by Leah Konen
His hand whipped away as if I’d turned hot.
Oxygen invaded my lungs, and my hand shot to my throat.
I should’ve stopped, I knew it, but for a minute, I didn’t even care.
“And I’m glad she does.”
Davis reared back, lifting the hammer over his head.
Gravity does the work, I thought as the hammer hung, waiting. Gravity does the work.
THIRTY-FOUR
There are moments when time stands still, when you know that there’s no stopping what’s about to happen. The connection of fist to face. The blow to the back of the head. The feeling of a car’s wheels losing their grip on the road beneath you. The hollow emptiness of impending loss.
The moments when, finally, you admit it—everything you’ve ever told yourself about your role in the world is wrong. All the calendars, all the classes, all the interviews and jobs, all the hours spent trying to arrange a life for yourself, carefully stacking jacks and queens and aces into a house of cards—it was all an illusion.
It was never real.
You never, ever had any control.
You know, suddenly, that you aren’t immune to darkness, to impulse, to the sheer animal nature, the biological violence, the brutal randomness, of humanity—of life. You know that nothing really matters, when it comes right down to it. That there’s no real way to protect yourself from pain.
That’s how I felt as my ex-boyfriend hovered over me, holding my long-lost dad’s hammer over my head like the blade of a guillotine. For one terrifying, beautiful millisecond, I was high on the insanity of it all.
I knew it would finally be over. I wouldn’t have to hurt, to pretend to build a life for myself, anymore.
I was a product of fate, of circumstance, like we all were.
The hammer swooped down, and I shrieked as in midair it seemed to change course, missing me only by inches, crunching against my phone where it lay on the bed next to me.
I rolled away, sitting up and scooting backward.
My body stayed tense as I watched his hand, still gripped around the hammer, but it didn’t lift again.
“You deserve much worse,” Davis said, as if answering a question I hadn’t been brave enough to ask. “But I won’t become the person you think I am.”
Was it possible? Was it possible he wasn’t here to hurt me, not like that?
I took deep breaths, trying to find my voice.
“The knife,” I said finally, suddenly aware that he didn’t have to touch me to destroy me. “Do you still have it? You don’t have to do what you’re going to. You don’t have to give it to the police.”
Davis stared at me, eyes narrowed. “What knife? What are you even talking about?”
“I know you killed John,” I said, forcing out the words. “I figured it out.”
“Wow, you’re in worse shape than I thought,” Davis said. “I didn’t kill anyone. You really think I could do that?” He knelt, hammer still in his hand, and scooped Dusty from beneath the bed. My dog—our dog, once—his tiny little body quivering.
My heart raced, and I momentarily forgot about the knife, about John, about everything else. “Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t hurt Dusty. Please.” I deplored the weakness, the desperation, in my voice. “God, he’s all I have.”
“You always assume the worst of me,” Davis said. “I’m not hurting him, I’m taking him, just like I said I would.”
In Davis’s arms, Dusty’s tail fell; he began to whimper as tears pricked my eyes.
“No,” I said. “No, please. You’re squeezing him. You’ll crush him.”
Davis gripped Dusty tighter. “I would have forgiven you, you know. For leaving, even for taking that photo. I would have taken you back. I loved you. I still do. You’re the one who always thought the worst of me. I knew we were perfect, you and me. I knew if we could only work out the kinks in our relationship, we would be everything either of us ever needed. It’s you who always painted me as some kind of monster, when I was only trying to help you, to help us. To make sure we didn’t just dissolve into resentment like every other couple. We had chemistry, we had similar interests, we made each other laugh, we were crazy about each other—do you know how rare that is? It would have all been fine, if only you’d just trusted me, if only you’d just listened.” He sighed, mourning all that could have been. “We could have gotten married and had kids like you wanted—been a family—if only you’d learned. If you’d tried as hard as I did to improve our relationship. But you didn’t care, did you? You blew it all up. You did this.”
Dusty yelped, but Davis didn’t let him go. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t be with you after that,” he said. “So I’m taking what matters most to you. I’m taking him. Maybe you’ll finally learn not to ruin every good thing that comes your way.”
Dusty cried out again, and I pressed myself upright on the bed. “You can’t,” I said, begging. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of him. I’m the one he knows. Please.” I reached out my hands, but Davis gripped him tighter. “Please, just give him to me.”
“Why should I?”
Tears ran down my cheeks, and between the way Davis was holding Dusty and the hammer still gripped in his hand, I was terrified something awful was going to happen. Like a flash, I saw Dusty sprinting across the road after his leash had snapped. Davis wasn’t above hurting our dog if it meant he could hurt me. If it fell into his grand idea of “working out the kinks” in our relationship.
I had to do something. I had to stop this.
“If you don’t let him go, right now, I’ll show everyone that photo,” I said, desperately forcing confidence into my voice. “I’ll blast it across the internet. You’ll be a viral fucking sensation. You’ll have to kill me to stop me from doing that, I swear to god. And if you do kill me, what’s your sister going to think? Whatever story you fed her, it won’t mean much if I turn up dead a week after I told her myself I was afraid of you.”
Davis’s grip on Dusty loosened, just the tiniest bit. “You deleted it,” he said, as if trying to convince himself.
I half wanted to laugh. “It’s saved in the cloud, in case I lost my phone. I’m not stupid, and you’re not, either.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “You wouldn’t post it. You’d be too embarrassed.”
“I have no shame,” I snapped. “Not anymore. I would. And I will. Let Dusty go, leave him with me, and I’ll never tell another person, I swear. I won’t tell the police what you’ve done here. I won’t tell anyone you killed John.”
“I don’t even know who John is,” Davis said, an awful bitter laughter creeping into his voice. “You’re delusional. You always were.”
As if seeing his chance, quick as anything, Dusty turned his sweet little head and sank his teeth into Davis’s arm, hard enough to break the skin.
“Christ,” he said, tossing my baby across the room so violently that his body thunked into the nightstand.
Dusty yelped once more, and I pounced, scooping him into my arms, holding him gently, protecting him.
“He’s yours,” Davis said, his expression turning quickly to disgust. “He’s just as crazy as you. Stay away from me—and my sister. Or I will take him—I’ll take away everything you love, I swear to god.”
Then he turned around, walked out of the room. Leaving us there, saved and spared.
Only somehow more broken than we had been before.
* * *
• • •
I heard my name like an echo, bouncing around as if someone was yelling it from the end of a tunnel. Bright lights flooded the room, pressing against my eyelids.
Exhausted and weak, I opened my eyes to see Vera hovering over me.
“Lucy. Oh my god, what happened?”
I blinked back sleep. I was still on the bed, in the fetal position, exactly where Davis had l
eft me, where, at some point, half-drunk from the spike and fall of adrenaline, I’d drifted off. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven,” she said. “You didn’t show up for dinner, and at first I didn’t worry, but then I tried calling and texting, and I couldn’t get an answer. I came over here, and I knocked a bunch of times, and the door was unlocked, so I let myself in. God, I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.”
Her eyes froze, locked on my neck. “Lucy,” she said. “Your neck is red.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Davis?” she asked.
Tears dripped down my cheeks—the only answer she needed.
“What did he do? You have to tell me what happened. You have to tell me right now.”
Vera listened, eyes welling as I detailed everything. When I was done, she made me tea and brought me crackers, but I was too weak, too spent, to get anything down. She begged me to call the police, but I told her I wouldn’t, and when the tea had gone cold, she took it back to the kitchen, then returned to the bedroom. She crawled into bed with me and snuggled up behind me, holding me like Davis used to, and in the safety of her arms, I let my eyes go heavy once again, knowing this nightmare was far from over, knowing any respite would be brief.
THIRTY-FIVE
Vera was gone when I woke the next morning. I felt hazy, hungover, even though I hadn’t had so much as a drop to drink. The bed was empty, not even Dusty beside me, and layers of covers had been laid, heavy, over me. She’d tucked me in like she would a child.
I pushed the covers back and reached for my phone. The screen was black—dead—and shattered nearly beyond recognition. It was cold in my room, icily so, and I needed to know the time—the only clock in the cottage was in the kitchen. Forcing myself out of bed, I padded down the hall, treading carefully, my head swiveling side to side, in case Davis had decided to come back.
There was no one in the main room—only Dusty, who hopped off the sofa and followed me.
The sight in the kitchen was awful. The window above Dusty’s doggie door was broken, a spiderweb of cracks radiating outward.
“Back, Dusty,” I said as glass shards glimmered, scattered across the floor, catching the light like snowfall.
Had Davis returned, smashed my window, intent on scaring me again?
Had his words last night only been lies? Had he never intended to leave me alone at all?
Dusty retreated and I stepped forward. It was noon—I’d slept for ages—and on the counter by the stove sat a note from Vera.
I didn’t want to clean this up in case you decided to tell the police (which I really think you should). I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’ll check in later. V
Pushing the note aside, I stepped forward and ran my finger along an edge of the crack in the glass. Shit. I sucked on the blood from my finger and headed to the bathroom, wrapping it in a Band-Aid.
In the mirror, I saw fingerprints of blood on my neck. It was where Davis had grabbed me, stamping my skin, irritated and soon to bruise. In the bedroom, I found the hammer. There were bloody fingerprints on its handle, too. No question, Davis’s hand had been bleeding when he attacked me. It had happened so quickly, I hadn’t even noticed it.
I returned to the kitchen, examining the glass. Blood. Not fresh, but dry, caked.
I took a quick step back, the room beginning to spin as my mind struggled to play catch-up: Between Vera’s note and the prints on my neck, it was clear that Davis had broken the window last night, probably before I even came home . . . but why?
A chill ran through me, and not from the air spilling in through the cracked glass. Dusty seemed to sense it; he began to whine.
I’d been so sure. It had been like a movie playing on repeat . . .
After learning my whereabouts from Ellie, Davis had come to my cottage that night, had seen me with John. The door had accidentally been left unlocked, and he’d stolen my key, made a copy, and returned it. He’d taken one of my knives, and he’d used it to kill John. He’d planted my underwear at the crime scene. He’d deposited the knife . . . somewhere. He’d returned in the days since, to let Dusty out, to take the photos and the note and my mother’s scarf. To screw with me.
He’d gone around town, asking about his “missing girlfriend,” just so I would know he was up here, just in case I hadn’t yet figured it out, and then he sat back and watched as I quaked with fear.
Then he’d come here to confront me. He’d come here to . . . smash my phone . . . to threaten to take Dusty?
I shook my head, swallowing back a thick feeling in my throat. Davis had seemed genuinely confused when I’d asked him about the knife, about John. I thought it was all an act, but what if, what if . . .
I tossed Vera’s note in the trash and then, digging through the junk drawer until I found my roll of duct tape, I added swath after swath, covering the hole in the glass. With a broom and a dustpan, I swept up the glass and dumped it into the trash. Back in the living room, with all the drapes pulled shut, every lock twisted and retwisted, I began to pace. Dusty watched me as I moved about the room.
Could it be possible?
Could I have gotten it all wrong?
That night with John was little more than twenty-four hours after I ran into Ellie. Unless she’d lied and Davis had been here with her, he would have had to come up almost immediately, somehow find my exact address, and happen upon us. I grabbed a scrap of paper, since the police had taken my notebook, and began to write, detailing every strange thing that had happened since I’d moved in.
—Door ajar
—Faucet running
—Dusty getting out
—Scarf gone
—Photos gone
—Note gone
—Knife gone
—Underwear in the cabin
As my eyes ran down the list, I heard a crack outside, a rustle of leaves, and jumped. I ran to the front window, peeking out. Nothing more than the beginnings of snow. I ran over the list again.
Someone had been in here, there was no denying it—even if everything else could be explained, objects didn’t disappear on their own, didn’t simply vanish into thin air.
Until this morning, I’d never seen a single sign of forced entry. The person who’d taken these things had to have a key. The person who’d taken my knife, who’d stabbed John, that person had to have a way in here that did not require breaking windows.
Davis had denied even knowing who John was.
What if it hadn’t been him after all?
I rushed to the bedroom, grabbed my phone. I plugged it in, praying it still worked, and after five minutes of charging, miraculously, it did. Shards catching beneath my fingers, I dialed Ellie.
It went to voice mail. I dialed her again. Another voice mail. I hung up, dialed her again. And again. And again.
Finally, she answered. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said in lieu of a greeting, her voice icy. “Davis told me everything after the last time you called. I never want to talk to you—or see you—again.”
“You won’t have to,” I said. “I promise. Just tell me one thing.”
“Oh my god, you just won’t stop, will you? I’m hanging up—”
“Ellie, please. Just tell me this, I’m begging you. When did you tell Davis you ran into me?”
“What?” she snapped.
“Was it right away? Like, did you call him as soon as you left the restaurant where you saw me?”
“No,” she said. “I told him a couple of days after I got home. I was still trying to figure out what to do with your story.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It’s important,” I said, my voice desperate. “When?”
“I got back on Monday,” she said. “I think I told
him on Wednesday. Yeah, it was Wednesday night, after we did yoga together.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Jesus, yes, I’m sure. Not that it changes any—”
“Thank you,” I interrupted her. “And I’m sorry for everything.”
I hung up. Then I opened my calendar app. Monday was the day of the hike. Wednesday was two full days after John disappeared.
Unless Ellie was lying to me, and I’d known her long enough to know she was a shit liar, Davis couldn’t have killed John.
I shook my head. I’d been so sure, so goddamn sure, but it wasn’t possible. It hadn’t been him at all.
So how had someone gotten into the cottage?
And why had they taken my things?
If it wasn’t Davis, why try to frame me and not Vera—she was his wife, the obvious choice. It didn’t make sense.
With trembling fingers, I opened my email, scrolling until I found the last one I had from Jennifer Moon, the real estate agent who’d gotten me the cottage.
I sent her an email, and then, after refreshing my inbox too many times to count, I called her.
The office number went to voice mail, so I dialed her cell instead.
She answered after five rings: “Hello?” Her voice was raspy, and she sounded like she’d smoked every day for ages, nothing like the voice I’d imagined from her cheerful email font. I realized, at once, that I’d never even spoken to her before; I had made every single arrangement over email. The idea made me feel suddenly unsafe—I had no idea who I was really dealing with. My dad would have been rightly horrified.
“Jennifer Moon?” I started. “I’m sorry to bother you like this, but this is Lucy King. I’m renting the cottage that you handled, on Shadow Creek Road? Number sixty-three?”
A hesitation, and then: “Yes?”
“Does anyone besides me have a key to the cottage? I don’t know, someone in maintenance, or—”
“No,” she said, cutting me off. “There are only two copies. The one you have and the one I have. I share an office with another company, so I keep the spare keys in my home, just to be safe.” A creaking of floorboards and then a metal clacking sound. “I’m looking at your key—Sixty-Three Shadow Creek Road—right now, in fact. So the answer to your question is no. Just you and me. If anyone needs to do a repair, they have to sign the key out from me—and that’s only if you’ve granted access to the space. That’s the law. My company takes safety very seriously. You’ll see I have a plethora of five-star reviews on Yelp. Top rental management and realty company in the area, I’ll have you know.”