vacuum, devoid of life. All that could fill it were mere memories—of the woman who had changed their lives.
