The Family Tree: a psychological thriller

by S. K. Grice

  The sliding stopped and the back of my head dropped to the cold tile. I caught the clean floral scent of the Tide laundry detergent I kept on the floor next to the washing machine. Melissa had pulled me into the narrow, windowless laundry room off the kitchen which led into the garage. I tried to get more air into my lungs, but the towel in my mouth was jammed in tight.

  Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.

  My heartbeat banged against my chest like it was trying to wake me from a year-long sleep. The doorbell. Someone was at the front door.

  “Shit,” Melissa half-whispered.

  My eyes were soiled with tears and gunk, but I split them open and made out a watery image of Melissa crouching on the floor near my feet. She’d changed into the dark pants and hoodie, and her wig was askew. Her back was to me, and she looked ahead toward the kitchen. She held another full syringe in her hand.

  The canvas wrap had loosened even more, but my muscles were still limp. The silence lasted minutes, and I could hear her breaths growing loud and rapid. She glanced back at me but didn’t seem to notice I was awake. I didn’t have to play dead, though. I could barely breathe, and my heart chugged like a clogged ketchup bottle.

  My cell phone vibrated next to my head. My neck stiffened. I turned my head a micro-inch. She’d set her duffle bag and my purse on the laundry room floor. I squeezed my eyes shut, holding back tears. She’d been dragging me to the garage to carry out her plan.

  My muscles tensed, but not because of the drug. This was rage. A primordial rage.

  A murderous rage.

  This evil woman didn’t care that her plan would destroy the hearts of my children. In her demonic mind, their suffering was her opportunity.

  I had to kill her. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I used all of my will to squirm out of the loose wrap.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  Melissa gasped, crouching herself further to the ground.

  “Jolene?” A familiar man’s voice came from the outside the kitchen door, on the deck.

  Melissa turned to me, and our eyes met for a tense second. We each had the same question—who’s here?—but for different reasons.

  Another knock, and then: “Jolene? You in there?”

  My body twitched. Noah. But no. He was still in Florida with his Catherine, right?

  “Jolene!” This time the voice was more insistent.

  Melissa whispered, “What the fuck is he doing here?”

  If I could have answered, I’d have told her to get the fuck out of here while she still had a chance. Anything to save my own ass.

  Footsteps on the deck. Was he peering through the front window? A sharp pain twisted in my chest. All I wanted was to hold my children again.

  My brain sent a signal to my hands to stop convulsing. It worked. The drug was slowly wearing off, and I pressed my elbows into the wrap and loosened it enough so I could move my hands out. But I didn’t want to attract Melissa’s attention, so I stayed as still as a corpse.

  If I moved, she’d shoot me up again. I needed to reserve every ounce of strength to fight my way out.

  From her squatted position, she turned on her toes, so alert that I saw the fine hairs on the side of her face stand on end. With her ear to the kitchen, she mindlessly placed the full syringe on top of the washing machine.

  A flush of adrenaline rolled through my blood as I glared at the tip of the needle sticking out over the edge of the washing machine. If I could grab a hold of the syringe and jab Melissa, I could escape.

  I had to act fast, and that wasn’t easy when my body felt as limp as a sock. Yet I twisted and turned my hands and elbows, willing every part of me to gain strength enough to reach up and follow-through. All I needed was one deep jab at a fleshy part of her body for this to work. Her hip would work best, but I’d settle on the muscled part of her calf or thigh.

  I thought of Jennifer and Eric, and like a woman finding the strength to lift a car off her child, I knew I’d find the strength to reach up and grab the syringe. This was my one and only chance to escape. I refused to die under the terms of Melissa’s suicide plan.

  With my eyes barely open, I watched Melissa. She sat next to me with her back against the wall and her full attention on the kitchen windows. She was so close to me that I wouldn’t need to stand to jab her. I had just enough strength to jab the needle and press the syringe. If it worked as fast on her as it had on me, she’d be paralyzed within seconds. I only had to get my arm out of the wrap. Then, I’d have enough time to unbind the wrap and get out of the house before she regained consciousness.

  Nerves and uncertainty sent my pulse racing. I’d hesitated earlier when I’d had the chance to grab the fireplace poker. Not this time.

  I could do it. I’d been decisive and precise when I’d had to kill Mike. What I lacked in physical strength, I made up for in focus and determination.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Melissa pressed the back of her head against the wall. She stayed silent, but her face gleamed with sweat, and a vein throbbed on her throat.

  Not a sound.

  Then, I heard the clumping of heavy footsteps coming from the deck outside the kitchen door.

  Melissa didn’t move. All of the window blinds were down, so no one could see in.

  The back doorknob jiggled.

  I wanted to kick the washing machine, to make any kind of noise. I took in as much oxygen as possible through my nose and let out a hoarse cry. “Ahhhh!” My vocal chords weren’t working, and my scream was barely a whimper against the dishtowel in my mouth.

  Melissa shot me a death glare, then turned her attention back to the door.

  I bit down on the towel. The footsteps drifted away. Noah was leaving, siphoning away all of my hope. I had no one else to rely upon but myself. Melissa was right. Aaron wouldn’t find me until tonight. He and the twins would soon be at the hotel ready to meet me in our suite. But I wouldn’t be there. Aaron would come by and check on me once he realized I hadn’t checked into the hotel and he couldn’t reach me by phone. By then, I’d be dead.

  Melissa tip-toed into the kitchen to check on what was happening outside. I wiggled myself loose enough from the wrap to reach up and grab the syringe, but it fumbled from my grasp and hit the floor.

  Melissa came at me. “What the fuck—”

  I snatched the needle and jabbed it into her calf, pressing hard on the nozzle and praying it would work.

  Melissa yelped and pulled the needle out. “You fucking bitch!” She tossed the syringe aside.

  Inching backwards on my butt, I managed to roll onto my knees then half-stand.

  “You’re going to die!” Melissa kicked me in the stomach.

  The sharp pain took my breath, and I crumbled onto the floor.

  Melissa grabbed onto the countertop and looked down at me. “You can’t… I won’t let you.” Her knees wobbled before my eyes, and then she fell to the ground, quivering.

  The drug was working, I’d heard it in her cracked voice. But she crawled and clawed her way into the kitchen then collapsed on the floor. She was slowly losing control as I regained mine. But I had only minutes to act.

  Using the laundry room countertop for leverage, I pulled myself up to my feet and unwrapped the canvas wrap from around my legs. The brown bag on top of the washing machine caught my eye. The bag which held the vials. The vials she’d planned to use in my murder. If I gave her a second dose right now, she’d die.

  Melissa groaned, her pupils growing larger.

  Tingles of excitement ran up my neck, but I focused on my breathing, on thinking clearly.

  I could get out right now. Run.

  Melissa writhed on the kitchen floor, drool dripping down her chin. I felt no pity. My jaw clenched, and hatred ran through my blood like a roaring river, pounding against my ears. Killing Melissa was about justice. My justice. I had the power to kill her the way she’d killed Patsy. The way she’d killed Jackson. The way she’d wanted to kill me.


  I’d only jabbed her moments ago. One more dose was all she needed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I stared at the unwrapped syringe and three remaining vials of SUX in the brown bag. A growl rumbled in my throat. An animalistic sound so deep it reverberated through my skin. Melissa was harder to kill than a city cockroach, but I would never give her the chance to take my life and children.

  She had to die.

  I peeled open the new syringe, popped the needle into a vial, and refilled the syringe with the killer dose. My jelly legs carried me the few short steps into the kitchen where Melissa laid on floor, convulsing and gasping for breaths. A flash of terror burst in her dark eyes. I felt no pity.

  Holding onto the edge of the kitchen countertop with one hand for balance, I bent my knees and aimed the needle at her hip.

  Police sirens. Blaring louder and louder.

  Turning my head, I listened as the sirens came closer.

  Kill her.

  The needle was only an inch from her flesh.

  Don’t stop.

  The back door opened with a kick and Detective Warren charged into the kitchen. I tossed the needle onto the ground, and he aimed his gun at me. “Hands in the air!” His steely eyes zoned in on mine, then to the floor where Mrs. Nichols lay dead and Melissa dying.

  I straightened my sore body and raised my arms, not sure if I was disappointed or relieved that I hadn’t killed Melissa when I’d had the chance.

  Footsteps stomped through the living room.

  “They’re back here!” Detective Warren yelled, “Someone call an ambulance. We have two down.”

  Noah bolted into the kitchen from the living room, looked around, then met my eyes. Deep lines etched his forehead. “Jolene, are you okay?”

  I nodded, tears falling down my cheeks, because Noah’s compassionate expression was one I hadn’t seen in a long time. “Better than I probably look.”

  “Hey, Warren,” Noah called out over his shoulder. “I’m taking the victim outside for questioning.”

  Detective Warren nodded at Noah, and I dropped my tired arms.

  A uniformed police officer flew into the kitchen. “Ambulance is on the way—good God,” he said, looking down at Mrs. Nichols in a pool of blood.

  “Come on,” Noah said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go outside.”

  My feet dragged and every muscle in my body screamed. “I thought you were out of town,” I said.

  “Let’s just say it didn’t go as planned. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. What’s important is that you’re safe.” He sighed and pointed his thumb toward Mrs. Nichols. “What happened here?”

  My heart ached. Mr. Nichols was going to be devastated. “You’ll have to ask Melissa.”

  “We have a hellava lot of questions for her.”

  “She was going to kill me… she forged a suicide note.” My hand shook as I pointed to the kitchen table.

  Noah picked up the note and read, covering his mouth and nose with his hand.

  Still dizzy and weak, I stumbled to the back door. “I need air.” I made it to the deck and sat on the top step. Shaking, I took in deep breaths. Melissa had been planning to take over my life, and I wouldn’t have put it past her to succeed if she’d killed me. Tears welled in my eyes. My children. I want to see my children.

  Noah came out and handed me a glass of water. “You look like you need this.”

  I gulped down every sweet drop then wiped my mouth. “She wanted to kill me,” I said, breathless from chugging the water.

  He placed his suit jacket over my shoulders and sat next to me. “I read the note. Phew. I couldn’t have imagined Melissa was a murderer.”

  “What made you come by the house?”

  “When I was in Florida, I found out it was Melissa Harrington’s fingerprints on the letters.” He sighed. “Things weren’t going great between Catherine and me anyway, so when I got the news a few days ago, I decided to take the next flight home and look into this some more.”

  “And Catherine?”

  “She stayed on for the holiday. I’d say our marriage is over. But trust me, Jolene. Our problems have been brewing for a long time, and not because of this one case.”

  “Got it. So, what did you find out when you got back?”

  “I learned through Detective Warren that Melissa had become a prime suspect because of story inconsistencies. They wanted to question her more but couldn’t find her anywhere.” He ran his fingers though his hair. “I knew you were coming home today, so I wanted to warn you about her. And I knew you were in trouble the moment I walked up the verandah and noticed all the shutters were closed.

  “Mrs. Nichols didn’t keep the house that way—she’d told me how she liked to keep the shutters and blinds open to let light into the house. When you didn’t answer the door, my instincts kicked in and I called for back-up.”

  I shuddered beneath Noah’s suit jacket. I’d come so close to killing Melissa. The rage still burned in my belly. “Melissa admitted to me that she set me up in Jackson’s murder. She told me everything.”

  Noah nodded. “I wasn’t sure how it all connected until you gave me the leaves. We found a clean fingerprint on one of the envelopes. It was run through IAFIS and, lo and behold, we had a bite.”

  “Melissa’s prints were in the system?”

  “Not for a crime. From a real estate salesperson application she submitted ten years ago. Standard stuff for agents to submit registered fingerprints with all applications. The fingerprints are passed onto authorities and become record.”

  “How did you connect this with Jackson’s murder?”

  “First, her aunt in Richmond? Yeah, she’s been taking care of her all right. Taking care to steal her pension checks while she lay helpless and neglected in her bed.”

  “What?”

  “A neighbor became suspicious when they noticed how Melissa wasn’t around consistently, and she’d cut her aunt off from friends, claiming she was too sick for company.

  “The neighbor called police, who then made a welfare check on the eighty-one-year-old disabled woman. Kelly Phillips was found locked inside an upstairs bedroom and chained to a bed. The window had been boarded shut. Melissa had left her a bed pan, some bottles of water, and a basket of non-perishable food stuffs to live on while she was away. Poor woman couldn’t even call out for help because Melissa kept her drugged and helpless.”

  My chest seized, pulling down on my shoulders. Sweet Aunt Kelly, another victim of Melissa’s cruelty. I’d felt sorry for Melissa when it had been her aunt who’d needed sympathy. “How long have you known all of this—that all this evidence and information pointed to Melissa?”

  “The department investigated everyone close to Jackson. Including Melissa. She wasn’t an obvious suspect at first. First, she claimed to be at work the night you were at Jackson’s house, which was backed up by her employer. You both claimed she was home around ten-thirty—which was the time you claimed to have left Jackson’s house.”

  “Oh-kay.”

  “Like I said, we check every detail. Second, the receipt she’d given us from a service station outside of Richmond confirmed where she was around the time Jackson was killed. We backed it up by looking at the CCTV camera at the shop where she’d bought some snacks on her way to Richmond to see her aunt. Again, alibi confirmed.”

  “I’m not getting it—what made the investigators suspicious of her?”

  “The hours between the time you fell asleep and the time you woke up. There are about six hours which were unaccounted for. I believed, like the medical examiner did, that Jackson was most likely killed sometime during those hours.”

  “Melissa… she told me she’d drugged me on that night I came home from Jackson’s house. I was knocked out. That’s why I never heard her leave the house.” I winced at how I’d been duped into believing Melissa was my friend.

  “While you were asleep, Melissa went to Jackson’s house.”

&
nbsp; My chest grew heavy. Jackson had believed Melissa was a friend. “And he would have welcomed her inside with no problem. What about the oak tree? Where did—”

  “Jackson had a few oak saplings growing in his backyard. Volunteers, my gardening wife calls them. You know, an acorn falls to the ground and takes root. In another year or two, there’s a sapling. They’re everywhere. It was most likely a last-minute thought for Melissa, but remember, it was that exact action which clued me into the belief that you didn’t kill Jackson. But it was the letters you gave me which were the final clue.”

  “How?”

  “When you gave me the letters with the leaves, I had every reason to believe something was amiss. All mail sent to patients and prisoners is reviewed by administration. Their duty is to review the origin and content of the mail. Under ordinary circumstances, the guard would have learned the return address on the letters were fake, and also questioned the intention of the leaf.

  “That anomaly led me on the trail to Beth, the guard on the ward you were in. Beth buckled under pressure from police and admitted that Melissa had bribed her with a hundred dollars if she slipped the letter in. That’s the moment I knew without a doubt that Melissa had killed Jackson and was framing you.”

  My eyes welled with tears because I’d never imagined a person could be filled with so much hate. Melissa was a master manipulator. She’d been the cat, and everyone else was a mouse. “Melissa killed Patsy, too.”

  “What the fuck?” Noah shook his head like a wet dog. “What are you saying?”

  “Melissa told me. Patsy didn’t die of heart failure, but of an overdose of SUX. And it’s how she killed Jackson, too. The blow to his head was a decoy. It was the SUX which killed him. His body would have to be exhumed, but it would prove Melissa is a serial killer.”

  “Dear God.” Noah ran his hand over his mouth. “We were having a tough enough time nailing a motive for her to kill Jackson—but Patsy? Why?”

  I looked out beyond the spot where the tree once stood and stared into the beauty of the budding green forest. White and pink dogwood flowers dotted the woods like drops of spilled paint on a landscape painting. Patsy had loved the forest in spring, and because she couldn’t be here, only I could be her voice. Just as she’d been my voice when I’d been left in a psych ward. “Melissa is evil. That’s the reason she killed Patsy.” Everything Melissa had told me about killing Patsy and Jackson spilled out. Including her vile hatred for me and her plan to take over my life.