by Nicola Marsh
I particularly liked curling up in the window seat today and staring at the ocean. There’s something inherently soothing in watching the waves come in. Evenly spaced. Regular. Dependable.
I really love this place and I never want to leave. For now, I won’t. I’m going to string this process out and not sign the adoption papers. Ris’s friends will have to find some other baby to buy because I have plans for mine. Now that I’m settled in a place of my own, I don’t have to expedite my blackmail. I can take my time.
I’ve instigated what needs to be done. I sent a letter addressed to the guy in the newspaper via his company rather than tiptoeing around Gledhill trying to discover his whereabouts, whether he’s my baby’s father or not. Either way, the father works at that company so he’ll get the letter.
Besides, I’m a coward and even if I find him, confronting him face to face would be a challenge. A civilized letter outlining my situation and demands is much more my style. Now I just need to sit back and wait for the money to flow in.
Simple.
The stupid thing is, for a brief moment after I set my plan in motion, I had second thoughts. What if I didn’t do this for the money? Then reality had set in and I knew I’d given up on pipe dreams a long time ago, around the time I turned fourteen and told Mom the creep she’d been dating for three months had put his hand on my ass. She hadn’t believed me and I’d got a slap across the face for my honesty.
I’ve been a fighter ever since and I refuse to walk away from this baby without giving it a chance to have the secure life I never had. That means I need money.
I’m almost asleep when there’s a soft knock at the front door. The studios, tiny cottages really, are spaced out on The Rise so it can’t be one of my neighbors unless they fancy late night walks in the dark.
Another thing I like about living here, the lack of street lights. The darkness enables me to lie in bed and stare out the window at the million stars dotting the sky. Beautiful.
The knock comes again, sharper and more insistent this time.
“Hold on,” I call out, slipping a long T-shirt over the camisole and boy boxers I’m wearing.
By the time I make it across the small living room the knocking is relentless and I wish I had a peephole like I did back in my apartment. Then again, this is the Hamptons. What’s the worst that can happen to me? I get mugged for… what? I don’t own anything of value. Considering the wealth in this town, I should be the one doing the mugging.
I open the door and see a tall shadow. For a second I think it’s my baby’s father. He must’ve received my letter, discovered my whereabouts via Marisa and come to discuss everything. But this person is wearing a large, shapeless, hooded jacket. In fact, in the darkness of the tiny porch, I can’t tell if my visitor is male or female.
“Can I help you?”
The figure nods and steps forward, as if to embrace me.
I take a step back but I’m too late. He or she wraps me in a hug. I struggle to escape, opening my mouth to scream.
A prick stings my neck, like a mosquito intent on gorging on my blood. I start to struggle in earnest, pushing and shoving and kicking.
But my limbs grow heavy. Weighed down by an invisible load that presses on my head at the same time.
The room spins as my head lolls back. I still can’t see who has me in their arms as they drag me to the sofa and lay me down.
My vision is blurred, contorted images of shadow and light fading in and out.
“Listen to me, you money-hungry bitch. Pack your bags and leave, now.”
The voice is distorted, like one of those box thingies that kidnappers use to demand ransom on the phone.
“You’ll get a pittance, not a cent more. And if you persist with this blackmail, you’ll be sorry.”
I’m being threatened. I should be scared. But all I feel is relaxed, like I’m floating on clouds: gossamer-thin, wispy clouds that cradle me.
“Are you listening? Can you hear me?” Hands grab my shoulders and shake me but my eyelids are heavy, so deliciously heavy. “Leave Gledhill and don’t come back.”
The shaking increases. “Answer me, dammit.”
I ignore the distorted voice; I’m too comfortable and my head is stuffed with cotton. The clouds are thickening around me. What feels like thousands of fluffy white clouds, so soft, so comforting. I’m floating.
The rough hands release me and I drift off again. I’m surrounded by white light, then dark, like a weird hypnotic kaleidoscope. My mind’s blank… I like not having to think… pretty white light…
“Hey, wake up.” The hands are back, shaking me so hard the fog in my head momentarily dissipates before thickening again, making rational thought impossible. “This isn’t supposed to happen. Wake up!”
The voice is angry. I don’t care. I haven’t felt this weightless before. I’m flying.
Fingers jab at my neck, then my wrist, checking for a pulse.
The hands release me and moments later I hear a door slam.
I’m glad. The crazy person has left me alone. I want to sleep so badly.
The door creaks open again and I want to protest but I can’t move, can’t speak. I hear footsteps. “Go away,” I think, wishing my lips could form the words.
The clouds are thicker now, surrounding me, cradling me. So nice…
Until a cloud covers my face. Stifling. Suffocating.
I can’t breathe.
I struggle to resurface. Gasp for air.
I need to stay awake for my baby.
But the cloud continues to fill my nose, my mouth. I can’t fight it any longer.
I drift off.
It’s not so bad.
Clouds are harmless and pretty.
Twenty-Five
Claire
Dane didn’t come home last night.
I should know. I haven’t slept. I lay in bed and alternated between staring at the clock, trying to read, resisting the urge to check the police scanner, and calling him unsavory names. I gave up around four-thirty and transferred to the kitchen table, where I began those inane rituals all over again.
I’ve had four espressos so I’m buzzing. Drained, exhausted and worried but hyped, ready to face whatever the day brings, good or bad. I’m on the verge of listening to the police scanner when he stumbles in around six a.m., disheveled and dazed. I want to yell at him but I don’t. I wait.
He hovers at the back door, staring at the kitchen floor, which I cleaned. It took me fifteen minutes to get every crumb of Parmesan out of the tile grouting. Then his contrite gaze drifts to the two holes in the wall and his shoulders slump, like he’s been hit from behind.
“I’m sorry,” he says, reluctantly looking me in the eye after he finally tears his gaze away from the wall. “I drove around for an hour or two last night, ended up doing a lot of thinking.”
When he doesn’t elaborate I’m forced to ask, “And?”
“I acted like a douche. Overreacted big time.” He swipes a hand over his face to hide his embarrassment. “I’m sorry for the way I behaved.”
I want to forgive him. After all, it’s my appalling behavior that precipitated his freak out. And I know if our roles had been reversed and he admitted to allowing a woman to kiss him I’d be catatonic right now.
But I need to let him know his behavior scared me, without causing another fight. “I’ve never seen you so angry.” I point at the holes in the wall. “You frightened me.”
“I’m sorry, the guy who did that, he’s not me.”
He’s so forlorn I want to go to him, but I’m still reeling from seeing my gentle husband morph into a furious, out of control Neanderthal that punches holes in walls.
“Where were you last night?”
Guilt shifts across his face like a shadow, gone before I can pinpoint it, and I wonder if I imagined it.
“Already told you, I drove around.”
His deliberate evasiveness isn’t helping. “You said that was for a few hours. Wha
t about the rest of the night?”
“Dozed in my car at the beach.” He shrugs, like staying out all night means nothing.
I want to interrogate him further. It’s not the cop in me; it’s the wife. I want to ask which beach and for how long. I want to ask what made him think it was okay to take his temper out by smashing things and punching holes in our wall. I want to ask what will it take to get past this.
Before I can formulate the words, my cell rings next to me on the counter. I glance at the screen. It’s Ron.
“I need to get this.”
He nods and I pick up the phone as he slouches off toward the bathroom.
Weary to the bone, and my workday hasn’t even started, I hit the answer button. “Hey, Ron, early call-out?”
“Yeah, we’ve got an anonymous call tipping us off about a body in a studio out by the back beach. Not sure if it’s suicide or not yet. They want us out there pronto.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in ten.” I glance down at my gray sweatshirt stained from cleaning up Dane’s pasta mess last night and my grimy yoga pants. “Make that fifteen.”
“I’ll text you the address. See you soon.”
I hang up and rush into the bedroom. Dane’s in the shower so there’s no chance I’ll have time to take one before I leave. So I tie my hair into a ponytail and change into a clean uniform.
He’s still in the shower when I have to leave so I stick my head around the bathroom door. “Got an urgent call-out from work, I have to go in early.”
I expect him to open the glass door and respond. He doesn’t. He merely raises his hand in a wave and proceeds to rinse the shampoo out of his hair.
We’re in a bad place after last night. And I want to bring a baby into this crappy environment? Kids are like mood stones. I’ve seen it with my nieces and nephews. They can sniff out the faintest hint of discord between their parents at twenty paces. They call them out on it too, which only seems to escalate the tension.
While a baby won’t be so intuitive, I don’t want anything to taint his early years. I want a stable, loving environment. Then again, plenty of babies are raised by single parents so maybe I’m projecting my own need for stability and love onto a helpless baby?
I haven’t got time for the doubts to swamp me so shoving my concerns aside I check the address Ron has texted me. It sounds vaguely familiar but I don’t know anyone who lives in that part of town.
The Rise. A windswept, backwater, beachside suburb on the outskirts of Gledhill, with tiny cottage-like studios offered for short-term rentals, mostly to holiday makers or people having affairs.
I plug the address into my GPS and a quarter of an hour later I reach it with a minute to spare and Ron is already waiting for me. He opens my car door, his lined face grim.
“Forensics thinks it’s a murder.”
I figured. Police don’t get an early call-out unless foul play is suspected.
“You mentioned suicide on the phone?” I follow him to the front door, slip the plastic covers over my shoes and slide on gloves.
“It’s definitely murder. Looks like she suffocated, pillow over the face. Forensics have already taken it away for testing.” He shakes his head, the groove between his brows deepening. “There’s also a pinprick at the base of her neck which means she was probably drugged first.”
He waits for me to step inside before following. “We won’t know what drugged her until the tox screen comes back but Matt thinks it’s probably the usual, something like GHB.”
“The date rape drug.” I hate it, have seen more than my fair share of crimes committed against women in the city because of it. And right here in Gledhill, with Elly. She’d fallen victim to having her drink laced and had woken up hours later, violated, without any memory of the assault. Foul stuff. “So what’s the early presumption? She was out with some guy, he spiked her drink to take her home?”
“Unlikely.” Sadness downturns Ron’s mouth, accentuating the creases bracketing it like a roadmap. “She’s pregnant.”
My heart stops. Then restarts with a jolt I feel all the way to my toes. I can’t breathe, my lungs seizing. My palms grow clammy and a prickle of premonition strums my spine.
No way. There could be any number of pregnant women living in Gledhill at the moment. I see many of them waddling down the main street. Icons of proud expectant mommas, something I’ll never be. I guess that’s why I notice them.
But it’s odd that one of them would be living out here alone. It’s isolated and these tiny studios only have one bedroom, meaning she’s probably a single mother.
Hell. Not helping the wild, unsavory assumptions pinging in my head.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ron touches my arm but I’m already past him and into the studio.
No point jumping to conclusions. I’m a cop. I deal with facts.
The first thing I see is a woman lying on a sofa, surrounded by examiners.
The second thing I see is her small baby bump.
The third, her face, peaceful and serene, like she’s napping.
It’s Jodi.
Twenty-Six
Marisa
It’s a beautiful Hamptons’ morning. One of those crisp days with a brisk wind off the ocean that brings a chill quickly banished by the sun. I actually managed a few hours’ sleep last night so I’m feeling half human and won’t let anything ruin my uncharacteristic perkiness. Including my husband, who only came home at one a.m.
I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about his whereabouts or who he’s spending his time with. I gave up buying the work excuse a long time ago though it’s easier to go along with it.
I have my job, my home and my girls. It’s all I need. Besides, I have an inherent fear of ending up like my mom, alone in a tiny two-bedroom apartment working my ass off to make ends meet, cynical and bitter and depressed.
It’s why I stay when every instinct insists I leave.
That’s the good thing about putting up with Avery’s bullshit. I get to live in a mansion, I can afford the best of everything and I’m a respected member of the community. I’ll do anything to maintain the status quo.
I’m an excellent actress.
“You got in late last night.” I add spirulina to his smoothie, making sure to avoid mine. I hate the stuff.
“Working hard, you know how it is.” He has the gall to meet my eyes.
“Work, yeah.”
He hates sarcasm and sure enough, he frowns. Our gazes lock in a staring contest until I realize he’s spoiling my good mood so I turn away. He comes up behind me and slips his arms around me. Typical. He always thinks he can soften me up with physical attention. Little does he know his touch repulses me most days and it takes every ounce of willpower not to elbow him away.
“Yeah, things have been busy at the center too.” I screw the cap on the blender and flick the switch, glad the noise will drown out anymore of his trite, meaningless responses.
I always do this, back down to avoid the ultimate confrontation, where I may be tempted to tell him exactly how I feel. He drops a peck on the back of my head and releases me. I can breathe again.
When his smoothie’s done, I pour it into his glass-to-go. “What’s the next few days looking like for you?”
“I’ll be in the city for the rest of the week.”
I hand him the smoothie and he does his usual raise it in the air in a silent cheers. “So you won’t be coming home?”
He shrugs, his gaze evasive. “Not sure, depends on the hours.” He takes a sip of the smoothie and smacks his lips. “Delicious as always. What would I do without you?”
“I have a feeling you’d cope just fine.”
Either my dry response doesn’t register or he doesn’t care. “Fancy a vacation?”
I can barely tolerate spending a few hours with him these days – as my age increases, my acceptance of his smarmy BS decreases – I can’t imagine being stuck with him on some tropical paradise 24/7. If our past vacations since the twins lef
t for college have been any indication, he’ll spend the time alternating between drinking too much, flirting with random women, getting turned on and dragging me back to our room for sex. I hate being used.
Then again, I’m hypocritical, for that’s exactly what I’m doing staying in this dead-end marriage. I’m using Avery as an adjunct to my perfect life. Sure, I have my own money that I work hard for but it’s nothing on the lavish lifestyle and the Hamptons’ prestige we enjoy courtesy of him.
I wonder what he’d think if he knew the truth, that I’d used him way back when we first met. He’d been a confident pursuer. No woman ever said no to Avery Thurston. To this day he thinks he spotted me first and had to have me.
It’s my little secret that I played him like the fool he is.
“Where did you have in mind?” I keep my voice steady, despite the disgust simmering beneath the surface.
“Somewhere warm, of course, so I can see your great bod in that blue bikini I love so much.” He winks and blows me a kiss. “Leave it with me. I’ll check out a few options and let you know.”
Translated: he doesn’t give a crap about my opinion, he’ll book it and tell me where we’re going.
“Just make sure it’s not over the next four months, okay?”
“Why?” He doesn’t like being thwarted. His mouth compresses into a thin, unimpressed line.
“Because there’s a pregnant single mother at the center and I want to be around to ensure her adoption proceeds smoothly.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He slams his cup down on the table and I jump. “Our lives have to revolve around some slut who got herself knocked-up?”
My fingers curl into fists. “Most of our clients come from families like ours and you’re not the only one who values his job. I want to be around for this. I will be.”