Chapter 1 #3
After jabbing my finger on the end-call button, I shot down the hill I’d driven a million times.
The town was decorated for Halloween, but I was too preoccupied to notice the pumpkins, witches, and ghosts lining the porches.
The night before, Summer had tried to distract me by talking about turning our wedding venue into a haunted house.
I think she hoped for a reaction, maybe even a smile.
But I couldn’t imagine a haunted house scaring me again.
Nothing frightened me more than the possibility that Daisy was right.
That Clive had killed my mother.
After making it down the hill, I made a left onto Broadway.
Soon, I was on Park Avenue. In what felt like seconds, Summer’s house had come into view.
With an inability to remember the drive there, I jumped out of the car and stumbled up the driveway on legs that didn’t even feel like my own.
My hands trembled as I stood in front of the garage.
Oh God, it just can’t be.
I needed to know the truth. I punched in the code and held my breath as the garage door slowly lifted. Come on.
Clive’s vehicle wasn’t there.
My chest had tightened into a fist. The bitch was playing games with me.
I noticed a bucket of water with a washcloth hanging over the side. I stepped further inside to take a closer look. Summer’s car was in the garage. If she wasn’t home, how was she getting around?
“Summer?” I called as I approached the bucket. Their house was small, so she’d be able to hear me if she were inside. “Summer!”
My eyes landed on the water in the bucket.
The red water. Red!
“Summer!”
My heart raced. I reached into the bucket and pulled out the cloth. The crimson liquid clung to my skin. My mother’s blood?
Hurling it to the ground, I ran inside the house. “Summer!”
No answer. No one was home.
I tried to steady my hand as I pulled the phone from my pocket to call her.
“Hey. Any news about your mom?”
Her question stunned me into silence. She’d never answered the phone like that before.
“I saw on the news they’re looking for a truck.” The woman who promised to love me continued, “Thad, are you okay?”
I wanted to see her face-to-face. “Where are you?”
“At home.”
Really, you lying piece of shit? I’m at your home. “Okay. When does your father get home from work?”
Summer took a while to reply. After seemingly searching for another lie, she added, “He went away for a while.” She knew. There was no doubt in my mind that she knew.
She was protecting him.
I ended the call, tired of the lies. Since my mom’s death, she’d held me, wiped my tears. Now what? I’d never have asked her to choose me over her father. But this was different. Her father was a killer. How long had she known?
I couldn’t process what had happened. My emotions were a mess. How could the woman I loved, the woman who’d promised to spend the rest of her life with me, lie about something so damn serious?
The anger grew inside me, and I curled my fingers into a fist. Her betrayal felt like a knife in my gut. I couldn’t just wait around for her to get back. I had to do something.
I drove straight to the police station, my mother’s blood still on my hands.
That’s what they were there for, right? To put criminals away.
I told them what I’d found, my words tumbling out at full speed.
To their credit, they looked horrified. Clive was a pillar of society, other than his drinking habit—which had gotten out of control over the last few years.
He’d been a fucking volunteer fireman, for God’s sake.
That wasn’t the kind of man who’d leave a woman alone to die, right? Even if he was drunk.
An hour later, I was standing on Summer’s front porch behind the police as they arrested her father.
After they carted him away, I left it in their hands, confident that Clive would get what was coming to him.
But they said he wasn’t a flight risk. He was a good man who’d made a mistake. He didn’t need to stay behind bars until his court date. That would be unfair, wouldn’t it?
But what about me? What about my mother?
I left Summer a voicemail calling her a lying piece of shit—not my finest insult—and told her I never wanted to set eyes on her again.
I froze her out. Ghosted her. She didn’t take the hint.
She called and left voicemails and texts.
She turned up at my house and camped out on the front lawn.
She apologized over and over again. Her father didn’t mean to.
He wasn’t a bad man. It was an accident.
Accidents happened. She was so sorry; so was Clive.
Please, please, please, could I forgive her?
She hadn’t technically lied, she said. She just hadn’t told me the truth.
She didn’t want to lose her dad. He was all she had.
I ignored her attempts.
As far as I was concerned, she’d chosen her side. She’d chosen my mother’s killer and then lied about it.
A few days after his arrest, he was walking the streets like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t left my mother to die, alone and scared. Our family lawyer told me they would likely drop the charges. It was obvious, they said, that it had been an accident.
That did it.
On Halloween, I decided I needed to see him face-to-face. Clive had to pay for what he’d done. If the law wasn’t going to do its job, I’d do it instead.
I drove to their house dressed as a real-life monster: a grieving son out for revenge. Nobody was going to leave my mother for dead and tell me they were sorry. Fuck that!
Kids were trick-or-treating, walking around dressed as cowboys, aliens, and princesses.
They didn’t know that my life was over. They didn’t know that some bastard had treated my mother like she was nothing.
I had to slam on my brakes a few times to avoid hitting children darting around and trying to collect as much candy as their bags could hold.
Clive was outside his house handing the neighborhood children Halloween candies. He had painted his face like a joker. I walked up the dark driveway with my gun drawn, not bothering to hide it. My hood was up. My face was hidden in shadow.
“Oh, don’t shoot me. You can have all the candy,” he joked until the porch light hit my face, revealing that I was a true monster.
“Get inside,” I commanded.
His smile vanished. “Listen, Thaddeus . . .”
“Shut up and get inside!” I barked, shoving him roughly. He did as I demanded, backing through the open door. I shut it behind us and switched off the porch light. That would signal this house was out of candy; it was a common Tarrytown rule. I didn’t want trick-or-treaters disturbing us.
“Thad.”
“Shut the fuck up. Where’s Summer?”
Clive’s face paint dripped down his forehead. “I’m sorry about Gina. I wasn’t thinking. I panicked. I swear.” His voice cracked.
“I, I, I, all I hear about is you. Nothing about the pain you caused. You don’t give a shit about what you did, or you wouldn’t still be walking the fucking streets.”
“Thad, what are you doing?” Summer emerged from the basement.
I thought the gun in my hand made it pretty clear. “I’ve come to kill your father. Then you can set an example and show me how to forgive a killer.” My voice sounded calmer than I expected. My hands were no longer shaking. It was as if someone else were in charge of my body.
Summer jumped in front of her father, arms spread wide. “Thad, for my sake, please don’t do this. Forgive him. Dad is sorry. Please don’t.”
I blinked against her audacity.
How could she forgive him? The drunk that he was. He left my mother alone to die.
“Move out of the way.” My gaze never wavered from his face.
“No,” she’d snarled at me. Animalistic.
Clive and I locked eyes. “Summer, it’s okay, move,” he said.
Turning her head slightly, Summer looked back at him. “Dad—”
Right there, I had the perfect angle. I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Clive between the eyes. I’d always been a good shot.
Blood spattered onto Summer, marking her beautiful face. She let out a bone-chilling scream and lunged for her father, trying to prevent his body from falling to the ground. He fell, and she slumped down with him.
His eyes were open but unseeing.
“Dad, please. Please hold on,” Summer begged.
She turned to me, the man she’d been ready to spend the rest of her life with—the man who’d just killed her father. “Please call for help.”
I looked at her, confused. What good would that do when the man was clearly dead? Why would I fucking bother shooting the man only to then find him life-saving services?
“Please, Thad. Before it’s too late.”
In a dark voice, I finally spoke. “For my sake, forgive that.”
“Thad, please call—”
“Summer, he’s dead. You lost a father, and I lost a mother. We’re equal now.”
Her pleas disappeared as she sobbed over her father’s body. “No, no, no.”
Just then, a jarring sound came from behind us. The doorbell rang.
“Trick-or-treat!”