“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m not following. I’m not a reporter. I work at the DMV part-time.” Her lips twitched, cherry red, and I couldn’t help but dip my gaze to them every now and again, wondering what they might taste like. I shook the thought out of my head. I’d stepped out of my mind if I thought this woman, this beautiful healthy young work of art would ever want anything to do with me once I spilled my truths like a jar of marbles. A hardened part of me, the one calloused by life, said Don’t breathe another word. Get her loaded. Take her home. Get some relief for once. But I didn’t have it in me. “I just finished up at the community college.” She wrinkled her nose, and something about the sweet action assured me she just might be blissfully clueless as to who I was, what I had done, and the things that I had been accused of doing as well. It’s a clusterfuck of truths and lies, all stewing in a bubbling brew, and not even I could see where the forgery began and the truth ended.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Something in the air between us loosened, and she laughed, exposing twin rows of perfectly straight teeth, not a filling in sight and, believe me, I would have spotted them. Simone’s teeth were made of chalk. We used to joke about them. She said she married me for the free dental care and we would share a laugh. We knew better, of course. Simone married me for reasons unknown, but the regrets on both our parts kept coming. I don’t think there was a human on the planet Simone could have married that would have made her happy. Her favorite catch phrase was I can do anything better than you. She sang that taunt, and it became her mantra. Our every move had become a competition. A part of me wondered if in that moment, when she realized she was going to die, if she felt some sense of relief that it would all be done with, the arduous race she related life to. There was evidence of a struggle before it was over for her. If Simone knew how to do anything, she could put up a fight. And she would not fight fair, but that wouldn’t matter. What mattered was she was going to win and she would. There was never any disputing the fact.
I think back to the day I met Simone. Fresh out of college at a friend’s graduation party to be exact. I didn’t stand a chance.
“A drink? Of course.” Those telling brows of hers dipped with concern, and when the bartender took our orders, a scotch for me, a virgin daiquiri for her, I saw where the concern truly lay. She didn’t drink. Another red flag spiraled up, but I refused to heed it. That had always been my problem with women. I was too waylaid by their beauty, their intellect, to heed any harbingers that might be thrust my way. One of the first things Simone told me was that she always got her way. I thought it was cute. Something to tuck away for later. What I should have done was dive straight into the swimming pool we were lingering near—drowned myself and saved everyone a heck of a lot of heartache. But when you meet someone new, you truly don’t know how to gauge the future. Those tremors in your stomach could just as easily be butterflies as they could be a warning of deadly things to come.
Ree told me about her time at the junior college, her ambition to write children’s books. How she passed all of her classes with flying colors but had no plans to further her education.
“That whole classroom setting wasn’t for me.” She bit the cherry off the stem and moaned, her shoulder touching mine a moment, and my insides pulled tight with lust, something that I hadn’t felt in years. “I didn’t go to traditional school.”
“Homeschooled?” I was intrigued.
Her eyes flitted to the ceiling. “Something like that. My mother”—she sighed and took a breath—“she needed my sister and me at home.” Her shoulders turned in toward me, and the smile faded from her face. “I hope you won’t think less of me for what I’m about to tell you.” And just like that, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, protecting her from whatever seeming regret would pour from her lips.
Simone slapped through me like a car jackknifing through the freeway of my mind. They say you’ll remember the first time you laid eyes on the love of your life forever—that deep down, there is an intrinsic connection that indelibly etches that moment into your psyche. The day I laid eyes on Simone, I was more than halfway drunk, my good senses already abandoned, and with Simone they never did recover.
The room around me takes shape as I sink back into reality. I take in Ree’s vanilla-scented hair before slipping downstairs to make her favorite breakfast, buckwheat pancakes with a cup of fresh coffee. Of course, I’ll be a hero in the kids’ eyes. They love pancakes as much as their mother. Isla and Henry did, too. A forlorn smile twitches on my lips as they come to mind. As horrible as it sounds, I’ve trained myself not to look directly at their pictures as I head out of the bedroom. Too sad. Too morbid. Too furious of a way to start off the day or end it. Each time I look into my sweet angels’ eyes, I hear them cry out to me from the grave. Daddy, why weren’t you there to save us? Why couldn’t you protect us?
My bare feet hit the cool travertine as I breeze into the kitchen. As soon as I spot the maleficence, my heart stops, the breath is knocked right out of me. Bearing their footprint over the top of the stove sits three blood red cast iron pots, the best in cookware. I should know. I just may have bought them. My legs carry me numbly over to them, and I run my finger over the lid. Could these be one in the same? If Ree asked for them, I was going to suggest she pick another color. I would never want the reminder. Simone loved them.
“I bet you recognize those,” Ree calls light and cheery from behind, and I force the hint of a smile to grace my face.
“I do. How did they get here?”
Ree swoops in and wraps her arms around me. “Builder found them in the bottom drawer of the stove and shipped them. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
The knot in my stomach loosens just a bit.
“Yes. Very nice.”
“You don’t mind if I keep them, do you? These things cost a fortune, and I’ve been dying to give them a try.”
Dying. I can’t help but frown at that one.
“Absolutely. Keep them. They’re yours.” The knot ratchets right back up again. “Did he send anything else?”
Her mouth opens and closes. Ree gets that I love you and I’m sorry for you look in her eyes that she wears every now and again for me.
“No. Nothing else.” She winces. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I pull her in close and dance her in a slow circle until those pots are glaring at me, red-faced and angry as if they were personifying their last owner. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
I do.
Ree
I lied.
I lied to my beautiful, sweet husband because I couldn’t bear to see the pain in his eyes. I’m lying again. God, I’m so ashamed. I drove the kids to school this morning, ran over to Lena’s to taste her blueberry scones—fresh from the oven. Lord have mercy, they were to die for. To die for, which brings me back to Simone. Those journals. I’ve spent the last few days pouring over the first one—how shameful that the anticipation is building in me to get to the end as if her life were some cheesy dime store novel. But, in truth, it reads much better than that. I’m addicted to her conversational tone, her easy wit—which has never been easy for me. It seems to solidify the fact that she was miles more intelligent than I could ever hope to be. I’ve always felt insecure around Bram in that respect, like a schoolgirl infatuated with her teacher, secretly knowing they’d never be intellectual equals. And I’m ashamed to admit that reading Simone’s diary entries makes me feel a hint of jealousy of who she was and what she might have shared with my husband. I get that he was her husband first. Bram hardly ever speaks about her, and the few times I’ve prodded him, he’s brushed the topic off as if it were still too hot, too visceral to broach. And I understand that completely. It was a nightmare within a nightmare to have the things unfold in his life the way they did.
I make a quick cup of coffee and head upstairs, casting a quick side-glance at Isla and Henry, their colorless faces staring back at me accusingly. I had offe
red to put up a picture of Simone as well, but that was a hard no from Bram. Understandable, completely. It’s too painful, the grief too disabling. Lena thinks he’s done it out of respect for me, and if that’s the case, I do appreciate it. But I would never say that. It sounds so petty, it frightens me to think I could be so shallow. She’s dead, and he’s mine at this moment. There’s no cat fighting over him. He belongs to both of us, and that’s just the way it goes.
I land the coffee on the nightstand and pull another journal from Simone’s box of treasures. I’ve graduated to the next one, second to the last, and I’m gripped as if it were a heart-stopping thriller. It’s sickening, really. Dead wife porn at its best—not in the porny way, but you get it. There is a sick, voyeuristic pleasure I’m deriving from these that only highlights the fact I’m certifiable, and with a mother like mine, this is no surprise.
I hop onto the bed, Bram’s side, and feel a twinge of guilt, so I shimmy my way to the right until I fall into my own familiar divot. Bram and I have decided to live frugally, so a new mattress isn’t even on the list. I sigh as I spot my coffee an entire lifetime away and snuggle into the pillows as if cuddling up with my favorite book.
January 16th
The kids are back at school—YAY! I actually cleared out the last of the Christmas crap but left up the mistletoe. I’ll be sure to point it out to Peter once he gets home. He’s been a bit stingy with his kisses lately, so I’ll have to prime him, getting him back in the running for best kisser of the year. Speaking of which, new year, new me! I’ve renewed my membership at the gym. Come June, I’ll have that bikini bod back in shape, and all the boys—I’m looking at you Pete—will come a running! Crap. Just remembered I need to bake cupcakes for Isla’s class tomorrow. Over and out!
Peter is a great kisser—I mean, Bram. And yet, he’s never been stingy with me. I wonder if that’s his way of making it up to her? He’ll be the best version of himself now because he can’t go back in time. It makes my heart ache ten times harder for him.
February 21st
My, how time flies when you’re having fun! The stomach flu has invaded. The shits and giggles are quite literal around here. Peter says it’s all my fault because I refused to vaccinate our tiny brood. Well, Mr. High and Mighty, you could have taken a damned day off and done it yourself. But, in truth, I probably would have hidden the kids from him. Do you know what they put in those things? No thank you.
Huh. I don’t take the kids to get those either. The first time it came up, Bram stared at me as if I had just taken the kids and drowned them in the tub. Okay, poor analogy. See? Not that intelligent, after all. He looked angry, determined to let me know how he felt without words. Strong, silent type, Lena said when she met him. Her next assessment was: scary. Anyway, I completely side with Simone on this one.
February 26th
All is clear, and we survived! The weather is warm, and it feels like an early spring! I’m dancing on air because Peter and I are trying again! TRYING! Can you believe it?
My heart palpitates right into my throat. My God, they were trying for a baby? Bram never mentioned it.
I’m ovulating, so you can imagine the sexual insanity that’s ensued for the last two blissful days. Peter came home for lunch, came again, and then went back. Ha! See what I did there? I’m feeling fun and flirty, so you’ll have to excuse me. There is no better time in one’s life than the season in which you and your spouse are equally smitten. And we are certainly there. I love him. My God, I love him so much. Sometimes I sit back and look at my perfect family and think how did I ever get so lucky? It almost makes me forget. Almost. Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten, and then stupidly I step backwards like I did just now and I remember. God help me. How will I ever forget?
Forget? Forget what? I speed read my way through the entire month of March and April and nothing, no hint of what she might have needed to so desperately forget. It didn’t happen though, the baby. She had her period right on time both months. Her disappointment was cloying like a rag soaked in chloroform, forcing you to feel its effects even if you didn’t want to. Smothering you in grief.
May 8th
Kelly arrived, Grant’s niece from work. She’s here early for the summer, and I’ve hired her to help watch the kids while I get some work done. Just when I think I’m done with freelancing, another “brilliant” story bursts into my mind—usually at two in the morning or when I’m deep in my bath with no pen in sight. But I digress. Kelly will watch the babes while I sit nearby and tap away on my keyboard. Besides, it’s always fun to surprise Peter with my funny money paychecks. It’s a splash of feminism in my Father Knows Best world, and we both laugh at how paltry it is, in a fun way. It makes Peter feel all that much more like the provider he is, and in a way, it validates me, too. I’ve always been an attention whore. Peter knows it best.
A writer. I bite down over my lip and contemplate this. How did I not know this? I didn’t even bother to make the writer-editor connection. Maybe because I thought she wasn’t at the paper for long. I’m certainly a writer. Yes, a writer of children’s books certainly counts. I guess I had more than just Bram in common with Simone. But seeing Kelly’s name emblazoned in black and white set a chill running through me. I already know this is the beginning of the end. It was Kelly who was at the lake with them that afternoon when the children drowned.
My phone burps, and I jolt as if it had the power to electrocute me from across the room. My heart wallops to life as my adrenaline soars, and I army crawl over the bed to reach it and accidentally knock over my coffee right onto the pricey sheepskin slippers I bought Bram for Christmas.
“Shit.” I sling my legs over the side of the bed, and the journal slaps into the brown puddle. “No, no, no.” I’m quick to wipe it off on the comforter before burying the book back into my closet, entombing it for another time.
I check my phone quickly just in case it’s a message from the school, and my limbs solidify for a moment. It’s an email from [email protected], the same person who sent that creepy email the disastrous day of the children’s party. A snoop on the loose in my house. Although in her defense—and I can deduce it’s a woman because Bram was the only male at the party, but evidently not the only one with balls. They did after all traipse on up to my bedroom—but then the bathroom downstairs could have been occupied. Nevertheless, I had a lookie-loo in my bedroom that day, and they weren’t shy about letting me know.
I click in.
Have you considered how rude it is to leave your curtains open at night? The entire neighborhood can see right inside. Your children fighting in their bedroom, your husband padding around shirtless—and, my God, those abs—that ratty red T-shirt you wear like it’s a part of you. Please mind your manners.
A spike of adrenaline riots through me. My ears pulsate with a heartbeat of their own. I’m hot with rage. All I see is red.
That night, once the sun goes down, I make it a point to seal all the curtains shut with nary a seam exposing us to roving eyes. Bram is set to leave for a convention early in the morning, so there’s no point in worrying him about it. This will all blow over. Whoever the hell she is can suck off because I refuse to entertain her level of crazy. There’s no way I’m going to answer them.
Instead, I crawl into bed with my husband and his infamous abs. Bram and I make love sweetly at first, then with a fury. I bring all of my fire, my pent-up tension to the game, and it’s a win for the both of us.
“I love you,” he whispers hot into my ear as his body tenses over mine, and I clamp around him as if I were holding on for dear life. Bram and I vowed not to have any secrets between us, and holding onto those journals, those nasty emails, it feels as if I’ve severed a Godly covenant.
He’ll be back day after next. I’ll divulge every last detail when he gets home. My stomach churns at the thought, and it makes me wonder if I can finish the rest of the journals before then. I’d hate for Bram to take them away in a heated rage. It’s the only ti
me I’ve ever seen him show any uncontrolled outward emotion, the times he talks about Simone. It’s all still too raw. Yes, even nine years later. I know how he feels. I still shake with rage when I think of my mother.
Those emails felt like a trigger, an unholy harbinger singing in the night. Like a comet burning up through the atmosphere that you need to squint to see on a dark, cold night. I cannot ignore the wickedness that’s hurdling this way.
But I don’t fall asleep soundly afterwards the way Bram does. Instead, I hug my pillow, and my thoughts drift to dark places, those secret places I vowed to never venture to again. And a part of me dares to think—maybe, just maybe, she’s behind it.
* * *
Bram doesn’t wake me before he leaves, and depressingly enough I rouse to an empty space next to me, already cold, the warmth of his body long since dissipated. I shuttle the kids off to school, and none of the mothers in the drop-off lane even bother to give me the finger. I’ve become a social pariah once again, and, believe me, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. My mother used to say the world would never love my sister and me, not the way she did. That we were hers until the end of time. But make no mistake about it. My mother never loved us. We were her playthings, to be controlled, manipulated, hers to keep or discard as she pleased.
I take the left onto Main Street and give a dreamy sigh. In truth, when Bram and I were scouting locations to set down roots, Percy Bay met and surpassed our needs and expectations. The ocean view from the main thoroughfares was a plus, the white powdered beaches we envisioned spending copious amounts of time on were major, the stellar school system had it in the bag for us, but for me an added perk was the small-town feel, the fact it indeed had a Main Street. It felt as if we were dropping ourselves into a Hallmark movie, the ones where every problem is quickly ironed out and love trumps all as the camera pans away. And yet here I am on the aforementioned fairytale-like street, the behemoth Atlantic looking murky and dark on the horizon, ready to discuss the latest information Lena has on the murder investigation from Monte Carlo Night.
Psychological Thriller Boxed Set Page 4