by John Faubion
Sounds came from upstairs. Panicky, crying sounds. She smiled to herself. She would soon take care of that, but not right now.
One clipping showed a picture of Tony and Rose Montalvo. With the scissors she’d carried in, she clipped away at the article until it fell like confetti to the floor. There weren’t very many. It wouldn’t take long. Rachel wasn’t going anywhere.
Above her the sounds continued. That was good. As long as she knew where Rachel was, the house was hers. Why hadn’t she heard the children yet? No matter, she would find them soon.
Melissa sat down at the table and worked through the papers. Snip snip. They were all going away.
All going away. Uncle Tony. Daddy. Mommy. Already all gray in their pictures. I must fix the things upstairs.
Snip, snip.
She looked at the scissors. They were not gray at all. They were shiny, new-looking. Why did her arm look so gray? She pressed the tip of the scissors into her skin, watching with detached interest as the bright red blood ran back toward her elbow.
I don’t want to go away. I have to save myself for Scott. He’ll thank me. He said I would be enough, and I’ll prove it. He’ll love me even more.
She turned toward the stairs.
• • •
TEARS BLINDED RACHEL’S EYES. She sat on the floor, back pressed against the bedroom door. Why was she having so much trouble with the cell phone? Her hands shook, fingers numb. She couldn’t dial the number.
“Hello? Anyone here?” The voice lifted itself serpentlike from her kitchen. Not Scott. It was a woman’s voice.
Lord Jesus, help me! She’s here.
There, she had dialed Scott’s number. She held the phone to her ear and listened. The soft burr-burr of the ring came back.
Answer the phone, Scott.
“This is Scott. Sorry, I’m not here. Please leave . . .”
No, no. Not your voice mail. Scott, answer the phone. You said you’d be there.
Her breath came in sharp, shallow gasps.
She dialed again. Same result. Call 911! Her fingers stabbed at the pad as she heard the sound on the stairs. Footfalls, coming her way.
She misdialed. Tried again.
“Rachel? Are you in there?” Melissa was on the other side of the door.
Rachel’s back was still against the door frame. The realization of her vulnerability came like a thunderclap. Standing, she spun away and stood up.
Her cell phone clattered to the floor, broke into three pieces as it bounced on the unforgiving hardwood surface. The battery spun like a top, coming to rest partially under the door.
She reached down to retrieve the battery.
It slid away under the door, pulled away by an unseen hand.
“You won’t need that, Rachel.” The doorknob clicked back and forth.
“Go away. Leave us alone!”
“Al . . . most . . .” The kick came from the outside, bent the bedroom door in from the bottom. The frame by the doorknob splintered. “. . . done!”
With a crash, the door flew open. Rachel threw herself against it. Her shoulder flared in pain, but the door closed, though there was no lock now to hold it shut.
More pressure from outside forced the door open again, barely enough to admit a hand.
The hand was streaked with fresh, red blood. Droplets ran off the bottom of the hand onto the floor. The rest of the arm snaked its way through the opening.
“I’m coming in, Rachel.”
Turning, Rachel grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it open as fast as she could.
Melissa flew past, the force of her push on the door propelling her across the room. Her face was a mottled mask of horror. Metal flashed in Melissa’s hand as she rolled onto the floor, coming to rest against the side of the bed.
The red eyes that looked back at Rachel were filled with loathing. Blood was smeared on the bedspread where the face had struck.
Rachel bolted out the door, down the stairs.
The other woman scrambled to her feet, muttering curses. “You stupid cow. Just stand still and let me finish this.”
The kitchen. Get a knife.
She ran into the kitchen, slipping as she went. There was blood on the floor. Melissa’s blood?
Oh, please don’t let it be Scott’s blood.
On the counter sat a wooden block holding the set of knives Scott had given her for her birthday. She pulled out the largest one and turned toward the loud noises coming from the staircase. There was no time to get outside. She would have to fight, defend herself the best she could.
The garage.
She could get out through the garage door. Lock the entry door, buy some time, get outside. She ran down the hallway as Melissa came crashing down the stairs behind her. Not daring to look back, she slammed the entry door and locked it.
She slapped at the button to open the garage door. Her fingers found wires instead, ripped from the Sheetrock wall. As she turned to face the other wall with its high window, the door exploded behind her.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
All Good Things
Pain swirled in black clouds through Scott’s head. His skull felt like it was the size of a watermelon.
Where am I? Something was ringing, buzzing.
He opened his eyes. Melissa’s house. He shook his head to clear it. It didn’t work.
He struggled to his feet, looked around. No one in sight.
What had happened? He took the cell phone out of his pocket.
Missed Call
Rachel!
He pulled the door open, ran outside to the garage, pushed open the entry door.
Empty. Melissa was gone.
The phone was still in his hand. He dialed Rachel’s number. Weakness washed over him as he listened to the call ring, ring, ring . . . and then go to voice mail.
The car was still in the street. He dove into the front seat and flew down the road. A glance at the cell phone display told him he had been out at least twenty minutes. What could have happened in twenty minutes? More than he wanted to imagine.
He thumbed 911 on the phone.
“This is nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
He gave the operator his name and address. “Please send police and EMTs. I think someone’s trying to kill my wife.”
He dropped the phone onto the seat next to him, concentrated on the road.
He pressed down hard on the accelerator pedal. Streets and stoplights flashed by. He had to get home.
• • •
WOOD SPLINTERED from the trim as Melissa burst through the entry door. Her face was smeared with blood, eyes wide with pain. Her breath came in great, raw gasps as the broken door slapped back against the Sheetrock wall of the garage.
“You, you!” she sobbed, as she crashed into Rachel, knocking her back toward the water heater.
Melissa’s arms were streaked with dark blood as she shoved Rachel backward with both hands.
Rachel threw up her arms in defense, tried to grab something, anything, to keep from falling. Her hand slipped against the smear that was Melissa’s face, one eye filled with blood. The spittle on the woman’s teeth glistened as she drew back her lips in feral fury.
Boards stacked against the wall clattered down as Rachel fell backward against the tank, the wood striking her head, then rasping across her face. Her eye caught the flash of the scissors in Melissa’s raised fist, then she felt a stabbing pain in her left shoulder. Something warm ran down her chest, her arm.
Was this the end? Is this how it will be?
Then the other woman was on top of her, a plank of wood between them. Rachel couldn’t see anything. The crushing weight of her assailant drove all the breath out of her.
“Now . . . now.” The coarse, agonized voice filled the garage as consciousness fled and everything went dark.
• • •
THE TAURUS SLID and skidded as it careened into the yard. The garage door stood open, revealing two cars in the driveway. Mel
issa’s Audi and . . . whose?
In the side yard, barely illuminated by the light from the garage, Scott saw a woman’s body lying on the grass. As he opened the car door another woman crossed his field of vision, coming from the garage.
Not Rachel.
She lugged the five-gallon can of gasoline he kept inside, stumbling as she drove herself onward to the yard.
“No! Stop!” he called, but she had already reached the body on the lawn.
He leaped from the car, foot slipping on the damp grass. He went down on one elbow. “Stop, don’t do it!” She glanced up at him, her face shadowed by the corner of the house, as she shook the last drops from the gasoline can on top of the prone body.
He struggled to his feet, ran toward the women.
Whoompf!
The force of the gasoline igniting knocked him backward. He looked up, shaded his eyes from the brilliant light of the blaze.
Both women were wrapped in blue flame, one standing, kneeling, then falling on top of the one on the ground, as the flames leaped high into the dark night sky.
The sound from the conflagration reached his ears—popping, hissing. The body on top heaved once, then lay still in the all-consuming fire.
Rachel. I was too late for you. Tears filled his eyes as the agony of his heart wrenched his chest.
Cars stopped on the road. A man stood with his door open, talking on a cell phone.
Movement from the garage caught his eye.
Pulling himself to his feet, he leaned against the car and stared, unbelieving.
Rachel stumbled from the garage, her left side wet with blood. She ran toward Scott, met him, collapsed into his arms. “Oh, Scott.”
He turned toward the flaming pyre in the yard, the pair of heaped bodies in the midst. “But I thought . . .”
She followed his gaze. “Rose . . . it was Rose Montalvo,” she whispered. “She hated her . . . followed us . . . Melissa tried to kill me . . .” She went limp.
He caught her, lowered her to the grass, cradled her head in his lap. He put his hand on her neck, relieved as he felt the strong pulse. Then he pulled back her collar and saw the wound on her shoulder. There was a puncture by the shoulder joint, oozing blood. He tore off some of the fabric, rolled it into a ball, and applied pressure. She was going to be all right.
Her body began to tremble. He pulled her closer to him. Crackling, popping sounds were coming from the glowing flames as they began to die down.
Headlights flashed across the yard as more cars stopped on the road. He rocked Rachel back and forth, glad to feel her shaking subsiding.
A man in a business suit bent down by him, holding his cell phone in his hand. “Mister? Are you okay? I called nine-one-one.”
Scott nodded, and pulled Rachel up close to his chest. He felt her breath against his hand, the strong beat of her heart against his arm.
It had been Rose Montalvo at Melissa’s house. Rose came here, found Melissa, and killed her. All so hard to believe, even though he had seen it with his own eyes.
“Yes, we’re going to be okay.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Opportunity
Dan Hammersmith leaned back in his chair. Sunlight slanted in through the corner window behind him, accenting the deep lines on his face.
“And that’s the long and short of it, Mr. Douglas. To sum up, we assume full responsibility for all you and your family have gone through. Personally, I don’t care what our lawyers may say, I give you my personal guarantee that we’ll do everything possible to correct it. We failed you, and all I’m asking is that you let us do what we can to make it right.”
Scott looked up at him from an upholstered chair. Hammersmith had asked him to come in, and he had done so. If the company feared a lawsuit, they could stop worrying now. He wasn’t going to bring any action.
“Men can fail in different ways, Mr. Hammersmith. You failed in an executive sense, but my own failure was much worse.”
Hammersmith leaned forward, face pinched in confusion. “Sir?”
“Ms. Montalvo had insufficient executive oversight,” replied Scott. “That’s a given. But even without the use of your company resources, she’d have found another way to do what she did. The greater failure was mine. Do you know the Bible proverb ‘Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?’”
Hammersmith turned his head and looked out the window. “I might know something about that.”
“It’s never worth it. It never turns out right. God expects us to be satisfied with the one with whom we are ‘one flesh.’ That was my great failure. I stepped outside that bound, and I have no one to blame for the results but myself.”
Hammersmith swiveled in his large chair, leaned in toward Scott. “We do a lot for our people, Mr. Douglas. We give them workout rooms, personal time when they need it. We’ve got some smart people here. The one thing we’ve never given any time to is . . . I suppose the term is, their spiritual lives.” He seemed to study his hands, then looked up. “I think I could learn a lot from you. Let’s make that possible.”
“What do you mean?” asked Scott.
“I have something specific in mind. And it didn’t just occur to me. I’ve already talked with our board about this.” He reached into his desk drawer, removed an envelope, extended his arm across the desk, and offered the envelope to Scott.
It bore the company’s VirtualFriendMe embossed logo. Looking into the eyes of the other man, he reached out and took it.
The hint of a smile was on Hammersmith’s face as he nodded once toward the envelope. “Open it . . . please.”
Scott turned the envelope over in his hands. It was unsealed, a single sheet of stationery inside.
Scott withdrew the letter.
Dear Mr. Douglas:
Virtual Friend Me is pleased to offer you the position of Special Assistant to the CEO . . .
“A job offer?” Scott’s mouth fell open, his eyes wide with surprise. “This is a . . .”
His eyes went back to the letter.
Hammersmith got up from behind the large desk and circled around to the chair next to Scott’s. Sitting down, he leaned on one elbow and looked directly into Scott’s eyes.
“I’ll make it simple for you, Scott. We need someone like you here. Someone who can provide the moral compass we need. We don’t ever want a repeat of what happened to your family, or anything even remotely like it.”
Scott worked to control the surge of emotion that swelled within him. How good God was to him. The chiefest of sinners—
“You might think I’m just offering you something to make you happy. I’m telling you now, that’s not it. It’s not how I work.”
Hammersmith waved his arm in a wide circle toward the outer office. “We have a great company here, full of good people. I want to protect them from the kind of abuse we’ve seen already directed against your family. I care about this company, and I care about the people we serve.”
“You’ll report directly to me, Scott. I want you to be like a chaplain, without the title. Be the one that puts the fires out before they become a problem.”
“You’ll have a window on our entire operation, looking for the unusual, the unexpected. If you find something odd, I’ll expect you to look deeper, ferret out what’s really going on. If something’s amiss, then I’ll get involved. If there’s not, then we move on.”
Scott struggled to control himself before he spoke. “Mr. Hammersmith, I am so honored that you would do this.”
Hammersmith said, “It’s an offer for a position of great trust and discretion. Kind of like acting as a spiritual firewall. You’ll have the keys to the kingdom here. What do you say?”
Scott looked down again at the letter in his hands. The salary was generous, but more than that—the opportunity to be a Christian influence was unprecedented. Was there any reason to say no? The ordeal his family had endured must never be repeated. Now he could be on the inside.
“Mr. Hammersmit
h, I’m inclined to accept right now. I’m honored and I am truly humbled by your offer. Before I say yes, though, I’m going to sit down with Rachel. We’ll discuss it and then we’re going to pray together about it. We want to know the will of God.”
Hammersmith put his hand on Scott’s shoulder. “From what I’ve learned about you already, I wouldn’t expect any less. Do that. The offer is on the table for as long as you need it to be.”
From the corner of his desk, he lifted a large manila envelope stuffed with documents. The corner of some object poked through the tough paper. “We’ll start with this one, just as soon as you say you’re ready,” he said as he laid it back down.
EPILOGUE
Matchless
Scott finished the bedtime story, prayed with both children, and kissed them good night. Downstairs in the family room, Rachel waited on the loveseat, a big bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. He slipped Fiddler on the Roof into the DVD player. “Time for some quality time with my sweetheart,” he said as he lay back into the soft cushions and pulled Rachel closer to him. “I’ve got the best wife in the world.”
She snuggled into him.
With both hands, Rachel lifted Scott’s hand up to her chest and squeezed it. “You’re mine forever,” she whispered.
The fragrance of her hair filled his nostrils. He felt the silkiness of it against his nose and cheeks, sensed the warmth of her breath against his hands as the music drifted by in the background.
Once again, as it had years before, Scott’s heart thrilled in the knowledge that this real and wonderful girl was his wife.
Acknowledgments
Writing is often cast as a lonely profession. I’m not so sure about that loneliness part. I’m physically alone at the moment, surrounded by pictures of my Packard (that’s a car), books, and assorted memorabilia from thirty years of missionary work. And the world’s most neglected banjo.
But I’m not alone in any other sense. I happen to be one of those unfortunate types who need constant encouragement. Fortunately, I have more people helping and wishing me success (this is my first published book) than I can shake a stick at. If you promise not to get angry at me for leaving you off the list, let me name some of you, just so you can see what I’m talking about.