a simple plan by scott smith

Author:scott smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: ps
ISBN: 9780307278272
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
Published: 1994-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

I FOUND my brother in the living room, sitting on the couch. He'd unzipped his jacket and was drinking from a glass full of whiskey. His rifle was lying propped up against the foot of the stairs. I didn't look at Lou's body, just scanned it once as I passed through the entranceway, to make sure Jacob hadn't moved it, then stepped quickly down into the living room.

There was a woman's bathrobe draped across the arm of the couch. It was sky blue, silky. I picked it up and sniffed at it -- a sweetish mix of perfume and tobacco. I unzipped my jacket and stuffed it inside.

"Are they coming?" Jacob asked.

"Who?"

"The police."

"Not yet."

"Did you call them?"

I shook my head. I saw a pack of Marlboro Lights sitting on the coffee table. Beside it were a lighter and a tube of lipstick. I scooped all three of them up and slid them into my jacket pocket. "I'm going to go get Sonny," I said. "We're going to make it look like Lou shot him and Nancy together."

I could see Jacob struggling to make sense of this. He frowned up at me, his forehead wrinkling, the glass of whiskey trembling a bit in his hand. "You're going to shoot Sonny, too?"

"We have to," I said.

"I don't think I want to do that."

"It's either that or go to jail. That's our choice."

Jacob was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Why can't we run? Why can't we go get Sarah and the baby and the money and just drive off? We could head down to Mexico. We could--"

"They'd catch us, Jacob. They always do. They'd track us down and bring us back. If we want to save ourselves, this is how we have to do it." I was feeling panicky with the loss of time, jittery. It seemed like I could actually sense the two corpses cooling, draining, indelibly marking the chronology of their passing. I didn't want to have to argue with Jacob; I'd already made my decision. I turned and started toward the entranceway. "I'm not going to jail," I said.

I heard him stand up, as if to come after me. When he spoke, his voice came out high and tight, stopping me in midstride. "We can't kill all these people."

I turned to face him. "I'm going to save us, Jacob. If you let me, I'll be able to make it right."

His face took on a scared, frantic expression. "No. We have to stop."

"I'm just going to--" I began, but he didn't let me finish.

"I want to leave. I want us to run away."

"Listen to me, Jacob." I leaned forward and took his sleeve in my hand. I held it very lightly, just a small fold of red nylon between two of my gloved fingers, but it created a sudden, nearly palpable tension in the room. We both fell silent.

"I'm telling you how it's going to look," I said.

He met my eyes for the briefest of moments. He seemed to be holding his breath.

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