“Can we talk later?” I asked. “We’re in the middle of things here. As you can imagine, we have a few matters to discuss.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure you do.” She glanced at Aaron. “Tell Sarah and Madison that they are welcome to come to my place for coffee and breakfast if they’d like. I’m sure you’re not going to want to feed them here, not with all this going on.”
I felt a hot jolt of adrenaline rush from my stomach to my skull. I’d told Aaron that Sarah and Madison had headed back to Toronto. Now he knew they were still here. I felt his anger swell behind me. As Teresa padded away in her slippers, I closed the door quietly behind her, pressing my forehead against the frame as I glanced sideways at Nathan lying on the floor. Shit.
“Where are they?” Aaron roared. I felt his eyes on me, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose. “Where are you hiding them?”
“I’m not hiding them,” I said, turning to him.
“But Vicki and Madison are still here, on the island.”
Below us, Olive was quiet for a moment as she listened in, and then her cries started up again. Evie started to whimper again too, and I reached for her, but Aaron refused to let me hold her.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” I cried over Evie’s howls.
Aaron grabbed my neck with one hand and squeezed. “Tell me where they are!”
I grappled with his arm, trying to get him to let go. So this is what it had felt like for Sarah, and for Madison. Now it was my turn. My throat, gripped in his fist, felt as if it were full of sand. I shook my head a little as I struggled for breath, and he loosened his grasp just enough to let me speak.
“I don’t know,” I said again, my voice hoarse. “I don’t know!”
He kept his long, elegant fingers around my neck, scrutinizing my face to gauge whether I was lying. To avoid his gaze, I looked past his shoulder at the view out the window over the sink, the milky early-morning light. Spiderwebs, covered in dew and catching the low sun, were suddenly visible in the long, uncut grass of the yard, hundreds of them, thousands of them. They shimmered, vibrating in the morning breeze. Until now, I’d had no idea they were there—these traps, all these fucking traps.
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Aaron abruptly let go of my neck and turned sharply, carrying Evie back to the laundry room. With my baby in his arms, he squatted down and opened the trapdoor.
“Aaron—Aaron, what are you doing?” I said, following.
“Get up here!” he shouted at Olive, and she stumbled up the steps, keeping her eyes on Evie as my baby, wearing only a towel, hung from Aaron’s arm over that hole. I stepped back as he pushed Olive into the kitchen.
“What did you do to Nathan?” she cried.
But Aaron ignored her question. “Where are Madison and Vicki?” he asked her.
“I don’t know.” Olive glanced at me. “Is Nathan going to be okay?”
“Where are they?” Aaron boomed.
“She doesn’t know,” I said. “Aaron, for god’s sake, leave her alone!”
But he kept his eyes on her. “I know they’re still on the island. Tell me where Madison and Vicki are, now.” He held Evie over the kitchen sink, and her towel dipped into the water. “Or do I need to give Evie another bath?”
“No!” Olive cried, holding out both hands.
“Aaron, please!” I said.
“Then tell me where they are!”
Olive froze. Above her, on the kitchen wall, the eyes of the Kit-Cat Klock slid back and forth. “They’re at the hunt camp,” she said. “The forest Kira owns.”
Aaron turned to me. “Where is it?”
I hesitated.
“Where is it?” he roared.
“Not far,” I said. “A short drive.”
“Where?”
I cringed as he took a step to hover menacingly over me. “Close,” I said. “There’s a sign, like those deer warning signs, the jumping deer, only homemade.”
He turned on his heel to the door. “Let’s go. Kira, grab Evie’s diaper bag. We can get her dressed on the road.” He pushed through the old screen door, carrying Evie. Olive followed.
I hesitated, looking down at Nathan. Thank god, he was still breathing, but he was out cold. He needed medical attention, now.
“We need to phone for an ambulance,” I said.
“Get in the Jeep!” Aaron yelled.
“We can’t leave him here like this.”
“Move!”
I grabbed my purse and Evie’s diaper bag, and took one last look at Nathan before stepping outside, leaving the door open behind me. Hopefully Teresa or another neighbor would see that the door was open and find Nathan.
“Aaron, what are you going to do?” I asked as I joined them outside.
“Get in my rental.”
“We need the car seat for Evie,” I said, going around to the driver’s side of my truck, forgetting for a moment that the car seat was still inside, where Teresa had left it. From there, over Aaron’s shoulder, I could see into Teresa’s living room window. She was watching us, as I’d known she would be. She knew me well enough to know when I was lying. She held up her landline phone and pointed to it, asking, Should I phone the police? I nodded slightly, looking pointedly back at my summer house, hoping she would find Nathan and help him. Seeming to understand, she stood back a little, just out of Aaron’s view should he turn to look, the morning light reflecting off the glass. Please let her phone the cops, I thought. But would she know where to send them?
“Leave the car seat,” Aaron said. “I’m going to hold Evie. In case you get any ideas.” He tossed me the keys as I reached his Jeep. “You’re driving.”
I opened the back door and threw my purse and diaper bag on the back seat beside Aaron’s travel case. “You’re going to hold her? That’s not safe!”
He waved a hand by his ear as if that was too much to deal with. “I don’t care! Just get in the fucking Jeep!” He got in the passenger side himself.
I slid into the driver’s side as Olive sat in the back, in tears, clicking her seatbelt into place. Aaron held Evie, still naked and wrapped in a towel, on his lap. She whined and fussed, holding her hands out for me.
“It’s dangerous to drive with her like that,” I said again, knowing he was beyond caring. He had just threatened to drown Evie, several times.
“Drive,” he said. “Straight to the hunt camp.”
“Sarah and Madison may not even be there,” I said. “As I said, they have likely left already.”
“That neighbor of yours seemed to think otherwise. Drive.”
I backed onto the street and drove up the laneway, turning off onto the main road. “Why do you need to see Sarah so badly?” I asked. “What do you want from her?”
Aaron kept his eyes on the road. “Shut up and drive.”
“She’s a threat to you in some way, isn’t she?”
But what kind of threat? He’d managed to evade charges of abuse. Surely he couldn’t be afraid of that now, after all this time.
His jaw tensed as he spoke quietly, to himself more than me. “I should have finished the job I started years ago,” he said.
“You’re not going to hurt Sarah and Maddy, are you?” Olive asked from the back.
I studied the side of his face a moment, the sharp angle of his nose. “Aaron, please, no.”
Aaron flicked a glance at me but didn’t answer. I put a hand to my throat, picturing the ring of finger-sized bruises that were blooming there. Aaron had dragged Olive by her hair and thrown her into a cellar. He had threatened to kill Evie. He had put his hand around my neck, just as he had with Sarah and Madison in the past. Whatever threat Sarah posed to him, he seemed bent on silencing her, and likely Madison as well. And—my god—the girls and I could well be next.
34
I drove slowly as we left the village, trying to stall to allow more time for the police to reach us in this rural area, but Aaron slapped the dash twice. “Get a move on,” he sa
id. “Faster.”
“I told you, it’s not safe to drive with you holding Evie like that. If we need to stop suddenly—”
Aaron held a hand at Evie’s neck. “I said, faster!”
I pressed my foot to the gas, speeding over the rolling hills on this part of the road, my stomach lifting and then sinking in the dips. As we passed the dump, we met a Ministry of Natural Resources pickup towing a large rectangular box—a live bear trap—on a trailer. A yellow warning sign with a bear on it was fixed to the side. If I could signal the conservation officer in that truck, get him to notice me . . .
I glanced at Aaron, who stared back at me, his teeth clenched. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. He hovered a hand over Evie’s mouth and nose, a threat, a warning to behave myself. Olive, seeing this from the back, took in a sharp, panicked breath.
“Please, no,” I whispered, shaking my head.
The worker in the municipal truck lifted a hand and waved as we passed, and I nodded at him, giving nothing away, then watched the bear trap slide by. Aaron settled back in his seat, removing his hand from Evie’s face, and I turned my focus to the road ahead. It was enclosed on either side by a wall of trees, creating the impression that the way ahead was getting narrower, collapsing in on us.
As we approached the hunt camp, I slowed to look at the section of road where I’d hit the deer the night before. As I had predicted, someone had hauled away the carcass in the night, and thanks to the heavy rainstorm, no trace of the accident remained.
“Is that the place?” Aaron asked, pointing ahead at the weathered sign my father had made, the leaping deer.
“Yes,” I said.
“And that’s the minivan you were talking about? Vicki’s van.” The gray minivan was parked where she’d left it the night before, near the entrance to the hunt camp road.
“Yes, that’s Sarah’s van.”
“Good. Then they’re here.” They were probably asleep in the cabin, as it was still early. “Let’s get this over with.”
I started to park just beyond Sarah’s van, but Aaron waved me down the overgrown camp road. “Keep going.”
If we drove to the cabin, the cops wouldn’t be able to see the Jeep from the road. Assuming they even thought to look here. If Teresa believed we were headed off the island, the police would undoubtedly focus their attention on the main road to Little Current and the bridge, or perhaps on the ferry, as those were the only two ways off the island. Even so, I had to make sure the Jeep remained visible. It was our best chance of being found.
“There’s too much bush,” I said.
“It’s a Jeep,” Aaron said. “It will get through this. Keep going.”
Shit. I’d have to find a way to stop before we rounded the corner. I turned onto the camp road, mowing down the tall grass, still wet from the storm. The vehicle jostled as I navigated around young trees, flattening some. “It’s too thick,” I said. “We’ll never make it.”
“Just drive.”
Up ahead, the girl, my young self, appeared in the middle of the road, nodding sideways at the old gray barn where my father had once hung deer carcasses. All at once, I knew what I had to do. I drove slowly ahead and then, just before the barn, swerved into the field, where I knew a large stump was hidden in the long grass. Aaron and Evie lurched forward as the vehicle got hung up on the stump and stalled, and I instinctively held an arm out so my baby wouldn’t hit the dash. She looked stunned and then burst into tears. I smoothed a hand over her forehead to soothe her.
“You did that on purpose,” Aaron said, pulling Evie away from me.
“No, I didn’t—I told you, the road is too overgrown. I had to go around that young maple.”
“Fuck.” He pressed his lips together as he stared at the grass and bush growing on the road ahead. “How much farther is it?”
“Not far,” I said.
“I guess we’ll have to walk in.” He lifted his chin to peer into the rearview mirror. “Olive, get out.” He reached over and grabbed the key from the ignition, then stepped out of the Jeep himself. “And take Evie.” He handed my baby to Olive, took off his suit jacket and threw it on the seat before slamming his door shut. Then he rolled up his sleeves as if getting down to work.
“I’ll just get my purse,” I said, reaching into the back seat. “And Evie’s diaper bag.”
“Leave it.”
“I may need the keys to the cabin. And Evie needs some clothes.”
“Fine. Just—let’s go.”
I leaned into the Jeep for my purse, slung it and the diaper bag over my shoulder, then grabbed Aaron’s hardside travel case.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Leave my luggage in the Jeep.”
“I think you might need it,” I said, and I lifted the case to swing it at him, hard. He looked briefly surprised, and then the case slammed into his skull. Payback, for Nathan, I thought. Aaron fell to the ground, grunting in pain and holding his head, then looked up at me from the grass, blinking, disoriented, as he leaned on one elbow.
I took Evie from Olive and held her tightly to my chest. “Run!” I told Olive. “To the barn. Quickly!”
As we sprinted to the barn, I glanced back to see Aaron still on the ground near the Jeep. But I knew that blow to his head wouldn’t stop him for long.
“Hurry!” I said to Olive as we reached the old barn. “Inside!”
Once we were inside, I handed Evie and the diaper bag to Olive. “Go out the back. I’ll close the barn door after you, but you’ll have to slide the outside board down, to lock it from the outside.” My father had put those boards in place on both doors to keep bears and other scavengers away from the deer he hung here.
“You’ll be trapped inside,” Olive said.
“I know what I’m doing.” Sort of. I started to close the back door. “There’s a deer path that runs from this barn through the trees and ends in the field behind the cabin. Take that. Stay off the hunt camp road. Be as quiet as you can. Let Madison and Sarah know what’s going on. But stay in the cabin until I can get to you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Set a live bear trap,” I said.
She looked at me quizzically.
“No time to explain,” I said. “Go.”
I closed the barn door. Through the slats, I saw her swing the board down into place, barring the exit. She was right. If this went south, I was trapped.
Outside I heard Aaron yelling, “You bitch!”
He had never called me that before, reserving the title for Madison. For weeks, I had worried he would someday see me the way he saw her. Now here we were. And I didn’t give a fuck.
I slid behind a stack of graying, water-damaged lumber next to the front door and crouched down, hiding myself there.
“You fucking bitch!” Aaron cried.
Through the slats of the wall, I saw him stagger toward the barn, holding his head. As he reached the barn door, he let his hand fall, revealing the huge red goose egg on his forehead.
“I saw you go in there!” he said, pushing the door open. He squinted, either from the pain of the blow or as his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside. Probably both. “What are you trying to pull?” He scanned the barn: the upper level that had once held straw, the tools my father had hung on the walls, the stacks of crates, the stalls that had once housed horses, the metal bar that stretched from wall to wall above our heads and, hanging off it, the hook on which my father had hung deer carcasses during the November hunt week, to age the meat before butchering it. “Come out!” he cried. “There’s no use hiding. There’s no way out.” He picked up a short board, crusted with rusty nails, and wielded it like a club as he strode into the barn.
I waited until he was standing in the center, under the meat hook, before I slipped out from behind the stack of lumber. Hearing me, he swung around, raising the board and launching himself toward me. I quickly ducked outside and slammed the door shut behind me, swinging the board down into place just as
he reached the door. He pounded on it hard, sending up clouds of dust. As if taking up the challenge, a pileated woodpecker began its rat-a-tat-tat drum on a snag somewhere in the forest.
“Kira, let me out of here.” Aaron hammered on the door. “Let me out!”
I backed up and took a last look at the barn. The structure was weathered and water-damaged, the boards rotted along the base. A swift kick would likely dislodge any one of them. But trapping him here, even for a few minutes, might buy us enough time to make our escape.
I turned and sprinted down the hunt camp road. Just as I reached the corner before the final stretch of road to the cabin, I saw the hazy figure of my ghost, my young self, once again standing on the road ahead of me. I slowed to a stop as we stared at each other. After a moment, I glanced back over my shoulder for any sign of Aaron. When I turned back, the ghost was gone.
I ran the rest of the way, leapt up the porch stairs and pushed into the cabin. I locked the door behind me, even though Aaron could simply reach in and turn the knob.
“Kira!” Olive cried, wrapping an arm around me. Evie, in her arms and finally clothed, patted me, overjoyed to see me.
“Oh, thank god,” Madison said. “From what Olive said, we weren’t sure you were going to make it.”
I took Evie from Olive and pulled back the faded curtain to look outside. “I locked Aaron in the barn,” I said. “But it won’t hold him for long.”
Madison put a hand on my arm. “Olive said Aaron locked her in the cellar and threatened to drown Evie.”
“He submerged Evie in the sink. Her face was underwater.” I put a hand over my mouth as the emotion of the morning started bubbling up.
Sarah wrapped an arm around me. She smelled of perfumed deodorant and woodsmoke, from the fire the night before. “Oh, Kira, I’m so sorry.”
I touched my neck. My throat was still tender from Aaron’s grip. “He’s coming for you, Sarah. I think he wants to kill you. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Why would he want to kill me?” Sarah asked. She looked at Madison. “I mean, why now?”
The Almost Wife Page 19