07:48 a.m.
Robert’s gray Lexus sedan roared out of the driveway in haste. Jonah’s bobbing head was visible through the rear windshield.
Her stomach churned; it was time to move. She ran for the stairs but, at the last second, diverted her step to the bathroom, collapsing to her knees in front of the wall-mounted toilet. Putrid green bile spurted from her mouth and nose into the porcelain bowl. With her breathing shallow, she gripped the seat, hanging on for life. Panic choked her like a slipknot around the throat, every dark thought tightening its hold, suffocating her further. She battled for air like a diver with the oxygen supply cut off. She glanced up at the marble wall; it shimmered and rippled like a lake. Her arms slid off the stained porcelain, dropping her to the cold stone floor. She crawled through the bursts of vomit, her clothes and hair smothered in the greenish bile. Stretching out her right arm, she reached for the edge of the bathtub, her fingers catching the surface like a cliffhanger hanging from the void. She flopped out her left arm, ensuring that this time her hand landed a firm grip. She lugged her body into the bathtub, letting it drop with a loud slippery thud, her sneakers squeaking against the sleek surface. Stretching out her leg, she pushed the sole of her shoe against the faucet lever. The icy water rushed into the bathtub with a steady fountain-like flow. She elongated her toes, edging her sneaker closer to the lever, tapping it toward the hot side. Once the lukewarm spray permeated her tights, she pressed down on the bathtub drain stoppage with her other foot. Battling unrelenting nausea, she folded her arms and let her body slide into the tub. The water embraced her clothed body like a mother’s womb, a haven blocking out the outside world. For the first time that morning, her mind was quiet, focusing only on the sound of rushing water flooding the bath. The swishing turned to a vibrating hum as the water level rose above her ears. She opened her mouth wide, expanding her lungs as much as possible with oxygen. She pursed her lips and closed her eyes just as the water submerged her face. Quiet. An embracing stillness that shut out the turmoil. The weight of her wet clothes kept her glued to the surface of the bath. Peaceful, silent, and warm, her body made the choice. This was the only way to make it all stop, forever.
CHAPTER 26
Her lungs screamed for air, the burning pain surging through her entire body, which was convulsing without oxygen. She snapped her head from side to side, the last remnants of air escaping her mouth, firing a ripple of bubbles to the surface of the water. She pressed her palms against either side of the tub and pushed with all her might to remain submerged. The urge to breathe was unbearable. It was as if she was being burned alive. She fought her reflexive instincts, every node in her body trying to overrule her brain, legs thrusting against the edges of the tub. Then it stopped, no pain, no air, just darkness, and an eerie stillness. Her hands slid off the sides of the tub, floating toward the bottom. The convulsing was over, replaced by a moment of clarity. What have I done? A series of memories flashed through her mind: Jonah’s birth, a honeymoon with a younger Robert, weekends at the cabin, their reunion. All that was left was their shocking, questioning faces.
“How could you commit such a selfish act, Abbie?”
“How could you leave us like this, Mom?”
Her body shot out of the water, gasping for air, every muscle in her neck and face strained from the intense effort. Veins were popping, eyes bulging, she fought for life. Every breath eased the pain and reinvigorated her limbs. She clasped her chest until her breathing regulated, and the blurry vision subsided. Astonished, she surveyed the bathroom. The bathtub overflowed onto the marble floor like a dam that had opened its floodgates, washing away the trail of vomit leading to the toilet. She turned off the water and released the drain stoppage, causing it to swirl like a tornado. She stood up and stripped off the wet clothing that was clinging to her body, throwing it to the floor. To avoid slipping, she kept her socks on and charged through the puddle. Once in the bedroom, she pulled on a fresh jogging tracksuit and a hoodie. She took one last long look in the mirror and wiped away the tears. “You know what you have to do,” she said, staring at her hollow eyes. She grabbed a box of Ambien sleeping pills from her draw, tightened the hood around her head, and made her way downstairs to Jonah’s room.
“Hank, let’s go for a walk,” she called out to her son’s Beagle that lay dozing on the carpet. The hound pounced to his feet, wagging his high-set brown tail. His large, expressive eyes shone with excitement as he trotted over.
She stroked his tricolor coat and moved her palm over his long muzzle that squared at the end. She tugged his long, droopy ears. “We’ll have a quick breakfast first,” she said and headed for the kitchen, followed by the hound’s pattering footsteps scraping on the hardwood. She opened the fridge and reached for last night’s pot of leftover lamb stew and placed it onto the gas hob, bringing the dish to a light simmer. The hound paced around her legs, relishing the smell of the special dish. Abbie reached for the upper kitchen cabinet and removed an old-fashioned mortar and pestle. She dropped the entire box of Ambien into the heavy bowl and ground the pills to a fine powdery grain using the thick stick. Not exactly guacamole. The bowl reminded her of better times.
She poured the ground Ambien into the pot and stirred. Once satisfied that the pills had blended with the stew, she served the hound his meal in his stainless-steel dog bowl. Hank’s upright tail wagged from side to side like a windshield wiper as he dug into his special meal. Abbie squeezed herself a glass of orange juice and watched the dog devour his food. “You’re a good doggy,” she encouraged him, patting his furry head. Robert bought Jonah the dog for his third birthday, and they were inseparable ever since. Although she only met the dog on her return from the hospital, she had grown fond of him. He was adorable and intelligent. As she watched him munch his food, she focused on her next move.
I need a shovel.
Now, where would Robert keep one of these? The garage or the garden shed? She couldn’t call him to ask. She left the hound to finish his meal and went in search of the shovel. The rain still belted down outside and the wind howled with a hungry wolf-like ferociousness. The turbulent weather served her purpose and filled her with hope—maybe her outrageous plan would succeed. She lowered her head to maintain visibility through the spray, watching her fresh pair of white sneakers tread along the soggy grass. The shed was less than twenty feet straight ahead. After Robert’s renovation, the old, dilapidated shed looked more like a storage facility for non-valuable goods. She swung open the slated wooden door and flicked on the lights, letting the door slam shut behind her. She cleared the rainfall from her eyes and lowered her hood, relieved to be out of the downpour even for a minute. The packed shed contained the usual gardening utensils, an aging lawnmower, a trampoline, and some of Jonah’s old bicycles. She scrambled through the junk, making her way to the other end of the shed. In the low light, she thought she noticed the rusty handle of a shovel or a spade, she wasn’t sure. Either would do. As she neared it, the concave shape of the blade with a rounded tip showed that it was a shovel. She gripped it by the shaft, placing it under her armpit, and charged back out into the rain. It seemed like with every passing minute the storm worsened, visibility reduced to four or five feet at most. She stopped, disoriented, her pulse racing. Where’s the house? Ahead, there was nothing to see besides a claustrophobic layer of fog. Below, the faint sneaker tracks in the grass signaled the way. She moved fast through the misty shower, bursting into the house through the back door. She hunched her over, hands on knees, her rapid breathing forming a foggy cloud. “Hank, come here, boy. Time to go for a walk,” she shouted. There was no movement in the house. As she approached the kitchen, she could hear the hounds slurping. “Hank, let’s go now,” she said in a deeper authoritative tone.
The slurping stopped with a baying howl. The hound leaned back on his strong, angular back legs and released another desperate half-baying cry, his enormous eyes begging for help. Hank’s disorientation
and distress were both visible and audible. He dropped to his elbows with his head in the bowl, continuing to slurp the remnants. Abbie crawled toward him without drawing attention away from his food. She hugged him just as the hound’s tongue drooped out of his mouth. His breathing was so shallow that his fur-coated belly no longer expanded. Inevitably, Hank would be dead within minutes. “It’s okay. Go to sleep, little pup,” Abbie whispered and kissed the hound on the muzzle, his bulging eyes rolling in their sockets, expressionless.
One. Two. Three. Four. Breath.
Abbie counted the seconds between each labored breath, stroking the hound with love. There was nothing she could do regarding the outcome, but she wanted him to die in peace. The seconds ticked by like minutes, the hound battling for life. He was a fighter like her, and a victim of unfortunate circumstances. Sadly, the dog’s battle would end soon, and hers would get significantly worse. As she watched the Beagle’s eyelids close for the ultimate time, she envied him.
One. Two. Three. Four . . . Fifteen. Sixteen. It’s over.
She released a long exhale of pent-up breath and rose to her feet with the dead hound in her arms. Gripping the shovel by the handle, she headed outdoors, the wild gust almost blowing the tool out of her hand. She pressed both dog and shovel close to her chest, bent her head, and waded her way through the storm. If anybody was watching, they would assume precisely what they saw, a devastated dog owner preparing for the funeral. Yes, the pooch was the perfect decoy. The inclement weather reduced the probability of her being watched, but she wasn’t ready to bet her life on it. Her windbreaker hoodie jacket rattled in the wind like a hoisted flag as she ascended the winding road to the edge of the forest. The site of the shallow grave stuck out conspicuously from within the muddy forest terrain. Abbie lowered the hound’s corpse to the earth and took a few seconds to process the traumatic sight.
Never, not even in her worst nightmare, could she have imagined being in this situation. But neither could she have imagined being the hostage of Freddy and Fiona. “This is no time for moping,” she said out loud and shoved the blade into the mud, beginning the grunt work. She shoveled the perimeter first, precisely the size of the girl’s corpse, and moved inwards from there. She maintained the disposal pile next to the hole, minimizing the turnover time between shoveling loads of soil. The grave would have to be over six feet deep, at least. She remembered a detective documentary that she had once seen: Sniffer dogs can pick up the scent of a corpse up until six feet. Hence the saying six feet under. But digging a hole that size was no minor feat, it was much harder than what it looked like in the movies, and it would take hours to complete. She dug like a woman possessed, not stopping for a moment, focusing her mind on her choice of paradise, escaping the hellish reality. It rained harder; it rained less. Only the wind blew. But she kept digging through it all.
The hours passed, and the deep hole materialized like a bearish cave within the earth. She fell to her knees and lowered the shovel into the hole. Her entire upper midriff was inside the hole when the blade of the shovel sank into the surface. The standard size of a shovel was over three feet, so she estimated that she had cleared well over double that. She rose out of the hole and took a deep breath of the fresh, moist air, her first respite since she started digging. She glanced up at the grayish sky. The storm had cleared, and the clouds above were dispersing. There was no time to waste. She crawled next to the girl and rolled the corpse through the mud like a sawed-off tree trunk, stopping a few inches from the pit. She folded the girl’s arms and placed a palm over her eyes. “May your soul rest in peace, little angel,” she said. Despite her best efforts, the bloating corpse was too heavy to lower in a dignified manner. She placed her palms below the body and gave one last push, letting it slide into the hole. The corpse hit the surface with a chilling thud that emphasized the surrealism of her actions, stirring her back to reality. She rotated her arms at speed, shoveling soil into the pit until the cadaver was out of sight and covered by at least two feet of soil.
Now it was the hound’s turn. He lay sprawled on the ground in permanent slumber. She verified again that he wasn’t breathing, not that it would have mattered. She planned to bury him a few feet above the girl, so that if the sniffer dogs picked up any scent, then the officers would find the dead animal and call it a false positive. Either way, there would be almost five feet of soil above the hound, so it would be improbable that the sniffer dogs would pick up anything. But as the saying goes, precaution is better than the cure. She lowered the dog by his hind legs and continued shoveling with force. Her emotions numb, immune to reality.
Scoop. Throw. Repeat.
The endless digging and shoveling were brutal, but she worked in a trance-like state. Nothing else mattered besides completing that grave.
With the last few shovels of soil, she evened out the surface and arranged some greenery to resemble the natural terrain. She dropped the blade onto the soil and slumped on a nearby boulder to recover. The emotional and physical pain had taken its toll. She removed the hood, letting her hair sway in the breeze. The surrounding forest stood still as if nothing happened—only the shovel resting on the ground a bleak reminder of the horror that unfolded. A gust of frosty wind rustled the pines and blew her curls back, disturbing the silence. A grim realization dawned. One of the most prolific serial killers in the United States lurked in this forest, within the vicinity of her home. She spun around, scanning the area; it was no longer all about her. The trees had eyes, and they were watching. She raced out of the forest toward her home without looking back. Being the prime suspect for a series of murders was frightening, but being the prime target of a sadistic psycho was terrifying. She was both.
CHAPTER 27
The classical piano created a dramatic, melancholy mood. Abbie lowered the colander into the kitchen sink and drained the pasta. She glanced at the saucepan; the Bolognese sauce was simmering and bubbling on the surface. She placed the drained pasta into the saucepan, stirring like an orchestra conductor. The classical music allowed her mind to flow and lose a sense of everything. Nightfall had descended, replacing the spectacular view with pitch-black darkness. With a glass of wine in her hand, she moved and swayed through the kitchen, three steps to the right, four to the left, two back, one forward, flailing her arms like a ballerina. The day’s events in the forest were lost on her like the darkness outside. The paramount life lesson that a series of traumatic experiences had taught her was to move on fast and not dwell on reality. Any other approach would render her mentally invalid. But she was a survivor, willing to go to unimaginable lengths. Her mental fortitude was the precise reason she was still breathing, and despite it all, it felt good to be alive. She increased her steps, lifting her arms in the air, swaying her head with the dramatic melody of the piano.
The music cut off.
“That was loud, great to see you’re having fun,” Robert said with an aggravated frown. Jonah was by his side, holding his backpack in his arms.
“Right on time, hope you guys are hungry,” she said, smiling. She appreciated seeing her family, bearing in mind that she was a razor away from ending her life earlier in the day.
“I’m starving, Mama. I’ll drop off my stuff in my room and then I’m coming to eat,” Jonah said, dashing for his room before she could protest.
“What’d you make for dinner?” Robert asked.
“Bolognese, al dente, just the way you like it.” She pouted her lips and sauntered toward him, swirling the wine glass by the base. Her arms reached over behind his head and drew him toward her. Her tongue slivered along his neck, all the way to his earlobe. She could see his skin responding with goosebumps to the warm, moist air coming from her mouth. “I’m ready for you tonight,” she whispered.
He yanked her toward his waist, thrusting up against her groin, making his erection noticeable.
“Where’s Hank?” Jonah’s tearful scream reverberated throughout the ho
use.
Startled, Robert released her. “Hey, Jo, what happened?”
“Hank’s not in my room, and I don’t hear him,” Jonah shouted from upstairs as he raced through the house in a frantic search.
“Darling, I know where he is,” Abbie said, wincing, her shoulders slumped.
Jonah stumbled into the kitchen, his small chest heaving up and down. His cheeks flushed red, his large eyes welling up with tears. “Where’s he, Mom?”
She bent down to his eye level. “Hank was lethargic in the morning. I tried to go with him for a walk, but he wouldn’t budge, something was wrong.”
“What happened to him?” Jonah screamed, his jaw clenched, tears pouring down his cheeks.
Robert placed his arms around the boy, stroking his hair. They both gaped at Abbie, wide eyed.
“I took him downtown to the vet. He has an intestine infection and needs to stay there for a few days. They say he’ll be fine.” Although she was lying, her words had never sounded more genuine. Her agony was for Jonah, and it was palpable.
Both Robert and Jonah breathed a sigh of relief; for a moment, they had feared the dog was dead.
“I want to go see him now, please, Ma!” Jonah pleaded as if his life depended on it, tugging at her tracksuit pants. “Please!!”
“It’s okay, Jo, Hank will be home in couple days as good as new,” Robert said. He picked up the boy and embraced him, absorbing his tears like a sponge. “Let’s go have a bath while Mommy sets the table.” He winked at Abbie as they headed upstairs.
Eye For Her: A gripping must-read thriller Page 15