Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
MONDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 11
I awoke thinking about Tasha and Tim. There was no way I could stay at Tim’s apartment now. I blinked away the moisture in my eyes. I would not cry over Tim. He wasn’t worth it. I felt more betrayed by Tasha, but I couldn’t think about her either. I needed a roof over my head. I could move back home if I had an alarm system. My brain was hazy from last night’s double dose of Xanax, but I managed to get my sluggish limbs to dislodge the plush blankets and climb out of the bed. I stumbled out of the hotel room and into the elevator. Wobbling my way into the lobby, I left my key card on the front desk without even pausing, just calling over my shoulder, “Checking out of room 221. Thanks.”
As the valet pulled my car in front of the hotel, I realized not only was I in the same clothes as the day before but I’d not even brushed my hair or teeth. Having no money for a tip, I smiled apologetically at the valet as he handed me my car keys.
Angling the Honda off Main Street and onto Route 22, I headed south toward the nearest strip mall with a Best Buy. I’d find the most effective, easiest-to-install surveillance system on the market. The hundreds of dollars I’d already charged on Tim’s “emergency” card had covered my emotional emergency. Now I had to keep myself physically protected. I thought of the commercials I’d seen on daytime television touting the simplicity and easy setup of today’s alarm systems. I wouldn’t need a locksmith for the job. I could install one myself. As soon as it was properly in place, I’d drive to Tim’s with the divorce papers. I’d hand them over only if he’d surrender Emmy.
I took a shaky breath. Things weren’t going to work out with Tim, but maybe I could have Emmy in her room as early as this evening.
* * *
The alarm-system components were spread out on the living room floor beside me as I read the assembly instructions. The doorbell buzzed, jolting the quiet room. Has to be Mary . I sighed. I was in no mood for a confrontation, but I knew she’d stand on the other side of that damn door all day if I didn’t get rid of her. I stood, stretching my kinked neck to the left, to the right, my ears nearly touching each shoulder.
My joints snapped uncomfortably back into place as I walked to the front door, my body protesting the sudden shift from the awkward sprawl on the floor to upright, forward motion. The doorknob rattled. Someone was trying to open my door.
Mary never did that.
I paused, picturing an unknown man in dark clothes standing on my stoop. Coming for me. My heart clanged at the possibility. I looked back at the alarm system, metal and plastic pieces of all shapes and sizes scattered across the floor. A sudden, intense pounding on the front door made me jump.
“Open up, Caroline. I know you’re in there.”
Expelling a shaky breath of relief, I pulled the knob toward me and peered through the crack made between the door and jamb, flinching at the furious expression on Tim’s face.
“What are you doing here?” I looked him up and down, noticing he wasn’t holding the baby in her car seat. “Where’s Emmy?”
“What have you done now, Caroline?” he thundered.
He must have discovered the latest charges on the emergency credit card.
“Look, I can explain.”
“Oh, I think you’ve said enough for one day.” He shoved the door open with his left forearm. With his other hand, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him.
“Hey, what is this? What are you doing?”
“You’re coming with me,” he said, his voice steely.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until I see Emmy.”
“I’m bringing you to her now.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” If he’d let me have Emmy early, I’d follow wherever he led, no matter how angry he appeared.
“You beat all, you know that?” he yelled, marching me across the front yard. “Telling Nelson that Tasha and I are having an affair.” He opened the front passenger door of the Impala and shoved me in, slamming the door after me.
I vaguely recalled a man’s strangled voice emanating from my cell phone speaker, asking me what I was talking about. Had I phoned Nelson from the hotel after I’d taken my pills? Reported his wife’s misdeeds? My face infused with red; my chest tightened as a thought—or was it a memory?—came to me: why would Tasha risk her life with her handsome, successful husband to sign on for an existence of money-grubbing and penny-pinching with Tim? He swung the driver’s-side door viciously open, glaring at me as he got in.
“You are having an affair with Tasha Turner, I saw you,” I said, the truth hitting me all over again. Like a gut punch to the solar plexus. Making breathing impossible. “And there’s Muzzy, too. You were just with her?—”
“Muzzy?” He settled behind the wheel and looked at me, unfiltered disgust in his eyes, reminding me of the time he’d stepped on a water bug in a pizza parlor we’d been lunching in, years earlier. He’d had the same look on his face then, wiping his sneaker against the floor to dislodge the guts. “What the hell are you talking about? Muzzy Owen moved away months ago. Her husband got transferred.” He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb with a screech.
“Moved away?” For an instant, the world went gray, and I forgot to breathe. I blinked and stared at Tim, thankful when the mist cleared, colors and shapes pixelating back into my husband. “That can’t be true.” But as I recalled her empty yard, the off-kilter trampoline, I knew it was. I swallowed, my throat raw. It felt as though Tim had just told me someone dear to me had died. And, in a way, he had. My relationship with Muzzy had lived out its life cycle and now I’d never get the chance to tell her how sorry I was for helplessly looking on as Brandon floated half-dead in the pond. All my plotting to win back her trust—all my useless lingering in front of her former house—had been in vain.
“Oh, it’s true, and I’m sure she couldn’t wait to get out of this town, and away from you.”
I stared at Tim’s profile as he drove, his lips turned down in a mean frown, a rhythmic bulge along his jaw as he gnashed his teeth.
“You’re awfully judgmental for a cheater,” I said, my cold tone betraying a sudden hatred for the man who was my husband. “Are you going to deny it?”
He blew out a breath. “I don’t know how you come up with this crap, Caroline. Do you stay up nights devising ways to torture me?”
“Stay up nights torturing you ?” My brows shot up. “Let me tell you something, buddy, I never sleep, and you’re the reason why. You left us, and now you’re seeing all these women, even Tasha Turner—I heard what you said to her last night.”
“Bullshit.” He spared me a quick glance before looking back at the road. A part of my brain realized he was driving too fast. He could easily lose control of the car. Was that his plan? To end us in a fiery car crash now that he’d been exposed? I couldn’t let that happen. We couldn’t leave Emmy an orphan.
“Oh yeah, was it bullshit that the two of you were in the parking lot talking about—look out!” I closed my eyes, preparing for impact with the shaggy black dog who’d ventured onto the street, directly into our path.
Tim veered the Impala violently to the left, into the other lane, which was, thankfully, devoid of cars. As my arm smashed up against his, I popped my eyes open, noting that we’d missed the mutt by mere inches. I could feel my pulse pattering along the surface of my skin all up and down my arms.
“Not another word from you, Caroline,” he growled. “I’ve got to focus on the road.”
You said it!
When he pulled into the church parking lot, I stared at the sign out front: “Spots still available for Creative Kids Day Care.” He’d signed Emmy up for day care without consulting me? Did he think I was unable to provide our daughter with adequate care? I opened my mouth to ask, but he was already pushing me out of the car.
“Don’t manhandle me,” I snapped. “And what is all this?” I pointed to the day-care sign at the front of the church.
“Just come with me,” he said, pulling me along so we were walking parallel to the church on our left and a cemetery on our right.
I dug my heels in. “Where are you taking me? I want Emmy.”
Tim didn’t say anything, just kept dragging me along. I’d hardly ever seen him so angry. We neared the building and I tried to stop, but Tim kept walking, yanking me forward.
“I have to do this, Caroline. It’s the only way,” he said, conviction layering over his angry tone. “You’ve given me no other option.”
We walked on, now only the cemetery to our right and a deeply wooded area directly in front of us. Was he taking me into the woods? To do the thing he had to do?
I stumbled as if my feet had instantly grown two sizes larger, preventing me from walking properly. Mary’s account of a man searching through my dark house the other night cycled through my mind in a terrifying loop. What if the intruder was Tim? He could have taken the nail fragment. The only thing he’d need. The proof of his crime.
I froze, recalling how odd it had been to see Tim at 21 Pine Hill Road. He would have no business being there if his friend Ray Connolly no longer owned the house. It hit me: He needed to get rid of me. I’d seen too much, was making too many damning connections, like the thought that now popped into my head: what if my husband’s friend on Pine Hill was never Ray? What if his real friend—his girlfriend— was Annie Connolly? Maybe he’d been seeing her before Tasha. My brain spun with this new possibility. And if it were true that she had disappeared or had been killed, and Tim was behind the murder, what did that mean for me?
I looked desperately around the deserted area, at the church and administrative facility behind me. Just my luck—nobody entering or leaving either building. I looked ahead of us, at the giant oaks in full leaf and the dense shades of gray and black behind them, realizing too late that he never intended to let me say goodbye to my daughter. He probably had a shallow grave already dug way back in the forest.
“I want to see Emmy!” I dug my heels in and screamed, hoping my frantic tone would distract him or alert anyone within hearing distance to the fact I was in danger. “Please, please, just let me see my baby.”
Tim suddenly halted and grasped my other forearm as well. He stood directly in front of me, very close, holding my arms so tightly I feared bruises. He looked me straight in the eyes, his own cold and dark as coal chips. “It’s time, Caroline.”
“Time for what?” I tried to step away, but he clung tightly to me.
“Time to see the baby.”
I blinked, looking around, not understanding.
“What are you playing at?” I demanded as he pulled me down, knocking us both onto our knees. He turned his head and so did I, following his gaze. We were directly in front of one of the headstones in the small cemetery, a tiny one with an angel poised for flight atop the polished marble. I read the inscription:
Emily “Emmy” Case
Aged six months, six days
Our Angel
I felt a catch in my throat and a sudden pounding in my temples. The words made no sense. Another baby with our child’s name had died. So sad! I read the date of her birth, the same as Emmy’s. How strange. A weight pressed against my chest, overwhelming my ability to draw a breath, as I read the date of the child’s death.
“Why did you bring me here, Tim? Dragging me to this, this... loathsome thing. The headstone of a child who died... just three days ago? Of all the warped, sick...”
But he ignored me, just stared at the grave. I reared back, terrified, desperate to put space between us, but unable to take my gaze off him. He was so still, his stare so intense.
As I watched this stranger whom I’d married, trying to understand what was happening, I thought about his flirty gestures the day we’d met at the food store all those years earlier. I recalled the wonder and joy in his eyes the first time he’d held newborn Emmy. A small corner of my mind registered that this was no joke, no accusation, or even vindication. A deathly cold swept through me. Oh my God. That’s why he didn’t answer my calls. Emmy had died while in his care. I tried to yell but my voice came out as a whisper. “You killed her. You killed our baby.”
He suddenly looked at me, leaned back on his haunches until he was squatting beside me. “I didn’t kill her, Caroline.”
“But she’s...” Emmy, no! No! Please, no! “I just left her with you and now she’s...”
“Emmy’s been gone for three years,” he said, staring as though the force of his gaze could convince me. “You know this.”
I looked back at the headstone, at the date. September 8. But that wasn’t three years ago, it was three days ago. How could this be? With no funeral? How could they get a headstone carved and placed so soon? It made absolutely no sense.
“This is the wrong person, Tim, don’t you see? There’d be no time...”
He continued to stare. His eyes looked dead. “There is no mistake, Caroline.”
“No, this is wrong, all wrong!” It had to be. My Emmy, my baby was under my loving care. I always, always put her needs first. She was my reason—my only reason—for living. I stood swiftly—and just as rapidly teetered as the world spun around me and crashed, sending my body reeling to the ground, my face smashed into the grass. Emmy gone, impossibly lost...?
I closed my eyes, pleading with God to stop the beating of my own heart. “Take me,” I whispered. “Take me too.”