I shuddered.
And if he were mentally unstable, why would he choose to take his own life in a strange woman’s bed after sex, and why would he do it that way…?
And I hadn’t seen a weapon… If he’d done it to himself, there would be a weapon…
“Holy shit. What am I going to do?” I said aloud, the fear in my voice finally matching the terror inside me.
I carried the mug over to the kitchen sink and washed it, nearly dropping it a dozen times. Out the window above the sink, I could see my neighbor, Fran, in the street. She was fetching her mail, one arm in a cast. I waved but she didn’t see me.
She had stopped, mail-in-hand, and she was staring at something. I followed her line of sight…she was looking at the sporty blue car parked behind mine. She turned her head and looked straight at me, eyes narrowing.
“Shit, shit, shit…”
I waited for her to turn around with her mail and wobbled back inside her own house.
The house was eerily quiet with Delaney gone, almost like a mausoleum. I wasn’t used to being here during the day, and it felt wrong somehow, seeing the early morning shadows reflecting off the dusty bookshelves and cheap Ikea furniture.
Well, I guess it kind of is like a crypt, considering there’s a dead man locked up in my bedroom…
Every time I closed my eyes, each blink, each second, I could see his moon-white face, the rosy red stain on his abdomen … the congealed blood staining my mattress and sheets.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me more than it should have. I yelped, then took it out, hands quivering as I opened a new text message.
I was expecting a reply from my boss. I’d left a hoarse, whispery message for him, thankful at the time that he hadn’t answered. But sooner or later, I’d have to talk to him…
But the message was from Delaney.
I think I’ll stay at Dad’s again tonight. Sam and I are going to finish the library mural. Plus, this will give you and your new friend more time together!
I could imagine her glaring out the bus window, jaw flexing in anger, her phone clutched like a weapon in her hand. Was she being nice or sarcastic?
Definitely the latter, I decided.
Every single word was like a dagger … and I had no doubt that was her intention. She’d been angry with me every day for the past year, sometimes for a reason, but mostly not. Teenagers are supposed to be angry, right? I had just assumed this was normal, a part of the growing process … but I was wrong about that. Delaney was going through a lot more than the average teen.
It was a weekday – not her dad’s night to take her.
Would she explain to him why she wanted to stay with him again? What will he think about the man in my bed…?
And every time she called her stepmom Sam, I tasted bile in the back of my throat.
But none of this really matters right now, does it? Because I have a bigger crisis to tend to.
I knew Delaney was expecting a big reaction, for me to put up a fight…
Okay, honey. Have fun.
I typed back. I almost considered writing, ‘Send Sam my love’, but I knew Delaney would see right through it.
She gets her snarky humor from me, I guess.
For a split second, I could almost believe it was a normal Tuesday – dealing with Delaney’s attitude and my own bitterness over Michael – but nothing about this day was normal: a murdered man was in my room.
In my bed.
Slowly, I made my way down the short, skinny hallway, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. I stopped in front of the bathroom door. On my tiptoes, my fingers reached for the slim, gold key that I kept on the ledge of the door frame; a master key to all the rooms in the house.
I gripped the key so tight in my right palm that it burned.
Finally, I used it to unlock my bedroom door and I stepped inside.
There was a part of me, a silly, stupid part, that hoped—prayed—that the body in my bed would no longer be there.
But in the light of day, the strange man still looked dead as ever.
I locked the door behind me even though I was home alone, and, noiselessly, I crept over to the bed. The sheets were hanging halfway off from where I’d tugged on them earlier. I went ahead and pulled them completely away from the bed and laid them in a crumpled pile by the door.
Shaking, I could barely breathe as I approached the naked man.
Who are you? How did you get in my bed? And most importantly, who stabbed you?
His face was wrinkle-free and hairless.
He can’t be much older than thirty, I realized, finally getting a good look at him in the light of the day.
There was no jewelry on his body. No wedding ring on his finger. His fingernails and toenails were neatly trimmed, like someone who took care of himself. But, then again, not someone who would necessarily stand out from the crowd: his hair was sandy brown, his face plain, his body average…
This man is a complete stranger to me. I’ve never seen him before, not a day in my life…not on the dating site, nowhere…
I’d been talking regularly to a few men online, but this guy wasn’t one of them. New potential matches messaged daily, but I wouldn’t have invited him over without at least getting to know him a little bit, would I? But then I remembered the last guy I’d had over…I hadn’t known him well either.
Every man I’d talked to and dated over the last month came rushing back all at once, their faces merely profile pictures, flipping one by one in my mind…
Swipe, swipe, swipe.
And why don’t I remember what happened last night?
I forced myself to move closer, to study the features of his face…
Nearly two hours had passed since Delaney shook me awake. In that short span of time, the man’s body had turned even stiffer. His eyes were still closed but his lips were parted. For a moment, I waited, expecting those lips to move, to tell me ‘it’s all a dream, go back to bed silly’…
But nothing happened.
I should call the cops.
Why hadn’t I called them already?
Because it almost seems too late to do that now, a voice inside me warned.
I imagined me telling the police the truth: I was scared. Freaked out. I didn’t know what to do. So, I waited until my daughter left for school before I called you.
No, officers, I have no idea who he is. No, I don’t remember how he got here. Of course I didn’t kill him! I imagined myself saying.
I couldn’t call them until I could explain how he got here … and until I could describe what transpired last night before he ended up in my bed and ended up … dead.
But that wasn’t the only reason for my hesitation. Michael. If he found out about this, if he found out the truth about me … he would try to take Delaney away from me, permanently. He’d been doing it for years now, wearing the face of a dutiful father whenever she was around, then morphing into his old self alone with me. Nothing about the man had changed, but according to his new wife, he was perfect.
Perfect, my ass…
He wanted Delaney all to himself. That way he could have his whole, perfect family and erase me from existence completely. If he found out about this, about all of it … well, he’d probably try to get full custody for sure. Not probably – he would.
I know he would.
And the scary part: I don’t even know if Delaney would mind.
Sure, we had our good days. But what about all the bad ones? Over the last two weeks, she’d spent more time with her other family than with me…
I imagined the cops cuffing me and carting me off to jail, Delaney sneering from the driveway, Michael smiling victoriously. And Wife #2 beside him, with her plaster-perfect smile, waving me off as they took me away…
I scurried around the room, diverting my eyes from the dead man, searching for his clothes or wallet. Something to help identify him.
I may not remember what happened, but I know
I must have met him online.
A pair of dark brown chinos and a flimsy old flannel lay messily on the floor beside my dresser. No underwear. No shoes…?
That doesn’t make sense.
I dug through the pockets of his chinos—no keys either. And no wallet.
This is insane! Did I pick up a homeless man off the street, or what?
But then I remembered the navy-blue Camaro sitting outside my house. It had to belong to him. There was no one else around it could belong to.
Rubbing my cheeks, panic surged through my veins as I tried to trace my way back in my mind…
Did he drug me? Is that why I don’t remember?
My head did feel groggy and strange, although that could be from a hangover… And if a stranger had showed up and tried to rape me, I would have tried to defend myself. I didn’t have any wounds on my hands, or the rest of my body.
And if it had been consensual sex…
I know how my body feels after sex and this isn’t it.
I wasn’t sore or achy. I didn’t feel violated or injured in anyway. In fact, I didn’t feel like I’d had sex at all. And the old gown I’d had on when I woke up…it was the least sexy thing I owned. I couldn’t see myself putting that ratty old thing on for anyone, much less a man I’d invited over for the first time and planned to sleep with…
I carried the man’s clothes over to the pile of bedding and, shakily, dropped them to the floor. I scooped up a pair of my own jeans and a t-shirt which I’d been wearing yesterday, I remembered. The last thing I remember was fighting with Delaney.
But what happened after we fought?
She slammed her bedroom door the way she usually does, I recalled.
Then I folded laundry and made dinner. I yelled for her to come out of her room. And by the time she did, the chicken was cold. We barely ate or talked. Another silent war between us, which was all too typical for us these days – a constant battle, and one I lost more days than most.
She’d been texting furiously while she sat at the table and when I asked her who she was chatting with, she’d said, “My father”, with such viciousness it had made my blood run cold.
And after dinner she’d gone back to her room and I’d gone back to mine, I remembered. On school nights, we usually went to be early, around ten or eleven or so.
But I didn’t go straight to bed last night, I remembered.
I’d got online. Checked my dating profile for new messages. It was a great way to escape, and for the first time in years, I’d started feeling attractive – wanted – again.
I do remember getting on the site last night. But what happened after…?
I spotted a pair of purple panties—my panties—on the floor by my side of the bed. I hated to get close to the dead guy again, but I went over to retrieve them anyway.
I gripped the underwear in a ball in my hand and forced myself to get down on my knees on the floor.
I have to check under the bed. But what if there’s a knife under there? What if it’s covered in blood…?
There’s no such thing as monsters under the bed. I could remember saying that to Delaney countless times when she was little.
When she still needed her mother. When she still looked up to me and thought my word was gold.
Trembling, I crouched on the floor beside the bed and pressed my face to the matted carpet.
Monsters under the bed…why does that age-old fear never fully disappear with time?
I squinted into the dark, narrow gap between my bed and the floor.
I gasped and stumbled back as I came face to face with, not the murder weapon, but … another corpse.
Only this one wasn’t a stranger.
The One Night Stand: Chapter 3
BEFORE
How did it begin?
I guess it started the way most bad things do: with secrets.
And then, of course, there were also the lies.
Lies that tasted like malt vinegar, but flowed like syrup from our tongues … and what was the truth anymore? I don’t think we’d recognize it if it were staring us straight in the face…
“Laney, are you ready?” I dropped my purse with a smack on the entryway floor, just like I did every day after work. I was exhausted. Most days I’d take a shower and throw together something for dinner then fall asleep watching TV.
But then I remembered: Samantha was coming.
I scooped my purse off the floor and carried the bulgy black bag to my bedroom.
Our house wasn’t exactly a penthouse – paint peeling, the original lime green from the 60s playing peek-a-boo through the cracks. But it was clean (mostly) and roomy for just the two of us. Two bedrooms, two baths. Our furniture wasn’t fancy, but it was comfortable. I liked to think of our small bungalow as “homey”; it was also small enough to keep us together and large enough to keep us from killing each other…
I kept the house tidy; well, I thought I did…but now that I knew Samantha was coming – or Sam as Delaney liked to call her – the house was bathed in a whole new light.
I swept the living room curtains back, a cloud of dust tickling my nose and the back of my throat. The windows were grimy, a thin layer of dust coating the sills and every baseboard in sight.
And the air in our house…today, it felt stale and muggy.
A pile of unpaid bills lay cluttered on the arm of the sofa from where I’d forgotten to finish sorting through them last night.
The kitchen was worse. Breakfast dishes and coffee mugs were stacked on the counter, and the drain in the sink was giving off that putrid egg smell again…
Most days, I left for work by seven, with Delaney not far behind. There was rarely time to tidy up in the mornings, which was why I often saved all that for after work.
Leaving the dishes, I drifted back to the living room, my chest tightening with dread. In addition to the dust and messy mail pile, there were empty bottles of tea and Vitamin Water crowding the coffee table. Delaney had been watching Teen Mom 2 last night when I’d taken myself to bed.
When did she stop using the garbage can? I thought, angrily.
It’s like you spend their early years teaching them every day common tasks and social skills, and just when you think they’ve mastered them, you have to re-instruct them as teens.
I stuffed the bunch of mail between two couch cushions and scooped up Delaney’s mess in my arms. When I went to throw it away, I realized the garbage was full. Not only that, it smelled like last night’s fettucine.
And the carpet, has it always looked this dingy?
It had been needing to be replaced since … well, since the day we moved in nine years ago. But replacing carpet was one of those costly projects that I planned for tax return season but never got around to. Because there was always something else that came up – tires for the minivan, new school clothes for Delaney, a broken hot water heater, a busted drum in the dryer…
It was Friday, and in our house, Fridays meant Michael.
Usually, Delaney’s friend Viola dropped her at Michael’s after school. But ever since I’d discovered the pot stash in her top drawer, Delaney had been riding the bus as part of her punishment.
I wasn’t sure if her friends were bad influences, exactly, but I knew that not getting to ride with them to and from school might make Delaney think twice before picking up another joint.
Or it will make her better at hiding it, I considered, pressing down on the tender spot between my eyes and praying another migraine wasn’t on its way.
I’d offered – a few times – to take Delaney to Michael’s. Michael and his new wife’s house was close, and it would take me less than a half hour to take her there, after work. But Samantha – or Sam – had insisted on picking her up this week. “It’s no trouble, no trouble at all,” she’d said in that high, silky voice of hers that I’d grown to detest. ‘I don’t work, so it’s no bother. You shouldn’t have to drive out here after working all day…’
But even that felt
like a sneaky dig – Samantha didn’t work because she didn’t have to. Michael’s income was enough to sustain them.
Was she rubbing that in my face, or was I just being paranoid?
On the surface, Samantha seemed pleasant, polite, sweet even. But still…
No trouble at all, I thought warily, looking around at the mess I’d come home to.
“Delaney?” I shouted. Then, lowering my voice: “Are you ready in there? You should give me a hand out here.”
I couldn’t imagine Sam raising her voice, which should have made me feel better about Delaney spending so much time with her new stepmom, but there was something about her I couldn’t put my finger on. Something in my gut that said she was phony.
Oh, big surprise, Ivy! You don’t trust your husband’s pretty new wife, the one he left you for. Join the ex-wives club, I scolded myself.
Back in my bedroom, I scraped my hair into a tight knot. I fought the urge to put on makeup.
I don’t need to impress that bitch, I thought bitterly.
But I picked up a pair of tweezers and tugged on a wiry gray hair that had seemingly sprouted overnight on my right temple. My bed was still unmade from this morning, sheets and comforter tangled in a knot at the foot of the bed. I fought another urge – to crawl under the covers and live there.
Maybe I’ll hide in here when she knocks, I considered. Nobody’s home…
I left the room and closed the door behind me.
I’ll deal with that mess later, I decided.
I shuffled down the dimly lit hallway. There was still no sign of Delaney.
I stopped in front of the bathroom and pressed my ear to the door. Water was running, and I could hear something else – the faint sound of Delaney humming while she took a shower. Ever since Delaney had started high school, she had started taking extra-long showers.
Her sweet, melancholic voice was indistinguishable from that of a child’s. For a moment, I could almost believe that on the other side of this door was my daughter, my old daughter, the one who splashed and sang, who squealed for me to jump in the tub and join her.
She Lied She Died Page 18