Chapter 21 Katie Morrow
Katie Morrow
Katie woke up in the middle of the night and reached for Mark. His side of the bed was empty, and she sat upright and listened. Their bathroom was dark, no light coming from underneath his toilet stall. She called his name and waited.
One side of their bedroom was all floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the backyard.
The blackout curtains in front of them were all closed, keeping the bedroom dark, save for the pale-blue light from the fish tank inset in the far left wall.
The tank had been an anniversary present from Willow and was over seven hundred gallons.
It stretched over fourteen feet across and five feet deep, and was a rainbow of exotic corals and structures, including a sunken ship and various treasure chests.
During their marriage, Willow had supplemented the tank on every holiday and birthday, her gifts ranging from a rare eel to a monitor system that measured pH, salinity, temperature, and nitrate levels.
That beauty of a gift meant that his phone chimed at inopportune times with alerts from the system’s app.
Katie hated that stupid app almost as much as she hated the fucking aquarium.
For one, it required its own technician to come three times a week to care for the fish and clean the tank.
Mark insisted that she be home to supervise the activity, which meant that three days a week, her entire schedule revolved around babysitting the human equivalent of a Siamese algae eater.
The second source of her ire was Mark’s obvious love for it.
In the unlikely case of a random predicament where Mark could rescue only one item from their home, she wasn’t entirely sure that he would pick her over the tank.
A woman—a wife—should never have to question her husband’s fondness for her over an aquatic money pit.
She checked the bathroom, just to make sure, but he wasn’t there. She checked the bedroom’s small living room—nothing—and the balcony—empty.
Maybe he’d gone down to the theater. Sometimes, if he didn’t take a sleeping pill, he would stay up late watching MMA fights or sports recaps.
She’d found him there before, asleep in one of the recliners, his hand still on the remote, a few empty beers beside him.
She took the back stairs off their bedroom down two flights to the basement to check.
The basement was original to the house, the sort of California feature that had surprised her when she moved here from Florida.
There, everything was built up to avoid flooding, so the first basement she’d entered had blown her mind.
It was like an entire extra house, hidden underground.
Mark’s was built to excess and one of the few parts of the home that didn’t have Willow’s touch.
It had been an empty shell when Katie moved in, and Mark had given her an unlimited budget and the freedom to build it out however she saw fit.
The door to the basement was ajar, and she pushed it open, comforted by the signs of life.
The wall sconces were on in the clubroom, bathing the pool table and leather couches in warm light.
The carved-wood walls had various art pieces hung and the spotlights to each were on, bringing the paintings to life.
There was a sound from down the hall, and relief flooded her. He was in the theater. Probably asleep in front of the giant screen. She moved quietly down the hall and stopped outside the room.
Mark wasn’t asleep. He was talking. She put her ear to the door, trying to hear what he was saying.
He was agitated, his voice fast—so much for thoughts of him being zonked out at 3:00 a.m. She caught the words plane and cops.
Placing her hand on the door, she pressed gently, but it creaked and she stopped.
Willow. Was that what he had just said? Her gut, already twisted into a knot, dropped to her feet, and she thought of the body. The search. The police.
So, you didn’t know the prior Mrs. Morrow? She had seen the look in their eyes. Pity. Suspicion. It was the same combination she’d seen from their neighbors, the other wives, their so-called friends.
No one believed Mark. No one trusted him. And now look at her. Hovering outside the door, her ears straining to eavesdrop on his conversation.
Did she really believe that her husband, the love of her life, the father of her baby . . . did she really believe that he might have killed his wife?
The question should have been easy to answer, but it wasn’t.