The Admirer's Secret

by Crane, Pamela

  This time she’d cut the other wrist right. Down the street, not across the road.

  She lifted the knife. It felt oddly heavy.

  Her hand dropped back to her side.

  Try again.

  But still her arm felt so weak.

  With every ounce of strength now fully sapped, she couldn’t make the next cut. She hated herself for being so weak. She was too pathetic to even kill herself correctly.

  Absorbed in her self-loathing, she closed her eyes and entered her own world where nothing could hurt her. Her eyes shut out the spinning living room and her ears shut out the deafening silence. Mentally tuned out from her surroundings, she ignored the knock at the door, the booming voice outside, and the squealing doorknob that turned with ease. She heard the door creak open, then oncoming footsteps.

  “Marc?” she whispered, her voice muffled with exhaustion.

  No answer.

  Dimly aware, she saw a lurking shadow shift across the room through a haze.

  In her tunnel-driven daze, she pictured sweeping images of her bloodstained flesh, Marc’s smile, each letter, each poem, each journal entry, and each picture that she had just sent into the land of no return. Poof! In a cloud of smoke she had destroyed her relationship. She needed to finish what she set out to do.

  With renewed energy she willed herself from her trance. She pushed up from her seat and finally her spell was broken—she saw the figure looming underneath her living room archway.

  “Haley Montgomery…”

  The stranger moved toward her, but she didn’t know how to stop him. She eyed the fireplace poker leaning upright against the gray and brown stone face, but certainly the man would easily overpower her, even with her weapon. Her hands instinctively took a defensive position in front of her body, as if that would protect her, despite the scabbing skin that stung and stretched taut from her movements.

  The man inched forward, uttering calm, collected words that she couldn’t quite make out.

  “What do you want?” she screamed, punching her fists into the air, making contact with his chest.

  The man didn’t answer. Instead, another one in uniform soon joined the first, and she recognized defeat. She had no other choice than to surrender.

  “We’ve got a warrant for your arrest. We’d like to take you in for questioning,” the policeman said. “Do me a favor and put your hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent…”

  As they Mirandized her, she let the two policemen seize her by the shoulders and grab each arm, forcefully pulling them behind her back and cuffing her wrists. The metal pinched her skin, its cold grip painfully tight.

  As they led her to their car, she looked behind her for some intervention, some source of comfort, but no one was there. They ducked her head as they guided her into the backseat of the cruiser behind the barred divider. Panic should have set in at this point; she should have been worrying about her alibi, her upcoming statement, her possible sentencing. But she wasn’t thinking about the drive to the station or of the officers in the front seat. She was thinking about Marc. She wanted Marc.

  Chapter 39

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, Ms. Montgomery. Do you know why you’re here this morning?” The plainclothes detective took a sip of his black coffee and offered her a condescending smile. Another officer stood next to her only exit.

  The interrogation room wasn’t anything like her movie-bound imagination pictured it would be. There were no cement block walls or a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling over a folding table and metal chair. Instead, the drywall was painted a light gray to complement the heavy-duty blue carpet with worn patches. The room smelled like lemon-scented Lysol furniture polish, not stale coffee and doughnuts. Waffle lighting flickered every so often, adding to her preexisting headache. She clenched her arms against her chest, shyly meeting the cold stare of the middle-aged man sitting across from her. Haley thought for a moment about the dangling question about why they dragged her here, then her mother’s warning clicked in her head.

  “This is all about Allen Michaels, isn’t it?”

  The detective shook his head. “I’m afraid this is about you, Ms. Montgomery.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  Silence threatened the mood as Haley’s bottom lip took the brunt of her frustration. “No, Detective…”

  “Patella,” he answered sharply for her.

  “Detective Patella, I have no idea,” she answered. Certainly they had the wrong person.

  “All right, let’s start from the beginning. How do you know Marc Vincetti?”

  Marc? How was Marc involved in this? Was Marc in trouble? A flurry of worries engulfed her. She jumped from her seat and planted her hands on the round wooden desk. “Is Marc okay?”

  Detective Patella eased himself up from his seat and guided her back to her chair using gentle pressure on her shoulders. “Yes, he’s fine. I just need you to answer the question.”

  “Oh… he’s my boyfriend,” she answered.

  “And how did you meet him?”

  Her straight face broke into a smile as she recalled Marc showing up at her door that day, with his charming grin and coltish salute. “Marc helped me with my computer.” She stopped before elaborating, somberly aware of what was happening. “Why do you need to know that?”

  “I don’t want this to take any longer than necessary, so if you just answer the questions, you can get out of here quicker.”

  “Okay.” She felt a little stung by his impatient reply, but she shook it off since she simply wanted to give him what he needed and go home.

  “So how long have you and Marc been—” he cleared his throat “—dating?” His singsong question was touched with a pungent, no… sarcastic force.

  “Why did you say it like that?” Haley boldly asked.

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “About a month now.”

  “Hm. Can you tell me a little about your, uh, relationship?”

  She paused, uncertain how the question had any relevance. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Please just answer the question, Ms. Montgomery.”

  “Our relationship is wonderful. He treats me good, and we’re a happy couple. We are even talking about getting married. Is that what you want to know?”

  “It’s a start.” He glanced behind him at the officer standing by the door. “Do you two go out on dates often?”

  “When we have time. We both work and are busy people.”

  “So you’re working? You didn’t stop showing up for work a couple weeks ago?”

  How did he know about that? She felt uncomfortable. “Yes, I did quit so that I could focus on my screenwriting career. Work was a distraction. Is there a crime in that?”

  “Apparently you didn’t notify your boss of your new status.”

  “I must have forgot to tell him. Is that why I’m here?”

  “I’m just curious as to what you’ve been doing in your free time.”

  “I told you. Working on my screenplays.” She had no idea where he was going with all of this. “Look, why am I here? What’s going on? I have a right to know why you dragged me in here.”

  Detective Patella leaned back in his chair. His belly hung slightly over his belt, and the further back he went, the more it protruded. His collared shirt appeared a size smaller than it should have been, and the buttons threatened to pop off at any second. He eyed her, and Haley felt his scrutinizing glare. She wondered what he was thinking, but she dared not ask.

  “Haley, are you and Marc fighting right now? Did something happen that upset you?”

  “No,” she lied. “Why?”

  “Because people hurt one another sometimes. Even those they love. It’s perfectly natural to want to hurt back.”

  “Is Marc hurt?”

  “No, he’s fine. Now please answer my question.”


  “I’m telling you, he didn’t hurt me.” Patella was starting to tick her off.

  “It’s okay to get defensive for the ones we love. But please be honest with me. Did Marc hurt you physically? Because we have reason to believe that there is something going on in your relationship that isn’t quite right, and your elusiveness gives the impression that you are covering for him.”

  “No, I’m not covering anything. We’re fine,” she insisted.

  “Look, we’ve got him waiting in the other interrogation room.” He gestured at the door where the waiting policeman stood, arms crossed. “All you need to tell us is what exactly happened.”

  “I swear, nothing. He’s a good guy!”

  “Haley, his dog was poisoned and he’s acting erratic. Everything points to some kind of foul play. I’m guessing he’s got some major problems—something a little jail time could fix. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, and I want the truth, then I’ll make sure he goes to jail for a long time. So let me ask you again: What did he do?”

  “Nothing!” Haley burst out, then without thinking added, “He did not mean to hurt me.”

  “So he did hurt you. What did he do? We are here to protect you. We can put him behind bars so you won’t have to worry. You can tell me.”

  “You don’t need to protect me from him. It wasn’t him. It was her.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes, that Julie woman.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “On Saturday night Marc and I went to the Ice Festival together and—”

  “Did he pick you up?” he interjected.

  “Of course; he’s a gentleman.”

  The detective nodded for her to continue.

  “So anyways, everything was fine until I found some Julie woman was hanging all over him, drooling over him… over my boyfriend.”

  “And what did you do? Certainly you wouldn’t just let your boyfriend get away with that, right?”

  “Well, no. I went home. I couldn’t watch them.”

  “How did you get home?” It seemed like such an irrelevant question.

  “I drove home.”

  “You mean you had your car?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Okay… so you didn’t ride together.”

  “Well, wait, I guess we did drive separately. I must have forgotten.”

  He wrote something on his yellow notepad, but Haley’s view was obstructed by his hand. “And after you went home you left several messages on his phone, right?”

  “What? I mean, no, that wasn’t me. I didn’t call anyone. I went to bed.”

  “Haley, a girlfriend who has been betrayed like that does not simply go home and go to bed. Surely you did something to let him know how hurt you were. What did you do?”

  “I’m telling you, I drove home and went to bed.”

  “Haley, Marc is across the hall right now, so why don’t you just be honest with me so I don’t have to have him join us? This will be a lot less painful if you’re truthful. So let’s try again. Tell me exactly what happened Saturday evening.” She could either answer the question or plead the fifth. Assuming answering the questions would get her out of reach from the officer’s hot, coffee-tainted breath and back into Marc’s arms faster, she decided to give him what he wanted.

  “I might have gone for a drive to see if he was home. But that was all. I didn’t call him. I was so upset that I needed to go home and clear my mind. And that’s what I did. So can you now please tell me what I’m being accused of here?” She was tired of playing cat and mouse.

  His chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh. His smug expression irked Haley. Sitting there watching her, his glare was almost sympathetic, making her shift uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t want pity. She wanted to be released.

  Detective Patella reached for a cream-colored folder sitting on the table and flipped it open. He spun the folder around and shoved it toward Haley.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  She stared at it, surprised. “No.” But she knew exactly what was in the folder. Question was, how did he get a hold of her correspondence?

  “So you have nothing to do with these?” He tapped a thick index finger on top of the pile of papers.

  Of course she had something to do with them. She wrote them. “No.”

  He grunted. “These are the letters and pictures you dropped off at Marc Vincetti’s house early yesterday morning.”

  “Those aren’t mine.”

  He flipped through the stack and plucked out a love letter and laid it in front of her. It was addressed to Marc.

  “Care to explain?”

  Haley heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. Yes, those are my letters to Marc and some of his letters to me, or copies of them. I don’t know why you have those, since they are personal. What do my letters have to do with anything?”

  “When we brought you in this morning, you were burning the originals. Why?”

  “Because I wanted to get rid of them! Haven’t you ever had a broken heart, Detective?”

  “Yes, but most people don’t have several copies of the same letters sitting around. If you truly wanted to get rid of them, why did you make other copies?”

  “Because… I don’t know. What does it matter?”

  “Haley, Marc received threatening letters today and we want to know if you had anything to do with that. I would understand if you did—”

  “I love him! I would never threaten him!”

  Nervous sweat dampened Haley’s palm as Patella’s questions left her feeling cornered. Apparently the police thought she wanted to hurt Marc, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He was going to be her future husband. She planned to have his children. She would never write threatening letters to the man she loved.

  “From my vantage point, the truth is starting to surface. Perhaps a little more digging would uncover everything.”

  “There’s nothing to uncover, sir,” Haley insisted.

  “I want you to take a look at something.” He pulled a photograph from beneath an envelope and turned it around for her to look at. It was the same picture she gave Marc when they had dinner together—so how did the police end up with it? Did Marc give that to them? Why would he do that? “Do you recognize this picture?”

  “Yes, that’s the one I gave to Marc on our first official date.”

  “So then you would admit that this note on the back is your handwriting.” He flipped the photo over.

  “Yes, that’s mine.”

  “Now take a look at this—” He pulled yet another piece of paper from the folder, this time a scribbled letter, and obviously one of the threatening notes Marc had received. “Do you notice anything familiar about this letter and the note on the back of the picture you gave Marc?”

  Haley pretended to scrutinize them both, not sure what she was supposed to be looking for.

  “Nope. I don’t see anything familiar.”

  “Haley, how many people do you think attach a swirl to the ‘c’ at the end of Marc’s name?”

  She shifted in her seat. “How would I know?”

  “I’ll answer it for you—not many. This is a unique characteristic of your writing, isn’t it?”

  Haley shook her head.

  “It’s apparent that you wrote both of these letters. Look, I can charge you with communication harassment, but are you also responsible for poisoning his dog? And what about stalking Julie the other night? We have a whole police report of events that have happened over the past couple days, and we want answers. These letters are pointing to you, Haley.”

  That couldn’t be true. He was lying, trying to get her to confess to something she didn’t do. They needed someone to blame. She was the perfect target. But how could she get him to believe her innocence?

  She raked her brain for an explanation as a shooting pain seared into her temples, striking her forehead with menacing blows. The aching intensified as she shoved her palms against her temp
les, hoping the pressure would relieve the headache. And then her worst enemy—her dark companion—returned. But he didn’t offer the soothing words of false affirmation she was used to. He showed up to destroy her.

  Haley, look at what you’ve done, you worthless piece of garbage… the voice spoke loud and clear.

  Please leave me alone! she silently begged. Why was it torturing her? Why her?

  Marc never loved you. You are a liar and you’re crazy!

  I’m not crazy! Marc loves me, she inwardly retorted.

  No he doesn’t. Those letters are your own confessions, not his. Look at the letters, her nemesis commanded.

  Haley reached to the middle of the table where the detective had piled his evidence against her and pulled a letter closer. Her eyes searched the handwriting while the overhead waffled lighting blinked annoyingly.

  Whose handwriting is that?

  She looked from one letter to the next. The c’s—the curly loops—those were hers. Was the detective right? Certainly she didn’t write these letters to herself. That was… was… ludicrous! Haley stared blankly into the detective’s eyes. The realization of what he was getting at had somehow eluded her throughout the interrogation; his accusation had flown right over her head. Yet now it was hovering in front of her with clarity. He was charging her with hurting the man she loved more than life itself. But that couldn’t be. She would never do that. She adored him and would do anything for him. Sure, she was hurt, but this… this could not possibly be true. There was only one other explanation: She was being framed.

  Then Allen came to mind.

  Chapter 40

  The metal door sprung back and slammed shut behind Detective Patella. Marc looked up, then squeezed Julie Carter’s slender hand in affirmation that it was almost over. At least he hoped so.