Blood Red

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Yet.

  When it’s over and the girl lies face up in the mud, her eyes vacantly staring at the black night sky, Casey stands over her, panting.

  It’s still pouring out. If Casey hadn’t come prepared, the rain would quickly wash away the blood that oozes everywhere the blade slit through her perfect skin.

  I won’t let that happen. I’m always prepared, always one step ahead.

  Casey hums softly, fishing around for the wad of dry cleaner’s plastic that always comes in handy at times like this. You can tuck it into your pocket and carry it around all day, and no one will ever know it’s there. You can do the same with a folding barber’s razor, but sometimes, when you sit down or lean against something, the hard bulge of the handle presses into your flesh. Then you remember that it’s there, and you forget that you promised yourself that you won’t use it, even if a perfect opportunity were to present itself as it had this afternoon.

  No, wait, technically it was yesterday afternoon that Casey first spotted the redhead in the post office. It’s morning now. Sunday morning.

  Sunday, bloody Sunday . . .

  Casey waited until midnight to return to West 28th Street. The block had been rendered desolate by the hour and the rain, but the light still shone like a beacon in that fourth-­floor apartment. Soon Rapunzel reappeared in the window again, this time wearing a coat. Was she coming or going?

  Going, Casey realized when the light went out a moment later. It wouldn’t be necessary to scale the wet and slippery metal fire escape after all.

  That was a pity for someone who had always embraced the challenge of climbing to new heights—­literally—­and yet . . .

  She came to me.

  Casey unfurls the plastic wrap and drapes it over her body to keep the rain from diluting the blood and washing it away. Only the girl’s head remains exposed, waiting for the razor, still sticky with blood, to finish the job.

  Quinn’s Bar and Grill on West 44th Street is busy when Rick walks through the door. Ordinarily he’d head for the bar, order a draft beer, and mingle with the regulars, hoping a stool might open up before closing.

  Tonight, though, he spots an empty high-­top table in the front corner, away from the crowd, and heads straight for it. Settling onto a stool facing the plate-­glass window, he stares at his own reflection framed by a garland of red and green ornaments strung with white Christmas lights.

  “What’ll it be tonight, love?”

  Any other night, he’d flirt with his favorite waitress, a sporty blond Aussie, but tonight he doesn’t even make eye contact. “Jameson straight up.”

  “Tough day, hmm?” Without waiting for a reply, she heads back to the bar, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

  Tough day, indeed.

  Tough night, too.

  He thought he was prepared to come face to face with Rowan Mundy again after all these years, but . . .

  He closes his eyes, seeing her face again. Not the face that had haunted him all these years, though. She’d changed. That shouldn’t have caught him off guard, because he knew she’d aged—­everyone ages—­but for some reason, he felt betrayed, seeing her in person.

  Her face was still pretty, but her girlish freckles had faded and so had the light that used to gleam in her green eyes when she looked at him. This Rowan was more mature, laugh lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes confirming that years had passed and they’d been good to her. She’d picked up a few extra pounds on her petite frame, but the curves were flattering. Her hair, though . . .

  Her hair. Her crowning glory is gone.

  Of all the changes he should have anticipated, that never entered his mind. Why would it? In all of the photos on her Facebook page, that long, wavy dark red hair had been cascading over her shoulders same as always.

  When he first glimpsed her this morning, a part of him wondered, perhaps irrationally, whether she’d cut it short and dyed it at the last minute just to spite him.

  “I’ve always had a thing for redheads,” he’d told her once—­after they’d become friends, but long before he dared to take it further. “My first love was a redhead.”

  “No way, really?”

  He’d told her about Brenda. She’d actually been interested, asking questions and making comments, unlike Vanessa.

  Vanessa never wanted to hear about Brenda; never wanted to acknowledge that there had been women in his life before she came along.

  Ironic, since she’d actually been married before he came along. He might have benefited from hearing a little more about her ex-­husband. But, being Vanessa, she compartmentalized. She was always good at that.

  Unlike Rowan, who wore her heart on her sleeve. He’d fallen a little in love with her the first time they met, even though she was pregnant with her third child at the time.

  The moving truck was still in the Walkers’ driveway when Rowan came walking over, juggling a plate of homemade brownies and the chubby hands of her little son and daughter. It was summer, hot and humid. She was wearing a spaghetti-­strapped floral print maternity sundress that revealed a good amount of cleavage as well as her swollen legs. Her freckles were out in full force and her hair hung in loose, damp waves and clung in tendrils to her flushed cheeks.

  “Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said, offering him the brownies. “I’m Rowan, and this is Braden and Katie. We live next door.”

  She was warm and earthy and flushed and real, while he was married to an ice princess. He was enamored on the spot, even as her kids squirmed out of her grasp and made a beeline for the elaborate tree house perched in the branches of an oak tree in his new backyard.

  “Guys, get back here! They know better,” she told Rick. “Sorry. They’ve been looking at that through the fence for years, dying to play on it.”

  “The kids who lived here before we moved in were teenagers. I bet their parents wouldn’t have minded if they’d come over.”

  “You bet wrong,” Rowan said with a laugh. “They were pretty fussy about their yard and my kids can be a handful.”

  She cast a glance at the steps, where his four were contentedly reading or coloring with crayons. “Okay, I’m totally impressed. How do you get your kids to behave so well? You’ve got twice as many as I do.”

  “Not for long,” he said, gesturing at her enormous stomach.

  “Right. It’s another boy.”

  “That’s good. Boys are easier.”

  “Who said?”

  “I did. We have three.”

  It was months before he even mentioned that the older two of his sons belonged to Vanessa’s deadbeat first husband. “He was a lousy dad,” he told Rowan.

  “Well, it seems like you’re making up for it.”

  “God knows I’m trying.”

  It was spring by then, and he was pitching a Wiffle ball to his boys and Braden while the girls set up housekeeping in the tree house and Rowan sat on his back steps nursing newborn Mick.

  Vanessa had fed their babies formula, despite his protests that breast milk was healthier.

  “I bottle-­fed my boys and they turned out just fine,” she said, and made it clear that since she was the one who’d have to nurse, she was the one who’d get to decide.

  She’d gone right back to work after her maternity leave was up. She had no choice. She was the breadwinner. When they were living in Westchester, she and Jake Mundy often caught the same weekday train into the city and the same train back to the suburbs at night, while their spouses entertained the kids and each other.

  Those days were so pleasant, and so innocent . . . at first, anyway.

  Rick eventually acknowledged, if only to himself, that something was starting to brew between them. He picked up on Rowan’s loneliness and wistfulness when she spoke of her husband. He felt the same way about Vanessa, whose commuting time had quadrupled with the m
ove, and who was constantly stressed about the hefty mortgage payments they’d taken on and the volatile state of the economy.

  Years later, discussing his failing marriage, his old friend Bob asked Rick if he had doubts about whether his wife truly loved him.

  “No,” he said, “it’s the other way around.”

  “She doubts that you love her?”

  “Yes. And so do I.”

  As that steamy summer traipsed toward fall, Rowan’s baby weight melted away and the circles beneath her eyes began to fade. She started laughing more, worrying less about her kids. They shared parenting concerns and confided in each other, sharing things they hadn’t even told their spouses. Nothing significant, really. Just little things that came up during the long hours they spent together; things their spouses weren’t around to hear or wouldn’t have found significant.

  Months passed, a year and then two. They relied on each other the way neighbors do, borrowing items and carpooling, recommending pediatricians and babysitters and kid-­friendly barbers. Their time together ebbed and flowed depending on the weather and the season and the kids’ schedules. He could count on seeing more of her whenever school was out for breaks and summer. He grew to dread September’s abrupt curtailment of carefree summer days spent with Rowan and all the kids in the yard or park or pool.

  Then came the sunny Tuesday morning two hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center. She showed up at his door barefoot with her youngest child in her arms, cell phone in hand.

  “I’ve been trying to call you, but the lines are jammed,” she said breathlessly. “Did you hear?”

  He hadn’t.

  She’d come running because she was worried about Vanessa and didn’t want him to be alone. But his wife’s office was out of harm’s way, and Rowan assured him that her husband had landed safely in Chicago the night before, away on a business trip.

  He gave her toddler something to play with and then the two of them stood shoulder-­to-­shoulder in front of his television watching the horror unfold. At some point—­when another plane hit the Pentagon, or when the first tower collapsed, or the second?—­she cried. His arm went around her, pulling her close, comforting her.

  Everything changed that day, in many ways. Globally, locally, politically . . .

  Emotionally, romantically, physically.

  I was already in love with her by then. Not just infatuated. In love.

  It didn’t matter that she was married, or that he was.

  In the days that followed the terrorist attacks, they drifted back into spending time together even without the kids around. They had coffee and watched the endless news reports. As September turned to October and then November, life slowly drifted back to its usual rhythm. There was no longer any compelling reason to spend mornings together, vigilantly keeping an eye on CNN and reminding each other that they were safe.

  Yet they kept seeing each other. Her son Mick was always with her, the safeguard against anything inappropriate happening between them while their spouses were absent.

  Then came the snow day.

  They spent the morning on the hill in the park, with all the kids and their sleds. Then she promised them hot chocolate and home-­baked cookies, so they all trooped back to her house. Mick wanted to watch the Grinch movie with the big kids in the living room, and Rick and Rowan found themselves alone together in the kitchen, and . . .

  Even now, he curses the fateful intervention of the smoke alarm. They were close, so close . . .

  Afterward, if she’d been willing, Rick would have embarked on a full-­blown affair. Hell, he might have walked away from Vanessa if she’d asked him to; maybe even from the kids.

  She wasn’t willing. She distanced herself immediately. He hardly saw her again that winter, and the next thing he knew, it was spring and she was moving away.

  He tried to convince himself it was for the best. Vanessa was his wife, the mother of his children, a good, steadfast, beautiful woman. She loved him and didn’t deserve to be left twice in a lifetime.

  Had he ever stopped loving Rowan, though?

  Vanessa didn’t think he had.

  He’d lied to Rowan today, when he’d said he hadn’t told anyone what had happened between them on the snow day.

  He’d told two ­people. One was his best friend, Bob. The other was Vanessa.

  He hadn’t confessed to his wife right away. He never intended to do it at all. But after the Mundy family had packed up and moved, Vanessa said she was glad to have them gone.

  “Why would you say that? They were the ideal neighbors. Our kids miss them like crazy.”

  “They’ll survive. But will you?”

  He looked sharply at her and he saw in her eyes that she knew. Maybe not exactly what had unfolded between him and Rowan, but she knew how he felt about her.

  There was no denying the accusation in Vanessa’s eyes, or in her words when she came right out and asked him what had gone on.

  He told her the whole truth.

  It almost killed her.

  In the end, maybe it had.

  “Here you go, love.” His Aussie pal is back, setting down a cocktail napkin and topping it with a glass filled with amber-­colored liquid. “What are we drinking to this evening?”

  “I can’t think of anything worth toasting.”

  “Rubbish. There’s always something or someone worth toasting, isn’t there?”

  “You know what? There is.”

  “All right, then. Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” Rick raises his glass, not to her, but to his own reflection in the rain-­spattered plate-­glass window.

  From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives

  Local News

  January 6, 1975

  Longtime Institution to Shutter

  Thomas N. Westerly, proprietor of Westerly Dry Goods on Market Street in the village, announced yesterday that the store will close at the end of the month.

  Established by his grandfather Nelson Westerly more than eighty years ago, the small department store thrived until early this decade. Mr. Westerly attributes its demise to a confluence of factors that include the decline in population, the economic downturn, and, in the wake of inflation, shoppers abandoning the business district in favor of two recently opened discount chain stores on Colonial Highway as well as the new Dutchess Mall in Fishkill.

  “We just can’t compete,” Mr. Westerly said from his office on the second floor of the brick building, where his desk resides in the shadow of a framed sepia photo that shows his grandfather sitting in that very spot in 1920. Other than the merchandise itself, little has changed inside the building Nelson Westerly built in 1893. However, a glance out the window reveals nearly deserted sidewalks, countless available parking spots, and empty storefronts that bear Going Out of Business Sale or Space for Rent signs.

  Asked what he’ll do next, Mr. Westerly shrugged sadly and shared a situation echoed by many local merchants: “This store is the only livelihood our family has known for three generations. I had hoped my son would step in when he graduates from college next year. Now, I guess we’ll have to figure out something else.”

  Chapter 7

  Even on weekend mornings, Rowan’s body clock wakes her early, drop-­kicking the day’s to-­do list into her brain before her bare feet even hit the hardwood floor. Most Sundays, she has time to walk the dog, shop for groceries, and put them away long before she leaves for ten o’clock Mass at Holy Angels.

  But when she opens her eyes today, she finds that the light falling through the skylight is all wrong. It isn’t morning at all. According to the digital clock on the nightstand, it’s nearly noon.

  Jake’s side of the bed is empty; probably has been for hours. She stretches and yawns, thinking about coffee and wondering how she’d managed to sleep so late.

  The house is quiet.r />
  She must have been really tired, or . . .

  Oh.

  Yesterday comes rushing back to her; not just the day but the awful week. Her well-­rested Sunday morning contentment evaporates in an instant.

  She closes her eyes, wishing she could beam herself back to last Sunday, when she was up early to make pancakes for Jake and all three of her kids before church as Thanksgiving weekend wound to a close. On that morning, her heaviest burden was the knowledge that Braden and Katie were heading back to college before nightfall. It had been ages since she’d given Rick Walker more than a passing thought.

  Flash forward a week, and she’s thought of little else.

  Rick was, predictably, the last thing on her mind last night before she fell asleep, but at least she hadn’t dreamed of him. She yawns and starts to stretch, realizing that she’d been so exhausted she hadn’t dreamed of any—­

  Hearing the distinct sound of a floorboard creaking overhead, she freezes.

  Someone is in the attic.

  She bounds out of bed, opens the bedroom door, and sees that the door leading to the third floor is ajar. A shaft of yellow light spills into the dim hallway.

  Not pausing to throw a robe over her makeshift nightshirt—­one of Jake’s old T-­shirts—­she hurries toward the hall bathroom, where the shower is running. Mick must be in there. Jake would use the one off the master bedroom. Still, she opens the bathroom door a crack and calls, “Jake?”

  “Hey!” Mick, cranky, is behind the shower curtain. “Geez, Mom! I’m in here!”

  “Sorry.” She closes the door again and calls from the foot of the attic stairs. “Jake?”

  “Up here.”

  Cursing softly, she climbs the narrow staircase. The rudimentary treads are rough beneath her bare feet; a splinter stabs into her toe. She ignores the twinge of pain and the prickle of goose bumps on her legs as she ascends into the cold, cavernous space beneath the sloping Victorian roofline.

  Irregularly shaped, draped in cobwebs, and crisscrossed by rough-­hewn beams, the space stretches in every direction to low knee walls and paired dormers. Its dusty floor, slatted walls, and towering ceiling are made of aged wood that seems even darker at night or on a gloomy winter day, as the only lighting is a bare bulb perched high in the rafters. While she shudders at the thought of the bats that undoubtedly lurk up there and occasionally swoop their way downstairs in warmer months, Rowan has always found that the attic holds a certain appeal.