Joshua sat at the end of the kitchen table. Mom shuffled to the stove, lifted the lid off the pot, and stirred the soup with a big spoon.
“I was in the area and wanted to stop by to say hi,” he said.
“Wanted to stop by to say hi? Like we just acquaintances or somethin’. You ain’t been by here in a month.”
“It hasn’t been that long, Mom. I visited last week.”
“Maybe you did. But I ain’t seen that heifer you married since Thanksgiving. That’s plain disrespectful. You come to see us, but she can’t?”
Normally, Joshua defended Rachel whenever his mom started dogging her out. Today, though, full of his own doubts about his wife, he couldn’t summon the will to speak up for her.
“Wouldn’t trust that heifer as far as I could throw her,” Mom said, hands on her wide hips. “What kinda wife talks her husband into quittin’ a good job so he could go out there and be unemployed and strugglin’?”
Mom had been against Joshua leaving his job to start his business. Although he was earning more money and was happier being his own boss, in his mother’s mind, he was jobless and broke. She blamed Rachel for it, of course.
It was another point that Joshua typically disputed. But he kept quiet.
“She ain’t an honorable woman,” Mom said.
“Why do you say that?”
“She just ain’t. I feels it right here.” Mom touched her breast. “But you ain’t listen to what I think, oh no. Mama done lived sixty-some years but don’t know nothin’!”
Joshua was quiet. Eventually, her tirade would run its course.
She ladled some soup into a bowl and plinked a spoon inside. “Come here and take this.”
Joshua got up, took the bowl, and returned to the table.
“Blow on it, first, boy, that’s hot,” she said.
He blew on a spoonful, and then tasted it. “It’s delicious, Mom.”
Mom nodded, and shuffled to the garage door. She opened it and yelled at his father: “Earl, get from up under that car and come in here and eat!”
Shaking his head, Joshua swallowed another spoonful of soup. Mom usually had to yell at his father three or four times before his father gave up the joys of automobiles for the company of his family. Theirs was an odd marriage, seemingly devoid of tenderness, but his parents had been together for thirty-five years, a milestone that few members of Joshua’s generation would ever reach.
Although if he was trapped in a marriage like the ones his parents had—who would want to stay?
Mom poured a glass of sweet tea and plopped it on the table. “Drink that.”
He took a sip. “Wow, that’s really sweet.”
“That’s how I always make it, boy. You done forgot? What that heifer been givin’ you to drink—wine?”
Joshua never would admit to his mother that she was right. Rachel enjoyed wine, and she had gotten him hooked on it, too. If he disclosed to his mom that they often drank wine with dinner, she would have branded him an alcoholic and said she was going to pray for him.
Mom sat next to him, the chair squeaking under her weight. She smiled, showing new dentures. “Chaquita came by here yesterday.”
Joshua almost choked on a dumpling. “She did? Why?”
“ ‘Cause she respects me. Unlike your wife.”
Chaquita was his ex-girlfriend. She and Joshua had dated for two boisterous years before she dumped him, declaring him too dull and soft for her tastes.
Puzzlingly, Chaquita and his mother stayed in touch. They sometimes went shopping together or out for lunch, like mother and daughter.
“She asked after you,” Mom said. “That girl still loves you, you know.”
“She broke up with me, Mom. Anyway, I’m married now. Whatever feelings she thinks she has for me, she needs to let them go. I’m going to be with Rachel, for the rest of my life, hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” The gleam in his mother’s eyes bordered on malicious. “You sound kinda doubtful to me. Sound like the bloom is off the rose. What kinda problems you havin’ with that heifer?”
“No problems.” He lowered his gaze to the bowl, shoved another spoonful of soup in his mouth.
“Hmph. What’s done in the dark will come to light,” Mom said, with obvious pleasure.
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I mean! I’m talkin’ ‘bout dirt, boy. Skeletons in the closet. Deep, dark sinful secrets. All that mess—it’s gonna come out.”
“Well, everyone has secrets, Mom. You never . . . you never know everything about anyone.”
“I know everythang ‘bout your daddy!” She pointed to the garage, shaking her long finger. “You know everythang ‘bout your wife?”
Joshua glanced at his watch, cleared his throat. “Mom, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got an appointment at two.”
“What? You just got here!”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll be back soon, promise.”
His mother followed him to the door, muttering.
“Remember what I said, boy. What’s done in the dark . . .”
“Will come to light, I know,” he said.
He gave his mother a kiss, and went to his truck. As he pulled away, she yelled at his father again to come inside and eat. A normal day in the Moore household.
But his mother’s words echoed in his thoughts. What’s done in the dark . . . .
Driving to the doctor’s office, he realized why he had visited his mother. He’d wanted to talk to someone whose doubts about Rachel’s honesty exceeded his own. He’d wanted to talk to someone who would fan the flames of his discontent, someone who would whip his emotions into an uncontainable storm.
Because he’d decided that he was going to confront Rachel, and demand the truth.
Chapter 13
As Dexter had anticipated, whacking Betty upside the head with the shovel had knocked her out cold. She slumped in the doorway, resembling a drunk who hadn’t quite made it through the door after a long night of boozing.
He hooked his hands underneath her armpits and dragged her inside. She was a slender woman, easy to move. He kicked the door shut behind him.
The small foyer opened into the living room. It was furnished with a burgundy sofa and chairs, an oak coffee table, a television broadcasting a soap opera, and the tall Christmas tree he had seen from the street.
Photographs were everywhere. Pictures of Betty and her dead husband. Pictures of his wife. However, none of the shots of his wife were recent; he’d seen all of them before.
But that didn’t mean anything.
He propped Betty against the sofa. Her bosom rose and fell slowly, and her lips were parted, drool spilling over them, but her eyelids didn’t flutter. She would be unconscious for a few moments yet.
He locked the front door and cinched the curtains shut. Shadows sprang from the corners of the room, like old friends.
He opened his jacket and withdrew the Scimitar blade, a folding knife, the design of which was based on a famous Japanese sword. It was a particularly lethal piece of cutlery.
Brandishing the blade, he strode through the house, his boots thudding across the floor. In her golden years, Betty lived alone to his knowledge, but he wanted to ensure that there was no one else lurking inside.
He also was seeking signs of his wife. He doubted that she lived with Betty, but she surely would’ve visited the old bitch often, and she might’ve left behind personal effects that would give him irrefutable proof that she was in the area.
There was no one else in the house. He found nothing of his wife, either. Odd.
Betty would have to give him some answers, then.
In a drawer in the kitchen, Dexter found a thick roll of duct tape. Returning to the living room, he found Betty unconscious, but breathing at a faster rate. About to awaken.
Quickly, he bound her thin wrists in her lap with a swath of tape, and wrapped up her bony ankles, too. He lifted her off the floor and placed her in a nearby Lazy-Boy recliner.
He slid the coffee table across the rug and sat on it, so he could look her directly in the face and analyze every nuance of her expressions when he spoke to her. Like a human lie detector.
Her face in repose, Betty was a striking woman for her age. A thick, full head of gray hair. Healthy cinnamon complexion. High cheekbones. Full lips. Based on the photos he’d seen of her in her youth, Betty had been quite the fox. She bore a strong, family resemblance to his wife.
“Oh, Betty,” he said, softly. “Wake up, old girl. I want to talk to you.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She was awake, yet pretending to be asleep.
He whisked the Scimitar blade across the back of her hand, drawing a thin line of blood. Betty’s eyes flew open, and she let out a short scream.
“Don’t play games with me,” he said. “I don’t have time. We need to talk.”
Fear and pain glistened in her honey-brown eyes. She had eyes like his wife, too.
“I don’t have anything to discuss with you, Dexter.”
“I think you do. You know why I’m here. Where’s my wife?”
“She’s not your wife any more. She divorced you while you were incarcerated. Surely you know that.”
Dexter raised the knife, waved it before her eyes like a hypnotist’s pendulum. She stared at it, gnawing her lip.
“Let’s be clear on one thing,” Dexter said. “There was no divorce. I never consented to it.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you consented to it or not. In the eyes of the law, you’re divorced.”
“Not in my eyes!” Spittle sprayed from Dexter’s lips. Betty shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut as if praying.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he said.
She opened her eyes.
“Marriage is for life,” he said. “Till death do us part. We took those vows before God. She’s my wife, and she always will be. The so-called divorce that she sent to me while I was on lockdown is meaningless, in my eyes—and as far as you’re concerned, I am the law.”
“Okay, Dexter,” she said. “You’re correct. I’d like to help you, I really would. But can you first put away the knife, and free my arms and legs, please?”
“No. Don’t patronize me. It’s transparent and, frankly, coming from you, ridiculous.”
She lifted her chin defiantly. She was a proud woman and hated to be put in her place. His wife was the same way.
“Back to my first question.” Dexter spun the knife around his fingers like a stage magician. “Where’s my wife?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He lowered the blade to her hand, where blood oozed from the first surface cut.
She tensed. “I don’t know, I really don’t. I haven’t seen her in three years. She left town about a year after you went to prison.”
“Why?”
“Because she believed that once you were set free, you would kill her.”
“Kill her?” That made Dexter laugh. “Kill my wife? The love of my life? Now, I would torture her so badly she would want me to kill her to put her out of her misery, but I would never, ever, intentionally murder her. No way.”
“I don’t know where she’s gone,” Betty said. “She said . . . it wouldn’t be safe for me to know.”
“Have you talked to her on the phone since she’s left?”
“No,” Betty said, too quickly.
“You’re lying again.” Dexter seized one of her spindly fingers. She tried to pull away, but his grip was firm. “I’m going to slice off this finger here.”
“No, please!”
“Then talk.”
“Earlier this year. On my seventieth birthday. She called me.”
Releasing her finger, Dexter hunched forward, gaze intent. “From where?”
“I don’t know. There was no number on Caller ID, and she knew better than to tell me where she was calling from, or to give me her number.”
Tapping his lip with the knife, Dexter considered that. “What did she say?”
“She said she was doing fine.” Betty got teary-eyed, sniffled. “She said that she loved me . . . and missed me something terrible.”
“I’m touched. But I’m not sure I believe you have no clue whatsoever about where she’s gone, or how to get in touch with her. No, I don’t believe that at all.”
Betty blinked away tears. “But I’ve told you the truth.”
“I know my wife. She adores you, takes care of you. She would never sever her ties with you and call only once a year.”
Dexter surveyed the living room, the hallway, and the kitchen beyond.
“There has to be something in here that she’s sent you,” he said.
“There’s nothing, I promise you.” But he detected a trace of worry in her voice.
“I’ll check for myself.”
He began his search in the most obvious of places: underneath the Christmas tree. A half-dozen brightly wrapped gifts were piled beneath the tree’s ornament-laden boughs. Each present was adorned with a bow and a tag that identified the giver, and the recipient.
He looked through them, tossing each item aside after he checked the tag. All of the gifts were from Betty, to people whose names he’d never heard.
“Those presents are going to children at my church,” Betty said.
Dexter cursed. She was right. None of the gifts came from, or were addressed to, his wife.
“I told you, she doesn’t send me gifts, or anything else,” Betty said. “It would be much too risky for her.”
“Where’s your little black book?”
“Pardon?”
“Your address book, you old bitch. It’s a black, leather-bound book. I’ve seen it here before.”
Betty recoiled at his sharp words, but she said, “It’s in the study. Look on the desk, near the telephone.”
In the study, Dexter found the book just where she’d said it would be. It lay near a cordless phone and a stack of envelopes.
Dexter flipped through the address book. Underneath his wife’s name, the last address listed was of their Chicago condo, and he knew that she no longer lived there. The phone number was their old number, too.
I don’t believe this. The old bitch is hiding something from me.
He noticed the pile of envelopes beside the phone. He riffled through them. Most of them were recent utility bills and bank statements, but one of them had been sent from Thad Washington, in St. Louis, Missouri. It had a postmark of December 11, one week ago.
The envelope had already been sliced open. He looked inside, and found a personal check written from Thad to Betty, in the amount of one thousand dollars.
Dexter scrutinized the check like a bank teller suspicious of fraud. He returned to the living room and waved the check in Betty’s face.
“What’s this?” he asked.
She frowned. “What is it? I can’t read without my glasses. Since you’re so smart you surely remember that about me.”
In her haughty tone, he sensed an undercurrent of anxiety.
“It’s a check from Thad Washington to you, for one grand,” he said. “I remember Thad. He was a co-worker of my wife’s at a salon in Chicago—some faggot hair stylist. Why is he sending money to you?”
Betty’s gaze slipped away from him. “He’s . . . he’s paying me back for a . . . for a loan I once gave him.”
He slapped her—a swift, backhand pimp slap. Her head rocked sideways, and her eyes rolled.
“I’ve wanted to do that to you from the first day I met you,” he said. “That stupid lie you just told me gave me a good reason.”
Betty’s lips worked, but no words came out. It pleased him—he’d quite literally knocked the dumb old bitch down a few pegs.
The telephone rang.
“Saved by the bell,” Dexter said. He moved to the phone on the end table. The Caller ID display stated: Unknown Number.
Intuition guided Dexter’s hand to the handset.
“Hello?” he
said.
The caller did not reply. The silence confirmed Dexter’s gut instinct.
It was his wife.
Her timing was as impeccable as ever.
Chapter 14
Hearing Dexter answer the phone at Aunt Betty’s drove such a deep chill into Rachel that she was momentarily paralyzed, as if she’d been hit with a blast of Siberian wind.
“Hello, Joy,” Dexter said, using her old first name. “Guess who?”
Rachel couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe, too; her breath came out of her dry lips in a low whistle. Dexter was at her aunt’s house. He would only be there to hurt her, and the phantom pain that had fanned across her head a few minutes ago might be only a hint of what he had done, or might do, to her Aunt Betty.
“I’ve been having a nice chat with Aunt Betty,” he said. “We’ve been catching up on family matters.”
Rachel’s knuckles, curled around the handset, throbbed. She could imagine Dexter at her aunt’s house with such clarity that she wondered if it were a vision of the actual scene, though her gift didn’t normally work in that manner.
He stands in the living room, tall and cruel, towering over Aunt Betty. He’s probably armed with a knife of some kind, as he’d always had a fascination with deadly blades, from Japanese samurai swords to daggers . . .
“Your aunt won’t tell me where you’ve gone,” he said. “I honestly don’t think she knows where you are. Smart of you, to keep your location secret from her.”
Rachel choked back a cry. But tears had begun to roll down her cheeks, forming a puddle on the desk.
Please, God, don’t let him hurt Aunt Betty. Please.
“Want to talk to her?” Dexter asked. “Here she is.”
After a moment of fumbling, Rachel heard her aunt on the line, breathing hard. “Muffin.”
At her aunt’s mention of her childhood nickname, Rachel nearly lost it. She clutched a fistful of her hair. A wall of tears had fallen over her eyes.
“Aunt Betty . . .” Rachel sobbed.
“Wherever you are, run away, Muffin,” Aunt Betty said, in a tight voice. “I love you . . . always . . .”
“I love you, always, too, oh, Jesus, please . . .”
The Darkness To Come Page 8
