by Nicola Marsh
Then I smash the vase on his head with all the strength I can muster.
It doesn’t knock him out as I expect. He staggers momentarily before coming at me harder, enraged I have the audacity to fight back. The way I should’ve fought back if I’d been conscious when he raped me first time around.
I scream and kick and claw, doing everything I can to stay upright. My muscles ache and my calf cramps, but I twist and writhe and fight with everything I’ve got.
It’s useless. He hooks his leg around my ankle and I topple to the floor. He’s on top of me. Pinning me with his weight. I can’t let this happen again.
I fight harder, ineffectual punches that only land glancing blows on his arms and head as my hips try to buck him off but can’t shift him. I bare my teeth and shift my head to the side, trying to bite him. He leans forward and his forearm presses down on my windpipe.
“Relax, go with it, you’ll enjoy this. Sex is so much better when you can’t catch your breath…”
A shimmering crimson creeps over my eyes in increments. The edges of my vision blur.
I try to writhe one last time. My hand hurts, a raw stinging as something sharp pierces my skin.
A glass shard from the vase.
I try to grasp it, to muster the strength to raise my arm.
His face is inches from mine and he’s grinning, a gloating leer.
He’s won.
Or so he thinks.
The door bursts open and in that second when his head snaps up to see who’s there, I know I can’t let him get away with this.
Forty-Five
Claire
I arrive at Ris’s house to ask Avery to come in for questioning when my cell rings.
It’s Elly. I answer the call. “What do you want?”
“Claire, this is important. I know you must hate me as much as Maggie and Ris right now if she’s told you everything but please don’t hang up.”
I’m on the verge of doing just that when she says, “I’ve discovered a stash of materials that make GHB, along with syringes, in the place Ryan leases from Avery for us to be together.”
My stomach falls away, a familiar feeling when I know I’m about to wrap up a case.
“I don’t know how Jodi died but after Ryan asked me to switch the paternity test I’m worried that—”
“You should be worried,” I snap, unable to understand how she could do this and even more baffled why she’d do anything illegal for that prick. “You’re in a world of trouble for interfering with a police investigation.”
“I know.” Her soft sigh almost makes me feel sorry for her. “But I think you should get here and check out this stuff.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
After I ensure Avery is cooperative.
“Hurry,” she says and hangs up.
We’re obviously both strung out because she didn’t give me the address and I forgot to ask.
“Damn it.” I bang on Ris’s front door, hating to ask her for directions but needing to follow up on another piece of the puzzle that can put Avery away for murder. I’ll ring her once Avery is at the station. Hopefully she’s had a good night’s sleep at my place, though I doubt it.
I hope he comes to the door fast so I can get him to the station ASAP then check out the GHB. But when the door finally opens, it’s Ris.
“What are you doing here?”
There are dark circles under her eyes, she’s pale and she’s still wearing my sweats. “I came home to pack some stuff but then Maggie showed up and everything’s a mess.”
As much as I’d like to comfort my friend with what she’s going through, I don’t have time now.
“Is Avery here?”
“He left.”
She sounds scared.
“Where did he go?”
“To confront Elly.” Tears well in her eyes and before I can respond, she breaks down. “And I didn’t ring her to warn her. What kind of monster does that make me?”
“She rang me a few minutes ago from the place she meets Ryan.” Foreboding makes me terser than I would usually be with a woman who’s gone through as much as Ris. “We need to get there, now. Can you give me directions?”
She nods, gnawing her bottom lip. “I’ll have to show you the way.”
“No.” I don’t want Ris anywhere near a nasty confrontation between Avery and Elly. “Just tell me.”
“I can’t. I only remember how we got there last night by following Elly.”
Damn. I have no choice but to take her along.
“Come on. We need to hurry.”
Ris senses my urgency and is in my car before I ring the station to call for backup.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
Thankfully Ron answers on the first ring. “Hey, Claire, I was about to call you.”
It’s the news I’ve been waiting for. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
I don’t have time for Ron’s dramatic pause. “Unfortunately no, Avery Thurston isn’t the father of Jodi Van Gelder’s baby.”
“What the—”
“But the genetic markers are close, indicating it could be a sibling—”
“Ryan.” I thump the car bonnet.
Ris is staring at me, wide-eyed and fearful, and I remember why I rang him. “Listen, Ron, I’m with Ris and we’re on our way to a cottage Ryan rents. He’s been having an affair with my friend Elly. She rang me a few minutes ago, saying she’s found evidence of GHB there. We think Avery’s on his way there too.”
“Fuck, what’s the address?”
Frustrated, I kick a tire. “I don’t know. Ris is going to direct me there from memory. I’ll call you as soon as I arrive so have backup ready.”
“Shall do, and I’ll put an APB out on Avery’s car.”
“Good idea. See you soon.”
I disconnect and get in the car. Ris is staring straight ahead, like she’s in a trance. She hasn’t asked me about Ryan and I’m glad. I think she’s too shell-shocked to compute much at the moment, but I hope to God she can direct me to this cottage. I fire up the engine and touch her forearm. She jumps and looks at me like I’m a stranger.
“I know Elly isn’t your favorite person right now but I think she’s in danger and we need to get to that cottage ASAP. You ready?”
After what seems like an eternity, Ris nods. “Make a left onto the highway from Sunnyside.”
I floor it, breaking the speed limit as I fly down the highway but with sirens off. I don’t want to alert Avery when we arrive in case he’s a man on the edge. And now that I know Ryan fathered Jodi’s baby, maybe he’s there too. I’m surprised when Ris directs me to take a small gravel road off the highway. I would’ve missed it if she hadn’t pointed it out. I grip the wheel tight as the car sheers off the dirt a little, willing myself to slow down when every cop instinct I have is to do the opposite.
“It’s up ahead.” Ris’s hand is shaky when she points. “Around those trees.”
I call in the location and give Ron precise directions. The squad isn’t far away. Thank God.
“When we get there, you need to stay in the car, okay?”
Ris nods, reverting to catatonic as she stares out the windshield. The road narrows and as I make the final turn past the trees, I’m blown away by the view. The cottage is perched on the ocean’s edge but I’m not here for the breathtaking scenery. I spy two cars. Elly’s and Avery’s.
I pull over and kill the engine. “Stay here.”
I exit the car and unclip my holster. I need to be prepared for anything.
That’s when I hear a blood-curdling scream.
I sprint for the door. It’s unlocked. I open it and draw my gun.
Avery has Elly pinned to the floor. Her face is a scary mottled purple color. His head lifts slowly, his stare terrifying.
I’ve seen that stare on psychopaths before.
He’s past the point of no return.
But before I can react I see Elly’s hand lift.
; And I see the glitter of glass.
Forty-Six
Elly
I’d never believed the myth that when people are on the verge of death, their life flashed before their eyes. But as Claire bursts through the door and distracts Avery, time slows. I see every second in intricate detail. Individual snapshots of fragmented time, captured and highlighted.
Walking up the aisle in an ivory sheath and fingertip veil, my heart swelling when I glimpse tears in my fiancé’s eyes.
Honeymooning in Hawaii, frolicking in the surf on Maui, cruising the green hills in Kauai, trekking on the Big Island.
Weekends spent curled in front of the fire, wrapped in each other’s arms, while the familiar Chicago wind rattled the windows.
The morning I saw him with his real family.
My collapse after he left.
Moving to Gledhill. My apartment – my sanctuary – until this monster invaded it and tore an irreparable hole in my already shattered life.
Faces of the men I’d targeted since my reinvention, blending into one another.
Finally coalescing into this moment, with this man.
My senses are heightened. The clarity is unbelievable. Who knew oxygen deprivation could be so enlightening?
I see Claire standing in the doorway, gun drawn and pointed at Avery.
I see Ris peering over her shoulder, her mouth open.
I see Avery lift his head and turn to see who’s interrupted.
There’s stubble along his jaw. I spy a tiny scar, probably a shaving nick, below his ear. It’s tiny yet jagged. I see an unsightly hair poking from his ear, probably the first of many.
I grip the shard of glass tighter. I’m bleeding. As I summon the energy to raise my arm I notice a bead of blood hovering at my wrist.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Tiny drops that plop onto his shoulder, a startling crimson against his white polo. Spreading outward in those weird patterns used by psychiatrists to analyze patients. He doesn’t notice.
My hand is at his neck now, the glass a hair’s breadth away from his carotid.
“Avery, it’s over,” Claire says, her tone comforting and well modulated when I would be yelling. “Raise your hands above your head and get up slowly.”
The unbearable pressure on my windpipe eases as he lifts his forearm. Slowly. Reluctantly.
I drag in a breath, another. My throat hurts like the devil where he’s been leaning all his weight on me.
He’s going to surrender. Claire has given me an out. I should take it.
But I don’t have the energy to be dragged through a lengthy trial, being persecuted on the witness stand more than the perpetrator of the crime.
I’ll be labeled every filthy name Avery called me earlier and more. A nameless jury will judge me on more than this. They’ll scoff at my lifestyle, my choice to remain childless, my penchant for revenge on married men. They’ll discover my farcical marriage, my breakdown, and my decision to give away my baby. My past laid bare for mockery and ridicule.
I won’t have a job, I won’t have an income, I won’t have a life.
So I choose my life over his.
“No!” Claire yells as I plunge the glass into Avery’s neck.
I’m sprayed with blood.
It’s everywhere.
I can’t see. I can’t breathe.
The unmistakable coppery taste of blood is on my lips.
I roll onto my side as he collapses and topples off me. I gasp for air and swipe my hands across my eyes so I can see.
When my eyelids flutter open I’m staring into Avery’s fixed, glassy gaze.
It’s over.
Forty-Seven
Marisa
I watch my husband die.
It’s like one of those horror films the girls used to goggle over in their early teens, the kind of scene I wouldn’t be able to un-see as I brought them popcorn and lectured them about the inevitable nightmares they’d have.
I’ve never seen so much blood. It covers everything: the rug, the coffee table, Elly. She’s lying on her back, one hand over her throat the other wiping blood from her mouth. She’s a mess and I feel sorry for her.
Sirens sound in the distance. I know I don’t have long to fix this.
“Don’t move, Elly.” I rush past Claire, who’s frozen to the spot. “You have to let the police see you like this.”
I stand over Elly, whose blank stare indicates she’s already in shock. But I have to get through to her. I won’t let Avery ruin any more lives than he already has.
“Ris, stand back. You’re contaminating a crime scene.” Claire’s at my shoulder now, hovering. She grabs my arm, tries to tug me away. I don’t budge.
“There’s no crime here.” I turn to look her in the eye, beseeching her to understand. “This was self-defense.”
Surprise flares in Claire’s eyes. “Ris, we need to—”
“Listen to me.” I grip Claire’s arms and shake her a little. “Elly had no choice. He was strangling her, you burst in, he looked up and when Elly tried to struggle one last time he fell on the glass. That’s it. End of story.”
I shake her again for emphasis. She has to believe me. Because as much as I dislike Elly for what she did to Maggie, I don’t believe she should be trialed for murder.
Avery deserved everything he got.
“Look at her neck.” I point to Elly’s bruised, mottled neck where Avery’s forearm had pressed down with all his weight behind it. “She couldn’t breathe. She was suffering oxygen deprivation. She was so traumatized she thought she’d die so when you distracted him she used her last ounce of strength to try and shove him off. That’s it.”
I don’t ask if Claire saw Elly’s arm rise when Avery turned his head toward the door.
I don’t ask if she saw Avery lift his forearm to release her.
I don’t ask if she saw Elly edge the glass closer to his neck.
I don’t ask anything.
“H-he raped me. It was him. He admitted it. And he was about to do it again.” A lone tear trickles down Elly’s cheek as I stagger back, sucker-punched yet again by the monster I married.
I open my mouth to speak but no words come out and for the second time in thirty minutes I need to vomit.
Claire’s glance shifts between us, stunned, and I slowly nod. “Maggie told me earlier that Avery boasted to Ryan about drugging women so he could have sex with them so stands to reason he was the one who raped Elly.”
“Fuck,” Claire mutters, her pallor matching Elly’s.
We stare at each other in shock.
I look at Claire, willing her to do the right thing by her friends, not by the law.
The sirens are close now. They drown out the sound of the waves, which I only just notice.
After what seems like an eternity, Claire’s shoulders slump, like she’s deflated, defeated.
“It was self-defense.” Claire’s disbelieving gaze swings from Elly to me, like she can’t quite comprehend how we all ended up here. “She had no choice.”
I touch her arm. “Thank you.”
Claire’s wrong though. We all have choices. We’re all guilty of making a wrong decision at times.
But in this cottage by the sea that’s been privy to a multitude of secrets, I’m sure we’ve made the right one.
Forty-Eight
Claire
Being raised by a family of cops, joining the force myself, all I’ve ever known is truth.
I fight to uphold it on a daily basis.
I strive to be honest in my own life.
It’s why I had to tell Dane about that stupid almost-aborted kiss with Griffin: I couldn’t not tell him. And it’s why I’ll tell him about my transgression before we married because it’s the only way to start afresh after all the crap we’ve been through recently.
So as I stare at Elly covered in Avery’s blood, and I puzzle over Ris’s insistence this is self-defense, I’m torn.
&nbs
p; I know the truth.
Elly killed Avery.
Nobody but another cop can understand the way I approach a situation like this. Adrenalin surges through my body, making me hyperaware of every single detail. I see more clearly. My hearing is heightened. And I record the visual instinctively, so I can play it back like a movie in my head later.
I’ve picked up vital details because of this, clues that have put away more bad guys than I can count.
As I watched Ris rush past me and hover over Elly, that’s what I did. Replayed the scene from the moment I burst through the door.
I saw him trying to kill Elly by pressing all his weight against her neck using his forearm. She was a nasty color, almost violet from lack of oxygen.
I pointed my gun at Avery, yelled at him to raise his hands and get up slowly.
I saw him turn his head to look at me.
I saw him start to raise his arm, obeying my instruction.
I saw Elly’s hand with the glass near his neck.
I saw the exact moment she plunged it in.
There’d been a time lapse: a fraction of a second, maybe two. Long enough for me to understand one vital detail.
Elly could’ve stopped.
She didn’t.
Now I have to decide.
Make a friend suffer for killing a murderer and a rapist, or pretend my detailed memory is faulty and there hasn’t been a time lapse after all.
I holster my gun and approach Ris and Elly. I don’t bother checking Avery for a pulse. His eyes are open and fixed. She hit the carotid and he bled out quickly.
It’s not right to think ill of the dead but all I feel as I stare down at his lifeless body is relief.
Maybe Elly did us all a favor? Avoiding a lengthy, costly trial where Avery would’ve hired the best lawyer his fortune could buy. Sure, the paternity test proved he isn’t the father of Jodi’s baby and Ryan probably is, but I bet he killed Jodi to clean up another one of his younger brother’s messes, and he’d plead insanity or manslaughter to get his sentence reduced.
