How many nights had she stared at the ceiling instead of sleeping, wondering what about her was so lacking? She had even asked him outright. He hadn’t had an answer.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, not sure if she was talking to herself or to Wendy. “Daddy loves you, baby. You know he does. No matter what happens between Daddy and me, you need to know that we both love you so much.”
“Then why isn’t he here?” Wendy asked bluntly.
She was a smart girl—too smart at times. Too observant, too spot-on in her assessment of the situation. She was so much more aware and sophisticated than Sara had been at her age.
She was asleep now—or at least Sara hoped so as she sat there in the corner of the couch, waiting for Steve to come home. She figured he would at some point because his Trans Am was still parked in the driveway with his golf clubs in the trunk.
He hadn’t bothered to call. No one had bothered to call. There had been no call from the sheriff’s office. There had been no call from Detective Mendez. Sara had finally tried to call him but was only able to leave a message. She wanted an explanation from somebody. What had happened? What had triggered her husband to become so violent that he would actually punch someone? Did he have a reason? Had he just gone off? Should she be afraid?
She didn’t know who Steve was anymore. He had become so withdrawn, so angry, over the last year and a half, and she didn’t understand why. He had a good life, a successful career. Had he just so grown to resent her and their marriage that he had become this sullen, bitter—now violent—man?
Had he loved Lisa Warwick? Had he loved her so much that her murder—now more than a year ago—had set him on this downward spiral?
Or was there a darker trigger in his mind?
He had never acknowledged his involvement with Lisa, but Sara had no doubt that he had moved on to another affair. Probably more than one. Possibly with Marissa.
The notion had eaten away at Sara’s mind, at her soul, at her self-esteem.
Lisa Warwick was dead. Marissa was dead. Her husband had attacked a sheriff’s detective.
Her heart started tripping. She could hear the voices of Mendez, of the local news anchor.
“Ms. Fordham is deceased.”
“Multiple stab wounds
...
Reports of near-decapitation ... Sexual mutilation ...”
She felt sick and weak and out of control.
Lights flashed by on the street and turned in at their driveway. She could hear car doors open and close, men’s voices. The car backed out of the driveway and drove away.
Sara turned the lamp on beside her as the front door opened and Steve came in. He looked into the living room at her, then back at the suitcase sitting at the foot of the stairs.
“Is this yours or mine?” he asked, coming into the room.
He looked like he’d been hit by a truck. His purple swollen nose appeared to be held on to his face with adhesive tape. Both eyes were black, but the left one was swollen nearly shut. He had gone to jail for punching a detective, but it was clear the detective had punched back.
Sara thought of Mendez and his thinly veiled anger toward her husband.
“You never sleep here anyway,” she said. “You might as well have a change of clothes with you, wherever you go.”
“ ‘Oh my God, Steve,’” he said sarcastically, feigning shock. “ ‘What happened to your face?’”
“Oh, please,” Sara said, getting up from the couch. She crossed her arms in front of her. “Don’t expect sympathy from me at this hour. You couldn’t even be bothered to call and tell me why there’s blood on the driveway, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? Wendy thought you’d been killed. She was sick with panic.”
“But you weren’t.”
“Come out of the hallway,” she said. “Your voice will carry upstairs. Your daughter is asleep.”
He stepped into the living room and she could see him gather himself in the same way he would in court.
“Did you think I was dead?” he asked. “Were you worried sick?”
“Yes, I was worried,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what to think. I don’t even know who you are anymore. You’re not my husband. You’re not the man I married. You’re not the man I fell in love with. Who are you? I don’t understand what’s happened to you, Steve. I don’t get it.”
“You never did,” he said with a touch of tragic bitterness in his voice that only made Sara angrier. He would bring out his flair for the dramatic to try to make her feel guilty, to try to pretend he was the wounded one.
“What does that even mean?” she asked. “Are we going back again to your tragic, terrible childhood? I’ve been telling you for fourteen years what a remarkable person I think you are for making it through and making yourself into the human being you are—or were, at least.
“Enough with that, Steve. You’re a grown man. Stop playing the sympathy card already. Stop trading on your mother’s misfortunes. The statute of limitations has run out.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. “Miss Perfect Family.”
“I’m not apologizing because my mother wasn’t an IV drug user,” Sara said. “It’s not my fault you had a rotten childhood. You wanted my perfect family, remember? You married my perfect family. We had our own perfect family. Now you’re the one destroying it.”
“You’ve always been jealous of the time I spend on the Thomas Center—”
“Don’t start with that,” she warned him. “Don’t put this on me. I’m not taking it. I’m not the bad guy. You want to volunteer? That’s great. You’re a humanitarian. But you don’t do it at the expense of your family. You don’t do it at the expense of your daughter or me. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership. You’re more devoted to Don.”
“That’s not true—”
“Really?” she said, pretending shock. “Who did you call this morning?”
“He’s my attorney.”
“And did you ask him to call your wife and explain to her why your blood is on the driveway and why you’re missing?”
“Maybe I was embarrassed.”
“Maybe you didn’t give a shit,” she said. “I don’t know who you think of anymore, Steve, but it certainly isn’t me and it certainly isn’t Wendy.”
“I love my daughter,” he said vehemently, taking an aggressive step toward her.
The omission of her name from that sentiment cut Sara like a knife. She wouldn’t have believed she had any illusions left about their relationship, but it still hurt.
“Then why do you do these things, Steve?” she asked. “Wendy isn’t stupid. She knows when you don’t come home at night. She knows what that means. An eleven-year-old girl shouldn’t feel compelled to come to her mother and tell her she knows all about affairs, and why does her father have to do that?”
“And I’m sure you haven’t tried to tell her otherwise,” he snapped.
“Why would I? I’m supposed to lie for you? I’m supposed to lie for you and look like a fool to my daughter? I’m not stupid, either. You think I don’t know that you weren’t in Sacramento last weekend? Did you think I wouldn’t check up on you when you’ve done this to me time and time again over the last year and a half?”
“Where do you think I was?” he asked, challenging her.
Sara refused the bait, careful with her answer. “I don’t know where you were.”
“Really, where do you think I was?” It was a taunt more than a question. He moved back and forth in front of her like a shark in a tank. “Do you think I was with Marissa?”
Sara said nothing, but caught herself taking a step back from him.
“You think I was having an affair with her, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you were suddenly so interested in her, wanting to be friends with her, hanging out with her. Did you think she would just tell you? Did you think she would just turn to you one day and say, ‘Oh, by the way, Sara, I’m fucking your husband’?”
“Stop it,” she said quietly, her voice trembling with anger and something she didn’t want to call fear. He continued his pacing, back and forth, back and forth, inching in on her with each turn. She took another step back toward the bookcase built into the wall behind her. With his battered face he looked monstrous and aggressive.
“That’s what you believe,” he said. “Just like you believed I was having an affair with Lisa Warwick. Why don’t you want to hear it?”
She didn’t say anything. She wanted this conversation to be over and for him to just leave.
“Really, Sara,” he pushed, coming toward her, in her face. She tried to take another step back and couldn’t. Something like satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
“Do you think I was with Marissa?” he asked quietly. “Do you think I was stabbing her forty-seven times and cutting her throat?”
“Stop it!” she said again, staring into his face and not recognizing him. This man was a stranger to her. She didn’t know what he might do.
“Why?” he asked, enjoying her fear. “Am I scaring you? Do you really think I could do that?”
Sara tried to step sideways to get away from him. He grabbed her arm hard and shouted in her face.
“Answer me! Answer me! Do you think I’m a murderer? Do you?”
“STOP IT!! STOP IT!!” Wendy screamed.
Startled, Steve stepped back as Wendy flung herself at him, hitting him with both fists.
“STOP IT! STOP IT! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”
“Wendy!” Steve grabbed hold of her and she kicked him and struggled and squirmed.
“Let go of me! I hate you!”
“Don’t say that!”
He dropped down on one knee and tried to gather her close. She swung sideways to evade him, hitting him with her elbow in the bridge of his already broken nose.
Steve fell to the side then came up on his knees, his hands to his face, blood pouring out of his nose, between his fingers and dripping onto the carpet.
Sara caught her daughter as Wendy flung herself against her, sobbing.
“Look what you’ve done,” Sara said as the man who used to be her husband looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “Look what you’ve done to us. Get out. Get out before I call the sheriff’s office.”
And that was end of the fairy tale.
54
The inky black of night paled to charcoal gray. The rain kept coming down.
Even beneath her trash bag garment Gina felt wet and cold to the bone. She had spent the night shaking, drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time she wanted to let go and sink into a deep sleep, Marissa’s voice shouted her awake.
Stay awake, stay alive!
Gina kept one long stick of the discarded lumber in hand to swat at the rats and mice that crept near, smelling her blood, smelling her fear. Though in the dead of night she was no better off than a blind woman with a white cane, feeling around for danger while danger kept just out of reach.
Over and over during the night she had caught herself thinking this couldn’t possibly really be happening. Marissa couldn’t be dead. And she couldn’t have been attacked by someone she had considered a friend. Yes, she had made a threatening remark, but she never would have followed through on it. She had been out of her head with panic. A true friend would have known that. A true friend wouldn’t have shot her and left her for dead because she had said something stupid.
She was so tired. She knew she was in danger of dying from hypothermia. Her body wasn’t making enough energy to try to keep itself warm. With the cold rain coming down, that would only intensify. Dehydration was only making the situation worse.
Her body needed fuel. She hadn’t eaten in—what?—three days now? As enough light filtered down the shaft of the well, she tried to make out some of the garbage that had fallen from the bag she was wearing. She looked for anything that might be edible, something that wouldn’t be moldy or rotten.
Using the stick for a reaching tool, she inched a crumpled potato chip bag toward her, and found a few chips and a mouthful of crumbs. They were stale and soggy, but they were calories, and the salt tasted good. She mentally thanked the unknown teenagers who partied at this desolate spot.
Over the next hour, Gina became more skilled with the stick, snagging a wrapper with three bites of a Snickers bar inside, and a McDonald’s bag with a couple of stray French fries, a packet of ketchup, and a dried crescent of bun from a not-quite-finished hamburger. She ate all of it and prayed it stayed in her stomach.
If I can find enough strength—
You have to, G. You will.
If I can get up—
Get up! Don’t think about it. Get up!
I’m trying!
No, you’re not!
Shut up!
“Shut up!”
The sound of her own voice startled her, making her realize she had drifted off again. She had stopped worrying that she was hallucinating. Whatever dire condition hallucinations indicated, it was better to have company—even if the voice existed only in her mind.
The saltiness of the junk food had made her thirsty. She found a discarded water bottle with half an inch of dirty water in the bottom. Using her T-shirt over the mouth of the bottle, she filtered the water into her own mouth and drank it, grimacing at the taste, and fighting not to gag.
A rat scurried over her feet and disappeared into the empty McDonald’s bag, only its long naked tail sticking out. Gina shrieked and jumped, the pain exploding in her broken ankle and racing up her leg like a wildfire. She swung her stick at the McDonald’s bag and the rat shrieked and jumped and ran backward out of the bag, then leapt onto the thick vine hanging down the wall and disappeared into the crevice where the concrete had broken away.
Gina cursed and screamed—at the rat, at her predicament. But she quickly realized the favor the rat had done her. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins now, bringing energy, dulling pain.
She looked to her right, to the iron rungs cemented into the wall. Her only way out of this hole. She looked up at the doors above her. It had to be twenty-five feet. That didn’t sound like much if the distance was horizontal, but the distance was vertical and more than three times the height of the average household ladder.