Guilt swept over her in a sickening rush. How could she think like that? As if she was pleased with herself for killing him.
No, she hated her hand in Jackson’s murder, but she was pleased about his death.
Serenity sniffed and wiped her face, puffy from crying. She rolled back onto her side, tucking her knees up to her stomach. Emotional exhaustion clouded her head, weighing down her limbs. Her hand strayed to Jackson’s side of the bed. She snatched it back and shuddered. Would she ever be able to sleep there again without thinking of what she’d done? Would she be able to go a single minute of a single day without thinking about last night?
Suddenly, she remembered Sebastian and sat up.
He’d been here last night!
She found her hand clamped against her mouth again. Flashbacks of memory came back to her: blood, anger, death. It was like she’d spent the previous night hideously drunk and pieces were flooding to her in flashes.
Sebastian! How did I forget about Sebastian?
What he’d seen hadn’t horrified him. The sight of blood hadn’t fazed him. If she remembered rightly, he offered to help, but why? Why didn’t he call the cops? The minute he walked in on her with the knife in her hand, he should have picked up the phone. Instead, he offered to help.
Once more, guilt flooded her, but this time for a different reason. Serenity hadn’t intended to involve Sebastian. She would gladly give herself up to the police and confess if it meant he’d never be implicated.
Now, thanks to her, he was an accessory to murder.
There’s still time, she told herself, I can still go to the police.
When—if—Sebastian came back, she’d make him tell her exactly what he’d done with the body. Then she’d tell the police she covered up her crime alone. As far as the police were concerned, Sebastian didn’t even exist.
So where was he now? She didn’t think he’d slept in the bed with her, but she couldn’t remember him leaving.
Serenity chewed at her lip. She needed to go downstairs, into the kitchen, face what she had done. The thought made her feel sick and lightheaded all over again. She wasn’t sure if she could handle seeing the place where the murder happened. What if Sebastian hadn’t done as he said and left instead? What if she went downstairs and Jackson was still lying on the linoleum, covered in blood?
A sharp sob broke the silence and she pressed her hands over her face. Oh, God, how am I supposed to do this?
In that moment, she would gladly have Jackson alive again if it meant she didn’t have to walk down the stairs.
Her clothes from the previous night were nowhere to be seen. She picked her robe off the back of her occasional chair and, before pulling the garment on, she glanced down at herself.
Not a drop of blood marred her skin. All at once, she remembered the hot water and Sebastian holding her in the shower. She recalled the security of his arms protecting her from the horror of what had happened. He held her against his chest, his own clothes soaking as she clung to his neck, her face buried against his throat. She yearned for him then, desperately wanting his presence with every fiber of her soul.
Where was he?
Serenity’s legs trembled beneath her as she made her way to the bathroom. She expected to find her bloodied clothes on the floor, blood smeared across the sink and bath, but the bathroom was spotless.
A flicker of hope ran through her. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Maybe she’d gone crazy and none of this happened?
Was being insane better than the truth?
Like an old woman, she left the bathroom and went into the hallway, clutching frailly to the banister of the stairs. Her legs wobbled and her head swam. A couple of times she had to stop and compose herself. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.
She made it to the bottom, taking choking little gasps of breath before continuing.
Using the wall for balance, she stumbled along the hallway. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might explode from her chest or burst blood vessels in her ears.
In her mind, she saw Jackson lying on the kitchen floor, one arm bent at an awkward angle behind his head, blood smeared glasses hanging off his face. She saw the blood, thick as oil, covering their old fashioned green linoleum. The vision had been burned into her brain and she would see her dead husband’s face every time she closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to do this, but she had to.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, she forced herself to walk into the kitchen.
It was empty.
In disbelief and amazement, she walked in, her bare feet treading on the floor that, only a few hours ago, had been saturated with her husband’s blood. Like the bathroom, the place was spotless. It looked as though nothing had happened.
Suddenly panicked she had imagined it all, she raced back up into the bedroom and slammed open the closet door. Desperately, she threw out shoes and bags, searching for the bag she had packed for herself.
The back pack was missing.
Empty out your bag, Sebastian told her. Pack some of his things. I can make it look like he’s left you.
Still in a panic, mind blurred, she yanked open Jackson’s drawers, one after the other, flinging out shirts, pants and underwear. Some of the items were gone; not much but enough to notice.
Clothes littered every surface but Serenity wasn’t finished yet. She opened the bedside drawer where Jackson kept his passport and discovered the document was missing. She went into the bathroom and saw what she hadn’t before; empty spaces on the shelf where his toothbrush and shaving kit normally stood.
Her chest heaved from the exertion and she took a moment to catch her breath. Only one room remained unchecked, the spare bedroom—the one Jackson used as an office. The room was tiny, barely big enough for his desk and a set of shelves. Serenity never went in there. Jackson had made it clear—if he ever found out she’d been in his office, he would make her pay. Fear that he’d set up some kind of trap stopped her from going in when he went out.
Even now, with Jackson dead, the idea of going in scared her. He’d trained her well.
With a shaking hand, she pushed open the door. The standby light on his PC glowed, a mountain of paper balanced beside the monitor.
His book, she thought with a pang of uneasy regret. He’ll never finish it now.
She wondered if anyone else had seen the manuscript, if he’d been in touch with anyone about publishing the book. Someone might notice his sudden lack of communication.
The uneasiness did a summersault in the pit of her stomach. What if someone reported him missing? How well would she hold up if the police came asking questions?
Serenity turned her attention back to the office. Stacks of men’s magazines were piled on the floor and several cups of old coffee stood congealing beside them. Crushed, empty beer cans piled high in the trash. Wafts of stale alcohol and feet washed over her.
This was what remained of her husband; this disgusting little room.
Sick to her stomach again, she backed out of the office and gently shut the door behind her. She would have to deal with his things at some point but not now.
Somehow, Sebastian had done this for her. He’d fulfilled his promise and made Jackson disappear. Her earlier thoughts about telling the police had been quashed. She didn’t know how Sebastian had managed everything so perfectly but she would never be able to fool the police into thinking she had done the cleanup alone. Now it wasn’t just her freedom on the line, but Sebastian’s as well.
A spark of hope flared up again. Didn’t doing this for her prove he cared?
What now?
Still shaken and terrified, the words ran over and over in her mind, like a foreign language she needed to practice but didn’t quite understand.
I killed Jackson. I killed Jackson. I killed Jackson.
The moments before she murdered him replayed in her mind. She hadn’t been aware of her actions; she simply reacted. Serenity remembered Jackson laughing at the thought of he
r trying to leave. After that, everything was a blur.
She compared herself to Jackson; how, after beating her, he would tell her he hadn’t meant it, hadn’t known what he was doing. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ he would plead. ‘Why do you push me to do these things?’
Serenity could use all of those lines now. For the first time, she could put herself in Jackson’s shoes and she hated it.
The thought brought her tears back, but she forced herself to stop, worried they smacked of self-pity. Tears were another one of Jackson’s favorite hands to play. Had she really become like him?
What to do now? Continue as if nothing had happened?
Half an hour ago, she thought herself unable to eat again. Now her stomach churned, overly hungry and a little sickly. With the sensation came an intense craving for a cup of hot, sweet coffee.
Could she make breakfast in the room where she’d committed murder? The idea felt as crazy as the killing, but she found she could do it. Going back to the scene of the crime, she filled up the kettle with water from the tap and switched it on. She didn’t stop shaking, however, and kept glancing back at the spot where she’d last seen her husband.
Serenity tried to pile coffee into her cup, but her hands shook so badly the brown granules spilled over the countertop. She lifted the kettle and boiling water followed the granules, that too spilling over the counter. Not noticing the amount she put into the mug, she dumped full spoons of sugar into the murky brown liquid.
Taking her too sweet, too strong coffee into the living room, she curled up on the couch and tucked her bare feet beneath her. Out of habit, she reached for her necklace. Her fingers found nothing but skin. Of course, Jackson had broken it. The memory speared her with pain and she quickly snatched her hand away from her throat, pushing away the recollection to preserve her sanity.
For several hours, long after her coffee had grown cold in her hands, Serenity stared into space, lost in the river of thoughts and memories swelling around her, threatening to pull her under.
Chapter Eleven
Serenity woke up on the couch with her head kinked at an odd angle. She moved and pain speared up through her neck, the muscles stiff from where she’d been lying.
The light in the room had changed. The bright glow of morning had given way to the shade and shadows of dusk. A glance at the clock confirmed her suspicion: quarter to six; she had slept most of the day.
Serenity pushed herself to sitting, her hand rubbing at her aching neck. The house was still and silent around her. She didn’t think Sebastian had been back while she slept.
Sighing heavily, she pulled the throw down from the back of the couch; protection against the cool of the night. The cold didn’t come from the air, but from somewhere deep inside, chilling her to the bone. Serenity pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself for comfort.
What if he didn’t come back? She wouldn’t blame him in the slightest; after all, he’d seen what she was and she wouldn’t hold him responsible him for not wanting to get involved further. But what she would do if he didn’t return? The possibility filled her with terror.
If she didn’t have him, she had nothing.
Serenity pulled the throw closer. How quickly life turned on a dime. One moment everything was the same, then one action changed every...
A flash of glowing yellow at the window halted her thoughts. She froze, breath stopping in her chest.
Eyes? Cat’s eyes?
Serenity blinked. Only an empty window faced her.
Did she see something in the dark?
Shaken, she turned away from the window, but the certainty that someone watched her remained. The sensation unsettled her and the hairs on Serenity’s arms and the back of her neck stood to attention.
Staring down at her hands, she pretended to be engrossed by her nails. The sense of being watched grew stronger; as if she reached out, she might touch the person standing over her.
Serenity whipped up her head.
Like catching a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a flash of yellow winked at the window.
Sebastian?
If so, why didn’t he just come in? He’d never had a problem making an entrance before. Slowly, she pushed to her feet and crossed the room. At the window, she cupped her hand against the glass and peered out into the night.
A shiver ran down her spine.
She must be getting paranoid. No wonder, considering the events of the past twenty-four hours. She was allowed to be a bit spooked.
With a new found bravery, and partly to put her mind to rest, Serenity pushed open the window and leaned out into the night.
“Hello?” she called, her voice too loud in the stillness.
No one answered.
Why wasn’t he back yet? Serenity thought nervously, wishing she had something to busy herself. She’d created this mess yet she sat around doing nothing to help the situation. She needed something to keep her busy, to stop her mind conjuring up ghosts that didn’t exist.
She remembered Jackson’s office, how she’d worried someone in his on-line life might notice him missing. By looking into the possibility she’d prepare herself and Sebastian for problems that might lie ahead.
Serenity started across the room. Upon reaching the door, the sensation of being watched pressed against her back and she spun around. The room was empty.
With legs of lead, she forced herself to walk upstairs to Jackson’s office. Pushing open the door, the stale smell of old beer and testosterone hit her and she cringed in disgust. She swallowed her revulsion, crossed to the computer and switched the monitor on.
The screen blinked to life, asking for a password
Damn! She should have realized Jackson would be paranoid enough to put extra security on a home computer.
What password would he choose? Wracking her brain, she absently picked at the dry skin around her thumbnail. What was important to him?
The most important thing in Jackson’s life had been Jackson himself. She typed in his name, followed by his surname, and when that didn’t work she started trying different combinations of his name and added in a few numbers—his birth year, their house number.
Password not recognized.
Serenity sighed.
Perhaps her name? She tried it, but no, password not recognized. What else? She thought about the name of his book… She knew she should remember; the name had struck a chord with her when he told her what it was.
The name of a plant, she was sure the title was also the name of a plant.
Then it came to her: Love Lies Bleeding.
With shaking hands, she typed the words into the box. She was in!
Pulling up his Internet browser, she clicked on the drop down box to find out what sites he’d used lately. She expected to see ‘Writer’s Weekly’ and ‘The Writer’s Guide,’ but a whole different usage of the Internet faced her.
Her hands trembled once again as she used the mouse to click on the first web address. Apparently now Jackson hadn’t been so security conscious, as the computer automatically logged him on as ‘bigboy74’.
Serenity gulped. This was what her husband had been up to. A message flashed in his inbox.
‘Hey Bigboy, where are you tonight? I’ve been imagining your cock in my throat and my pussy is wet just thinking about you.”
Serenity read on, feeling sick to her stomach. A number of similar messages followed, all amounting to the same sort of thing.
She clicked out of the website and went on another. Jackson used a different name but the messages amounted to more smut. On another site, a woman sent pictures of her most intimate parts and another (although Serenity couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the same woman) sent photos of her licking her own, extremely large breasts.
With adrenaline firing through her veins, she left the Internet and opened Jackson’s documents. He’d saved pages and pages of pornographic messages.
Furious, Serenity clenched her hands into fists. She stopped h
erself from picking up the computer and throwing it through the window. Even though she didn’t have proof of Jackson physically cheating, this was just as bad. She couldn’t believe she’d been working all this time while he was getting his rocks off to faceless women on the Internet. She felt like the bottom had been ripped out of her stomach.
Then she opened the document for his book.
It was twelve pages.
She stared in amazement. Was this all he’d done? This and several hundred thousand words of porn?
“Son of a bitch!” she screamed at the monitor.
She’d been supporting him for the past ten years while he did nothing. How could she have been so stupid? For a moment, she wished him alive so she could kill him all over again.
This time the wave of guilt didn’t come.
She knew now, no one would miss him. Whoever was into ‘bigboy74’ wouldn’t bother to log a missing person’s record. She guessed Jackson hadn’t bothered sending his pathetic twelve pages to any publishing houses, and if he did, no one would be interested.
She read through the first few pages of his ‘novel’. Despite the poetic title, the pages read like the start of a sci-fi novel with poor grammar and bad spelling. How could someone spell so badly when the computer spell checked automatically?
He was nothing but a lazy son-of-a-bitch. For years he’d taken advantage of her and treated her like the worthless one. Anger swelled inside and Serenity thought she might explode. Impotent, useless anger. Jackson was dead and she had no one to direct her fury toward. Instead, she turned the anger inward. How he must have laughed at her. Stupid, naive Serenity, out at work all day and then back home to make dinner and take her beating.
Years wasted, and she had no one to blame but herself?
Sebastian pushed open the door to the spare room and found Serenity with her head in her hands, crying in front of the computer.
“Serenity?” He dropped to his knees in front of her, concerned at the sight of her tears. “What’s happened?”
She managed a laugh, the sound bitter and full of regret.
“What’s happened?” she said. “Apart from the obvious you mean? What’s happened is I’ve discovered my pig of a husband spent most of our marriage writing filth to other women on the Internet instead of writing the supposed ‘bestseller’ he always talked about.”
Alone Page 9
