Chapter 52
The neighborhood is quieter now. A hush hangs over Doomwood Falls, like the whole town is embarrassed by what it let happen. Or maybe it’s just relieved the truth finally bubbled its way to the surface, even if half the people still pretend a woman wasn’t murdered in small-town America.
The scent of lemon oil is sharp enough to sting my nose.
It’s the smell of a normal Saturday, of chores and order while Mamma stands on her tiptoes, a feather duster raised like a scepter.
She’s humming something low and off-key, attacking the upper shelves of the built-in mahogany bookcase.
Dust motes dance in the shaft of afternoon sunlight cutting across the room, oblivious to the darkness resting just inches behind the wood.
“Mamma,” I start, keeping my voice level and eyes trained on the bookshelf. “You don't need to do that.”
“Oh, hush, Shari.” Her gray hair slips out of her loose bun as she dusts. “I like being useful. Your father always said a dusty book is a neglected friend.”
She reaches up and her hand hovers over the vintage collection of Nancy Drew mysteries she gifted me when I was ten. The yellow columns are cracked and faded, but they are the only things on that shelf that matter. Her fingers curl around the spine of The Secret of the Old Clock.
“Should I do the honors?”
“Mamma, I really wish you wouldn’t.” But it’s too late. She’s already pulled the book, tilting it on the hidden hinge.
A heavy, mechanical thunk follows, the sound of a deadbolt sliding back, followed by the groan of greased metal.
The entire center section of the bookcase shudders and swings open, breaking the illusion of a solid wall.
The smell hits us instantly—no longer lemon oil, but something sour.
The thick, humid stench of unwashed skin, damp concrete, and excrement.
Instead of running away like a normal person, Mamma steps forward.
“Please let me take care of it.” I lunge for her arm, but she’s already crossing the threshold into the gloom.
“It’s fine, honey. You don’t need to do this alone,” Mamma says.
I follow her into the dark hole, my hand instinctively pulling the thread that clicks on the light. A naked bulb buzzes to life overhead, casting harsh, yellow shadows against the soundproofing foam I stapled to the walls.
The room is small, a converted storage closet that doesn’t exist on the house’s blueprints. And in the center, huddled against a heavy pipe, is Ramsey Shenk.
He looks like the pathetic piece of garbage that he is.
The man who destroyed my life, murdered my husband, framed me for embezzlement, and manipulated my best friend is currently reduced to a shivering heap in a stained undershirt.
A heavy iron chain runs from his ankle to a pipe.
Next to him sits a plastic bucket that serves as his toilet, radiating a pungent odor.
A box of adult diapers was his reward for good behavior, which makes both of our cleanup jobs easier.
On the floor, a paper plate is licked clean, nothing left but the red smear of dried marinara sauce, sitting beside a crinkled, empty water bottle.
Ramsey’s winter gray eyes—a perfect match to his son Marshall’s—blink rapidly while adjusting to the sudden light. He scrambles back until his rear end hits the wall and the chains rattle. His beard has grown in patchy and wild, and he looks hollowed out, like a ghost haunting my walls.
“Please,” Ramsey croaks. His voice is wrecked from disuse. He looks from me to my mother, his eyes widening with a desperate, delirious hope. “Please, ma’am. Help me. She’s crazy. She’s kept me here for—I don’t even know how long.”
A little over a year I would remind him if I wanted to be cruel.
But I’m not cruel, I’m fair. Right after I got out of prison Luca thought he was being a supportive brother by faking Ramsey’s death and bringing him to Doomwood Falls for me to deal with as I saw fit.
It was a shame such a nice boat was sunk in the process, but hey, some sacrifices had to be made.
Though, I still to this day don’t understand how my brother thought delivering Ramsey here in the flesh would bring me comfort, but then again, Luca’s concept of justice isn’t the same as most people’s.
He feels personally dealing with a problem the mafia way is better than letting the courts handle it.
Maybe my brother’s right, because the justice system put the wrong person behind bars when I was convicted and Ramsey went free.
I stand rigid, waiting for my mother to scream.
I expect her to turn on me, to run for the phone, to look at me with the horror I probably deserve.
But no, my mamma Rosetta stands perfectly still staring down at the man, taking in the chains, the bucket, the wretched state of him.
Pressing a hand to her chest, her expression remains unreadable.
Slowly, she turns to me with a clinical curiosity. “What now, Shari?”
Ramsey starts to sob. “She’s going to let me die here! Please, just let me go!”
Mamma ignores him. She looks at me, and I see the gears turning behind her bifocals.
I’m sure she remembers my desperate phone call from jail, Stew’s closed casket funeral, the letters I wrote her from behind bars pleading my innocence despite overwhelming evidence.
She had bought into Ramsey’s lies just like everyone else, and I know her guilt still hurts.
The tension in her shoulders drops. She doesn't scream or recoil, or fling her hands in expressive Italian style. She simply nods, a slow, grim movement of her head toward the daily to-do list of cleaning out Ramsey’s makeshift jail cell.
“I’ll get the bucket.”
She looks back at Ramsey, eyes narrow. To her this man isn't a victim; he’s a pest she stumbled on.
“Thanks,” I say simply. There isn’t much else to say. “Here’s your fresh diaper.”
I toss Ramsey an adult diaper for his poop, since I discovered it’s much easier to clean up after than him pooping in a bucket. He throws his previously used full diaper back at me and misses.
“Though I have to ask something.” Mamma smooths the front of her apron and maintains her composure. “What are you going to do with him? In the long run, I mean.”
At this point Ramsey has stopped begging, realizing that the sweet old lady isn't going to save him. He shrinks away from her.
“I don't know,” I admit.
And I don't. Some days I think about unlocking the cuff and telling him to run, to disappear and never come back. Other days, like today, when the grief is a physical weight pressing on my chest, I think about leaving him down here until the darkness swallows him whole.
“I haven't decided if I'm going to let him go,” my voice drops to a whisper, “or if I'm going to finish what I started.”
Rosetta reaches out and squeezes my hand.
Her grip has remained as strong as it’s always been.
“This man took your husband from you. Whatever you decide, he earned his place in this room.” She turns back toward the bright, lemon-scented living room carrying the sloshing pee bucket and empty paper plate.
My secret room behind the bookshelf stands open for someone else to see for the first time in a year, exposing the real me.
I look at my mother, then at the man who ended my life with a single, selfish act.
I think of Freida who must live with the memory of what she put Ivory through in order to stop her from destroying both of our lives.
And then Fred, whose affair was exposed to the world.
Of course there’s my brother’s hand in Ramsey’s disappearance.
Plus Gillian and Marshall, and the greed that drove them all the way here to my doorstep and now behind bars.
And course I think of myself, and everything I’ve hidden from those closest to me.
I guess everybody has a secret.
The End