When he called that night, he was furious. And I had no idea why. He asked what I was thinking seeing Kat again, that she’d been working to get better, but that seeing me caused her to spiral.
I felt like shit, okay? I mean, how was I supposed to know she’d been lying all that time. I’d gone back to following her blog, and she really did seem to be her old self again. I had no idea how far the lie had gone. Apparently she’d been telling everyone in Crestview that we were still married, that I was away for work, and her most recent lie—the reason her dad was calling me then…she was claiming we were planning to adopt a baby.
At hearing that, I should’ve never gone back. I should’ve protected my child above all else, but Kat was my first best friend. She was the person I watched grow from a mud-covered four-year-old to a beautiful bride on our wedding day. She’s the one I cried with when my sister died. The one whose hand I held when my parents announced their divorce. Growing up, we spent every waking minute together. I’d abandoned her once, I just…I couldn’t do it again.
We made a plan. I was going to see her again, to try and smooth things over, explain what was happening and make sure everything was okay. I thought things went okay. With me, she was totally normal. She said she understood that we weren’t together, that she was only lying to save face, but she knew she had to tell the truth.
When she texted me and told me Palmer was in Crestview, I panicked. I didn’t know if it was even true. I didn’t know what she was doing there or what Kat would do. What Kat would tell her. I lied about the break-in, pretended to be panicked to get Palmer home, get her away from my ex-wife at all costs. I used a fork to break off a bit of the trim. It was stupid, I know, but we’ll just chalk it up to yet another dumb decision I made on the long list I’m sharing with you. It’s far from the worst.
When her dad called again, he said they were going to move her back in with them. They said it wasn’t safe to have her living alone anymore. She’d been erratic, missing all hours of the day and night, blowing through money, sleeping outside on the patio. They were terrified she was going to spiral further, and they wanted to act quickly. I was just supposed to keep her busy while they hired movers to empty her house and get it set up in theirs. It was only one day. He asked me to take her out to dinner one more time, to keep her busy because she had no one else, and then to never speak to her again.
I thought it was the least I could do, honestly. I felt I owed it to them. To her. We went to eat somewhere crowded and public, like before, but she was agitated. Angry. She complained about her fight with her father. Complained about her food blogging. Complained about everything. She kept wanting to go home, but it was too early. Her father had asked me to keep her gone until mid-afternoon.
When she insisted, I went with her. If I could go back and change that, I would. If I could redo anything in my life, it would be that moment. That stupid, foolish, blind moment when I thought there was no way she could ever hurt me.
She was sick.
She was sad.
She was a lot of things.
But she wasn’t evil.
We went back to her house, and I insisted we go outside. With just a bit of a heads up, her dad had the movers take a lunch break. Luckily, he’d only had the bedrooms cleared out thus far, so I ushered her through the living room and kitchen before she could notice anything.
When I came outside and saw her trying to nurse my son, I nearly lost it. I knew then how far gone she was. If she hadn’t had Gray in her arms, I would’ve bolted. I would’ve thrown a fit. But how could I do that when I didn’t know what she was capable of? I didn’t know how far she’d fallen.
After I’d given her the bottle to feed him, I told her we had to go. Told her we had somewhere to be. Instead, I drove around the block, then parked next door at her parents’ house and told them what had happened. I told them how sorry I was, but I couldn’t help them anymore. They were on their own. I told them I’d continue to pay on the Red River mortgage, but that was it. I couldn’t put my wife and my son in danger. I saw it in their eyes then, it was just one more thing I was disappointing them on, but I couldn’t help it.
When I left their house, I buckled Gray in and walked around to my side of the car.
As soon as I sat down, the back door opened and shut, and I met her eyes in the rearview.
“What the—”
Something heavy smacked into my head with force.
Then it all went black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ben
When I came to, I’d been shoved over to the passenger’s side of my car. I wasn’t buckled in and wasn’t even really in the seat. Kat was driving, her eyes wide and maniacal. I screamed at her, my head pounding with every bump. I asked her to pull the car over, told her she didn’t really want this. I tried everything to get her to stop. Tried everything to get her to choose a different path.
Despite it all, that’s my biggest regret. Because she could’ve had a good life. She should’ve. She deserved better.
I remember smelling fish and saltwater when she stopped the car, my vision still blurry from my throbbing head. When I pulled down the visor to get a good look, there was a nasty gash on my forehead.
She was wearing my ball cap, and I watched as she climbed from the car, taking the keys with her. We were at the marina, but I couldn’t figure out why. I watched her saunter across the yard to the boat rental shack. She approached a group of guys, no one I knew, and handed them something that I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t worry about what she was doing. I had to act. It may have been my only chance. I got out of the car and shut my door carefully, lowering myself to the ground and crawling back toward Gray’s door. I stood up, pulling at the handle at the same time I heard the locks click.
She’d locked him in.
I pulled at the handle wildly, looking over the car to where she stood in the distance with my fob held in the air, a stern expression on her face. I pulled on the car door so hard the whole thing shook, trying to figure out how to break the window. It was ninety degrees and my son was locked in the car.
I slammed my elbow into it, which led to pain and nothing else, before she approached the car again, walking to block Gray’s door. “Do you want to come with us, or no?”
I looked to the group of guys, who were jogging off toward the lake, no idea what she was talking about. “Us who?”
“Not them,” she said with a scowl. “Gray and me. Do you want to go with us?”
“What are you talking about? You can’t take him anywhere. He needs to go home, Kat.” I tried to reason with her, to find the sane woman I’d loved not so long ago, but she was gone. Her eyes were empty and cold. “He needs to go home with me. To see his mother.” I spoke slowly, hoping to bring her back to reality. As much as I could see the madness, I still wanted to believe she was who I wanted her to be.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked, storming back around to the driver’s side of the car. “I’m his mother now, Ben.” She put the key in the door, unlocking just hers and climbed in, starting it up. My life flashed before my eyes as I pictured her driving away with Gray. I pounded on the window with all my might.
“Let me in! Kat, don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Come on, Kat. Please! Please!” My voice grew high and desperate, attracting the eyes of a few passersby, but she just stared at me with a smug expression. Finally, she unlocked the door, and I jerked it open in a second. I sank down in the seat. My door wasn’t even closed before she whipped around and drove away.
“Where are you taking us?” I said, almost afraid to ask.
She looked at me, a mad twinkle in her eye that made me swallow audibly. “Don’t you know? We’re going home.”
I stared straight ahead and watched as she turned on the road, not headed toward Crestview, but toward Red River. I needed to text her parents, to text Palmer, to call the police. We needed help, and I wasn’t sure what help I could be. I reached in my back
pocket slowly, sneaking my hand across the side of the seat.
“You won’t find it,” she said, obviously spying what I was attempting.
She reached in her bra, pulling out my wallet and phone and waving them around.
“What the hell? Why do you have those?” I asked.
“You don’t need them anymore,” she said, then laughed loudly. “We’re all you need, Bennie Boo-Boo. Our family is back together. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
I stared straight ahead as the car began to gain speed, my heart thudding in my chest.
What had I done?
What had I done?
Chapter Thirty
Ben
By the time we pulled into the Red River house’s driveway, Gray was having a fit. He was hot and hungry, and I had just a few bags of milk left. How long would they last us? A few days, maybe? How long would it be until I could get away from her?
“I should probably take him and get formula,” I said. “That’ll give you time to get his room ready.”
“Do you honestly think I’m an idiot?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to nurse him. It’s better for the baby.”
“You don’t have milk—”
She slammed her hand on the center console. “I’m going to nurse him!”
She climbed from the car, taking the keys with her. I reached to the back, touching his hand. “It’s okay, Gray,” I told him, knowing it was mostly a lie. I had to make it okay, but I had no idea how. She opened the back door, reaching for him, and I shot out of the car and hurried to her side. “Kat, if you’re going to do this, we have to take care of him. He needs formula. He has to eat.”
She stalked past me, carrying my screaming child as every bit of my insides screamed for me to save him. But how? She led me up to the house and pulled a set of keys from her pocket, unlocking the door. I needed to get my phone back. I needed to call for help. I wouldn’t leave Gray with her.
She took him in the living room, the musty house so familiar, yet so different. Had I really been happy here once? With this woman who held such a darkness? I missed Palmer more than I could say. I ached for her, for her warmth, for her brain. She would know what to do, how to save our son.
I was not sure I could ever face her again, even after I got him out of this. Would she ever forgive me?
I followed her as she laid him on the couch. “I think he needs a diaper change.” She looked at me. “Can I trust you to stay here while I get a diaper?”
I swallowed. “Of course.”
She turned away from us, not looking entirely sure, and I heard her footsteps ascend the stairs in the hall. I scooped Gray up without a warning and darted from the living room, through the kitchen, and out the back door. I held him close to my chest as he screamed, running around the corner of the house.
I stopped in my tracks, staring at her as she cut me off, coming around the side of the house. She held a large shovel in her hands.
“You should’ve done what you promised, Ben.”
“What did I promise?”
“You promised to love me, to take care of me in sickness and in health. Then you left me.”
I swallowed, rubbing a hand over Gray’s back. “Kat, I’m…I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix this, Ben. It doesn’t fix me. I needed you. I needed you the most, and you walked away and started over with someone new. Someone better.”
“I didn’t know what to do, Kat. I was scared. I was terrified I was just making it worse for you—”
“And when I saw her at the hair appointment, I knew what she must think of me. I knew she believed she’d won, but I had to win. I had to win.”
“There’s nothing to win, Kat. Please, just let us go. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to hurt us. Please…” I took a step back, and she raised the shovel. “You don’t want this.”
“You should’ve just killed me when you had the chance,” she said, shaking her head with tears in her eyes.
“I don’t want to—”
“Put him down,” she screamed.
“I don’t—”
“Now, Ben. Before I hurt you both.”
I kissed Gray’s head, laying him down on the grass, and took a step toward Kat, ready to take the shovel from her. “Come on, now, let’s talk this th—”
I never got to finish my sentence because at that exact moment, she swung.
After that, there was only darkness.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben
When my eyes opened, there was only darkness. Darkness like I’d never seen before, with not a hint of light anywhere. A clump of something heavy and moist sat in my mouth. Gray? Where was Gray?
Panic.
What was happening?
Ice-cold fear flooded through my veins at lightning speed.
Where was I? What had happened? I tried to sit up, tried to shove myself free, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place, kept there by some invisible force. It was heavy and thick, a texture I didn’t recognize at first. I’d been placed inside of something. Under something. I couldn’t tell.
I inhaled, and the thick clump moved further down my throat. I couldn’t breathe. My body flailed and convulsed, trying to free itself as my mind went to a flash of bright light.
Was I going to die right then and there? In some unrecognizable place? Alone and cold? There didn’t seem to be any other options.
I panicked, trying to cough and struggle against the force holding me down. What is happening? What is happening? What is happening? I fought through the cobwebs of my nightmare-filled memory.
Finally, my hand wriggled free, moving through something thick and unrelenting to touch my face. At first it didn’t register what was happening. Where I was. How I’d gotten there. What I needed to do. Then, all at once, realization slammed into my chest. I realized where I was and what was happening. I knew who had put me there.
I knew I was going to die.
With as much force as I could muster, I shoved my hands upward, roaring through the mud in my mouth and throat. I fought through a thick layer of the moist, wet earth, and then my hands were free. Like a zombie from the grave, my hands tore through the earth to reach the fresh air above. Was my assailant still there?
I didn’t care. Couldn’t. I was free. I felt the cool night air on my skin as I pushed myself to sit up, coughing and spewing mucus-covered soil from my mouth.
I looked around me at the fresh dirt that was meant to be my grave. The night air was cool, and there were no stars in the sky. No light to be seen, and yet, still somehow the air was lighter than being underground. I stood up, dusting myself off. The dirt was caked into my teeth, my nails, my clothes, my hair. I was walking proof monsters existed. If I came upon me in the woods, I’d run.
I spit again, trying to free my mouth of the sour, bloody taste of the dirt, and brush the mud from my hair. Where was I? Which direction should I go?
I had no idea. No idea about any of it. No idea how I got there or where there was. I reached up and touched my scalp, then jerked my hand back in agonizing pain. When I pulled my hand away, warm, sticky blood coated my palm. Though I couldn’t see it clearly in the darkness, I knew what it was. I put my fingers to my scalp again, feeling the open wound just above my temple. A piece of skin hung over, so loose I could’ve pulled it off if it didn’t sting so badly.
I tried to take a step forward, but pain tore through my body, my nerves on high alert. What happened to me?
I ran my hands along my body, down my thigh, and realized it was just as painful, just as wet with blood, but from a different wound. I hobbled forward, brushing dirt from my eyes and mouth with every painful step. It hurt. It all burned and throbbed and ached. Every part of me. I couldn’t seem to remember anything, my mind a dark, foggy mess of fuzzy memories. What was real and what wasn’t? What had I done? What had led me to an early, yet ultimately ineffective grave?
Who tried to kill me?
The last thing I remembered was…her. I remembered the fight at the house in Red River. I remembered learning the truth about her, about how bad she’d gotten. I remembered confronting her, begging her to let us go. Remembered it all coming together for me at once. I remembered the pain, the shovel coming down on my head. I vaguely remembered another car ride, her singing to Gray as she buried me in the dirt. The shovel piercing my thigh as she broke through the dirt and into my skin.
Pain.
Physical and emotional. All of it. At the thought, lightning-sharp pain shot through me, and I hobbled and cried and gasped for air as my lungs worked to free the mud from my sticky throat. I bent over, my body rigid with pain and trepidation as I coughed, then winced, coughed then winced. Where was Gray? What had she done? What had I done?
I tasted blood then, and I wondered if it was coming from my head or somewhere else entirely. How else had I been hurt? What had I been through? It was coming back to me slowly, as if I were scraping mud from the memories right along with the rest of my body.
The woods were quiet all around me, but as I made it a bit further, I saw the first sign of light. The moon lit up the night sky above me, giving me glimpses of the forest around me.
The trees were thick, the earth foggy, and my head painful. So, so much pain. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t move. I should’ve looked over the gravesite closer for an explanation as to how I got there, but I had no way to see it and no desire to go back. Whoever put me there obviously believed I was dead, and I knew who it was. Her. I could see the memories more vividly now. I was sure they were real.
She’d had enough of me getting in her way, she realized I wasn’t going to go along with her insane plan, and she decided to end it. To end me. I was never what she wanted. It was always Gray. The replacement for the baby she’d lost. But she wasn’t going to do away with me so easily. I wasn’t going down without a fight. I would save my son if it was the last thing I did.
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