No One but You--A Novel

by Brenda Novak

  “Right. Thanks.” Sadie hung up as Dawson came into the kitchen.

  “It’s done,” he said, looking exhausted. “We have a nice trap.”

  “Will Sly be able to see the pit?”

  “Not unless he suspects it’s there, not unless he’s specifically looking for it. And on a darker night he wouldn’t be able to see it at all, so if he comes tomorrow or—”

  “He’ll come tonight,” she said.

  He studied her, obviously surprised by the confidence in her voice. “How do you know?”

  “He won’t be able to stop himself.” She slipped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest. “He’s too angry. And he’s never been capable of delaying gratification—not when it comes to satisfying his anger.”

  “I’ll stay up,” Dawson said. “You try to get some sleep.”

  Sadie refused to go to bed without him. He was just as tired. Besides, she didn’t want to be caught at a disadvantage if Sly did show up.

  “Let’s watch some TV,” she suggested. She put the letters out, but after two or three hours spent lying on the couch with Dawson, during which nothing happened, his breathing steadied out and her own eyelids grew too heavy to lift.

  * * *

  Getting the hatchet had taken much longer than Sly had anticipated. It wasn’t as if he could go out and buy one. He’d had to steal Pete’s from Pete’s garage, which meant he’d also have to return it before morning. He knew how the coming investigation would go, had to be prepared for it. That was why he’d gone to his mother’s house almost as soon as he left the station. He’d told her he was in trouble, had broken down in tears saying he needed help with his drinking or he was going to lose his job—and she’d been so concerned she’d bought every word and blamed Sadie just as he had.

  “That girl isn’t who we thought she was,” she’d said, her lips pursed in disapproval. “She’s not worth it, Sly. You need to let her go.”

  “But she’s not safe,” he’d replied, playing the good guy. His mother wanted to see him as the knight in shining armor he portrayed, so it wasn’t a hard sell. “She’s living with a murderer.”

  His mother had wrung her hands at that. “We’ve got to get Jayden away from her somehow. He’s not safe out there.”

  He’d agreed that he had to sue for custody of his son, even though he knew he’d never have to pay his attorney another dime. Then he’d “reluctantly” acquiesced when she’d insisted he stay the night rather than go home and “face that empty house.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” he’d told her. “I’ll only try to drown my sorrows if I have the chance, and I can’t turn to the bottle anymore.”

  After she went to bed, he’d gone into his room and stuffed the pillows under the blankets so it’d look as though he was sleeping if she came to check on him.

  Once he was satisfied that she was down for the night, and all the neighbors would be, too, he’d dressed in the jeans and black hoodie he’d worn when he started the fire, taken his late father’s 8mm pistol from the closet and pushed her car out of the garage so he wouldn’t have to start the engine. It was important that his cruiser remain conspicuously parked in front of her house, so the neighbors could report that it had never moved and, with the garage door down, no one would know he’d simply used her vehicle.

  Just to be safe, he’d pushed her Pontiac Grand Prix clear to the end of the street before getting behind the wheel. But that was when the hunt for the hatchet had started. Before he remembered seeing one at Pete’s place, he’d almost decided he’d have to shoot Sadie and Dawson. Two bullets accomplished the same goal. Except...he liked the idea of hacking Sadie to pieces and letting Dawson take the blame for it. Dawson would be dead, too, of course—his body hidden so well that it would never be found—which meant he’d never stand trial for her murder, but that didn’t matter. His disappearance would be enough to convict him in the minds of everyone who mattered. Sly would then be totally vindicated for his actions the past few weeks and, so long as they couldn’t prove he had any part in Sadie’s murder and Dawson’s disappearance, life would go on pretty much as it had before Sadie decided she had the nerve to stand up to him.

  In other words, he’d win the battle they’d started.

  “Poetic justice,” he muttered as he went over his plan, again and again, while parking his mother’s car on a deserted side road not far from the farm and walking the rest of the way. He would’ve preferred to get closer. He’d have to bring the car to the house after he killed Dawson so that he could dispose of the body before morning, which would eat up valuable time. But—he felt the solid weight of the hatchet he carried as he walked—if he was going to pull this off, certain things had to be handled in a certain way.

  Fortunately, he was a cop: he knew exactly how to get away with murder.

  * * *

  Dawson came awake. He wasn’t sure why, since dawn was obviously a long way off and he couldn’t hear or see anything he’d consider alarming. Although most of the lights were off, they’d turned them off and left the TV on. Some ’80s sitcom blared in the room.

  Sadie, still asleep in his arms, started to rouse when he moved. “Something wrong?” she murmured, and then she came awake, too, as if she suddenly realized that they’d fallen asleep and shouldn’t have.

  “Everything’s fine,” he told her. “I’m just going to check.”

  “No.” She grabbed him before he could slide out from under her weight. “Let’s stay together.”

  “At least let me look out the window.” He wanted to do more than that—wanted to go out and see if he’d caught anything in his trap—but he hesitated to leave her alone. He knew she was frightened, and he felt she had good reason to be.

  He couldn’t see anything to be concerned about in the front. He checked a few of the other windows, but clouds had rolled in front of the moon, dimming its light. He couldn’t make out anything except an abundance of shadows, some of which could indicate the presence of a human being, but probably didn’t. “Where’s your phone?” he asked. “Why don’t you see if Chief Thomas has returned your calls?”

  Sadie sat up, rubbed her face and reached for her cell, which was on the coffee table. “Nope.”

  They’d had the ringer on, wouldn’t have missed it, but he thought maybe a text had come in. “Nothing at all?”

  “No call, no text, nothing.”

  The police had really left them on their own. But Dawson wasn’t surprised. Since when had they ever done him any favors? “What time is it?”

  “One-fifteen.”

  There was a lot of night left.

  “I hate that we’re letting Sly disrupt our lives like this,” he grumbled. “He wins as long as we are always watching our backs, can’t live a normal life.”

  “That’s nothing new for me,” Sadie said. “But I feel bad I’ve dragged you into his sights.”

  “You didn’t drag me. I put myself there.”

  She cast him a discouraged look. “I’m still sorry.”

  He pulled her to her feet. “Don’t be. You’re worth it. The fire investigator will find something. Then we’ll be out of this. But for now, let’s go to bed. We can’t wait up, expecting the worst, every night.”

  She seemed reluctant, but after making sure all the doors were locked—again—he convinced her to accompany him to his bedroom. “If he does something tonight, Chief Thomas will know we were right about him.”

  “That’ll be small consolation if we’re dead.”

  He didn’t respond. What could he say? She was right.

  They used the bathroom and brushed their teeth before falling into bed. Dawson was still tired, but he didn’t go to sleep right away. He curled around Sadie, hoping to offer her some comfort and security.

  “I’ve been trying so hard
not to love you,” she whispered.

  He kissed her neck. “How’s that going for you?”

  “I’m failing. Miserably.”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “Like I said, maybe we were meant to be together.”

  “Or maybe, just when I’m finding some happiness, Sly will put an end to that, too.” Her hand pulled his up to her mouth so she could kiss it.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “The same type of thing has happened to other people.”

  He held her tighter. “I’m not going to let it happen to you,” he promised, but it was only a few moments later when he heard a subtle noise, a rattle, that told him someone might be trying to get inside the house.

  29

  This wasn’t going to be hard, Sly told himself. All he had to do was draw Dawson to the door. As soon as he opened it—boom! The sound of the gun would cause Sadie to scream. She might even come running. And the hatchet would do the rest. In a few minutes, the whole thing would be over. She would’ve gotten what she’d been asking for, what she deserved. Sly would then drag Dawson’s body outside while he went back for the car. He preferred Dawson didn’t bleed too much in the house, but even if he did, and the police found it, those who wielded weapons like hatchets often injured themselves in the process of trying to hurt someone else. The presence of his blood wouldn’t prove anything—especially if Sly did a good job cleaning up.

  He turned the handle of the back door again and brushed against the side of the house. He had to be careful, couldn’t be too obvious, or Dawson would simply call 9-1-1. Sly needed him to come take a look to see what was going on first. It wasn’t as if a man recently charged with murder would be overly hasty to call the police anyway, though. Dawson knew there wasn’t anyone on the force who’d be eager to help him.

  When the ambient light he could see filtering down from the hallway upstairs went off, Sly knew someone was coming. He pressed himself to the back of the house and began to count. He had no specific number in mind. He just needed to remain calm until the door opened. Only then could he fire. Dawson might expect a confrontation, a fight, but he’d assume Sly was laboring under some hesitancy to take things too far, wouldn’t expect to open the door and be shot immediately.

  That was why Sly felt his plan would work.

  * * *

  Sadie crept down the stairs behind Dawson. She had her phone in her hand, planned to call 9-1-1 at the first hint of trouble. She had to make sure they had a legitimate reason first, though. She couldn’t be perceived as someone who was trying to make Sly look bad, not when most of the officers on the force believed that Dawson was a murderer and she was an unfaithful wife.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  “Stay back,” Dawson warned.

  There was still a small part of her that wondered if they were overreacting to be so defensive and frightened. When she’d married Sly, she’d certainly never expected to find herself in such a situation. He’d seemed normal then. But he hadn’t been normal for a long time. She didn’t care if her reaction was extreme. She wasn’t going to lower her guard.

  Dawson lifted a hand, indicating that she should remain on the stairs as he hit ground level and turned toward the back door. Unfortunately, there were no windows that looked out on the porch, but there were several small triangular-shaped windows in the door itself. Sadie held her breath as she leaned over the banister to watch Dawson peer out of those. They’d left the lights off downstairs so that whoever it was wouldn’t be able to see in, except via the dim light filtering down from above. But that meant Dawson seemed to get swallowed up in the darkness.

  He must not have seen anything, because he didn’t open the door, didn’t go on the porch. She heard him move into the kitchen instead, and then the living room, checking to see if he could learn anything from what he could see outside the other windows in the house.

  “Anything?” she whispered.

  “Not yet.”

  “Is there any chance we could’ve imagined those noises?”

  “We didn’t imagine anything. But there’s always a chance it was a raccoon or possum.”

  “Should I call the police?”

  “Not yet. What would you tell them? That we heard someone on the porch? I doubt that would bring them running.”

  He made a good point. They didn’t have anything to report yet...

  She heard a creak, again coming from the porch, and felt her heart rate spike. Someone or something was out there; she was certain of it. She was about to ask if Dawson had heard the same thing, but he’d already switched directions, indicating he had.

  “Stay back,” he murmured again.

  She didn’t get the chance to respond before she heard breaking glass. She lifted her phone to call the police, but before she could even punch in the digits, a single gunshot rent the air.

  * * *

  Sly hadn’t wanted to break the door. He hadn’t had any choice. Dawson was too leery to come out, too smart to put himself at such a disadvantage, and Sly didn’t have a lot of time to mess around. He wasn’t too worried about it, though. He’d just stage the scene to make it look as if Sadie had tried to lock Dawson out—which was reasonable if they’d started to fight or she was afraid of him—and he’d forced his way in.

  Sly heard her scream as he kicked the door open to find her frozen on the stairs, a look of horror on her face as she gazed down at Dawson. Sly hadn’t been able to see what he was shooting at, but he’d hit his target. Dawson had crumpled to the floor. Sly could sense Sadie’s uncertainty and desire to run toward her new boyfriend, which surprised him. She cared so much about him...

  But then she saw the hatchet and realized what was in store for her.

  * * *

  A burst of adrenaline made Sadie’s legs so rubbery they would hardly carry her up the stairs. She wanted to call 9-1-1, but there was no time. Sly would be on her before she could complete the call.

  All she could do was try to reach the bathroom. Once she got in there and locked the door, he could break it down with the hatchet, of course, but at least that might afford her the precious seconds she needed to reach emergency services.

  She thought she might make it, but the terror of hearing his footsteps pounding up the stairs so close behind her nearly caused her legs to give out on her entirely. Go, go, go! her mind yelled. For Jayden. She didn’t want to leave her son motherless—with only a murderer for a father.

  But panic had robbed her of her usual strength.

  Somehow she managed to grip the door frame and launch herself through it. But she couldn’t close the door in time. She felt the pressure of Sly’s hand forcing the panel open despite her efforts to push it shut as he raised the hatchet.

  She screamed—just as Dawson yelled Sly’s name.

  Sly’s face registered shock as he turned to find Dawson staggering up the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister. Blood soaked his shirt, and he could barely lift the arm he used for most everything, but he was trying to stop Sly anyway.

  “What the hell? You want more?” Sly screamed and turned on him, giving Sadie the chance to slam and lock the bathroom door.

  Her hands shook as she dialed 9-1-1. She was terrified Sly would shoot Dawson again. Sly no longer had his gun in his hand, which gave her some hope, but he still had that hatchet, which could do just as much damage. Jayden’s father had completely lost his mind.

  Before she could get the call to go through, however, she heard more footsteps, pounding up the stairs. Then she heard someone yell, “Freeze, or I’ll shoot!”

  Chief Thomas! Sadie scowled at her phone in confusion. She hadn’t spoken to anyone yet. How was it that Chief Thomas had shown up?

  “Chief?” she yelled.

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy giving commands. “
Get down on the ground! Now!”

  Heart pounding, Sadie cracked open the door to find Thomas standing, gun drawn, over Sly, who was now lying facedown on the floor, his arms and legs spread out. Somehow the police chief had gotten past Dawson on the stairs, but Dawson was still trying to drag himself up to reach her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked the moment their eyes met, his face pale and anxious.

  “I’m fine, but...what about you? I thought...” She fought the lump that rose in her throat. “I thought he’d killed you.”

  He pressed his left hand to the bullet wound in his shoulder. “No. I’m okay. Hurts like a mother, but... I’ll get some meds.”

  “Call for help. He needs an ambulance,” Thomas said, but she didn’t need anyone to tell her that. She was already dialing.

  * * *

  Sadie sat in the waiting room of the Ojai Valley Community Hospital, the closest hospital to Silver Springs, while Dawson had surgery. She’d been in such a rush to climb into the ambulance with him when it came that she’d forgotten to grab a coat. Fortunately, Chief Thomas had arrived not long after she did and insisted she take his. The waiting room wasn’t that cold, but she was so jittery, so worried. Dawson had seemed okay in the ambulance, had kept reassuring her. But he hadn’t been seen by a doctor at that point, so she had no way of knowing how bad off he really was. What if he’d lost too much blood? Or the bullet had struck a nerve or damaged muscle tissue that would mean he’d lose the use of his right arm? He depended on his ability to use his hands in order to make a living.

  “You okay?” Chief Thomas asked.

  He’d been on his phone since he arrived, so they hadn’t yet had a chance to talk. “I am. I’m just afraid for Dawson.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  She’d been hunching over, clasping her hands between her knees while staring at the floor, but now that he seemed to be available for a conversation, she sat back. “How did you know?” she asked. “How did you get to the farm in time?”

  “I was already there waiting and watching for him.”