SORRY CAN'T SAVE YOU: A Mystery Novel

by Willow Rose

  Frank and Vera both tell me I can’t think like that, that something like this would probably have happened anyway; it was just a matter of time—that every day, women are killed by their abusive spouses, that I was lucky no one died. And they’re right, I guess. No matter what, I couldn’t keep living like that, continually fearing my own husband. The good part is, I can now see them both as much as I want to. No one can stop me, no one can tell me not to, and no one can get jealous. Vera doesn’t have much time since she is still in training, but I am seeing Frank almost every day. He stops by, bringing flowers or things he believes we might need, like milk or eggs or maybe a vase. He uses it as an excuse; I know he just wants to see me, and I let him. I accept his gifts and tell him he’s a lifesaver, that I just needed this. He de-clogs my shower drain for me and fixes my doorbell, and he puts up smoke detectors all over the condo, even though the owner has already put some up. Frank doesn’t believe it is enough. He wants to make sure we are safe. We spend a lot of time drinking coffee and talking about everything and sometimes nothing at all, and it feels good. After a few more weeks like this, I can’t keep it at bay any longer.

  We’re sitting in the living room of the condo, overlooking the ocean beneath us, when he leans over and kisses me. I don’t protest; I don’t push him away. I enjoy feeling his lips against mine. I enjoy hearing his heartbeat next to mine. I don’t know whether I am in love with him or not; it’s too early to tell, and I am pretty broken at this point. All I know is that I enjoy being with him, and I like that he likes me.

  But as soon as his lips part from mine, I can’t help feeling a pang of guilt. I am, after all, still married to Ryan, and I feel like I just cheated on him. I turn away from Frank. He sees it and gets worried.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Was that not okay?”

  I look at him, my heart bleeding.

  Here I am with the sweetest guy, who is totally into me. And I can’t even kiss him without feeling bad about it. What is wrong with me?

  “Oh, no, it was. It’s just…it’s been so long, and I am technically still married.”

  “But you’ll be getting a divorce, right?” he asks.

  I look down at my ring. I am still wearing it, and I don’t know why. I nod. “In time, yes. I just can’t…not yet.”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t seem genuine. “Okay. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

  I grab his hand in mine, feeling relieved.

  “Thank you. That is all I can hope for. You’re such an angel.”

  Chapter 30

  Our health insurance is still through Ryan and his work, and Isabella’s physical therapy is taking place on the base, so I go there every day with her. I drive through the gates like I used to and show them my ID at the guardhouse, but now it fills me with such dread and fear. I am so scared of bumping into Ryan or any of his war buddies.

  One of the days, it was a Monday, I think, while Isabella was going through her physical therapy, I drive down to our old house and pack a bag of things. I don’t know if Ryan has been back there at all, but I have a feeling he hasn’t. I walk upstairs, my heart pounding when remembering what happened on that awful night. I stop and look at the blood on the carpet, then try to calm myself just enough to focus on why I am there. I promised Isabella I’d get her iPad and Damian’s Nintendo Switch. I also pack some more clothes for all of us and some makeup I have missed terribly and my favorite yoga outfit.

  I pass the blood once again on my way back out, then stop. I can still hear my own screams as I hold her in my arms. The thought quickens my pulse, and I am barely breathing. I feel dizzy, and I can’t hold back my tears anymore. Since I am alone, I allow myself to cry. Tears gush down my cheeks, as I, for the first time, allow myself to think about what happened.

  I wipe my tears away, then walk down the stairs and look around. I have a feeling I’m never coming back unless it’s to grab more stuff. At some point, I have to get a truck and move everything I want to keep. It’s not much. Everything in there reminds me of Ryan and my life with him. And I want to forget. I don’t want to be reminded that I ever loved him. I never want to live here again, I realize. I am done with this place.

  I rush out the door, slamming it shut behind me, then walk to my minivan, put my bag in the back and drive off. I am relieved that I haven’t seen Ryan at the house. I have been thinking about it all weekend, worried he might be there. But it doesn’t look like he has been in there at all since the incident.

  I wonder for a second where he is staying, and, like an old habit, I worry about him. I worry he’s drinking too much and that he has sunken into that deep darkness that has threatened to swallow him for so long. I worry he won’t be able to pull himself out of it this time.

  I also think about Sandra and Ted and the pills I found in his thermos. I have talked with Frank about this a lot, but we haven’t exactly decided what to do with this knowledge. I have thought about going to the police outside of the base. But what I have isn’t enough. Not even close.

  I park in front of the medical center and walk across the parking lot toward the front door when I suddenly see something that makes my blood run cold.

  Ryan’s black truck.

  It is parked close to the entrance, and there is no one inside. I lift my glance and look at the building, my heart throbbing.

  Isabella!

  Panic-stricken, I start running and push open the door. I rush down the hallway, panting and agitated, my heart pounding in my chest.

  Ryan is here? He is here, close to Isabella? And I’m not there to protect her? How could I have let my guard down like this? How could I have let this happen?

  When I walk inside the room where the doctor is working with Isabella, I see him. He’s sitting on a bench, looking directly at her. My heart is beating so fast; it makes me feel sick. I hurry to her, and the doctor smiles as she sees me.

  “She’s been making real progress today,” she says. “I am so proud of her.”

  “How long has that man been here?” I ask. I can hear the desperation in my own voice, even though I am trying to suppress it. “The one sitting on the bench?”

  She looks over toward the benches, where relatives can sit and look in on the training. It’s where I usually sit and wait. There are maybe ten other people in the middle of their training right now. All of them are soldiers who have been wounded in combat.

  “Who are we talking about?” she asks.

  I turn to look, but now Ryan is gone. Of course, he is.

  I breathe again, yet I can’t escape the eerie feeling that he is still here somewhere. Is he still watching us?

  I turn around to look, but I don’t see a trace of him.

  “Who was it, Mom?” Isabella asks.

  I look into her eyes. I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t want her to worry. We haven’t spoken much about what happened yet, or how she feels about her father. She hasn’t wanted to, and every time I try, she walks away from me, angry. I sense she’s struggling with accepting it as anything but an accident. And rightfully so. It was an accident. Ryan didn’t want to hurt her. It was me he was after.

  “No one, sweetie,” I say, smiling, pushing my anxiety back. I don’t want my daughter to see how concerned I am, even though I know she can detect it just by the small shiver in my voice.

  “You’re making amazing progress, huh? That’s wonderful.”

  Once we’re home, I call the local Dundee Beach Police Department and speak with an officer on duty. I tell him my situation, how I have a protective order, and now Ryan has shown up. I want to know what to do if he shows up where we live or if he approaches us somewhere. The officer tells me the protective order I have is issued by a commanding officer on base, and they can’t enforce it outside the walls of the base. I’ll need a separate restraining order, issued by the state court. But it will be nearly impossible to serve the order to him, he adds since local law enforcement does not have the authority to serve documents on military installati
ons. It’ll have to be done at a time he’s off base.

  I hang up, realizing Ryan probably knows this. This means he can get to us out here without getting in trouble—at least until I get the restraining order against him. I wonder how he knew we were there today. I’m guessing one of his friends alerted him; maybe they have even told him we go there every day. He might even have come several times; I just never saw him. He could have watched us from outside the windows or watched us from somewhere else. I suddenly feel very unsafe and afraid.

  I have promised myself not to, but I do it anyway. I open the app I have always used to track my family members. It doesn’t always work to perfection, but I can usually see where they are within a certain radius—enough to guess and give me a picture of where they are and what they are doing. I used to use it a lot for Isabella when she’d leave the base with her friends and sometimes spend the night with someone in town. I have also used it to track Ryan when he was gone for days. I would see him go to bars downtown, and sometimes it would tell me he was at the beach, and I assumed he was down there sleeping because he didn’t know where else to go.

  I look at it, and then my heart freezes. I see his small icon, with a little picture of him inside it, an old one we took one day when goofing around, taking silly pictures of one another. It was from about a year ago before he left for deployment.

  A lifetime ago.

  I see he is moving. But I also see something else that terrifies me to the core.

  He’s off base and not very far from us, moving closer at a steady pace.

  Chapter 31

  I stare at the small icon, worrying that he has somehow found out where we are and that now he’s coming for us. I stare at it, and I see him come closer and closer still. I tell myself there is no way he can know where I am since only my parents and close friends know I have moved into this apartment.

  After a little while, the icon stops moving. Ryan has stopped somewhere. I stare at it for a very long time, making completely sure he’s not suddenly moving closer. Sometimes, the app is slow to react, and it is delayed. I also briefly fear he has found out I am tracking him via this and maybe shut it off. But no. That can’t be it. Then the icon would disappear completely. He truly has stopped, and the icon isn’t moving at all.

  I breathe, relieved, and lean back on my couch, trying to calm my throbbing heart. I stare at Damian, who is sitting by the window, doing his homework. Isabella is in her room, resting, I hope. Physical therapy takes a toll on her body, but I am so glad she’s making progress.

  “Mom, I don’t get this one,” Damian says and shows me a math problem.

  “Let me take a look,” I say, putting down the phone and my obsession.

  I help him solve it, even though my math skills are almost nonexistent. I can still do first-grade math. It’s worse when Isabella asks me about algebra since I am at a total loss there. Her school has signed her up for virtual school, so she can try to catch up on some classes and hopefully pass her grade, even though she has missed more than a month. Luckily, Isabella is a bright girl, and she is also a hard worker. If anyone can do this, it’s her. I just worry it is too hard on her, that it’s too much with everything else she’s going through. She must be struggling more than she tells me. Being shot by your father must make some scars on the soul. I only pray that she’ll get out of this all right.

  “I’m done,” Damian says and packs up his stuff, then runs to his room to play. I have placed the Nintendo Switch on his bed and hear him scream victoriously when he sees it. He yells, “Thanks, Mom,” through the door.

  I open the app again on my phone and see that Ryan still hasn’t moved. I keep staring at it, wondering what he is up to now. If he isn’t coming for us, then what on Earth is he doing? I stare at the address and realize it’s a house on the corner of A1A. I wrinkle my forehead when I realize I know this address. I have been there to visit someone.

  A pilot from Ryan’s unit, Duke Marchant, lives there. He’s one of the few that lives off base.

  Ryan is probably just visiting his friend. He’s not on his way here. You’re fine. He doesn’t even know where you live. You’re safe.

  Still, I can’t stop staring at the icon and the address, wondering what he is up to now. Duke was not one of his favorite people while they were deployed. As a matter of fact, I remember Ryan often telling me how much he couldn’t stand the guy. The one time we went to visit him was because he had invited all of the unit to a barbecue, but Ryan had a ton of excuses for us not to go.

  “I don’t want to,” he kept saying. “I hate the guy, okay?”

  We went anyway, and Ryan spent all night talking to everyone other than Duke, avoiding him at all cost.

  Why is he suddenly visiting him?

  Has he run out of places to crash?

  I shake my head. No, not Ryan. He always had so many friends offering their guest bedroom or couch for him to sleep on when he was too drunk and didn’t want to come home to me, or after he left, after the time he almost strangled me. I know they all offered to take him in. They stay together like that—take care of their own.

  “Why are you there, Ryan?” I ask like I expect the app to answer me. “What are you up to?”

  Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I am worried. I have this deep unnerving sensation inside my stomach that I can’t escape. I call my mom and ask her to come to look after the children. I have put them to bed, so they won’t cause any trouble. When she asks me where I’m going, I tell her I’m meeting up with a friend for a drink. She buys it and comes over, and I rush out the door, bringing my purse with the gun that I bought after Isabella got hurt. I have spent many afternoons at a shooting range lately, learning how to shoot and not miss.

  I drive to the address, and there’s a truck parked in the driveway. I park by the house across the street, hoping not to be seen. I can’t see if it is Ryan’s truck since I’m not close enough, and it’s dark out. But I assume it is his. I check the app, but can’t see the icon anymore. It has suddenly completely vanished like he has realized I was tracking him and shut it off. It could also be that his phone ran out of battery. That would have the same effect. Concerned about this, I look at the house. I am about to leave, thinking I should get back to the kids in case that’s where Ryan is heading next. I need to be with them if he shows up.

  But then I see someone moving inside the house. The light is turned on in the living room, and I can see someone in there. I can’t see who it is, though. The shadow moves across the floor, first leaving, then returning into my field of sight. I stare at him, wondering if it is Ryan or maybe Duke. They’re similar in stature, seen from afar. I am certain it looks like Ryan. Is he still there? Is it his black truck in the driveway? It could be, but I’m not sure. I wonder if I should get out of my minivan and get up close to see if it has the stickers in the back or to read the license plate.

  But I don’t dare. I fear Ryan might come out of the house and see me. I wouldn’t know how to explain myself out of that one. I don’t want to have to.

  I keep staring at the shadow moving around inside the house when I realize something is off. Something is very much off. This person is lifting another person and dragging his lifeless body across the floor.

  Chapter 32

  What is it exactly I am witnessing here? Is it a buddy helping another buddy who is too drunk to walk and get to bed on his own? Or is it something else? Is it something so terrible I don’t even want to finish the thought?

  I have a deep feeling of dread inside me, and I can’t leave this alone. I have to know what it is. I get out of the minivan and walk up to the house, gun clenched in my hand. I look through the window, hoping he won’t see me, and I watch as the body is dragged toward the stairs. I can’t see the face of the one dragging him. There are no empty bottles on the floor or scattered across the countertops, nothing to indicate this person—whom I can now see is Duke—has been drinking heavily.

  He’s being dragged to the stairs
and now upward. I think about Sandra and the water she was in, and I can feel her coldness as my finger touched her skin while feeling for a pulse. I shiver as a chill runs down my spine. Panic starts to rumble in the pit of my stomach.

  If you had a chance to save Sandra, you would have. This is your chance.

  I see Duke disappear up the stairs, his legs bumping against each and every step. Then, I walk to the door and grab the handle. It is open, and I walk inside as quietly as possible, heart hammering in my chest. I try to control my breath, to keep it as calm as possible, given the situation.

  I walk to the stairs, gun clenched in my hand and lifted in front of me. The first step creaks, but it’s not loud, so I continue. I can hear the water from the bathroom upstairs as it is being turned on.

  I can’t escape the images of Sandra in the tub as I continue upward, my hands shaking terribly, wondering what I am about to see up there. I worry if I have what it takes or if I’ll freeze. I’m not a trained soldier; I’m not even a police officer. I’m just an ex-reporter turned housewife, who has taken a few lessons in shooting.