Chapter 38 Rule Ten Catherine - Lift with your back
Rule Ten Catherine - Lift with your back
“What do we do? If he’s going to kill me, I can’t just go back up there!” Vera stood and began to pace. “We need to confront him. Does he know you’re here? Are you haunting him?”
I raised my hands to stop her.
“Hey, pause, take a deep breath. I’ll go with you.” I glanced at the large, dust-covered grandfather clock against the wall. “Go have dinner with him.”
“Dinner?” She stared at me skeptically. “What if I go up there and he stabs me?”
“I’ll be there. Come on, I’ll be there, and you can confront him about me. If it looks like he’s going to attack, I’ll step in,” I promised.
She fidgeted with her hands. “So he won’t see you?”
I studied her. She was afraid I’d tell her new husband that I’d fucked her before he had. Smirking, I shook my head.
“No, he won’t. Go, and I’ll meet you up there.”
Raking her fingers through her hair, she left the room,and when she was gone, I drifted up to the honeymoon suite. I sat on the bed, and Emmett stepped out of the bathroom, unaware of my existence.
“Oh, how happy we could have been.” I sighed. “But, instead, you killed me.”
Emmett wandered over to a table with a charcuterie tray on it. He began to cut a block of cheese, occasionally glancing at the door. A moment later, Vera knocked and came in.
“Hey...” she said awkwardly. Her eyes darted around, looking for me.
I swallowed and stayed invisible. She needed to confront him on her own.
“Hey! Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Vera.” Emmett rushed over, the knife still in his hand. I leaped up, waiting for him to attack her, but he didn’t. He threw his arms over her and breathed in deeply. “I’m an ass.”
“Are you?” she asked, seeming confused. Understandably so. She was the one who’d betrayed their marriage, not him.
“Yeah, I am. I stayed out all night, because I was avoiding talking to you, but if we are going to do this, then we need to do it right.” He let her go and took her hand, leading her to the table.
Pulling out her chair, he encouraged her to sit.
She did so, but her eyes were wide and full of confusion.
Emmett quickly dropped the knife onto the table and sat across from her. Hetook her hands and squeezed.
I watched them with interest. What was their dynamic? Emmett and I had known each other for a long time, but she was very new to his life. What about her made him remarry so quickly, and what about him made her say yes? It just didn’t make sense.
“I have a confession to make.” He inhaled deeply, and as he did, so did I.
He was going to confess to it all. I’d been waiting for this moment.
I left the bed and went to them, standing beside Vera’s chair.
He couldn’t see me, but I needed to see his expression.
I needed that closure. Knowing just why he did what he did.
“I was married once before.” Dropping the bomb, he stared at her, expectantly. She didn’t react, which made his brow furrow.
“I know.”
Emmett blinked and shook his head. “Wait, you do? How?” He let go and reached for a corkscrew. Panic shot through me as he raised it high, then reached for a bottle of wine.
Jeez…
No, he was a murderer.
My emotions were such a roller coaster with him. He looked too nice to be such a monster.
“Tim told me,” Vera claimed. “Why didn’t you?”
Emmett stayed busy with the wine. Both Vera and I jumped when it popped open. He chuckled and set the cork on the table, reaching for her glass. “Let’s have a drink, and I can tell you everything.”
Vera stared at the glass for a long moment before taking it. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t trust it either if I were her. Emmett encouraged a toast and they clinked their wine, and she took a tiny sip.
“Were you working out?” he asked, as he reached for a cracker and cheese. “You were kind of sweaty when you came in.”
I pressed my lips together in amusement as she squirmed in her seat.
“A bit. Tell me about your previous wife.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, it’s just such a relief to have said it out loud, finally, after all this time.” He beamed. My jaw dropped. What was he so happy about? “Her name was Catherine, and I’d loved her since high school,” he started.
I dropped to my knees and sat on my heels, watching him intently.
“She was like you, in a lot of ways. I guess I have a type.” He laughed bashfully, as his cheeks turned pink.
“Brown eyes, brown hair, she was Mexican too, like you.” He pursed his lips momentarily.
“But it wasn’t her appearance that drew me in.
She was funny and smart. Cathy was so fun to be around, and I envisioned a really great future for us.
” He sighed and looked down at his lap. There was a sniffle, and I crossed my arms. Was he going to pretend to cry?
“What happened?” Vera encouraged.
Indeed, there were tears in his eyes. What a fraud!
“She died. It was a freak accident, and I couldn’t save her.”
“She’s dead?” Vera feigned surprise. She was a horrible actress. At least Emmett could cry.
He nodded grimly, wiping his performative tears away.
“On our wedding night. It’s why I had trouble last night.
.. performing. You see...” He cringed and reached for his wine, taking a large gulp, draining the glass.
Pouring more quickly, he continued, “This is the hotel we were staying at. We’d been in this room. ”
“When it happened?” Vera leaned forward, the shock real. I hadn’t told her details of my demise.
“No! Not at all. We were down at the lake. It had frozen over and we were playing around. I warned her not to goof off too much, and then… she fell.”
“She fell?” Vera and I said in unison.
“I fell? I. Fell!” Leaping up, I screamed.
Emmett didn’t flinch. He didn’t even know I was here.
He nodded. “The ice broke and she tumbled in headfirst.”
“That’s bullshit!” With intention, I made myself visible to Vera. She saw me instantly and jumped. “I did not just tumble in. I was pushed!”
Vera forced her eyes back to Emmett. “I didn’t know there was a lake. Why were you there?”
“Catherine wanted to see it. It was beautiful, until... the accident. That’s where I was last night. I had to go and speak to her.”
“Speak to me?” I laughed. “He could have spoken to me that night. He didn’t have to kill me. Jesus Christ, you can’t be believing this, Vera.”
Vera’s eyes flicked from me to Emmett. She gulped. “That’s why you were freezing when you came back.”
He nodded. “I had to get that closure, but... now I think I have it.” He reached for her hand. “I think I can finally be with you, guilt free. The weight of her ghost is gone from my shoulders. “
“Oh, hell no.” I stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
Vera yelped, and Emmett yelled, “Did you see that? Maybe we should get out of here.”
“Where would we go?” she asked.
I paused, waiting to hear his reply. “Well... would you want to see the lake? We can talk more about Catherine there.”
Rage flooded my body, and I opened drawers, looking for something, anything, to fucking kill him.
Letting out a cry of anguish, I popped back to the other room, forgoing the door, and grabbed the hardcover Bible off the side table.
Vera saw me, and her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything as I stalked over and swung the book as hard as I could at Emmett’s head.
He fell to the ground instantly, out cold.
“Oh my god,” Vera exclaimed, standing.
“He was going to take you to the lake and dump your body like he did mine.” I heaved, my breaths staggering.
“What do we do now, then?” She looked at hisunconscious body on the floor.
I moved to the top of his body and bent, grabbing under his arms to lift him.
“Take him down to the lake.”
An hour later, we were tugging the blue tarp with Emmett’s sleeping form onto the ice. Lattice had offered the tarp after he saw us struggling to get the body down.
“He’s still alive?” he’d asked, but didn’t try to stop us in taking him out of the hotel. Instead, he offered the tarp and waved us away. He and Scarlet, his sister, were too busy playing with each other’s elbows to be bothered.
“We’re almost there,” I said as we fought the slippery ice to get him deeper onto the sheet.
“How do you know where to go?” she asked, her voice struggling just as much as her body was.
“The hole I was shoved into never closed up.” It had to be part of the hotel’s ghostly energy.
Some other part of us all being stuck there.
Nothing about the hotel made sense. Finally, we reached the hole, and using our final bits of strength, we rolled him off the tarp and pushed him through the hole, feet first, like a kid going down a waterslide.
There was a light plopping sound as he went down, disappearing into the darkness.
Vera collapsed and let out a sigh of relief. We stared at the hole as the sun went down. He was gone, and I finally, felt at peace.
I reached for her hand and laced my fingers through her. “It was the right thing to do,” I assured her.
She shivered, and I took it as a sign to go. Together, we turned to go.
“What the hell?”
We froze, as if the weather had done us in. Turning, we saw Emmett, standing on the other side of the hole, looking very angry and very dry.
“Did you just fucking kill me?”