Right Next Door

by Leah Montgomery

  “You have to what? Tell me and I’ll help however I can.”

  “I have to bury my cat.”

  Marcy glances down at the trash bag. Now she can see a small lump in the bottom of it, and her throat constricts. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  “S-someone killed her.” Jill covers her face with her hands and wails.

  Marcy gasps. “Killed her? Are you…are you sure?”

  Jill lowers her hands and meets Marcy’s eyes. Hers are filled with misery and pain. She nods. “Yes.”

  “Could it have been an accident? I’d say—”

  “No!” Jill snaps, her brown eyes flashing with a sudden burst of anger. “This was no accident.”

  Marcy clutches her throat with one hand, as though it might ease the tightness there. She doesn’t ask how Jill knows this. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t need help with gruesome visions. They’ve already begun to ply her mind in a rapid assault. “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I…I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Who would do that? What kind of monster could do something like that to an innocent animal?”

  Marcy’s stomach lurches. She closes her eyes against bloody images, but they’re still there, playing against the backs of her lids. “I don’t know. There shouldn’t be anyone around here who would…who would…” Marcy’s voice trails off. There shouldn’t be anyone in their neighborhood who would do such a thing, but Marcy can think of one person who might. She has no name, no address, and no gender even, but she knows there’s an anonymous person out there somewhere who has a score to settle. And that person knows roughly where the Halperns live.

  “That’s what I thought, too, but clearly I was wrong. First your mailbox. Then the gas leak. Now my cat. What the hell is going on around here?”

  Marcy doesn’t mention the menacing texts Jill said she’d gotten, nor does she ask any questions about Mark. Now isn’t the time, so she just shakes her head helplessly instead. “Maybe you should call the police.”

  “I already did. I got a very polite blow-off.”

  “Really?” Jill nods. “I guess they don’t really specialize in crimes like this.”

  “I guess not. So now I have to bury my cat.”

  “Is this something you should be doing? Can’t Mark take your cat to a crematorium? I know they have those.”

  “Mark is gone. Again. As usual.” Her tone is bitter enough to tinge the air around them with acid.

  “Maybe when he gets back?”

  “Who knows when that will be?”

  She doesn’t even know when her husband is coming home? Doesn’t he tell her?

  Marcy finds that quite curious, but keeps it to herself. “Well, why don’t you at least wait until the rain stops then I’ll help you? We can find a place to take her—is it a her?—and go together.”

  Jill’s large, wounded eyes melt into Marcy’s. “You’d do that?”

  Gently, Marcy’s lips curve. “Of course. That’s what neighbors do.”

  “Hopefully not very often.”

  “Hopefully never again.”

  They both smile, Jill’s watery, Marcy’s grim.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of the rain.” Marcy slides an arm around Jill’s shoulders and grabs the ties of the garbage bag with her free hand. The weight of it turns her stomach, but she carries it so Jill doesn’t have to. She leads the other woman to the side door and into the kitchen, leaving the bag on the stoop. Marcy is suddenly thankful for that little roof. It provides just enough dryness for the dead cat.

  Jill toes off her boots onto the rug by the door, and walks stiffly to the island. She pulls out a chair and plunks down, staring at the granite as though her heart is as dark and cold as the rock slab.

  “Chamomile okay?”

  Jill nods. “Anything is fine.”

  “Chamomile it is.”

  Marcy fills the kettle and sets it on the stove to boil. When she turns to get mugs from the cabinet, Jill is crying again. “How could someone kill my cat? What kind of monster would do that?”

  Unfortunately, Caroline chooses that exact moment to make an impromptu trip to the kitchen. When she sees Jill’s head down as she cries, she stops as though she hit a brick wall. Caroline is as uncomfortable with displays of emotion as she is with physical contact.

  Her already pale face turns a shade lighter, and she makes a slow, awkward pivot to retreat. Marcy is torn between the sobbing Jill and her daughter, but only for a few moments. Seconds later, she mutters a quick “Excuse me” and makes her way after her child.

  Caroline is already halfway up the stairs when Marcy stops her. “Caroline, wait.”

  Her short legs stop on the third step. She doesn’t turn to face Marcy. She doesn’t speak or make a sound. She just stands there, obediently. For the most part, she usually obeys without question. It’s only when she’s upset that she becomes hard to manage. Marcy half expected resistance this time, but she doesn’t get it. If anything, when she climbs past her daughter and looks down into her face, she finds the same blank screen she sees more and more often of late.

  “Are you okay?”

  Caroline doesn’t respond.

  It’s when her arm twitches up toward her face and stops that Marcy sees the tear. A single tear is crawling down one porcelain cheek. Marcy wants to wipe it with everything that’s in her, but she refrains. She curls her fingers into loose fists to resist the urge. It isn’t easy for a mother not to comfort her child, but in some cases, it’s necessary.

  “Did you overhear us talking?” No response, but it isn’t hard to figure out that she did. “Don’t be sad about her cat, sweetheart. Sometimes sad things happen, but we don’t have to let them make us sad. You can still be happy about your dolls and your toys and your waffles. Do you understand?”

  Again, Caroline says nothing. Marcy is well aware that the concept might be beyond that which a nearly five year old can understand or employ, but she doesn’t know what else to say. Normally, she would draw her into her arms and stroke her hair, hold her while she cries, but she can’t do that anymore. Caroline won’t let her. So in the absence of that, there are only words. And sometimes words fall short of the profundity of actions.

  This is one of those times.

  Marcy doesn’t know the words to use to convey the comfort she wants to extend to her child. In this way, like so many others, Marcy feels inadequate, unprepared for Caroline’s disability.

  “Don’t cry, Caroline. It’s okay. Everything is okay. I promise.”

  “No.”

  The word, the one single word, takes Marcy by surprise. “No?”

  The dark eyes Caroline raise to Marcy are full of pain, so much so it breaks Marcy’s heart. She shakes her head once, violently.

  “Yes, honey, they will. Everything is okay. It always will be. I’ll make sure of it.”

  It’s clear that her assurances mean less than nothing to Caroline, so when Caroline moves to walk around, Marcy lets her go. She has no idea what to do, what to say, or how to make this all right for her little girl. How could she be so reckless in bringing Jill into their home after such a tragedy has taken place? Especially with a child in the house.

  Marcy berates herself as she heads back down the stairs and toward the kitchen. The kettle whistle is squealing, but the chair where Jill sat is empty. On the island is a note.

  I’m taking her to be cremated. Thank you for your kindness. I hope your daughter is okay.

  When Marcy checks the small side stoop, she finds it empty. She steps outside, out into the rain, hoping to catch sight of Jill, but the neighborhood is quiet.

  Just before she ducks back in her house, a shiver snakes its way down Marcy’s spine. She feels eyes on her. Menacing eyes. She checks the windows in the Halpern house. The curtains are still, no shadows to be seen.

  A loud roar has Marcy whipping her head toward the street. A dark sedan guns its way out of sight. Marcy watches it go. She recognizes the taillights. She’s seen them befo
re. Leaving her street, just like they are now.

  Marcy stares at the bend in the road, the last place she sees the car before it disappears. As she turns to go back into the house, she knows she was right.

  Someone is definitely watching.

  But watching whom?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I woke with no idea how long I’d been asleep. Or even how I’d gotten to sleep. Normal people wouldn’t be able to sleep under such circumstances.

  But I wasn’t normal. Not anymore.

  I was a murderer.

  I rolled onto my side. Remembered.

  I’d stayed at the woman’s side as life seeped out of her. I couldn’t see, but I knew the moment she died. The alone was heavier, deeper, more consuming than it had been before. Like tar, thick and sticky. Clinging. Inescapable.

  I couldn’t be sure the woman ever woke enough to know she was dying, but I suspected she did. She made the most gut-wrenching sounds. For hours it seemed, I’d listened to gurgles and sputters of blood. Bubbling around her ball gag. Hissing from her nose.

  I’d never stabbed someone before, so I had no idea what I might’ve hit. But by the sound of it, I guessed a lung. I hadn’t meant to. But even if I had, it was pitch black; aim wouldn’t have mattered. And besides that, I was crazed. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do it at all.

  I finally understood temporary insanity. That’s what I’d suffered from. I’d had no intention of going through with it. With killing another human being. Yet I had. But not me. Not really. The person who did this was acting on impulse. Violent, visceral, maternal impulse. I’d heard the sound of my son being strangled and…and… I reacted.

  Part of me had hoped I’d struck a major artery and that her end would come quick. No suffering. But another part of me had hoped it wasn’t anything major and that she would survive. Live to see another day. Or, if not, at least not die by my hand. I thought it seemed like a much better punishment that, if she had to die, our kidnapper be forced to do the dirty work rather than blackmail an innocent bystander into doing it.

  But in my heart, I’d known it wouldn’t work out that way. People who were going to be okay didn’t make sounds like she made. Not only that, but sometime after I’d done the deed, the warm kiss of her blood on the skin of my bare calf assured me she wasn’t going to survive. The pool of it had spread, and spread quickly. That kind of bloodloss was surely fatal. At least without medical treatment. And fast. But as far as I could tell, she wasn’t going to be getting that.

  As I shook off sleep, the room was quiet. Again. As quiet as it was before she arrived. As quiet as it was when there was only one living person in it.

  Me.

  She was gone. I’d done what the bastard holding my son had wanted me to do. I had ended her life. No two ways about it.

  Despite the dismal dread that weighed down my limbs, I rolled onto my side and reached out. I had to say something. To speak words over the lifeless body of a woman I never knew. I owed her that.

  My fingers touched air. Nothing more.

  I couldn’t feel the body.

  Maybe I’d shifted in my sleep.

  I tried to get up, to move around and search for her. But I could hardly lever myself up onto an elbow. I was spent. Done in.

  He’d done me in.

  That thought brought on a burst of anger. Rebellious resistance. I wouldn’t let him do me in until he plunged a knife into my lung.

  I rallied. Pushed past the lethargy. Rolled onto my hands and knees. Shuffled around to find a dead body.

  After a couple of minutes, I stuck my hand in something sticky.

  Blood.

  Innocent blood I’d spilled.

  I’d done it to save my son, but that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to make me a monster.

  I was a killer.

  A murderess.

  Plain and simple.

  I let my head hang down. Pressed my palm into the tacky pool. Who were you? I tried to ask, but only a broken whisper made its way into the blackness.

  I made myself keep going. Followed the river of bodily fluid upstream. To its source.

  When I reached the densest part, an accumulation the size of a tractor tire, my fingers caught the edge of a piece of material.

  I scooted, tugged. Felt along the limb until I could identify it as a leg. A bent leg. A bent leg that was a couple of feet beyond the majority of the blood that had been spilled.

  I smothered a gasp, squelched a shudder when I realized she’d moved. The woman had, in fact, been conscious. For how long, I didn’t know. Couldn’t even speculate, but she’d been awake long enough to know she’d been stabbed. And she’d tried to escape her attacker.

  Me.

  She’d tried to escape me.

  I dropped my forehead onto her knee. Cried more dry tears. Then I shuffled along the edge of her body. I didn’t care that I was going to be covered in her blood. On the inside, I already was. It was on my hands. On my heart. On my soul.

  When I reached her torso, I stopped.

  I stretched out a hand. It shook. Violently. I aimed it at her chest. Startled when I bumped the knife.

  It was still in her. Lodged between her ribs. I’d plunged it in and then stopped. I hadn’t intended to do that any more than I’d intended to stab her in the first place. I knew I couldn’t leave it that way, though. It was too…barbaric.

  As I wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the knife, I knew I’d never forget that moment. That feeling. Indescribably awful.

  I pulled. The knife didn’t move. I pulled harder. It still didn’t move.

  The blade was in there. Wedged.

  I put one hand on her shoulder and pulled harder. Changed the angle, pulled again. When it came out, it knocked me off balance. The knife clattered to the floor. I didn’t go after it. I was too distracted by the blood oozing out around my fingers.

  I pressed. Like stopping the last few drops from being spilled might matter. I held pressure on her wound. Prayed over her. Tried not to focus on the kind of hypocrite it made me to pray to God over the body of someone I’d murdered. It might’ve been laughable if it hadn’t been so unbelievably not funny.

  I prayed for her soul, that it be shown mercy no matter what kind of life she’d lived. At that moment, I could only think of one person who deserved to die in such a way. He was somewhere with my son. Probably waiting for me to crack like an egg.

  I prayed for her family, for whomever she’d left behind—devastated husband, heartbroken child, grief stricken mother, inconsolable father. I prayed for her siblings, her friends, those who would miss her smile and never have the chance to make amends for wrongs done.

  Then, selfishly, I prayed for my own family—my son who may or may not be alive, my husband who may or may not know I’d been taken. I prayed for my parents and my sister. I prayed for anyone who cared anything about me, that they find peace and comfort after my death.

  Because I knew I would die.

  I was losing time. Having trouble remembering things. Even important things, like the way Gabe’s eyes sparkled when he laughed or the way Dalton’s hair glistened in the sun.

  I felt confused. Foggy. I knew I couldn’t survive much longer. Not without water. Not in such heat. Not having cried and puked like I had. I’d only had to pee once. Thankfully, my chains reached as far as the drain in the floor. I did my best to aim for that.

  After what I’d done, though, I deserved to die. I wasn’t afraid of death; I just didn’t want to leave my child without a mother. But no mother was probably better than a convicted murderer. And that was what I’d be. Forever. It was a stain that would never go away. Dalton deserved better than that. So did Gabe for that matter.

  My chest ached with my thoughts. A month ago, I was a happy, successful woman. Wife of a wonderful man, mother of a wonderful son. We had plans to start trying for another baby this summer. That wasn’t likely to happen. I was near the end. The end of me, the end of my marriage. The end o
f the dreams Gabe and I shared. The end of the milestones I’d get to see Dalton reach. But I didn’t deserve any of that anymore. I didn’t deserve a happy ending. Hell, even death was too good for someone like me.

  Something hurting above my eye woke me. Had I slept? Again?

  I pushed away from whatever I was lying on. It was cold and stiff.

  It was the body.

  I’d passed out. Fallen over onto her. My forehead was resting on her chest. One of the buttons of her blouse was poking into my forehead, just above my eye.

  I didn’t know how long it took for a body to start getting rigor mortis, but she was fairly warm and still flexible when I’d prayed over her. Whatever had happened had been long enough for her condition to change.

  I fell back onto my hands. Was about to crab-crawl back to a spot that wasn’t coated with her blood when a blinding light flicked on. Like before, it was so bright it was painful. I doubted it would hurt any more if someone hit me in the head with an ice pick.

  My eyes burned. Tried to tear. Couldn’t. Fortunately, that made it easier to see once my pupils got somewhat adjusted to the light.

  I stared.

  Blinked.

  Stared some more.

  Instantly, I wished I hadn’t. Wished I couldn’t see. Wished for the dark. For the blackness to come back and hold all my secrets.

  But I did see.

  Lying less than a foot from me, in a caramel colored suit stained dark red with dried blood, was the body of the woman I’d killed. Even with a ball gag stuffed ruthlessly into her mouth, I recognized her beautiful face.

  It was Lauren Sanders.

  I’d stabbed and killed my best friend in the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It’s been two days since that rainy afternoon when Jill Halpern was about to dig a grave in her back yard. From the moment she walked back inside her kitchen that day, Marcy hasn’t been able to shake an uneasy feeling. She still feels as though there’s someone watching, but even more, she feels like someone is preying.