What She Doesn't Know: A Psychological Thriller

by Andrew E. Kaufman

  Riley stays where she is. She extends the box toward Samantha and says, “I’m not accepting this.”

  “Of course you are, you s-s-silly shit!”

  “No, I cannot.”

  Samantha pokes a wobbly finger at her and says, “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t start with the money bullshit again.”

  “I’m serious. I’m not taking it.”

  “What do you mean? I—” For the first time, Samantha’s inebriated joy loses its luster. “I picked it out just for you.”

  “I said no. You can’t buy me back every time you act up.”

  “But you have to take it,” Samantha says, verging on tears. “I spent so much time looking for the right gift. To show how sorry I am for what I said. To let you know how much I love you!”

  “You can’t fix everything with your money.”

  “It’s a present! You can’t refuse a present! You can’t!” Samantha is no longer on the verge of crying. Her eyes swim with tears. “Please! Please come inside so we can talk about it!

  “I need to go.”

  “You bitch! I fucking hate you!” Samantha zigzags toward the open window. Holding the wineglass in one hand, the new bottle in the other, she tries to wrestle a leg through the opening.

  “Samantha, no!” Riley yells. “Don’t! You’re not in any shape to go out there! You’ll get hurt!”

  Samantha trips over herself during a second attempt to push her leg through the window.

  Riley rushes into the studio, drops the gift box on a table, then hurries toward Samantha and says, “Get away from there before I pull you away!”

  “Okay, Mom,” Samantha snarks back. “Whatever you say, Mom.”

  Riley stops to collect herself and says, “I’m not your mother, but I’m certainly not going to let you kill yourself.”

  Smash.

  The sound of exploding glass is loud in the room.

  Samantha stands freakishly still, shards of broken bottle glass scattered around her, one ankle dripping with blood. Her body writhes with frightening intensity, face set into an expression that could only be interpreted as one of raw and lethal fury.

  “Samantha,” Riley says, “what is it?”

  Samantha doesn’t speak, eyes hooded, lips trembling, a tangle of hair glued to her cheek by sweat.

  “Samantha!” Riley again says. “What did I—?” She stops.

  I’m not your mother.

  Samantha bites down so hard that the jawbone rises beneath her skin. She moves toward Riley, leaving a trail of blood in her tracks.

  “Samantha! Stop!” Riley shouts, backing away. “You’re scaring the hell out of me!”

  But Samantha won’t stop. Still on the advance, she says, “Don’t you EVER say that to me!”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

  Before Riley can finish her sentence, Samantha latches both hands onto one of the sculptures and with alarming strength slings it onto the floor. A resounding crash goes off. A bronze hand breaks off and pinwheels across the floor. Riley looks toward the door, trying to map out her path for escape.

  “HOW? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME!” Samantha yells, spitting out her words as if they are blistering her tongue, thick, teary mascara running down her cheeks. “HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME? WHY, WHY, WHY? I NEEDED YOU! YOU SELFISH CUNT!”

  Riley isn’t sure whether Samantha is talking to her or the mother who abandoned her. Maybe it’s both. She rams her body into another sculpture. The heavy mass of bronze topples slowly onto the merciless concrete floor.

  Crash. Clatter.

  Samantha lets out an unearthly wail. Primal. Barely human. Riley jumps back, and for the first time notices that the blue curtain is wide open. She staggers into reverse at the sight of what lies behind it, a group of horrific, frightening statues, more grotesque than anything she’s witnessed before in this studio. Although human forms, all have one connecting commonality: bestial features—horns, fangs, cloven hooves—expressions ranging from misery to agony to terror. She zeros in on one that’s particularly unnerving. It portrays a man, his naked body toned and muscular. He’s beautiful except for the thick tail that, upon closer inspection, is actually a monstrous snake, its barbed fangs dripping with venom, its eyes looking hungry for blood. The serpent coils around the man’s legs and past a fleshy wound where his penis and testicles once were. Beside and below it, a pair of wolves with human bodies fight over what appears to be the Adonis’s severed arm.

  But nothing can compare to the statue at the end of the line. Samantha’s latest work. The room swims around Riley and the floor teeter-totters.

  A cruel statue, obviously created for Riley’s benefit: a reenactment of Clarissa’s death.

  Body facedown in the grave.

  Part of it covered with mud while she’s being buried alive.

  Riley involuntarily hurtles into reverse until her back is against the opposite wall. She tries to scream but can’t, tries to catch her breath, but the air feels like a fistful of nails going down.

  Then she hears a trickling sound, looks down, and sees a puddle of urine pooling around Samantha’s bloodstained feet.

  59

  Riley flees Samantha’s maniacal rage.

  Now she drives into the night, muscles straining against skin, hands trembling so hard that she can barely maintain her grip on the wheel.

  Her thoughts spin into reverse, mind trying to visualize what happened too fast to grasp the first time around. Samantha’s violent, savage fury. Her murderous expression. She isn’t just mentally unbalanced—she’s a dangerous lunatic.

  At a stoplight, she opens her window to draw some fresh air, then another car stops beside her, and from inside the vehicle she hears this:

  “At eight o’clock, here’s your top story. Investigators are looking into the murder of a Lincoln Heights therapist. Patricia Lockwood’s bludgeoned body was found in her office. There are no current suspects, but police are asking anyone who might have information to . . .”

  A feverish surge blasts through her body, then tears flood her eyes.

  “Not Patricia! NO!”

  There’s something I need to discuss with you. . . . It’s extremely import—

  Riley never heard from Patricia again. Was she murdered in midsentence? Even more, is it possible Samantha walked back inside the building to kill her? She doesn’t know, has nothing to prove it, but looking at the timing, the theory doesn’t feel like much of a stretch.

  Panic sends her foot bearing down on the pedal, and the car surges ahead at alarming speed when she thinks about the pithy note she left at Patricia’s office. She was probably already dead when Riley went to check on her. Will that implicate Riley in the murder?

  Just what I need right now.

  Her phone dings. She grabs for it, sees a text from Samantha, but doesn’t want to read it. Whatever that woman has to say will only rip at Riley’s already-frayed nerves. She can’t allow that to happen, has to hold it together.

  About ten seconds later, the phone goes off again. Another text. Then in rapid-fire succession come three more. Her screen is littered with messages from Samantha. Her throat feels coated in toughened leather. The stomach pain starts up again with newfound intensity. She drives faster, tries not to cave while her phone continues with its ding, ding, ding.

  She reaches her building, and the place has never looked so good. She scrambles from her car, sprints toward the entrance, flies up the stairs, her phone going off the entire way, then down the hallway and into her apartment. Inside, she locks the dead bolt, drops the security bar across her door. Then she collapses into a chair at the kitchen table, foot pumping, body shaking. Samantha’s texts still roll in.

  Ring.

  The phone flies from her hand and clatters onto the table. As she picks it up, another ring goes off, then her voice mail chimes. Now the ringing won’t stop. Riley can’t take any more. She turns off her phone, rechecks her door, and makes
a run for the bedroom.

  She jumps into bed, clothes still on, and burrows beneath the covers, wishing all this could go away.

  And regretting the day she began stalking a monster.

  60

  All through the night, Riley jumps at every footstep outside her apartment, every slamming door. Even the rattling pipes strike fear into her. Amid all that, she obsessively checks and rechecks her lock and security bar, worrying about how many text and voice messages will be waiting for her in the morning, not to mention trying to anticipate Samantha’s next dangerous move.

  The sun rises, and it feels as if the past few minutes have been her only length of sleep, then an unrelenting insomnia hangover fires off, hacksawing through her head.

  She hefts her strung-out, sleep-deprived body from bed. In the kitchen her sight guardedly gravitates toward her phone, still lying on the table from last night. Maybe because fatigue has put a dull edge to her fear—or maybe simply because she knows that ignoring this horror show is no longer an option—she turns on the phone to find thirty text messages and twenty-five phone calls, every one from her enemy. She begins scrolling through the texts. In the first four, Samantha repeatedly begs for forgiveness, albeit in an utterly frenetic, crazed way.

  It was all a simple misunderstanding!

  I had too much to drink!

  I didn’t mean any of it!

  I love you so much!!!

  She feels a fraction of relief that the woman hasn’t gone on the warpath after her. But that relief falls into a rapid decline as she reads on.

  I hate you! Don’t ever leave me!

  How dare you treat me like this!!!

  STUPID WHORE! I’M CALLING YOU! PICK UP THE MOTHERFUCKING PHONE!!!

  And worst of all:

  I’M COMING OVER IF YOU DON’T ANSWER!!!!

  Thankfully, she didn’t, but Riley decides to abandon the remaining voice mails. She can’t afford to let Samantha take over her emotions more than she already has.

  She walks to her window, looks at Samantha’s Mercedes in the lot, looks up at Samantha’s building, and a fusion of nausea and terror overcomes her.

  Samantha is almost a stone’s throw away from me right now.

  Riley has to pull it together. This is no time to skip her meds, so she goes into the bathroom, but as she pours the Olanzapine into her hand, an abnormal, abrasive mark on one of the pills catches her interest.

  What the . . . ?

  She spills the rest of the bottle out onto her countertop, begins sorting through the remaining white tablets. No scratches, but they do have one feature in common. All identifying letters and numbers have been rubbed off.

  She checks her Lexapro, too—which was almost identical to the Olanzapine—and gets the same result: all markings are gone.

  Would it be okay if I use the little girls’ room right quick?

  She sure did, but it wasn’t to seek relief from that large coffee she drank.

  Riley pours the second bottle’s remaining contents onto the countertop and zeros in on one pill that Samantha apparently missed. She lets out an infuriated laugh. This would explain why her stomach has been causing so much trouble lately.

  Aspirin. I’ve been taking six damned aspirin a day instead of my meds.

  Samantha has been trying to make Riley lose her mind again. But why? To manipulate her judgment and cause dependence? Then there was the new job. The shopping sprees. All were attempts to buy Riley. To own her.

  Randall’s strange and unexpected departure at the art showing after she came back from the restroom, then Samantha’s explanation that didn’t quite add up.

  DIE MURDERER! keyed across her car door after their lunch together.

  BITCH! furiously spray-painted in red across her apartment door, directly on the heels of Samantha’s supposed apology and subsequent pill-switch.

  She’s been out to get me from the start. Probably planned on killing me, too.

  Her clothes feel itchy on her skin. Again, she races to the window and rechecks the parking lot.

  Is she hiding out there? Is she coming after me?

  She goes back to the table and sits. More thoughts, more disturbing conclusions.

  The burned fingers along with yet another explanation that didn’t fit.

  The hair-salon fight.

  Samantha’s colossal mental breakdown in the studio.

  That’s her MO. Samantha cries out for attention anytime someone rejects her, just as her mother did.

  Now Riley starts to wonder about the break-ins and whether Samantha was responsible for those, too.

  But how did she slip in?

  A loud thud goes off outside her front door, and she nearly leaps from her shoes. She’s on it. She makes a break toward the door, looks through the peephole, and her pulse taps down. Just a pair of workers moving equipment for some final hallway repairs.

  The fire.

  She picks up the phone and dials Erin’s number.

  61

  “I could really use your help, sis,” Riley says, breaths huffing despite her best efforts to conceal them.

  “You sound funny,” Erin replies.

  “I’m in a crisis.”

  “I don’t think I like the sound of that, either.”

  “I’m in serious trouble.”

  “Oh no, Riley. What is it this time?”

  “It’s Samantha. The woman is crazy. She’s dangerous and trying to destroy my life. And I think she might have murdered Patricia.”

  “Whoa, hold on a minute. The gal from the hair salon is trying to destroy your life and murdered your therapist?”

  “She’s not from the salon! She took me there. Erin, please!”

  “Okay. Fine. Tell me what’s happening.”

  Riley explains about the friction rising between her and Samantha. How Samantha became increasingly needy and possessive. How last night she exploded and became violently unhinged. And her suspicion that Samantha could have been the one breaking into the apartment.

  “Breaking,” Erin repeats.

  “Huh?”

  “You said breaking in the present tense. As if it has continued since the first time we spoke about it.”

  Riley offers no reply.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. More lies? Really?”

  “Because telling the truth turned into a fight last time, and I didn’t want that to happen again, so I’ve been trying to handle the problem myself.”

  “There is no such thing as lying for a good reason, but I’m guessing this call is because you’ve figured that one out.

  “Something like that. Yes.”

  “You should have told me in the first place.”

  “I know.”

  “Then I could have helped you.”

  “Erin! Can we please discuss all that later? I’m scared out of my mind!”

  “Okay, okay! But my God, you sound bananas. It’s worrying me.”

  “I need to figure out if Samantha’s the one who’s been breaking into my apartment!”

  “But the first incident with the headboard happened before the two of you even met. Riley, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “I told you! I’m trying to figure this out!”

  “Let me rephrase that. What proof do you have?”

  “That’s why I’m calling! I need your help finding it!”

  “Okay. Let’s just back it up here for a moment. What was her motivation? Do you even know that? Was she stealing?”

  “No. It’s not like tha—”

  “Trying to frame you for something? Planting evidence, maybe.”

  “Erin! Just for a minute, would you stop being a lawyer?”

  “I am a lawyer, Riley! And being a lawyer, it’s hard to ignore the fact that you’re tossing out allegations left and right with nothing to support them. If I’m going to be honest, you sound more paranoid than logical. So once again, tell me why you think this woman is stalking you. Do you even know that?”

  Riley pauses, th
en, “Well, no. Not yet.”

  “See? None of this makes sense!”

  “How about if you listen instead of judge?”

  Riley hears Erin take a deep breath.

  “Fine. Go.”

  Riley takes in her own breath. “All I’m trying to figure out is whether Samantha was able to get her hands on the new key after I changed my lock.”

  “What makes you think she did? And multiple times?”

  “I’m starting with the most obvious incident, okay? If I can figure that one out, maybe I can find links to the other times. So, the fire happened a day or two after I called a locksmith. Not long after that, the doll started moving.”

  “The what?”

  “It . . . it’s a long story,” Riley says, rebuking herself for letting out information she didn’t mean to. “The point is, I think Samantha might be the one who started the fire and made it look like an accident. Maybe she snuck into the neighbor’s apartment and dropped a lit cigarette in his bed while he was passed out.”

  “Okay . . . ,” Erin says, stringing out the word and not sounding one bit convinced.

  “So, after the flames were extinguished, I think I might have left the door unlocked when I went outside and talked to a firefighter.”

  “Might have?”

  “Well, yeah. I must have.”

  “Conjecture.”

  “I’m putting pieces together! But with all that upheaval, it was the perfect opportunity for Samantha to sneak into my place and steal one of the spare keys. I was hoping that maybe you could look at the fire report. You know, use your skills to see if you can find anything suspicious.”

  “Except that you haven’t shown me a sliver of proof this woman set fire to your apartment building. Did you try speaking to the guy with the cigarette whose unit it started in?”

  “No, because I’m just now figuring this out. Besides, I don’t want people knowing what I’m up to.”

  “Oh hell. I’m sorry, but I’m not doing this.”

  “It’s important! I’m in danger!”

  “Then call the freakin’ police like I told you!”

  “I can’t! They’re part of the problem! They’re after me too!”