But a punch code had been too risky. If Bethany had wandered down there and locked herself in… we would have had to tear down the walls to get her out. So we’d removed the punch code and put a normal lock on the door—one with keyed access on both sides, one impossible for Bethany to accidentally (or purposely) lock. The key is hung on a nail high above the light switches, and we lock and unlock the room when it isn’t in use. The impenetrability of the room has come in handy. We had all of our files inside that room, the left wall a line of cabinets. All of our photos. Our passports and stock certificates—anything deemed irreplaceable. Now, he shoves me inside, and I stagger to my feet, all of my manuscripts coming into focus, the original pages that I sweated and cried over, in neat stacks on the shelves. Will I die in here? The possibility hammers at my subconscious, and all I can think about is Bethany. Growing older and never knowing. Developing curves under his watchful eye. Unprotected. Unaware. Until it is too late. I fling myself at the doorway and collide with steel, Simon slamming the door closed.
I don’t hear the rustle of his keys.
I don’t know if he said something else to me.
I don’t hear anything through the six-inch steel walls. But I can feel the shudder of the knob in my hand. I can feel the resistance as I try to twist it. Locked. I step back from the door; the scream fading before it even hits my throat. The room is completely soundproof. It’s the place we put chirping fire detectors that won’t shut up. Bethany once called it magic, its ability to completely shut off noise. I called it creepy. Right now, it is terrifying. I open my mouth and force breath in and out.
I lift my head, my eyes tired from reading, my hand aching from writing. Inside my chest, my heart hammers, and I am torn between the urge to walk away and the need to finish this. Can I go through this all in one sitting? Can I relive this horrible day all at one time?
Part of me is afraid.
The other half of me knows that this is the only way. I have fallen into the snake pit, and I can’t rest, can’t stop. I have to fight my way through all of the memories, before the poison in them kills me.
I flex my fingers, working the muscles in them, popping my knuckles and stretching back the phalanges, one at a time, until the blood flow returns. I get off the floor and move to Simon’s desk, stretching to the right, and then to the left, before settling down on his chair. Turning to a fresh page in the notebook, I return to hell.
MARK
“Call Charlotte Blanton. Find out if she’s from North Virginia.”
He remembers the tight pinch of her features, the panic in her eyes. He thinks back, through all their chapters, and tries to connect this strange new name to their story.
He opens a web browser and types in her name, adding in the New York Post and submitting the search. The screen goes blank, then her profile appears. He clicks on the link and, within thirty seconds, has a phone number and email address.
Settling back in his seat, he pulls his cell phone from his breast pocket and opens the flip phone, one that makes his daughter roll her eyes and officially brands him as technologically-inept. Pressing in the number, he lifts the phone to his ear.
“Charlotte Blanton.” A crisp efficient voice, yet still one dipped in youth.
“Charlotte, my name is Mark Fortune. That name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m calling on behalf of a friend. Helena Ross.”
Silence. A long pause. Clearing of a throat. “Yes?”
“She had a rather odd question for you. She wanted to know if you are from North Virginia.”
Another long pause. “May I speak to her?”
Mark glances in the direction of the room Helena had disappeared into. “She’s in the middle of something right now. I can’t interrupt her.”
“Huh.” The woman sounds as if she doesn’t believe him, as if he’s intentionally keeping her away.
“She’s a writer,” he tries to explain. “It’s hard to—”
“I know what she is.” Her voice was so cold, so cruel, that he blinked. “I know what she is.” What. What was Helena? A writer. Or was the woman referring to something else?
“Are you from Virginia?”
“I’m from Tennessee, Mr. Fortune.” She pauses. “But my family lived in Wilmont, Virginia for two years when I was ten. That’s what Mrs. Parks is referring to.”
Parks. Her married name, though she didn’t now use it. But something in the sneer of Charlotte’s voice… there is a history between the two women, that much is suddenly clear. He backtracks, wanting to be out of this conversation, before he says or does the wrong thing, before he stumbles onto a bed of fire ants and causes an issue. “I appreciate your time. Thank you.”
“I’d like to speak to her.” She speaks before he has a chance to end the connection. “Can you make sure she calls me?”
“I’m not sure anyone can make Helena do much of anything,” he admits. “Especially not me.”
“At least ask her. It’s very important that I get her side of things. Before my article.”
An article. The threat flares his protective instincts, and he straightens in his seat. “An article,” he says slowly. “About what?”
“That’s what I’d like to talk to her about. Please ask her to call me.”
She ends the connection and he slowly closes the phone, spinning the chair toward the door, and thinking.
He is destroying the evidence. Or hiding it. He could put it all in his car and drive anywhere, throw it in a hundred dumpsters, or bury it in fifty different places. There is that land we own, two hundred acres up in New York—the place he goes on hunting weekends. He could hide it there, or rent a storage unit or burn it all.
Once the evidence is gone, it will be my word against his. I stop pacing, the scenario so bleak that it hurts, my stomach cramping, my breath catching. I push my fingers into my side and try to calm my breathing, slow my heartbeat, to think. No one will believe me. My own mother won’t. And with the recent events—especially my visit to the divorce attorney—all of it will be suspect to the timing of my “discovery”. My discovery with no evidence. The discovery of a woman ill-fit to be a mother.
If we get a divorce, I could lose her.
If we stay together, I will kill him. I can’t live with him. And he won’t let me. He won’t let his loose thread of a wife dangle. My knowledge is too dangerous, my will too strong. If he doesn’t kill me today, tonight, this week… he will soon.
A second possibility emerges, the idea that he will take Bethany and run. When I had considered this inside the house, his hand in my hair, I had thought—rather stupidly—that he would leave me at the house, unattended and free, while he took her. I had thought that the police would catch him before he got too far. But with me locked up, he can take his time. He can destroy evidence, pack bags, and visit the bank. His name is on every account, he could withdraw it all. There is easily thirty, forty thousand in our checking account. A hundred more in savings. He could pick Bethany up from my mother’s and take off, be in Canada in six hours. Disappear in twelve. By the time I was found, if I was still alive, they could both be gone.
I can’t let him do that, do either of those possibilities. I slowly turn, my feet moving over the bare concrete, and take in my prison.
By the door, a phone jack. At one point, a cheap corded phone had hung from its stand. We’d borrowed it, put it in the upstairs guest bedroom, and never returned it. Useless.
An electrical panel, one that controls the garage, utility room, water filtration and irrigation systems. I could turn off power to the sprinklers. Same with the five thousand dollar water purification tank that Simon had insisted we needed. Take that, my pedophile of a husband. You think you’re drinking filtered water? Think again. Useless.
Our washer, a red LG behemoth with enough buttons to power a space station. Useless.
Our dryer, the second part of a matching set. Simon had been talked into paying an extra seven hundred dollars for the red color. I had gone out to the car and outlined my next scene. Useless.
Two hot water heaters, side by side. Overkill for two adults, even with Simon’s thirty-minute showers. Useless.