by P. J. Vernon
People were quite predictable.
“This is the moment I tell you not to struggle. That fighting is useless.” I spoke with deliberate flippancy. “But to be honest, I’d prefer that you do.”
Using my weight as a fulcrum, I hoisted the chair back on all four legs, angling it towards the front door once more. A second snapping arc of pain shot down my shoulder.
His cheeks puffed as he exhaled in heaving breaths through his nose. Beads of perspiration collected on his brow. His breathing grew more regular as the initial shock of his circumstances melded into what must’ve been a duller, sustained panic. I’d get that erratic breathing back soon.
I smelled his adrenaline-soaked sweat as I leaned down to his ear. Flicking my tongue inside it, I whispered, “I want you to struggle hard, Matthew. I want you to struggle because I want this to last for a long, long time.”
I willed my warm breath to send shivers through him as I dug into the pocket of my jeans and fished for the knife’s black rubber handle. I held it in front of his eyes and watched them widen cartoonishly.
The paring knife was subtle, delicate. Stained rust-red in places with Paul’s dried blood. Dulled a bit from what I’d done to him and the cat, but still plenty sharp.
I thrust it into Matthew’s thigh.
He howled. As I tore it loose from the muscle, his sharp cry became an anguished baying, like an animal struck and left for dead by a reckless car.
“Why, you sound like you have something to say, cousin.” I fisted a handful of his dark locks and jerked his head back, chin to the ceiling. He trembled. I slid the knife between his right cheek and the silver tape. In a single movement, I cut upwards, slashing a shallow cut beneath his eye as the gag split in two, still stuck to the sides of his face.
“Fuck!” Mouth freed, he wasted no time. “You stabbed me! What the fuck are you doing, Gray? I’m bleeding!” A spoonful of spit ran down his chin as he screamed. The disbelief on his face was exquisite. “You stabbed me!”
I’d let him think I was Gray all the way to the end. No reason to complicate the story for him since he had only a short time to hear it. I stepped in front of him, standing a few paces away. Time for him to plead his own case for once.
His twisted lips fell flat, a passing silence as he gathered his thoughts.
“Gray,” he choked. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” I lowered my voice, training my eyes onto his. “It was sick enough feeling your wet hands slipping in and out of me, but you decided to do it in front of a mirror, didn’t you? I had to feel it, and smell it, and hear it, and see it. I had to watch it.”
“Gray—” He coughed and a moist sound bubbled up. His face flushed with hot blood, spittle still on his lower lip. “This isn’t the way to handle it. Tying me up, stabbing me? You won’t solve anything. You’ve said your peace, and now this can end. I can make what you’ve done here go away. It never happened.”
“Never happened?”
I plunged the knife into his other thigh. Gag-less, he wailed. The empty home echoed with his stuttering sobs.
“We were both kids!” he screamed.
My face shook. “You were seventeen! I’m goddamn family!” He clenched his eyes shut as I shouted.
“Are you going to kill me?” The distilled fear in his eyes when he opened them was real. I saw that much. The only thing he ever truly cared about—himself—was in mortal danger.
I turned up the corners of my mouth. Spreading blood soaked into his tan dress slacks from both quaking thighs. I scraped the stubble atop his Adam’s apple with the dull edge of the blade and traveled down his Oxford, picking at each button with the knife’s tip.
I stopped at his crotch and pressed the weapon’s flattened side deep into his zipper.
“I’m going to carve you up in all the worst ways.”
“Please!” Matthew screeched. He unraveled into something primal. The whites of his eyes stained red from broken blood vessels. “Stop this fucking madness!”
The chair stuttered twice, three times against the floor.
“It’ll stop when I’m ready for it to stop!”
“What the hell do you think is going to happen next? You think that through at all?”
I hesitated, losing focus for a flash. “This is going to be—”
“Nothing good. This is going to be nothing good for you. My blood’s on the ground, on the knife, on you. You’ve got one move, Gray. Let me go. Go back to D.C., and we forget this happened.”
“You don’t know a goddamn—”
“Either we both make it or neither of us do. You kill me, it’s fucking over for you.”
My knuckles whitened around the knife’s hilt. He was right—this was messy. I didn’t want it to go this way so soon. Between Paul’s schemes and the drunken shit Gray pulled at the bar, planning went out the window. I wanted to be more careful. I was pushed.
“Let me go,” he said, almost a whisper. His voice was unnervingly steady as though he was regaining his senses. He wanted me to think he was controlling his fear.
Something reflective glimmered over Matthew’s shoulder. The mirror on the stair landing. Someone had brought it out from the cellar, set it back into the wall. My cheeks warmed and the tips of my ears began to burn.
“That mirror,” I started, my head pounding. “Who put the fucking mirror back?”
Matthew fell silent, craned his head, “I don’t know what you’re asking.”
A vice in my chest cranked. Numbness crawled down my arms and legs. I couldn’t stop looking at the mirror now that’d I’d seen it.
“Who put it back?” I screamed.
My ears ringing, I felt control draining away like a tide. I couldn’t lose control. Not now. Not—
“Gray, untie me. Let—”
44
Gray
“—me go.”
Pinewood planks groaned under my shifting weight. I stood inside Piper Point. The foyer, specifically.
I must’ve blacked out again.
But I’ve had nothing to drink.
My heart beat against my sternum with each pulse, my right hand throbbed. I clung to a small knife so tightly my fingers cramped. Drops of fresh, oily blood dotted the blade. Why was I holding a knife?
A man’s voice cried out. “Gray, we won’t ever talk about this again.”
Matthew?
I turned, facing my cousin, and my thumping heart stilled. He’d been tied to a chair in front of the staircase. What the hell was happening?
“Please,” he repeated between broken breaths. “We were children. Just go home. Leave me. Leave Elizabeth. No one will hear about any of this.”
Was he bleeding? Nausea swept over me, and I stumbled backwards, catching my weight with one leg before I fell.
Steadying myself, I noted my surroundings—the house, the staircase, Matthew’s injuries. A sensation of detachment edged into my mind. Everything became abstract. Surreal and blurred around the edges.
Except for one thing, vivid and magnetic: the landing mirror.
Matthew’s pleading barely registered as I walked towards the mirror. One foot in front of the other, I started up the creaking, sagging steps. The knife remained firmly in my right hand.
As I inched closer to the landing, my reflection materialized on the enormous glass surface. The top of my head first, auburn hair tied back yet disheveled. Then my face. Only I didn’t recognize it. It looked like me. Our eyes were the same color. Our cheekbones and faint freckles and lashes, all the same. An identical scar from a childhood tumble, nearly invisible, cut a centimeter across the left brow. But I didn’t recognize the woman staring back. She was someone else.
“This has been a long time coming, hasn’t it Gray?” The woman’s voice was my own, yet lowered by an octave. And darker.
“I don’t know who you are,” I told her.
The woman’s lips—exactly like mine—cracked an unsettling smile. “Of course you do, Hummingbird.�
�
Silent, I stepped closer to the mirror. Long shadows formed beneath the woman’s eyes as she lowered her head, gaze tightly focused on mine.
“You’ve known me for a very, very long time.” She glanced from one side to the other. “Why, this is where we first met. Right here in this mirror.”
“I don’t understand.” Was I hallucinating from alcohol withdrawal? A severe hallucination of talking to my own reflection?
The woman on the other side seemed to find this humorous. “Of course, you don’t understand. You don’t understand much of anything. But I should be thankful for that.”
“Who are you?” Holding my breath, I braced for her answer.
The humor disappeared from her face. “You really are that stupid, aren’t you?”
Another step.
“After all I’ve done for you, I’d expect some gratitude, but that’s never been your strong suit.”
I froze. How was this even possible? My throat turned to sandpaper, and I swallowed a scratchy lump.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Matthew’s piercing voice broke through, mirroring my own thoughts. “Your fucking reflection?”
I directed my attention back to the woman who stood before me in the glass. I choked, drew in a staccato breath. “You’re Annie. I—I’m—”
She smiled, wryly. “I’m Paul’s Annie. I’m Matthew’s Annie. But most of all, Hummingbird. I’m your Annie.”
Her words unwrapped snippets of memory. Unspooled them like Christmas ribbon. “You called. Asked me to meet you at Cirilo’s. Emailed me the photos. Killed—”
The smile fell from her face. “I had to kill Paul. To save myself. To save both of us. But that’s always been my job, hasn’t it? To save us. He was going to kill you—and me,” she replied.
I remembered that night, after the dance floor at Ruby’s. Somehow, I knew she—I—spoke the truth.
The rain had grown into a downpour while we’d been inside the bar. It lashed against our car as we sped through winding darkness. Forehead pressed against the passenger window, I watched droplets streak by like tiny comets.
The car abruptly pulling over and braking caused me to bump my head against the glass. My door opened, but instead of tumbling out, I was caught by someone. Paul. He hoisted me out of the car, stood me upright, and then jerked me—violently—into the woods.
That’s why I’d been so sore Christmas morning. Because Paul had been ruthless. Because he’d meant for me to die anyway. He hadn’t been concerned with causing pain or the memory of it.
She did it. She really killed him. I killed him.
Matthew seemed to hear the same thing I did. “You murdered your husband, Gray? You killed Paul?” A pause, and his chair bounced up and down with renewed desperation.
“Help!” He screamed into the empty foyer. “Help me!”
Annie wasn’t done reminiscing. “Charlotte didn’t dress you for bed that night. Paul sure as hell didn’t—he’d gone cold by then”
I hesitated, “You dressed me for bed.”
“A nightie. Silk. Got rid of your soiled clothes.” Annie went on, ignoring Matthew’s struggle behind us. “You’re a drunk, but you’re the best sort of drunk. A rich one. Paul thought so, too. Bet you didn’t know that.”
“What do you mean? It was about money?” It didn’t make sense for Paul to go through such trouble for funds that were already his.
“Not just about money. You’re many things, but most of all, you’re a liability. To everyone in your life. To Joanna. To Charlotte. Shit, even to me. But to Paul? Such a capable young man? As dapper as he was politically astute? You were a ticking time bomb.”
I spoke slowly. “He thought I’d ruin everything, didn’t he? The run for office. Everything.”
“Somebody help me!” Matthew again.
Annie replied, “That’s right, Gray. You want to know the exact moment he decided the risk outweighed any benefit you might provide?”
I knew the answer to her question. “When he came home from Toronto. When I threatened him if he didn’t buy me a bottle of wine.”
“Correct. That’s when he decided you had to go. But killing you happened to have an enormous silver lining. An irresistible bonus that swept divorce off the table.”
“Daddy’s trust,” I whispered.
A peal of laughter flew from her mouth. “And his money problems? The ones you’ve been ignoring all these years?” She raised her left hand, snapping her fingers. “Gone.”
“Jesus Christ!” Matthew screeched behind me.
Annie shook her head. “No doubt, he’d originally planned to be diligent about it. There’s a million and one ways for an alcoholic to die without anyone batting an eyelash. You could have taken a tumble. Washed down ten too many Xanax with your ninth glass of wine—”
“I could have drowned in a marsh…”
“… after you took off running into the rainy night. Too upset and distraught and confused to know where you’d stumbled till it was too late. And after the stunt you pulled with Jacob, I knew it was coming. He pulled over on the highway shoulder. He marched our drunk ass right down to the water’s edge.”
My teeth began to chatter. The only way someone like me could be a better wife was to be a dead one.
Behind me, Matthew’s chair scraped against hardwood again. “Please, Gray,” he cried. “You’ve gone off the fucking deep end!”
But I only stared deeper into the mirror as Annie went on. “I’d come prepared, though. I had a feeling things were coming to a head even before the bar. Paul was far too eager to leave D.C. Getting away with murder isn’t easy—I’d know—but it’s a tad easier in Elizabeth.”
My hand grew sorer. I clenched the knife handle so tightly, my arm shook.
“You’re so weak, Gray. When Matthew first touched us, you couldn’t face the truth of what happened. What kept happening. Every time he cornered us, it was me who took it. I took the pain so you wouldn’t have to. But I’m sick of your fragility. The way you were around Paul. Your spinelessness made me retch. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
I’m Annie. I’ve lost my fucking mind. Maybe it splintered years ago, but now—confronting myself—it finally broke. My knuckles whitened around the knife. It grew difficult to hold my hand back. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to kill myself.
“You were easy to break. A handful of phone messages and some nasty pictures of Paul.” Annie spit. “One dead cat. You were already so close to the edge. Pushing you over it was simple.”
“You’re fucking insane!” Matthew shouted again, bouncing the back legs against the floor harder. A popping sound as one of the legs began to crack. It would break any moment. “Someone help me!”
“What are you going to do?” My shaking intensified.
“I’ll be killing that noisy fucker behind you for starters. Then it’s your turn, Gray. You’re going into the dark, and you’re never coming out again.” She sneered, hate swirling in both eyes. “You don’t deserve life. Every privilege has been extended your way, and you’ve done nothing but squander them. You’re a damned ingrate. That’s all you are.”
My fist trembled.
“You are a weak, ungrateful bitch.”
Her words struck me like a lead pipe. Her face, her twisted smile.
My fist flew into the landing mirror. A spider web of fractured glass splintered across its surface. In an instant, my reflection shattered into hundreds of pieces. Searing heat shot up my arm from the shards buried deep inside my hand. Where there had been a single Annie, there now stood countless more. Each laughing wildly. Fiery eyes multiplied across jagged edges.
“You can’t destroy me,” each Annie laughed in unison. “I’m not inside this damned mirror. I’m inside you.”
45
Nina
My engines revved as I floored the gas, rocketing down Paul Revere Highway. The place we’d first found the abandoned rental car whirled by. The turn for Atalaya Drive came up, and my weight s
hifted as I cut into it too fast. Tires squealing.
Piper Point stood on the distant bluff. Ominous. Almost evil against the serene backdrop of the inlet marsh. A sprawling, rotten house.
Screeching to a halt before the looming, pillared porch, a bolt of adrenaline shot through me. The front door stood wide open. Another car had parked out front. One I didn’t recognize. A Porsche so yellow it almost looked neon beneath the pink evening sun.
A vanity plate read M KING. My stomach knotted. I might be too late.
Sliding my keys out of the ignition, I hesitated. I should wait for Sammie. I should wait for the uniforms. I had no idea what to expect, what scene I might stumble on inside Piper Point. But one thing was certain—danger lurked in that house. Gray or Annie or both were inside. Likely alongside the object of their shared hate. One spark and everything might erupt in flames.
I should wait for backup. That’s protocol. It’s for my own safety.
A noise escaped from somewhere deep inside the house. A moaning that sent a shiver down my back. Someone was in pain. Someone needed help now.
I grabbed the receiver. “I’ve got a probable location on Matthew King. Send a bus. I’m going to enter the home.”
“Hold off, Nina,” Sammie answered from his own car before the dispatcher confirmed my message was received. “I’m minutes away.”
“Possible injury. I’m entering.”
Another message crackled over. Burton. “Nina, just what in the goddamn hell do you think you’re—” I closed the car door behind me. Heart on fire, I drew my weapon and steadied my arms as I followed the tip of my gun up the porch steps.
The moaning grew louder through the open front door. A baying, long and low, that sounded almost … wet. The porch planks whined under my boots. My heart pounded its way up my throat. I entered.
White with terror, Matthew quaked in a chair he’d been bound to. He appeared to be alone. Someone had wounded him, but his blood-soaked clothes made it impossible to gauge how badly. He wasn’t gagged any longer, but from his trembling, he was plainly in shock.
“Help me!”
I nodded in the affirmative.
Both feet now in the foyer, I turned to my left and right. The salon—empty. The library—empty. What I could see of the dining room—empty, too.