by Brian Bowyer
Simon lowered the knife to her stomach. He slid the blade’s tip from her navel down to her panties.
“My husband,” Marian said.
Simon grinned. “What about him?”
“My husband will be back any minute and he will beat the fucking shit out of you.”
It wasn’t true, of course. David wouldn’t be home for another eight hours or so, but Marian was desperate. And if Simon believed her, maybe he wouldn’t do whatever it was he was about to do.
Simon threw his head back and laughed. Then he put his head back down and looked into her eyes. “I watched your husband leave yesterday. Watched him come home, too. He won’t be back until sometime after five. And even if he does come home early, trust me: I’m not worried about your tiny little husband.”
Marian began crying again. Simon was right. David would not be able to help her. Even if he walked in right now, he would be unable to stop this. It was possible that he wouldn’t even try. They didn’t love each other anymore and had recently been talking about getting divorced. Besides, David was too small to be a physical threat to this behemoth of a man.
Simon reached out with the hand not holding the knife. He grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed it. “I like how your tits jiggle when you cry. Anyone ever tell you that you have nice titties? Yeah, I bet you hear that all the time.”
His touch sent shockwaves of revulsion through her body, and she shuddered.
Simon smiled. “You like that, don’t you?”
Marian shook her head. “No. Please—”
“Yes you do. You like it when Simon pinches those perky nipples.”
Marian closed her eyes.
Simon ran his hand down her stomach and grabbed the top of her panties. Then he paused. “What was that?”
Marian opened her eyes. “What was what?”
“I thought I heard something.”
Marian cocked her head and listened, but she didn’t hear anything.
Simon must have thought that he hadn’t heard anything either, because he ripped her panties off and grinned. “Shaved,” he said. “I like that.”
Marian went rigid and closed her eyes. Then she heard a loud thud and opened her eyes. She saw a dazed expression on Simon’s face before his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he fell off the bed and crashed onto the floor.
David stood at the foot of the bed. He was holding a golf club over one shoulder like a baseball bat. “You’re a goddamn whore.”
Marian blinked a couple of times. “What are you talking about?”
“I got all the way to work and realized I’d forgotten my phone. Left it on charge again. So I come home to get it and find you in bed with a goddamn Sasquatch.”
“Jesus Christ, David! He was going to rape me! And probably kill me! Didn’t you see the knife in his hand? You just saved my life.”
“Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that bullshit?”
“It’s true! He broke in here right after you left for work.”
“There’s no sign of a forced entry. As a matter of fact, the door was locked when I got here.”
“He rang the doorbell. I opened the door. That’s when he forced his way inside.”
“So you answered the door in your robe?”
“Jesus Christ, David. You had just left for work. I was still drinking my first cup of coffee. And he had already stopped by yesterday morning. Scoping the place out, apparently. Said he was a landscaper named Simon looking for work.”
“You didn’t tell me about anyone stopping by yesterday morning.”
“I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
David shook his head. “You know what I think? I think every word out of your mouth is a goddamn lie.”
Marian rolled her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, David, I’m in fucking handcuffs here. The son of a bitch forced his way in, knocked me out, and handcuffed me to the bed.”
“Bullshit. I don’t see any blood or bruises on you anywhere. And I know you like to watch all kinds of kinky porn, because you never delete your search history. You probably like it when old Sasquatch ties you up.” David looked down at the large, unconscious man on the floor. “Or Simon. Whatever the fuck his name is.”
Marian shook her head. “You’re unbelievable. But anyway, he probably has the keys in his pocket. So will you please get me out of these handcuffs?”
David bent down beside the bed. He didn’t search Simon’s pockets for any keys to the handcuffs, however. Instead, he dragged Simon out of the bedroom by his legs.
He was gone for quite some time. When he returned to the bedroom a little while later, David sat down on the bed beside Marian and fired up his crack pipe.
“I thought you quit smoking crack,” Marian said.
David ignored her. He just sat on the edge of the bed and smoked crack in silence.
“Is Simon dead?” Marian said.
David shook his head. “Nope. He’s just unconscious. He’s bleeding from the back of his head, but he’s still breathing.”
“Jesus Christ, David. What if he wakes up?”
“Then I’ll knock him out again. And don’t worry: Simon won’t be moving around anytime soon. I found some rope out in the garage and tied him up in the spare bedroom.”
“Did you find the keys to the handcuffs?”
David ignored her. He took his cellphone from his pocket and placed a call.
“Are you calling the police?”
David spoke into the phone. “HR, please.” Moments later: “Joy? Hi. This is David. I left work a little bit ago to come home and take some medicine, but it’s not working. So I won’t be back today. I’m just gonna stay home all weekend recuperating and then I’ll be back as good as new on Monday morning. Yes. Thank you. Yes. I will. Okay. You too. Thanks again. Goodbye.” He put the phone back in his pocket.
“Aren’t you going to call the police?”
David hit his crack pipe several times. Then he lit a cigarette. “Don’t worry: I’ll call the police later to report that you were murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Yes. Later, when I’m ready, I’ll bring Simon back in here. I’ll kill you first, and then I’ll kill him. I’ll say I took my medication and passed out. When I woke up, Simon was in the process of killing you. I tried to save you. I attacked him with the golf club, but by the time I got him to stop, you were already dead.”
“You’ll never get away with it.”
“Of course I will. And then I’ll start a new life with the money from your life-insurance policy.”
The sound of Simon’s voice startled them both. “There’s only one problem with your plan,” Simon said. He was standing in the bedroom doorway, holding a rope. “You should have made those knots a whole lot tighter.”
Marian was not surprised. Thoroughness had never been one of her husband’s strong suits.
“Motherfucker,” David said. He reached for his golf club, which was leaning against the nightstand, but Simon attacked him before he could even rise from the bed. David put up a struggle, but it was brief and ineffective. Simon was simply too big, too fast, and too strong. He took David to the floor. Marian couldn’t see it, but she heard him begin beating David to death.
David’s screams turned to whimpers of pain that quickly began to fade. Then all Marian heard were the wet sounds that Simon made as he continued battering her husband’s corpse.
Finally, he stopped. There was silence. Then: “Ah, there’s my knife.” He picked it up off the floor and climbed onto the bed. “Now,” Simon said. “Where were we?”
Marian closed her eyes, but he forced them open.
THE MYTH OF COINCIDENCE
Emma Kinkade looked up from her laptop and blinked. The writing had been going so well that it took her a few seconds to realize the source of the interruption: her cellphone was ringing in her pocket. Very few people ever called her anymore, and she figured that it had to be either her agent, her editor, or a solicitor. She took the phon
e from her pocket, saw her agent’s number on the screen, and answered the call. “Hello, Natalie.”
“Emma! How are you on this beautiful spring morning?”
“Beautiful?”
“Yes! It’s beautiful here in New York. I can’t imagine it’s all that different across the bridge in New Jersey.”
At thirty-two, Natalie was twelve years younger than Emma’s forty-four years of age. She kept an office on the west side of Manhattan, just across the George Washington Bridge from Emma’s house in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
“I haven’t looked outside yet,” Emma said.
“Oh no!” Natalie said. “Did I wake you?”
Emma took a drink of vodka. She had started mixing drinks around nine o’clock the night before, but she had switched to straight vodka from a bottle sometime after midnight and hadn’t stopped since. “No. I haven’t been to sleep yet.”
“Awesome! Writing all night, I’m sure. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is, I was wondering if—”
“No,” Emma interrupted. “Absolutely not.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do. You were going to ask me to participate in some wretched publicity event.” Her latest romance novel was due to launch in a couple of weeks, and she would be expected to publicize its release.
“You should do it for your fans,” Natalie said. “All of them are eager to meet the creator of your books. Besides, you’re developing a reputation as something of a recluse.”
“Fine,” Emma said. “What did you have in mind?”
Her agent sighed with relief. “A book signing at Mizzoli’s, here in New York, in a couple of weeks.”
Emma took a drink. “Okay.” Then she took another drink. “I’ll be there.”
• • •
Emma woke up that evening and took a shower. Then she mixed a drink and returned to her study. She opened her laptop and finished writing the scene she had been working on that morning. After that, she sat back and looked across the room at her reflection in a mirror between two bookshelves.
I’m forty-four, she thought. My god, time is flying. And Ryan has been dead for twenty years.
She remembered walking back from a pub to this very house with her late husband twenty years ago, not long before Ryan committed suicide. Four miles through sleet and freezing rain. They had looked ahead and told each other that the walk would soon be over; that soon they would be sitting before a blazing fire, looking back and laughing about the walk. One hour later they had done just that, and Emma had known that her life would follow a similar pattern, that one day she would be contemplating existence from a vantage point of middle age, and the walk of youth would seem to have passed in an instant. The idea had horrified Emma then, but the terror had been soothed by the passage of the years themselves, and the horror had transformed into a sort of tranquilized acceptance.
The view through the windows had changed very little in twenty years. The lawn stretched to the oak tree at the edge of the property. Squirrels frolicked and ran back and forth. In her mind’s eye Emma saw Ryan sitting on the grass, his back against the oak tree, a notebook open across his lap, working on one of his horror novels or one of his plays in longhand. She smiled to herself and blinked and Ryan was gone, alive now only in her memories. The image of him was replaced by other, unhappier images, and Emma quickly took a drink and tried to banish them.
She pulled her gaze from the lawn and looked at one of the bookshelves beside the mirror. One of the shelves bore the four horror novels that Ryan had published before he died. Beside one of those books was a reading edition of the only play Ryan wrote that had ever been commissioned, The Myth of Coincidence. The play debuted on Broadway not long after he died, and though the play was a success, tragedy and misfortune became attached to the play almost immediately. As far as Emma knew, The Myth of Coincidence had not been performed on a stage in almost two decades.
Emma finished her drink and smoked a cigarette. Then she mixed another drink and resumed working on her novel.
• • •
Two weeks later found her at Mizzoli’s for the book signing in New York. Her table was set up in the romance section of the bookstore, surrounded by staff and fans who all appeared to be at least half her age. She already had half a bottle of vodka in her system, and the bottle of water on her table had more vodka than flavored water in it. Natalie had been there earlier, but she’d already left for a prior engagement, so Emma just sat alone behind her table and scrawled her signature on the title pages of books for the fans who filed past.
Two hours later, after the last of the fans had left and she was busy signing the remaining stock, a man who appeared to be in his thirties approached her table, holding a slim volume in both hands. Apparently he’d been waiting for the fans to depart—and for Emma to finish signing the remaining stock—before he approached her. He was tall, thin, and incredibly handsome. He looked like an actor. He also looked familiar, and Emma wondered if perhaps she had seen him in a movie or on TV. He smiled and proffered the book for Emma to sign on the title page, and she saw with a shock that it wasn’t one of her books. It was a reading edition of her late husband’s only commissioned play, The Myth of Coincidence.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the man said, “but I’m a huge fan of your husband’s work, and I’d be delighted if you would sign this copy for me.”
Even with the alcohol in her system, Emma’s hand shook when she took the book. “No, I don’t mind. Who do I make it out to?”
“Thomas,” the man said. “Thomas Maxwell.”
Emma signed the playscript and handed it back to him. She was glad to be rid of it. Holding it in her hands had brought back the familiar horror.
“I’m a writer myself,” Thomas said. “I’m also a journalist, and I was hoping you might consent to an interview.”
She was tempted to tell him that she didn’t do interviews, that she had nothing she wanted to say about anything to anyone, but something about the man’s smile made her relent, and anyone who was a fan of her late husband’s work was pretty much okay in her book.
Emma shrugged. “Why not? I’ll consent to an interview. But not today. And I’m not coming back to New York anytime soon. How do you feel about coming to my house in New Jersey?”
Thomas smiled. “That would be great.”
Emma wrote her phone number on a bookmark and gave it to him. “Give me a call and we’ll arrange a date.”
• • •
Emma finished writing for the day. She finished her cosmopolitan and mixed another one. Then she stepped outside and walked across the lawn toward the oak tree.
The evening sun was setting in the west. A squirrel fled at her approach.
When Emma reached the oak tree, she turned and looked back at the house. Nearly two hundred years old, the house was an early-Victorian mansion with twelve bedrooms, a ballroom, a library, a billiards room, and many other rooms to which she and Ryan had never ascribed a function. Her first thought had been to sell it after his suicide, despite the happy memories she associated with the mansion, but then she had changed her mind and decided to keep it.
She heard a noise behind her that sounded like laughter, and she turned. She looked up. She thought she saw a pair of boots swaying between some limbs high up in the oak tree, but she blinked and the vision was gone. Must have been a shadow, she thought. She felt tears spring to her eyes. My god, Ryan. It’s been twenty years and still I miss you.
To the east, a storm was brewing. A jagged fork of lightning fired off on the horizon, and Emma hurried back to the house.
• • •
The doorbell chimed and broke the silence in the house. Emma hurried across the great room and opened the front door. Thomas was even taller than she recalled. He was dressed in all black clothing and his smile was just as beautiful as she remembered. “I hope your journey here was pleasant,” Emma said.
“Entirely. You live in a beautiful
house.”
“Thank you.”
“The perfect environment in which to write.”
Emma smiled. “Yes. I like writing here.”
She took him to the library (in which there was a minibar) and offered him a drink.
“Whiskey, please,” Thomas said. “I like it with soda.”
She mixed him a bourbon-and-soda and made herself a cosmopolitan, and then they sat down on a sofa. Once they started drinking, the conversation flowed, and Emma wondered if in fact the interview had already begun, or if the exchange of information was simply easy communication between two people with similar interests.
Eventually, Thomas began recording their conversation with his cellphone. He mainly asked her questions about her life and her work. He also asked a few questions about her late husband.
After the interview was over, they drank some more while Emma gave him a tour of the house. She stopped before a door in a hallway on the west wing and said, “This is the room in which Ryan wrote. Sometimes I go in there and talk to his ghost.”
“Does he really haunt the room?”
Emma smiled and shook her head. “No. Not that I’m aware of. But I like to imagine that he does.”
“Do you mind if I see the room?”
“Of course not.” Emma opened the door and they stepped inside.
There was a writing desk in the center of the room. There was an old computer on the writing desk.
Emma went to a window and pulled open the curtains. Light flooded the room, illuminating dozens of brilliant paintings.
Thomas began walking around the room, examining some of the canvases hanging on the walls and stacked against the walls on the floor. All of them bore Ryan Kinkade’s signature. “Ryan was a painter? Wow. No wonder he only gave us four novels. He was always busy painting. Although I suppose four novels is actually a lot for someone who was only twenty-four years old when he . . . well . . . when he died.”
“It’s okay,” Emma said. “You can say it: for someone who was only twenty-four years old when he committed suicide.”