“You don’t sound too certain.”
“I—” Marcy stops herself. She hasn’t told Jill about Caroline’s condition. On the one hand, it feels like an awfully personal thing to discuss with someone. However, on the other hand, she’s asked several probing questions of Jill to try and uncover what’s going on with Mark, so it’s probably only fair that she engage in a little quid pro quo. “To be honest, Caroline is having some problems.”
Jill’s brow wrinkles with concern. “Is she okay?”
“Physically, yes. I guess. The doctor… He said she might have autism.” Jill gasps. Although there are many forms and degrees of autism and correlating prognoses, no mother wants for her child to be anything other than one hundred percent healthy and happy and successful. While Caroline could very well still have a full and wonderful life, even with some form of autism, it’s still nothing to take lightly.
“Oh…oh, God! I am so, so sorry.” She closes her eyes in empathy. “I can’t even imagine.”
“I didn’t see it coming. I don’t know if I just didn’t see the signs or if it just wasn’t obvious earlier, or if this is something else, some growth and development stage or something, and not autism at all. I don’t know. The only thing I know to do is keep trying. Giving up isn’t in me.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Every child needs a strong mother. And father.”
The last she adds almost as an afterthought. Marcy can’t tell if the intent behind it is that Mark is a strong father, or if she just wishes he was.
“John is a wonderful father. He’s great with her. Believe it or not, they interact better than Caroline and I do. I don’t know if it’s her age or a daddy’s girl thing, or if it’s just that his relaxed, easy way is comforting to her. I try to be more like that, but…” Marcy meets Jill’s eyes head on. “That’s hard with a personality like mine.”
Marcy is surprised when Jill slides down onto the floor and throws her arms around Marcy’s neck. “Stay strong. For both of you.”
Her voice sounds tearful, making Marcy doubly curious about the family life the Halperns live behind closed doors. “I will. I’d rather die than let anything happen to my baby. She’s my whole life.”
Jill pulls away, her eyes swimming in unshed tears. “I know the feeling.”
Marcy smiles a watery smile, and Jill does the same, and then both dissolve into friendly laughter. “I’m sure this doesn’t look crazy at all. Two grown women, sitting on the floor beside a make believe town, hugging and crying it out.”
“Anyone with kids or hormones wouldn’t bat an eye,” Jill says as she climbs back onto the couch.
“You’re probably right.”
Sniffing, Jill changes the subject. “So, what happened to your mailbox? I saw John installing the new one.”
Marcy waves a hand. “Probably dumb teenagers, playing dumb games. You know how they are.”
“I do. What did they do?”
“Smashed it up pretty bad.”
“Really? I’m just surprised something like that would happen in a neighborhood like this.”
“I admit I was a little shocked, too, but I’m sure that’s all it was.”
Jill doesn’t look comforted by Marcy’s weak certainty, but Marcy can’t help that. She can’t convey what she doesn’t feel herself. In fact, her suspicions run in the opposite direction, but she can’t really tell Jill about them. At least not yet. There may come a time, however, when they can be brutally honest with one another.
That day just isn’t today.
“I hope there isn’t a bad element around here anywhere.”
“I don’t think there is, but it’s smart to be cautious anyway, you know? I mean, we have children. Can’t be too careful when it comes to their safety.”
“Absolutely not.”
Jill rubs her palms on her thighs. It’s clear she has something else to say.
“You all right?”
“Well… I don’t know. Maybe it was just some fluke thing, but I woke up just after midnight last night and I thought I smelled something so I went downstairs. It got stronger the closer I got to the kitchen.”
“What was it?”
“The stove eye was on, but not lit. It was leaking natural gas into the kitchen. For a while, I imagine. For me to smell it upstairs.”
“You think someone just bumped it or something?”
“I’d like to think that, but it’s not possible. You have to push down and then turn the knob. It would have to be purposeful. But more than that…”
“What?” Marcy was becoming more and more alarmed as the tension in Jill’s body language mounted.
“I called someone from the gas company to come out and check the stove, just to be sure everything was working properly, and the guy discovered that the little line that comes into that eye was sliced.”
“Sliced?”
Jill nods. “Sliced.”
“How could that happen? I mean, surely he doesn’t think…doesn’t think…”
“That it was purposeful?” Jill shrugs. “I don’t know. He said it sure looked like it had been cut, but that it was always possible it had been a faulty line that just wore through right there.”
“Had he ever seen something like that before?”
“He said not.”
“But it is possible?”
“He said it was.”
“I take it you don’t feel like that’s what happened?”
Jill sighs, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t know. It’s just such an odd thing. That the knob was on and the line sliced? And with Mark gone… I don’t know. It’s suspicious, but I guess I’m just being paranoid.”
“I don’t like being here alone with Caroline either. My imagination tends to run away with me.”
“This wasn’t my imagination, though. And I was by myself. Sabrina took Cheyenne to visit my mom yesterday morning. They spent the night, so it was just me.”
“Were your doors locked?”
“Yes. I double check them before I turn out the lights at night.”
“So there was no way for someone to get in. It had to have been an accident.”
“I guess so.” But Jill doesn’t sound convinced. “At any rate, there’s no way I could prove otherwise, so I need to let it go.”
“That isn’t always easy, though.”
Jill’s laugh is bitter. “No, it isn’t.”
“You’re welcome to stay here until Mark gets back if you want to. We’d love to have you.”
“I appreciate that so much, but Cheyenne and Sabrina will be home in a couple of hours. And I’m sure this is just me being…me.”
Marcy winks at her. “I know what you’re saying. John is forever teasing me about my imagination.” Footsteps sound on the floor above their heads. Marcy points up. “She must be coming out of her shell to see ‘Carolina Acres’.”
Jill stands. “I’ll leave you two to it then.”
“You don’t have to run off.”
Jill’s smile is sweet and caring. “I don’t want to make it awkward for her. You can introduce us some time and we can take it slow. Whatever is best for her.”
Marcy’s head tips to the side. “I’m so glad you’re my neighbor.”
“I’m so glad, too.” Jill starts off across the living room. She turns back once to give Marcy a shaky smile then walks out the door.
After she’s gone, Marcy calls up to Caroline again. She hears some shuffling, but then it dies off and her daughter never appears at the foot of the stairs.
Marcy sighs heavily, tossing down the last plastic horse that she’d been holding in her hand.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I dropped my hand from the woman. Something cold brushed the ridge of my hand. A sick knot formed in the center of my chest. I turned my palm down and felt for the object with my fingers.
Long, cold, smooth. I didn’t have to feel all the way down to the hilt to know what it was. It was a knife. One with a wickedly curved blade.
<
br /> Bile rose up. Burned the back of my raw, dry throat.
I pushed it down.
I was supposed to kill this woman.
I knew I couldn’t.
I couldn’t kill anyone, for any reason. I just didn’t have it in me.
But if I didn’t…
I stopped myself before finishing that thought.
I let my head fall onto my forearm. Took several deep breaths. Willed the nausea to pass.
Unbidden, the sound of my son’s voice darted through my head again. Him, screaming. Screaming for me.
This time, I wasn’t fast enough to catch it. Bile bum rushed my esophagus. It was out of my mouth and dribbling onto the woman’s arm before I could stop it.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My eyes were on fire. Hot pokers jammed into each one. So much pressure, it felt like they were bulging out of my head.
I squeezed my eyelids shut. It was equally dark, but at least it eased the burning a little.
In the dark, I sobbed quietly. Tearlessly.
My chest ached, my jaw throbbed. My fingers drew into fists, the points of my nails digging into my palms. My skin stung. I dug harder. The pain was nothing compared to what I felt in my soul, but it kept me from getting lost in the hell of my thoughts. I couldn’t afford to spend much time there. Like this prison, I might never escape if I wasn’t careful.
I raised my head. Took another deep breath. Reached for the woman’s arm. I worked my way to her shoulder. Shook it. First gently, then with more force. She moved easily. Bonelessly, like a rag doll. There was no resistance in her. Whatever she’d been given had knocked her out. Hard.
Maybe that was a form of mercy on our kidnapper’s part—that she would have no idea what was coming. She’d feel no fear, no pain.
Or maybe he just didn’t want her to put up a fight. Maybe he just wanted her dead. End of story.
I tried not to think of why he wanted me to do it. Me. He had every opportunity to do it. With her in this condition, she can’t fight back. Can’t even protest. So why? Why me?
Logic told me he was setting me up. It was the only thing that made sense. That gave me another reason not to kill this woman.
I shook her again.
A high-pitched squeal split the air. An axe that hacked through my eardrums. Sharp. Brutal.
I slapped both hands over my ears. Drew my legs up. Tucked into the fetal position. Waited.
The noise didn’t stop. It went on and on. Endless. Excruciating.
I started to scream. To blot out the siren. To beg for mercy. I wasn’t sure which. I just knew I couldn’t take much more. The absolute absence of sensation made the presence of any sensation alarming. And agonizing. In the time I’d been there—days, weeks, a lifetime—I’d become like a deep-sea fish, or a cave dwelling creature, so deprived of normal stimulus that when it came, it was almost crippling.
The sound stopped. Just as suddenly as it had begun.
Tension left my arms and legs in a rush. Left me exhausted. A wet noodle.
The silence that followed was almost as painful, but in a different way. It was as deafening as the siren itself. My ears rang. Buzzed. Rebelled. And because of that, I nearly missed the first few whimpers as they dribbled into the room.
There was some sort of speaker system. It crackled and cut in and out like when a mic is held too close to the source of the sound.
But then I heard a soft plea. The voice laced with anguish. Despair. Confusion.
I could hear it all, because I knew the voice. Knew it as well as my own.
“MommyMommyMommy!”
I bolted upright. Spun into a crouch. Cocked my head to the side. Listened. Reached beyond the ringing.
“Dalton?”
Seconds passed. Long, miserably dark, painfully tense seconds. And then a blood-curdling scream.
“Mommy, pleeease!”
Chills shot down my arms. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. My abdominals trembled in panic. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Every nerve sprang into startled awareness.
I was a mama bear, poked. Her cub threatened. I was ready to fight, to kill, to protect
But all that for nothing. It was pitch black. And I was chained. And my son was nowhere in sight. I knew he wasn’t in the room with me. His body was elsewhere. Only his voice, his terror was with me. Piped in like some sort of toxin. It ate away at my sanity. Stripped away everything except desperation. It unhinged me.
The sound of Dalton’s crying softened. Muffled. I pictured a hand clamping down over his mouth. Fingers spreading over his tear-stained cheeks.
Rage and a fear like I’d never experienced exploded in my chest. Ripped a feral sound from my throat. Sent a shiver down my own spine.
“Leave him alone!”
My breath was coming in deep, thick pants. I stood. I paced back and forth. I prayed for that door to open again. For another chance with our captor. I would charge him. I knew I would. With all the fury burning with in me, I would charge him without giving it a second thought. It might tear my arms off, but I would do everything in my power to get to him. And then I would fight.
I would bite—his nose, his cheek, his throat. Anything I could get my mouth on. I would kick—his legs, his stomach, his balls. Whatever I could reach. I would fight him with every ounce of my strength. I would give my son precious seconds to get free. I would tell him to run. And when he did, I would either kill the man responsible for all this or die trying. I would happily give my life to give my son a chance to live his. To be free.
But the door never opened. Just another crackle of the mic, followed by that deep, strangely- modulated voice.
“Kill her or I kill him. You have five minutes.”
My heart slammed into my ribs. Stampeded its cage.
“Noooo!” I raged.
Then I heard Dalton scream. Heard a gasping-gurgling sound that made my heart skip a beat.
Oh, Lord God, he was choking my son.
I listened. Didn’t move.
I was paralyzed. Horrified. Dying on the inside.
Then I heard two short words—“Five minutes”—followed by a thump and then…nothing.
The buzzing I hadn’t even been aware of stopped. The microphone had been turned off.
He was finished.
Done.
His ultimatum had been issued. He’d done what he thought he could do to force my hand.
And as I paced back and forth, pulling at my hair, digging my fingernails into the skin of my forearms, I knew he had won.
I screamed some more. I begged some more. I cried some more. I made my objections known until my vocal cords wouldn’t make another sound. I was greeted with only silence. And the thunderous echo of his last words—five minutes.
Five minutes.
Five minutes.
With an imaginary clock ticking away the last few seconds, I dropped to my knees. Felt for the knife. Gripped it in shaking fingers.
And I plunged it into the woman’s chest.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It’s just past lunch on a dreary Tuesday. Marcy is considering a nap when she passes the kitchen window and a swatch of red catches her eye. She leans in to get a better look at the neighbor’s yard. The flash of color is Jill Halpern, wrapped in a red raincoat, carrying a shovel and a black garbage bag to the back of their property. There are several trees there, but no real landscaping back there. What the hell could she possibly be doing with a shovel and a garbage bag, out in the rain?
She watches her for a couple of minutes, noting the way she swipes the back of one gloved hand over her cheeks, both left and right.
Jill stops in the back corner of her yard, drops the bag, and grips the shovel. With Marcy looking on, Jill raises one booted foot—nicely booted, too, not like galoshes—and presses the tip of the shovel into the ground. She cuts through and removes nine hunks of earth, stopping between every third one to wipe her face again. Marcy doesn’t think she’s wiping rain,
but tears. That’s when she decides to don her own weather gear and go see what her mousey neighbor is up to.
“Caroline, I’ll be right back. Stay in your room,” Marcy calls up the stairs before darting out through the side door.
It’s a useless effort—Caroline likely wouldn’t leave her room if Marcy was set on fire in the front yard—but it makes her feel better for saying it. If nothing else, just so her daughter will know she’s alone in the house.
Rain splatters Marcy’s cheeks the moment she steps out from under the small roof over the side porch. Well, porch is generous. It’s more like a four-by-four slab of concrete with a peak of wood overhead. The moisture on her face gives her pause, but not for long. Whether Jill is crying or not, Marcy still must find out what she’s up to. This is the kind of behavior that’s too strange not to question.
Marcy’s boots are soft and silent in the wet grass, so Jill doesn’t hear her approach. When Jill doesn’t turn around, Marcy decides to clear her throat to announce her presence. The last thing she wants is to startle her neighbor and end up with a shovel planted on the side of her head. “Jill, is everything all right?”
When Jill turns to face her, Marcy can see she was spot on with the tears. Jill’s face is ravaged. Her nose is bright red, her cheeks are stained with smeared streaks of mascara, and her eyes are bloodshot and ringed with spiky, wet lashes. “No, I’m not.”
She starts to cry in earnest, dropping the shovel and burying her face in her hands. Marcy reacts, wrapping her arms around her neighbor and crooning into her hair. Her maternal instincts are always just a tear or scream away from bursting into action.
“What happened? What is it?”
Jill shakes her head. “It’s just…it’s just so awful.”
“It’s okay. You can tell me.” When Jill doesn’t respond, Marcy pulls away and angles her head to look into Jill’s downcast face. “Why don’t you come over? We can go inside and dry off. I’ll make us some hot tea. Unless you need something a little stronger.”
“I-I can’t. I have to…to…” She starts to cry again, hiccupping gulps that tug at Marcy’s heartstrings. She sounds as though she’s mourning a terrible loss, and Marcy wonders for a few seconds if something has happened to either Mark or her daughter. Or maybe a parent.
Right Next Door Page 12