I took it, washing it down with the water.
“I don’t want to be on them for the rest of my life.”
I could tell he didn’t want to talk about this again, but he sat down on the edge of the sofa anyway. “Do you think the new therapist is helping? You seem to like her.”
I shrugged. “Same as ever, she just keeps telling me to take my time grieving.”
He nodded. “It was a tragic accident. They happen to people all around the world every day.”
“I know. I just can’t shake that she was so far away. I feel like she probably hated me as she lay dying thinking about how awful I am for not visiting for three years.”
“This again.” He sighed. “You know she wouldn’t hate you.”
“Maybe. You never met her. I wish we would have gone for just one visit.”
“Me too.” His hand cupped my knee. I suppressed an awkward shudder, not because I didn’t like his hand on me, but that it was so unusual. When had we gotten to a place where we stopped touching each other? “You probably just need some rest. This hasn’t exactly been paradise. I’m going to demand my money back.”
“Didn’t you say the department owns this? I thought it was free.”
“They do, but it’s my position at the foundation that landed us this. I was kidding anyway.” He stood, patting my knee twice before heading back to the kitchen. “You take it easy. An early bedtime tonight wouldn’t hurt either of us. I’m going to grab that bag of ice melt and throw some on the porch and then I’ll be back to get you whatever you need.”
His footsteps padded away as I trained my eyes on the distant mountain peaks overlooking our chalet. It felt silly to spend time sleeping when even the dead of night was beautiful and brightly lit by the moonlight reflecting off of the snow.
Tav was right though, I felt exhausted down to my bones. Maybe a bubble bath and a little champagne would help relax me enough into sleep. I grinned as I thought of instructing the house to draw me a bath, on purpose this time.
A succession of soft thuds rattled me from my bedtime daydream then.
“Tav?” I called, eyes on the hallway.
Silence, before his pained voice called from the depths of the house. “Frey—I think I broke my ankle.”
Shit.
Fear struck like lightning in my veins. My heart hammered as I was about to press myself off of the couch to help him when I registered one small but not irrelevant detail.
The gun was gone.
Eleven
Frustrating numbness worked its way through my muscles just like it always did when I took my pills. Just one of the reasons I hated them. It made life feel like I was viewing reality through thick soup. My senses felt deafened, my vision tunneled and watery. The pills did a number on my motor skills, if I took them too late in the day I swear I could almost feel their presence running slowly through my veins the next morning as I tried to work at the keyboard.
Tav didn’t realize how much I’d skipped my pills over the last few months for this reason. I felt more clear-headed, but also more on edge. Like my life was in a blender and it’d only just slowed down as I stumbled out blind into the sunshine.
I made my way slowly across the big living room, pausing where the hallway met the kitchen and where Tav had set the gun when he’d taken it from my hands minutes ago.
“Freya?!”
“Coming!” I called, clamping down on my bottom lip as I imagined him hiding out down there, gun drawn and waiting for me to enter the depths of his Hell.
Or was this my Hell? I had to be conjuring this insanity, Tav got under my skin some days, but that didn’t make him a deranged wannabe murder. I cursed myself inwardly for taking that pill and leaving my mind murkier than it’d been only moments ago.
Had Tav packed the gun in the back of the car when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was it always there, tucked under a seat while I was none the wiser.
“Can you walk?” I called down the stairs, trying to get a read on him.
“No!” I heard the scrape of metal on cement and a grunt.
Shit.
I took the steps two at a time, holding tightly onto the railing as I did.
I reached the basement. Darkness shrouded everything.
“Tav?”
“Over here.” He called from a corner.
“What were you doing over there? The ice melt is right in this closet.” I cast my eyes on the bag, realizing he would have seen it when he came down the stairs. In fact, maybe it’d been the ice he’d tripped over.
But where was the gun?
“I can’t believe they haven’t been sued for that last step. Everyone must trip over it.” Tav was clinging to my shoulders a moment later, leaning heavily on me with one hand and using his other to help keep him steady.
“Probably pretty hard to sue the department. Have you been working out?” He was bulkier than the last time I’d felt the full weight of him against me.
“I’m bored without you in the city. Instead of missing you, I go to the gym.”
I wondered whether that was a compliment or a lie or both. “It’s paying off.”
He didn’t answer me.
We reached the top of the stairs. He paused, holding the door jamb as he winced.
“Do you want an ice pack?”
He shook his head, walking along the kitchen counter and putting as little pressure on his foot as he could. He slumped into a kitchen barstool. “The snow is starting again. I should have walked to that cabin in the valley when I had the chance.”
He opened his laptop, almost talking to himself before the black screen shifted to lines of pale grey text. I tried to focus on the lines, but the font was so tiny it blurred together. I didn’t know exactly what he’d been up to behind his screen over the last few days. He always put me off by commenting that the internet wasn't available, but from that perspective, he seemed logged into the work chat platform. Didn’t that require a connection?
“Is there an instruction manual for this place? All the smart-systems must come with a user manual, right?”
“Dunno,” he answered.
I frowned, trying to zero in on the messages on his screen.
Each of the lines began with a numeric username, with some of the lines of text in computer lingo that was unfamiliar to me. I scanned the screen, noticing another minimized window that was blinking with a new message alert from someone named V.
Who is V?
“Have you talked to your dad since we arrived?”
“How could I?” Came Tav’s answer.
“You’re logged into the work server.”
Tav’s head whipped to the side, eyes narrowing. “Only enough to load the old messages, I can’t send.”
“Hm.” I moved around the island, putting distance between him and I.
“Hm, what? You don’t believe me?” He stood.
He put more pressure on his foot than when we’d hobbled up the stairs. I registered the butcher’s block on the counter, a high-end stainless knife set only inches away.
“What do you think I’m hiding?” He was limping around the island now, following the path I’d taken as he tracked my steps. “Maybe you’re the one with secrets. No cell messages driving you insane? Is there someone you’d rather be talking to?”
Maybe.
The words stung in my mind. We’d been locked up for less than a week and already I was growing cagey.
Or was he the cagey one?
I sucked in a breath of air and shook my head. “No. You?”
Who is V?
He arched one perfect eyebrow and then spun, limping across the kitchen and into the dining room. “I’m going crazy here.”
“It’s hard not to, maybe that’s the point of this place. I’ve never felt so watched and so alone at the same time.”
Tav replied with another caveman grunt.
He dug through one of the duffle bags in the corner, pulling out a small bottle of pills and shaking one
into his palm before shoving the bottle into his pocket. He tossed the tiny pill into his mouth, then poured a crystal glass of vodka and took a shot to swallow it down. He filled his glass with another three fingers of the liquor and drank again.
“We have to get out of here.”
“Even if it kills us?” The words were out before I could stop them.
Tav’s eyes slashed across the room to meet mine. A chill rattled through me as his gaze lingered. “What am I supposed to say?”
I didn’t answer him.
“You all but accused me of bringing a gun up here.”
“I didn’t accuse you!” Had I? The memory of the words I’d used was murky.
“Bullshit,” he hissed, eyes cutting back to the vodka. He poured three more fingers of the clear liquid and then slumped into the kitchen chair. He pulled his bad leg up on the chair next to him.
Attempting to diffuse the situation, I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and passed it to him. He took it, laying it across his ankle.
“Don’t ask me to ever go to the mountains again.” His words hung thick in the air, swirling around us and bubbling with tension.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Sure you did. Your birthday last year, you said you’d always wanted to see the mountains.”
“That’s why you did this?”
He huffed. Took another shot. Eyes glaring out the window.
“Why I did this, you’re unbelievable. I make all of your dreams come true and then you discover you have different dreams.”
Anger simmered through me. “Why are you saying this now? There’s a blizzard outside the window, we couldn’t get off of this stupid mountain if we tried.”
“There’s got to be another way. This bay is packed with islands, maybe there’s another bridge or—”
“Are you going to walk off this mountain? I almost fell into a crevice yesterday!”
“I heard snowmobiles when I walked to the car.” His eyes were trained on a point across the mountain peaks in the distance. “The hike only took me a few hours with snowdrifts. I found a pile of skis, that’s what I was searching for in the basement.”
“Y-you’re going to leave?” Terror thudded through my heart.
“Do you know how to ski?” Tav’s eyes trained on mine.
I shook my head.
“I do. My family spent every Christmas in Telluride when I was a kid.”
“S-so you’ve just decided then?” Tears welled in my eyes.
Tav shrugged. “What other option is there?”
“We can’t just wait it out?”
“There’s not enough food, you saw the pantry. If we both stay, we’ll be rationing rice by next week. It’s safer for you. I just have to get to a phone and dad can send a helicopter. I should be able to get off this mountain in less than two days, even if I have to ski clear around the base. Maybe there are patrol boats out in the bay, I can flag one down with a flare.”
The thought of being all alone up here struck fear in my bones.
“I can’t stay up here.”
“Why not?” He shot up from the chair. “You have everything you need, every modern convenience at your fingertips.”
“Except communication.”
“You hardly communicate all week, all it is is business and contracts. I thought that’s why you wanted the break on the top of a fucking mountain.”
I cringed. Tav rarely swore.
And what was worse? He was right.
“Tav—”
He held up his hand, his jaw grinding as he turned back to the frost-patterned window. “We’ll die here if we stay together.”
Twelve
Tav never met my family.
The thoughts chugged on repeat as I watched him strap his bad ankle into a ski boot.
“They fit!” He hauled himself off the porch step and then shoved and clicked his first boot onto the ski. Next came the second foot—his bad foot. It clicked into place. He grinned as he clutched the ski poles in hand and then took off down the driveway.
He had perfect form, at least as far as I could tell.
I’d never been skiing, he would know that if he’d met my mother. Our worlds were so different, his childhood idyllic and mine chaotic.
What else had Tav never mentioned about his life?
He stopped in front of me now, a thousand-watt smile on his face. “Did you see that?”
I nodded. “You look great.”
“It’s easier to ski than walk on this ankle. I can hardly feel it. The tight ski boot will help with the swelling too.”
I nodded again.
At some point overnight my fear had shifted to anger. I couldn’t do anything to prevent him from leaving, but I wanted to.
“Are you going to check that cabin in the valley first?”
Tav swiped the backpack full of supplies he’d packed last night and heaved it over his shoulders. “Car first, maybe I’ll luck out and the bridge is open.”
“You think?” My eyes fell on the fresh powdery snow that’d fallen all night.
“Maybe I can get the satellite phone to work.”
I nodded.
“It won’t take me more than a few days.” He paused to look at me then. “I’ve got enough beef jerky to last me a month in this pack, you’ll be home in your bed before then.”
“Our bed.” I mused, missing home.
“You’re strong, Frey—you can do this.”
Do what, exactly? Survive?
“You remember how to tune the weather radio?”
“It won’t do me any good if I can’t call out to report an emergency,” I breathed.
“The satellite phone isn’t working, I don’t know what else to do.”
“Then why are you taking the phone if it doesn’t work? And your laptop?”
“Jesus, we talked about this. Maybe it’s this peak, maybe we’re obstructed by cloud cover. Maybe I don’t know, but I do know leaving it does neither of us any good. If I can get to another peak or position on the island I might be able to call out of here. Dammit, Freya, when did you stop trusting me?”
I let his words hang.
His eyes were glossy with the cold before he pushed down his polarized lenses and obstructed his gaze from me.
I miss him already.
He leaned close, lips pausing at my earlobe. “Anyone but the lawn guy, aren’t we both better than that?” His words froze me cold. “Be safe.”
I watched as he skied down the driveway we’d hiked up just days ago.
Had I heard him right?
Anyone but the lawn guy.
Bradley.
He meant Bradley.
Was Bradley a target, or was my mind playing tricks on me again?
Tav disappeared over the slope, the breadth of his frame growing smaller the further he skied away from me. It was then I realized the space between us had already turned frigid.
Thirteen
I still hate Sundays.
I traced a fingertip along the edge of the digital photo that peered back from my computer screen later that night. A shot taken when I was around ten of my beautiful mother and the only man I remember her dating, his arm around both of us as we stood outside of my Sunday school doors. I never remembered her dating, she kept her personal life to herself most of my growing up years. Except when it came to this one. Chuck. The one that got away. They’d gone to high school together and caught up when they could between his business trips. She cried crocodile tears over his leaving for months.
There was a time I thought good old Chuck was my dad and they were keeping the secret from me, but when I finally asked, mom laughed me off wistfully and said life would have been easier if he had been. Whenever he came to town he brought flowers for mom, a stuffed animal for me, and always took us out for Sunday dinner after church. Mom wasn’t normally the church-attending type, but with Chuck she was. And she never forced me to go to Sunday school when it was just the two of us, but when Chuck was in tow
n, she always did.
I still hate Sundays.
I crossed my legs and leaned back into the leather sectional, fat snowflakes falling from the sky. Tav had been gone eight hours. Eight hours since he’d skied off into the sunrise. As soon as he was gone, I curled up at the picture window and lifted my head from my laptop every two and a half minutes expecting him to be right back.
The sun was setting now, and I’d been walking down memory lane for most of the day as I organized the old photos on my laptop. I’d considered strapping myself to a pair of skis and practicing around the driveway, but breaking every limb in my body didn’t seem like the logical next step forward. I’d turned then to organizing my work files, then catching up on the spreadsheet of my expenses, before finally turning to personal items.
I paused on another old photo taken the same day of me and Bradley after church. We swung side by side on the swing set with bright smiles on our faces. He was my bright spot then, on Sundays and at public school in our small town. He was a year older than me, and when he’d quit school at seventeen to join the military, it’d taken the air out of my lungs. The only worse blow was when mom announced she was moving across the country a few years later.
Bradley and I lost touch. Mom and I lost touch. And then came Tav.
Just then the alarm system beeped twice and sent me spiraling off the couch. I caught my laptop before it crashed to the floor as another series of beeps sounded throughout the house.
“What is going on?”
I went to the smart screen that controlled the house. I brought the normally black screen to life, surprised to find a red dot blinking in the corner.
“How do I fix you?” I said, searching the touch screen for a settings menu. I tapped at different corners, then asked to see the weather forecast just to see if it would work.
The screen blinked a low battery indicator on the screen.
“Low battery? Where am I supposed to find batteries?”
“Spare batteries are in the control panel. Spare batteries are in the control panel.”
I frowned, realizing the system knew more than I did about this place. “Thanks. I guess.”
The Sunday Wife: A Lockdown Thriller Page 5