by Dana Feldman
“I’m going to go and use the restroom. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He nods his head. As I get up, I can feel him watching me. I feel like an animal that’s about to be hunted.
When I get upstairs, I immediately run to the bed, to my side, and kneel down. When I feel for the gun, it’s not there. I lean all the way down so that I can see underneath the bed, thinking that maybe it just slid towards the middle of the bed. But once I’m down there I can see that it’s not there at all. Nothing is. It’s perfectly clean under here.
“Are you looking for this?” he asks, from behind me. I’m still on all fours and he’s standing in the doorway holding the pistol, pointing it down at me. It looks so small in his massive hand. “Why would you bring a gun on a date, Ella?”
He leans down so that we’re eye level. His eyes look like blackened holes and he’s clenching his jaw tightly. I watch as a vein in his neck enlarges, filling with blood and pulsating to the rhythm of his heartbeat. It looks as if it’ll pop out from underneath his skin. His face is reddening and he’s taking on the look of a crazed psychopath. I know that he might kill me tonight.
“Tell me. Why? You know, the more I think about it, I wonder if my father wasn’t the real victim in your marriage. You just might have done me a real favor tonight. Maybe I dodged a bullet,” he says, laughing out loud.
As I look at him, I realize that he’s a true psychopath. He’s just like Gabe. He would often laugh at me the way Peter is now.
“It’s not what it seems,” I say, trying to explain the gun as a simple means of self-protection.
“Then tell me. What is it exactly? What woman brings a gun on a date with her boyfriend?”
“After everything that’s happened, I’ve started to carry a gun for my own protection. That’s all.”
“But why did you feel that you needed to protect yourself from me?”
He has a smirk on his face now. He’s taunting me. The gun remains pointed in my direction. He actually looks like he’s enjoying this. He looks just like his father did that night. This is the most twisted déjà vu imaginable.
I try to get up but my arm is throbbing, and when I try to use my other arm, he pushes me back down.
“You can stay right there. You know, I knew who you were that day when you first came to see me. I’d done my homework. I knew all about my father. I know about his second wife, Amelia. Do you know what he did to her? He killed her on a boat and dumped her body in the ocean. No one ever found her. She was shark food. And we know what he did to my mother. And we know what he tried to do to you. But, as I recall, I saved your life.”
“Yes, Peter, you did,” I say, trying to calm him down but it isn’t working.
“So, why would you feel it necessary to bring a gun on our date to, as you say, protect yourself from the very man that saved your life?”
“Because you frighten me. I’m afraid of you. You say that you’d never want to hurt me, but you say things that scare me.”
“I have really tried to show you how much I love you. But you’ve fought me every step of the way. You’ve always held me at an arm’s length, never really letting me in. You don’t think I can sense that?”
“I would think that you, of all people, would understand what I’ve been through. The last thing that I wanted was to get involved in another relationship. But then I fell for you. I really did, Peter.”
He bends down closer, getting so close to me that I can feel his breath on my face as he talks. His voice is quiet and so contained that I know he’s about to lose control. He’s trying to remain calm but his face gives him away. I know that it’s only a matter of seconds before he completely loses it.
“I’ve never loved anyone the way that I loved you. But now I know what you did to my father. You have this way of getting a hold over a man’s heart and then breaking it right in two.”
His hand is behind my head now and he’s grabbing my hair so hard that I can feel as the roots rip from my scalp.
I scream out in pain but he silences me with a kiss so rough that I can taste my blood in my mouth. I knee him hard in the groin and he falls back, yelling in pain. I take the opportunity to run out of the bedroom, down the steps, and back out onto the deck. I run for the ramp leading down to the dock but within moments he’s just behind me.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he screams, his hand now grabbing my hair, pulling my head back so hard that I fear my neck will snap in half.
We’re now down on the ground and his hand is covering my mouth so that I cannot scream. His other hand is quickly underneath me and he’s pulling me back inside the boat to the living room.
“This is definitely not how tonight was supposed to go,” he says again, as we’re back inside. I’m once again on the rug in front of the fireplace, this time with him on top of me, still pressing his hand over my mouth so that I can’t yell for help.
“Do not scream, or I swear to God I’ll have to kill you. Do you understand me?”
I nod my head, and when he removes his hand from my mouth, I remain silent.
“Why are you so difficult? You make things so hard for yourself. My father always told me this about you.”
My eyes widen. He laughs at me again.
“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”
He sits there in front of me, continuing to laugh at me, the gun still in his hand, pointed directly at me.
“Yeah, yeah. I was talking to my dear old dad. Pretty much daily for the last few years. Well, except for the few months that I was in a coma. But I know that he came to see me in the hospital when I was in New York. The doctors told me. He emailed me when I was still in Afghanistan, which was what started it all. Seems that Pops felt remorse for abandoning me as a kid. Wanted to make up for lost time and all that bullshit. I played along. You know, I wanted to see how much he’d tell me about my mom and what he did to her. I wanted to know how she died, if she suffered.”
“And did he tell you?”
“Eventually, yeah. I got him to admit it one night. He was drunk. I pretended that I was too. I was still in the first hospital, the one in New York. The bastard snuck a bottle of whiskey into my room and we sat there drinking, talking, you know, bonding and shit. All I wanted to do was kill him. I fantasized every single day about what the look on his face would be when I watched him take his last breath. That was the best moment of my life, getting to be there, to watch as he died.”
“Did he ever tell you if she suffered?”
“He said that he made it quick. Oh, and he told me that he’d always felt remorse. Did you know that I was just in the other room sleeping when he killed her? Yeah, imagine that. He didn’t even give a shit if I woke up and saw that. Selfish fucking bastard!”
He’s vacillating between screaming at the top of his lungs in a rage, and laughing. As I sit here I realize that I have no way out of this. This is it for me.
“But thankfully for me, anyhow, the housekeeper found her and made sure that I didn’t see anything. But he took that chance. He didn’t even care enough about his own flesh and blood to get me out of there. He just left us alone. He didn’t know if the housekeeper would come in time. I was just a kid. I couldn’t care for myself, but that didn’t matter to him.”
“But you’re nothing like him, Peter. You wouldn’t hurt someone like that. Put the gun down. We can talk about this, work things out,” I say; attempting to reach into his soul, grab whatever is left remaining that’s decent.
“It’s too late,” he says, now calm again. “It’s ruined. We are ruined.”
“No. It’s not too late. You haven’t done anything to me tonight. It was an accident before, and I’m fine. You are not your father. He was a cold-blooded murderer. That’s not who you are.”
“You saw me kill him. You know what I’m capable of.”
“You killed him to save me. I killed Bryer to save you.”
He laughs out loud again. “Bryer never would’ve kil
led me. We really had you fooled! We knew all about your detective friend. Bob, right? Well that old bastard left a line of breadcrumbs. We knew he was looking into my father, and we soon found out that it was you that hired him. So, dear old dad decided that we should give you a little something to chew on. Why not, right? Have a little fun with you. So I waited and I waited until the day you finally showed up and paid me a visit. I let you think that you were the one volunteer that could really get to me. You fell for all of it: hook, line and sinker. It’s pathetic really, Ella. You always think that you’re smarter than everyone else in the room. It’s your main downfall, you know that? As I said, you know what I’m capable of. You’ve seen me kill a person.”
“But this is different. If you kill me tonight, that’s something that your father would’ve done. You won’t be able to live with yourself.”
“I don’t plan to.” He takes the gun and aims it at his temple and starts to laugh uncontrollably. I watch him as he continues to laugh and wait for him to close his eyes for just a second. That’s all I need.
Just then I get up and bolt for the doorway. I figure that I have nothing to lose. He’ll kill me, and then himself, either way. As I run out onto the deck the closest thing is the railing in front of me. I hop up and jump over. I can hear the gun go off. One. Two. Three loud booms.
As I hit the black water below the cold cuts at me as I sink lower and lower. I can’t tell if I’ve been shot, as the cold is so painful that it’s hard to tell. It feels as if my flesh is being torn from the muscle below it. I hadn’t accounted for this. I can feel the pain as it dulls and is replaced by numbness as I try and push myself up.
As I surface, I gasp for air. My teeth are chattering so hard that I’m not sure what I’m hearing above. It sounds like gunshots. At least two, I think. He should only have one bullet left in the chamber.
“Put the gun down,” a voice says from above. I recognize that it’s Evelyn, immediately.
And then I hear the final bullet being fired.
“Suspect down,” she yells. “The suspect has killed himself.”
And then I feel a hand reach down into the water and pull me up swiftly. I’m once again on the deck of the boat. A thick, wool blanket is being put around me. I feel strong arms cradling me and I seek warmth within them.
When I look up and see Chris staring back at me, both of his arms now around me, rubbing me to warm me up, I cannot speak. My teeth are still chattering roughly against one another. I look into his eyes and see him blink back tears. His pained expression and the fear that I can hear in his voice tell me that he knows just how close I came to dying out here tonight.
“Are you ok?” he asks. “Have you been shot?”
Two paramedics come up to us, and I am put onto a gurney before I can say anything.
“She’s in shock,” the paramedic says to Chris. He’s checking to see if I’ve been shot. I can feel his gloved hands going up and down my body. “I think she’s ok.”
And then I’m lifted up and away. As they slide me into the ambulance, Chris comes up to me. “You’re going to be ok, Ella. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
An oxygen mask is put over my nose and mouth. Just before everything goes black I feel Chris as he takes my hand in his and gets into the back of the ambulance with me. The last sounds that I hear are the sirens blaring as we race down the road.
As I sink into black I can feel Chris holding my hand in his. And then I feel his other hand cup my face, and I know that I’m safe now.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CUTS LIKE GLASS
“She’s waking up,” a voice says. It’s Chris. His hand is on mine again. Everything is fuzzy and blurry as I try to open my eyes. The brightness forces me to close them again. Though the faces are unclear, at first, I know them to be Chris and Evelyn.
“I’ll get the nurse,” she says, running out into the hallway.
“I knew you were a fighter but this is getting ridiculous,” Chris teases. I laugh but stop as a sharp pain hits me.
“Careful now, you’ve fractured a few ribs.”
A nurse and doctor come into the room and stand above me. As I look around I can also see Evelyn coming back in and Bob sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed. The doctor is shining a flashlight into each of my eyes, holding the lids open wide. I try to blink, to sharpen the images.
“You’re in the hospital, Mrs. Griffin,” the doctor says.
“It’s Woods. Ella Woods. That’s my maiden name,” I say, correcting him. I never want to be addressed with that name again.
“Well, that’s a good sign. She’s sharp and alert,” he’s saying to all in the room. “We’ll be back in just a few minutes to check on you,” he says to me, as his cell pings and they run to save another life.
“What happened?” I ask, after they’ve left the room.
“What do you remember?” Chris asks.
“Falling into sharp glass,” I answer, confused. “I remember falling into something and it felt like shards of glass were cutting me up all over my body.”
“You jumped into the water,” Evelyn says. “Probably saved your life. Though the coldness of it probably felt like glass. With the cold front that came in a few days ago, I’m beyond grateful that you didn’t die of hypothermia out there.”
I remember now how cold it was. I could see my breath as I spoke with Peter on the boat. And then I remember the feel of the crushingly cold water as I fell into the depths of it.
“It cut at me like glass,” I murmur. It’s coming back to me; images of falling into the cold water and the shock of it spearing at me like razor blades before everything went numb, and I couldn’t fight it anymore. I remember feeling like I was going to die, and I remember coming to peace with it.
And then more images and memories start to flood in. I can remember my night with Peter. Dancing in the moonlight. His proposal. And then everything that followed.
“How did you know where we were? He didn’t let me bring my phone. I kept wishing that I had it so you could track me with my GPS. Did you follow us by his?”
“No, like I told you, I had a few guys on you. I said that you’d never know they were there and you didn’t. My best guys knew better than to ever let you out of their sights.”
And then a sinking feeling in my gut leads me to my next question, though I vaguely remember what happened.
“Is he dead?” I ask, and immediately know by the looks on their faces that he is. And then I remember him laughing as he held the gun up to his temple. Just like his father, he was never going to let me go. No one walks away from them. I managed to escape them both and I am now left wondering why that is. Why did I live when none before me ever did? My emotions are all over the place.
I cry, not for him. I cry over everything that’s happened. Even after everything that I’ve been through, I haven’t really had a good cry.
Regardless of what everyone here thinks, and despite the many lies he told me, deep down I know that he loved me and I cared for him. I even thought at one point that it was love; now I know that it couldn’t have been. Regardless his feelings for me, he unfortunately hated his father more than he could ever have allowed himself to love me, or anyone. For this, I pity him.
Memories fill my head and I feel the loss of Peter. Regardless of everything, I feel the sting of that void. He represented the hope of a normal life, the possibility of real love. But he had a plan for his life, for the way that things were supposed to be, and life rarely works out that way. Not for anyone.
“You’re going to be ok,” Evelyn says. “You weren’t shot and Chris here got you out of the water just in time. You could’ve died from hypothermia if Peter hadn’t killed you first. But you’re finally free, Ella. It’s finally over now.”
Again the thought crosses my mind. Why me? Why did I get to survive? There has to be a reason but right now I can’t think of one.
I look from her to Chris to Bob. My family.
&n
bsp; EPILOGUE
NEW BEGINNINGS
Six Months Later…
“Just a little to the left,” I say to Chris. He’s hanging the new signage in the lobby of the shelter. It reads: Ashley’s Place. Bob still gets teary-eyed that I named the shelter after his daughter. “Perfect!” I say finally, and he hammers a nail into the wall and centers the sign until it’s just right.
Everyone is clapping. I can hear the cork pop off a bottle of champagne. I turn around and Bob is filling glasses for the four of us so that we can make a toast. After months of hard work, the place is finally open and ready for business.
“I really do love the place,” Evelyn says. As I look around, I have to agree. “And you were so lucky to get this space in Venice so close to the beach. Someone was looking out for you.”
“Yeah, well I think his name is Bob,” I say, watching him turn a shade of crimson. “You can admit it now, you know. We all know that you wielded your magic and outbid whoever else was eyeing this place.”
“It was a fair auction. I just had a little help.” Hank is sitting amongst us all, wagging his tail and inhaling a treat.
I look around in complete amazement at the place. The transformation is truly remarkable. What was a large, abandoned warehouse for years, is now going to serve as a safe place for so many. We’d gutted it and left it open and airy. Skylights and bay windows allow the ocean breeze in and I breathe in the salt air. It’s a mix of modern industrial: concrete floors, large wooden beams, vaulted ceilings, and shabby chic cozy décor with an open concept. It’s two stories with staircases on either side of the main entrance. A large walkway on the second floor goes around all four sides of the big square first floor, with the center left open to thirty-foot high ceilings. And from down here, you can see all the bedroom doors on the second floor.
“Give me a tour?” Chris asks.
“Of course.”
Hank follows us as we walk through the place. He’s been hired as a therapy dog to help the people who come here in need of a little love. I can think of no one better for the job.