Her Silent Shadow: A Gripping Psychological Suspense Collection

by Edwin Dasso

  “I better not stand next to her,” Nicole said.

  “You’re a knockout,” he said. “None of these men can take their eyes off you.”

  “Yeah, I’m a big hit with old guys and foreigners,” she said.

  “I’m neither, and I think you’re fabulous,” he said sincerely, turning to her. “I think you’re gorgeous.” They looked in each other’s eyes.

  “Wow,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He nodded his head and took her hand to squeeze. “My pleasure, believe me.” He looked back at the room. “Come on, let me introduce you. My cousin’s a homicide detective here in town. You may have run into her before in the ER.”

  “I thought she looked familiar,” Nicole said. He left her with Jill and was walking back to check on the boys when Nick pulled him aside.

  “Jesus, kid, you’ve got yourself a real woman there. You sure you can handle that?”

  “I’m not sure yet, Uncle Nick,” Andy said. “We just met.”

  “Well, you have any problems, just send her my way.” Paula was right; Nick was practically licking his chops watching Nicole move.

  “With all due respect,” Andy said. “She’s a little young for you.”

  Nick stood up, puffing out his chest. “My specialty,” he replied. It was now common knowledge that his uncle was a pig, but this was even a bit much for him. Andy would take Nicole out of the apartment if Nick started anything with her. Instead of enjoying the afternoon with his family, he was afraid he’d have to keep an eye on his uncle. He decided to pull his father into the mix.

  “Dad, Uncle Nick is threatening to steal Nicole away from me. Do you think you could keep him in line?”

  Big Andy turned to his brother. “Nick, we’re on to you now,” he said, but Nick just laughed.

  “Hey, I can’t stop it if she’s interested in me,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t think you can compete with my son,” Big Andy said, and Andy shrugged his shoulders, laughing.

  “Go to Lovematch.com,” Andy said. “That’s where we met. See if you can find your own girl there.” He flushed when he remembered Paula was standing close by, taking it all in. Oh well, Andy thought. Paula knew Nick as well as anyone, and if she couldn’t face the truth, she wouldn’t be hanging around.

  While Andy was trying to keep Nick away from Nicole, Estelle and Gus were having their first disagreement. “I just don’t think we need to blend our families,” Gus said. Estelle had mentioned that she wanted to invite everyone to her apartment for Christmas. “They already know each other because we’ve been next door for sixty years.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “So why not join in together?” Suddenly she put her hand up to her chest. “Oh!”

  “Estelle, are you okay?” Gus grabbed her upper arm firmly.

  “Yes, of course I am. I was thinking we should have a progressive meal. ” Gus was holding his heart.

  “Woman. You mustn’t do that again. You almost gave me a heart attack.” But she waved him off.

  “Pshhhh,” she said. “Think about it.”

  “Christmas is six days away,” he said. “And my family, they don’t like surprises.” When her countenance changed, he saw the defeat his words caused so he tried to change his approach. “But if you think having everyone together for Christmas is really that important, I guess we could try it.”

  She perked right up. “After your family does their Christmas morning thing, we could have anyone who wanted to come to my apartment for coffee and pastry. Then you could do your own brunch and come back here for drinks before dinner.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Okay, my dear, if that would make you happy, that’s what we’ll do.” He decided the less he and his sister had to do, the better. Estelle loved entertaining, and he would let her have her way if it meant that much to her.

  While Gus was making compromises and Andy was protecting his girlfriend from lechers, brother John and his wife, Liz, were barreling down I96 toward Detroit at the end of one of the worst arguments they’d had in thirty years of marriage. Liz would be relieved they were getting a divorce if she hadn’t been so angry about it. Since he’d retired, the remnants of their relationship were disintegrating at a rapid pace, as he wanted less and less to do with her. The previous weekend, he’d started to move his things out of their shared bedroom into a little-used guest room, but doing so secretively while she was out compulsively Christmas shopping for his family.

  Spending money like their cash was unlimited, Liz was rarely home that week. The dining room laden with piles of wrapped gifts, she’d limited the mess of gift-wrapping to the garage where she’d set up a folding table and turned on an electric heater. In the freezing Michigan winter, she elaborately wrapped gift after gift. After Christmas, the family would say she’d outdone herself once again. But like Paula, she’d practically severed ties with her own family to accommodate the demands the Zannos family made on them. Every Sunday and every holiday they were expected in Greektown. Joan, the third sister-in-law who made up their trio, was making restitution to her kids for her failure to integrate them into the traditional Greek family life, so they really had no choice but to show up now. But in the past, Joan refused to go.

  What would she do about John’s family if they were divorced? It would be unbearable to try to attend their gatherings. Paula was able to do it; knowing that snake of a husband of hers was seeing other women, she accompanied him because she loved being part of the family. Either that or she was a glutton for punishment.

  As Liz prepared for the trip into Greektown after church, he pounced on her with the news. “I’m moving out of the bedroom,” he said simply, out of nowhere. She was taking the earrings that she’d worn to church out of her ears because they hurt her. Stunned, she asked him why.

  “Give me a break, Liz,” he said, laughing. He turned his back on her and she threw the diamond studs at the back of his head with so much force she could hear them hit.

  “Ouch!” He grabbed his neck. “What’d you do that for?” He bent over to retrieve them; they were one carat apiece. “Jesus, Liz.”

  She sprang up in front of her vanity. It was an antique, used by her mother during the thirties and forties when glamorous women still primped in front of an oval mirror. The juxtaposition of the delicate mirrored table with its delicate silk skirt gathered around the frame and the crazed woman who leapt off the padded and tucked velvet stool garnering the strength to attack her husband was tooth jarring for John.

  “Answer me, you bastard,” she screamed, running to him. It frightened him; Liz was never vulgar or aggressive, and he backed away from her, but she stayed up in his face, spraying it with spittle. “Why? Because I snore? I take up too much room in the bed? I fart in my sleep?

  “Or is it because you don’t love me anymore and don’t want to have sex with me again? Which is it? You aren’t living in my house, treating me with such disrespect. You can go fuck yourself. And fuck your family, too. I’d rather eat shit than go into Greektown now and pretend everything is okay. You bastard!”

  It was the most passionate he’d seen her in a long while. Hating drama and scenes, John wanted peace and quiet, long, dull days with little human interaction. But he didn’t want to change his life, hoping to live with Liz like she was his sister. Still wanting her to take care of him and cook for him, shop for food and pay the bills, he just never wanted to touch her again. In his stilted mind, he thought she might agree to that if he presented it to her in the proper way. Nothing about her life would change, except he’d be in his own room. They hadn’t had sex in a long time, so he thought she should be used to it by now, but wisely didn’t bring that up.

  Liz walked back to her stool, her hands over her face, sobbing. “Get out, John. Leave me alone.”

  “I want to go to Greektown,” he said, like a petulant child.

  She looked at him incredulously. “Go, then! Get out of here. Maybe I’ll pull a fishwife like Paula did last year, an
d throw your clothes on the lawn while you’re gone.”

  “You have to come along, too. Everyone’s expecting you. It will ruin the time for the other sisters if you don’t show up.”

  “Tough shit,” she said, bowing her head again. “This marriage is so over. I don’t know where to start. But if you think you are going to treat me like this, you’re mistaken. If I go to your brother’s place, I’ll ruin it for everyone, trust me. Do you want that?” She was looking at him carefully now, certain there was something that she’d ignored, sure he wasn’t right in the head.

  John left their bedroom and went down the hall to the kitchen, where he picked up the phone and dialed brother Peter’s cell phone number. Peter helped John live a normal life. He’d given him advice when he could, told him when his behavior was unacceptable, and would surely guide him now.

  “What’s up? We’re on our way to Greektown,” Peter said, annoyed at the disruption.

  “Liz is refusing to go, so I wondered if Joan could call her to intervene.”

  “Why doesn’t she want to go?” Peter asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. His brothers’ marriages crumbling within a year of each other, and the horrible murder of their baby sister, Sophie did not bode well for his own life. The women were intertwined in each other’s lives so intricately that they knew each other’s bowel movement schedule.

  “Oh, do I have to tell you? Just get Joan to call for me,” John whined.

  “Okay, I get it. You fucked up, right?”

  “Yeah, I did, I guess,” John answered, like a teenaged boy. “Please get Joan to call her.”

  They hung up without saying goodbye. Seconds later, he could hear Liz’s cell phone ring and the droning of her voice as she answered it. John paced in the kitchen while Liz talked, the cadence of her voice permeating the house, the purr of her cry when she broke down. It was really tragic, John thought, wishing there was an answer. He would be sorry if they broke up and he’d have to move and waste precious time starting over.

  Finally, she walked into the kitchen. He noticed her makeup was reapplied, her hair combed. “Let’s go,” she said. “But this is the last time. You are going to move out of this house next week or I will make your life a living hell. You think I’ll just sit back and let you use me? I don’t think so.”

  “Why should I move out?” he said, suddenly scared that he might have to. “Why can’t we leave things as they are?”

  “You’ll leave because I want a normal relationship, with a normal man. I’m sick of being married to a little boy.”

  That stung. John wondered if it wasn’t an idea she’d picked up from Joan when she called. He watched her gathering her purse and a bag of items she was taking to her sister-in-laws. They walked through the garage, skirting her gift table. The ludicrousness of what she had done, buying all these expensive gifts for a bunch of people who soon wouldn’t care if she lived or died made her sick. She’d leave those bills for him to pay.

  They got into the car and drove the hours in silence.

  Jill reminded Gus he promised she could look through the boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments in storage. Nicole followed along as they climbed yet another flight of stairs to the third floor. The heat was off, but it was warm with the heat that had risen through the floorboards. Jill knew these rooms as her childhood home. Gus went around turning lights on and then led the way back to an unused bedroom. Once the room Gus shared with his late sister, Sophie, when they were children, had been emptied of anything that had belonged to Sophie by Patty, her daughter and shipped to her home in California. Sophie never wanted any of it, the memory of her childhood as painful as her marriage had been. As a child, she hated Greektown and what it represented: hard work and sacrifice.

  He’d pulled all the boxes out of the attic, enough ornaments for ten trees. “Since when do you have a tree?” he asked, curious.

  “Since now, Papa. Don’t you think it’s time?”

  “No, not really,” he said, worried it might mean she was planning on staying away now that Estelle was around so much.

  “I bet Nicole has her own tree. Tell `em, Nicole,” Jill said.

  But she shook her head. “No, no tree in my apartment. I hate Christmas. It’s so lonely after you grow up. It’s so warm and friendly here; if my place was full of people, I might consider it. But just for me? No.”

  “Oh,” Jill said. “You need to get a tree. You can have me over, and I’ll invite you to my place for eggnog.” Gus cackled, the idea of his daughter entertaining seemed somehow unappealing. “Dad, what’s that supposed to mean?” She only called him dad when she was angry.

  “You don’t cook, and you don’t buy gifts, so why would we come to your house?”

  “For eggnog, like I said. Jeesh. If this is the way I’m going to be treated, I’m going home.” But the lure of the boxes overpowered her need to get even with him for insulting her, and she and Nicole started to dig in. Gus left the room to find an empty box to pack her findings in when there was a knock on the door to the third floor, and Mark walked in.

  He put out his hand to shake Gus’s. “Mr. Zannos, I went by Jill’s and discovered she wasn’t home. I’m hoping she’s here.” Before Gus could answer, Jill heard Mark’s voice and walked out of the bedroom to find out what had happened. Her heart started racing, excited he’d found her. But once she saw him, she knew right away he wasn’t happy with her.

  “Mark, what’s going on?” she asked.

  He was stony, but he didn’t want to alarm Gus. “May I have a word with you in private?”

  “I’ll leave,” Gus said. “I need to get downstairs to check on dinner. You should stay if you can.”

  “Thank you very much. I might do that,” he answered. When Gus was out of earshot, Mark lectured her.

  “You took a big risk walking over here. Why didn’t you call me?” he asked. Jill saw a little twitch in the corner of his mouth, and he’d grown pale. She could tell how frightened he was for her.

  “I guess I just didn’t think of it. It was broad daylight and church had just gotten out, the streets were filled with people. I certainly didn’t expect you to squire me around town. And I thought with the restraining order and everything, Parker wouldn’t dare take another chance.” He was looking at her intently, and she made the decision to apologize.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have worried you,” she said. “It will never happen again.” She could see the dramatic difference her words made as he relaxed.

  “Okay, cool,” he replied. “Apology accepted. I should never have left your place last night.”

  “You had to get some sleep eventually,” Jill said.

  “So, like, is this your family?” he asked. “I see a lot of Greek people milling around downstairs.”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what it is. I’m going through ornaments. Come help, since you started this mess.” She swung her head around so her ponytail hit him in the face, making him laugh.

  “What do you mean I started it? You’re an adult woman. Make Christmas for yourself.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” They walked into the bedroom, and Nicole was sitting on the floor with a series of retro glass ornaments from the 1950s lined up for her to see.

  “This is Andy’s friend Nicole. Nicole, this is Mark.” She reached up with her hand to shake his. “Mark here is responsible for me getting a tree.”

  Nicole laughed. “Mark, what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a police officer. What about you?”

  “A nurse, what else. We sure are a boring group.” They laughed, digging through ornaments.

  Andy joined in and pulled up a chair next to Nicole, watching as she rewrapped delicate glass ornaments. She’d lean forward to place them in the box for Jill, her thick blond hair falling over her shoulder. When she moved, her pink sweater pulled across her back. The movement mesmerized him; her round bottom flattened on the wood floor, he was hoping for just a peek of skin. But he never got to see any because she had
some kind of undergarment on that was tucked into the waistband of her black pants. Willing her sweater to creep up just a hair, the shiny white fabric of that undergarment was driving him crazy.

  “Jeez, Andy, are you okay?” Jill asked, watching his antics as he stared at Nicole’s back.

  “No, actually, I’m not. Nicole you better stop leaning forward like that, or I’m going to jump you in front of my family.”

  She burst out laughing—guffawing, embarrassed and pleased. “Oh, I should slap your face,” she said. “But I won’t because it’s almost Christmas.” She reached around and pulled her sweater down further on her back.

  “How long have you been dating?” Mark asked.

  Nicole looked up at him. “We aren’t, really. We just met last night and went to church together this morning.”

  “Good lord, what church do you go to? Maybe I need to check it out,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, I wonder what was in that communion wafer.” Andy said, laughing. “Come with me, Nicole. My kids are up.” He put out his hand to pull her up, and she grabbed it. Jill noticed her cousin’s face, how happy and relaxed he was. Could this be a budding romance?

  When they reached the stairwell leading to the second floor, Andy grabbed Nicole’s hand. “Wait. I’m sorry about my comment back there. It was completely uncalled for, and it was inappropriate.”

  Nicole didn’t admit that his words were welcomed. Since she didn’t really know him, if he turned out to be a jerk, it would be better if they hadn’t crossed any lines too soon. But she didn’t want to discourage him, either. They were just getting to know one another, and it was better if they let everything show, warts and all.

  “No apology needed. I liked it, you teasing me.” She looked up at him, at his handsome face, the lines around his eyes belying the pain he’d suffered.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked in a soft voice.

  He nodded. “How long are you staying?”