Dina told her the threats were empty, that he was just trying to manipulate her into doing what he wanted. She had to stand firm or she’d never be free of him.
Weeks of his wails and moans pervaded every waking hour and every sleepless night. Dina was right. She couldn’t let him dictate her life. She had to cut the cord, however much it might hurt.
“It’s over, Joey,” she said on their last phone call. “No more phone calls. No more e-mails. We’re done. If you call me, I’ll hang up. If you e-mail me, I’ll delete it without answering.”
“Don’t do this, Nat. Don’t, please, I’m begging you.”
“Goodbye, Joey.”
“All right, Nat, fine, you really mean that? Really? Okay, then you just remember you brought everything on yourself. Everything.”
He slammed down the phone before she could say anything. The relief she hoped she would feel after this final conversation would not have its chance to revel.
Instead, cold, raw fear banged against her heart.
Chapter 43
SHE
She dreamt about hamburgers.
She would have begged, borrowed, or bought a hamburger. Stolen. She would have stolen a hamburger at this point. A monstrous hamburger she couldn’t get her mouth around, with trails of juices sluicing down her hands, a crunchy leaf of iceberg lettuce poking her in the face, and a squishy tomato weaseling its way from beneath the crusty, buttery bun and plopping down onto the plate as she bit into it. And a milkshake. Strawberry. A cold, thick strawberry milkshake that stopped up the straw, and when an icy sliver of milk and cream finally did make it through the tiny holes, she would get brain freeze.
Natalie opened her eyes, feeling her tongue poke against the charred, salty meat as she bit down. She could feel the crunch of sesame seeds between her teeth, imagined picking the limp corner of orange cheese drooping over the side of the patty to nibble on before biting into the big, beautiful, greasy burger. She turned over for what was probably the thousandth time, the gurgling of her stomach having kept her awake for the better part of what she thought was the night. A few times, she went into the bathroom and stuck her mouth under the faucet for gulps of lukewarm water in a vain effort to quell her hunger, but it did little to stave off the squirming pangs.
She needed food.
She sat up and drew her knees to her chest, her eyes flicking over to the door, hoping she’d hear the beeping. She would have even eaten that mushy broccoli he’d so proudly served up earlier.
The churning and growling propelled her out of bed. She went to turn on the light, but he’d cut off the electricity again. She paced, holding her stomach, racking her brain for a new plan, a new way to escape.
Except, she couldn’t think. The only thing pressing against her brain was food. She imagined strawberry-frosted donuts and cherry pie slices drowning beneath runny scoops of pecan praline ice cream were stacked to the ceiling. What if she could snap her fingers and salty potato chips, hot dogs slathered in mustard, and jars of shiny green olives bobbing in brine, their red eyes begging to be slurped down, just materialized in front of her?
The door beeped and she gasped before scurrying back into bed and drawing her knees to her chest. Joey punched in some numbers on his phone, flooding the room with light and she winced, relieved to see he was carrying a tray of food. She snaked her hand around her throat, the hunger threatening to leap out.
“Good morning, Nat. How you—I mean, how are you doing today?” He was smiling and limping a bit, a vestige of the battle of the comb. “I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?”
She was afraid to say anything, convinced she would burst into uncontrollable sobs—the ugly cry as Christine called it.
Christine.
Natalie could only nod and watch as he set the tray on the bed, her eyes never leaving the plastic plate of scrambled eggs smothered in cheddar cheese. Two pieces of whole wheat toast were nestled beside the mound of cheese and eggs.
Joey dug a plastic fork into the eggs and mixed them around. Strings of cheese dripped from the tines, and plumes of steam wafted toward the ceiling. “All right. Open wide.”
Jason. Feeding her chocolate truffles. Open wide. She sniffed back the memory and held her mouth open for Joey, drool already pooling behind her bottom lip. He smiled and wound the fork in lazy, mocking circles, dipping it close, pulling it back. Laughing.
“What’s the magic word?”
“What?” she whispered, a tear already shimmering in her eye.
“What’s the magic word?” he said again, this time drawing out “word,” like he was teaching her how to sound out syllables.
The tears would not stay put and began their shaky crawl down her cheeks. “Please, Joey, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“There, you said it! Please, Joey.”
Natalie pursed her lips. “Please, Joey. I’d like some eggs. Please.”
He smiled and held up the fork again, allowing her to take the eggs. The fork scraped against her teeth as he slowly pulled it out.
Her mouth burst into flames.
She spit out the eggs and ran for the bathroom, hot tingles flooding her tongue, the vomit racing from her stomach and into the toilet bowl. Her throat squeezed shut and her tongue swelled into a clammy log. Natalie grabbed at her throat, gasping for air, when she felt the prick of an EpiPen against her thigh. She slumped with relief as the medicine began to flow through her, her breath coming in wet, ragged rasps.
Joey was leaning against the doorjamb, watching her.
“You put peanuts in those eggs,” she said, her voice husky with vomit and phlegm.
“Hmm. Do—do you remember that time we was—we were—at my house watching TV and I brought us in a bowl of pretzels, you know the ones that got peanut butter inside of them, only I didn’t know you was allergic? Yeah. And then you bit down into one and like right away ran to the bathroom and stuff, and you had pulled out your little pen and injected yourself?” He chuckled and shook his head at the memory. “I felt so bad because, of course, I had no idea. But to answer your question, yeah, I ground ’em up real good in my blender, threw ’em in the pan with the eggs, sprinkled some cheese on top. Done and done.”
“You’re a bastard.”
Joey squatted down until he was eye level with her. “Don’t you ever think you can pull anything over on me, Nat, because I know you too well. I know everything about you. I know you like to run along the lakefront when it’s nice out, otherwise you run on the treadmill at the gym or do that Pilates sometimes. I know sometimes you like to eat raw cookie dough while you sit on the kitchen counter reading magazines. I know on Sundays you sometimes go see foreign films by yourself, though I can’t understand what’s going on in any of them, subtitles or no subtitles. I know you smell like roses in the winter and sunflowers in the summer. I know you own eight black bras, two red ones, one blue, and five white. I know about that tattoo you got on your back—which by the way, I’ve forgiven you for defiling your body like that. I bet that damn trashy Dina talked you into it. I know you sleep on your side, always with one foot out of the covers.” He leaned into her face, his breath searing her upper lip. “I know everything you’re going to think before you think it. You may have got one over on me with that comb business, ’cause I was caught up in the moment, but never again, Nat. Never again.”
“You can’t keep me here,” she whispered. “People will be looking for me—”
“Ain’t—nobody—no one,” he said, tripping over his words before he took a big sigh. “No one is looking for you, Nat. I made sure of that.”
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“I made you—” he snapped his fingers in her face causing her head to lash back. “Disappear.”
“People don’t just vanish . . . people will be looking for me . . . my friends, the people I work with . . . Jason’s family. . .” her voice trailed off.
“Well, Natalie, that’s exactly what you did.
Vanish, I mean.” He groaned as he joined her on the floor. “See, what happened was, you came home, found pretty boy dead—a robbery gone wrong—and you were so upset you told everyone you was going away, don’t try to find you, blah, blah, blah. You just couldn’t go on. Or something like that. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote. Anyway, I sent some e-mails out, so you don’t have to worry about anything, because I’ve taken care of all of it.”
“No one will believe that. My friends, they know me. They won’t give up on me. Everyone will know something is wrong.”
“I dunno, Natalie. People do strange things.”
“My friends know I wouldn’t do anything like that, that I would—”
“Nat,” he laughed again. “You ran away before. It’s like a . . . what do they call it . . . a pattern with you. Yeah. I learned all about that in the hospital. The going gets tough, and you take off. Won’t nobody—what I meant to say was that no one will be surprised that you couldn’t handle things. It’s what you do.”
Tears pierced her eyes. “Someone will catch on, someone will figure it out—”
“Nobody’s going to figure anything out. I mean, come on, Nat. That’s hard, right? Coming home to find this dude all cut up like that. I mean, who would want to go on living? You hear about stuff like that all the time. People just can’t go on.” He snorted. “I sure know that feeling.”
“It won’t work. You’ll get caught, you had to have slipped up somewhere, made some kind of mistake—”
“I don’t make mistakes anymore.”
They sat there staring at each other, waiting for the other one to blink.
“The devil is in the details, Joey,” she finally whispered to break the stalemate. “Somewhere, somehow, you’ll screw up. And I’ll be found, and you’ll be punished for what you did to me and to Jason—”
“You stop talking about him!” he cut her off, heaving now. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth about that bastard, you understand me? He’s dead and gone and can’t come between us anymore.” He took a deep breath before he stood up and pointed to the plate. “You know, you can eat that toast if you want. I didn’t do anything to it.”
“Done and done.”
Early Saturday morning. The day after.
He watched her sleep, his heart full. He hated to leave her, but he needed to knot the dangling loose ends.
He bent down and wrestled the massive platinum ring with the rectangular diamond from her finger, wincing against the knife wounds indented into his palms from last night’s struggle. He held the ring up to the filtered yellow light of day. How on earth could she go around wearing something like this? It wasn’t even gold. A proper engagement ring was gold. He shoved the ring and her watch into the pocket of his jeans, throwing them into the sidewalk grate on his way out, smiling at the clink of metal as they skipped into the sewer below.
He took the keys and access card to her apartment building out of her purse and thought about what was next. He would slip in the back door and up the service elevator. If by some chance he were caught, he’d say he was her long-lost cousin come to town to gather some things for her.
This apartment was different from the last one. Smaller. More modern. Still, he hated it, because it was yet one more thing that took her away from him.
He allowed himself to wander through the tiny apartment, buoyed by the familiar objects from a few years ago yet elated she would never be here again.
Still, there was no time to waste. He had to really make it look like she was running away. It had to be hasty, careless, but there still had to be some thought behind it. He was selective as he pawed through the clothes in her closet and drawers. He piled shoes, pants, shirts, and dresses into the two rolling suitcases he’d pulled from the hall closet. He hurried into her bathroom and stuffed as many toiletries on top of the clothes as he could get his hands on: toothbrush, lipstick, eyeliner, cotton balls, deodorant. He swept his hand through her lingerie drawer, trembling for a moment as he clutched the bunch of silk, lace, and cotton to his chest. He shoved those into a plastic garbage bag that he’d take with him.
He plopped onto her bed as he pulled her phone out of his pocket, snorting softly to himself at all the missed calls and text messages. Jason, Daphne—Daphne? Oh, right. That was that pretty boy bastard’s mother—a whole bunch of other numbers he didn’t know and didn’t care about. He scrolled through the contacts until he found the two names he was looking for. He paused for a moment, composing the words in his head discarding several possibilities before finally settling on the right combination.
“I can’t do this. I can’t—Jason’s gone and I can’t go on. I have to leave, just like I left before. Don’t try to find me. Goodbye.” He smiled as he hit send on the e-mail to Brandy and Christine.
“Now for that bitch, Dina,” he mumbled as he searched for her e-mail. He bit his bottom lip then started tapping out his message.
“Dina. It is happening. I can’t do this—I had to leave. I know you understand. Nat.” He winced and hit the delete key. “Natalie.”
Done and done.
He gathered up the suitcases and slipped her phone back into his pocket. He’d take it apart later and discard the pieces and dump the suitcases in the river.
He took one last look around. “So long. It wasn’t nice knowing you.”
Chapter 44
SHE
“People will be looking for me. I wouldn’t leave. They know that. I wouldn’t leave Jason. People know that. It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, this isn’t like before. It’s totally different than before. Dina . . . Dina—she knows me. I would call her. I would talk to her. She knows that. I wouldn’t just leave with an e-mail. Not a stupid e-mail. And she would come to town and start busting balls because she would know. She’d raise so much hell no one would be able to sleep. And Brandy, she’d go all Florida and be all up in someone’s grill . . . the police, the media. She’d (Natalie chuckles), she’d accost men on the street if they even looked like a murderer and a kidnapper. I mean, not that she needs much excuse, but in this case, she’d really go for it—she’d go balls to the wall. She’d just never shut up. She’d tell anyone who’d listen that I wouldn’t just leave Jason on the floor like that to die. I would stay with him, call the paramedics, hold his hand, be there until the last minute until they told me there wasn’t anything else . . . I wouldn’t just disappear. Christine would, would organize—no, that’s not it—mobilize . . . she’d mobilize people to search, to not give up.”
“Jason’s family. Maybe they’re a little worried about me. We were getting married, starting a life together. They said welcome to the family. They must be looking for me, right? Unless they hate me. Oh, God, what if they hate me because Jason’s dead and it’s because of me? I didn’t know. I had no idea that Joey was. . .
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. . .
Jason, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. Please don’t hate me. I love you. I miss you. God, I miss you so much. Please . . . I’m sorry, sorry, sorry for all of this, for everything. . .
I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here. How? How am I going to get out of here? He’s thought of everything, every door, every window. There’s no way out. Anywhere. Everything is sealed tight. And he bolted all the furniture to the floor. I can’t even push the bed in front of the door to keep him out. Except that chair. Is there something I can do with the chair? Maybe, maybe, maybe. File that one away for later.
Not even a spoon to dig a tunnel like in The Shawshank Redemption. Wasn’t that how he escaped? No, no, it was with a little tool of some kind. Through the wall. These walls are concrete. They won’t crumble in my hands, they won’t turn to dust with the push of my finger. I couldn’t crawl through a sewer system. Ha! Even if I were to somehow . . . God, I don’t know . . . unscrew the toilet from the floor—is that even possible? Okay, let’s say it was possible; he’d probably have barbed wi
re with razors or bombs that would go off the minute I got inside. He’d have something . . . something. . .”
Natalie cleared the phlegm from her throat and threaded her fingers through her hair, bunching the clumps at the bottom in her hands over and over again, unable to stop.
And she kept pacing and talking.
Chapter 45
HE
The chocolate protein shake went down as smooth as ice cream. No more lumpy brown bits or chunks of fruit in his smoothies—just rich, velvety nutrients fueling his body. This new blender was amazing—he could throw a brick in there and it would be ground down to the finest dust. Just one of many good decisions he’d made lately.
Joey looked at his watch. It would be nighttime soon, and she’d be taking a bath. A shower in the morning, a bath every night. And sleeping all day in between. Sometimes he thought he’d give her a book or something to read. She was obviously bored. Except he couldn’t trust her. Who was to say she wouldn’t wrap all those magazine pages together into some kind of makeshift shiv and try and stab him again? No sir, he couldn’t take that risk.
He was surprised at how long it was taking for her to come around. He knew, of course, that she’d put up a fight at first. Change is never easy. Still, he expected her to fall in line by now.
That was okay. He could wait. He was good at waiting.
He laid down his scissors and the picture of her he’d been cutting, clenching and unclenching his fingers to loosen the joints. Thank goodness he had all his photos backed up. Still, it had taken the better part of the day printing them out then cutting them into the collage shapes he liked. Maybe they could put the pictures back up together. That would be a nice bonding experience. He’d give her a glue stick to work with. She couldn’t do much damage with that. He’d staple them to the wall during one of her baths. Couldn’t have her trying to get the jump on him and swinging that heavy stapler at his head.
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