He darted over to the patio doors and found them locked, but he had the keys to the lock and rushed inside.
Drowning
in worry, he called, "Kate, Kate, it's me.
It's okay."
Josh found his wife and child huddled together in the living room. Kate stood with her back against the fireplace and Abby's face buried in her stomach. Seemingly, they were okay. He detected no visible wounds or injuries other than their tears. His panic subsided.
"Thank God, you're okay. I was really worried," he said. "Why the security chain?"
"Josh, get the hell out." Kate's tone was as hard as steel.
The demand was hard enough to stop him in his tracks. Kate's hostility made no sense. He was at a loss for words.
Kate unpeeled Abby from her. "Abby, go up to your room. It's going to be okay, but I need you to do this for me. Can you do this for Mommy? Can you?"
Sobbing, Abby didn't want to leave, but she relented at Kate's insistence. Kate pulled Abby to her and hugged her.
"You'd better go. Wiener's waiting for you in your room. He needs you." Kate said.
The sight of his wife and daughter in such turmoil tore Josh up inside. What's happened to cause so much misery? He had no idea for the reason of the heartbreak.
Abby raced past him for the stairs and her room. She took an exaggerated path around him and stared at him like he was a monster. Josh murmured her name and put an arm out to her, but she dodged his touch.
Husband and wife said nothing until they heard the bang of the bedroom door upstairs. The muffled sobs through the ceiling made an unbearable soundtrack for their encounter.
"You bastard, Josh. How could you? How could you do it to us?" Kate said through bitter tears.
Josh didn't have an answer. He didn't know what she was referring to. He'd done so much to them.
"With the pain and misery you've brought to this family, you aren't entitled to any of the love you've been given." Kate's nose had run. She sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. "You deserve all you get."
Shaking his head, Josh was still at a loss to understand.
"What have I done, Kate?"
"You didn't tell me everything. In the park, you gave me the edited version. Keep the family on a need-to know basis--was that the plan? Keep the really bad stuff to yourself and make sure you don't get into some real trouble? You coward," Kate spat. Each word was a shard of glass meant to cut deep. "Any of this ringing any bells, Josh?"
It was. He didn't understand how she could have found out. Who would have told her? Josh swallowed the knot in his throat.
"We met Bell in the mall today. She told me all about you two. No, she broadcast it across the store. What a fool I've been to believe in you. Moments before, I was defending you to her, when all along she knew the real you and I only knew the fucking fairy tale." Kate paused to get a grip. Her emotions were taking over.
"Your secretary! Couldn't you have been more original and fucked a Nobel scientist or something?"
Bell. How she must have enjoyed the moment. He should have known she'd do this once she'd lost her hold over him. Destroying his reputation wouldn't have been enough. She needed to crush him under her heel.
Well, she'd done that.
She could destroy everything else, but he'd be damned if he'd let her destroy his marriage. He rushed toward his wife with arms outstretched.
Kate stiffened. Backed up against the fireplace, she clutched for something to protect herself with, and picked up the poker from the rack. Brandishing the weapon with deadly intent, she jabbed it at Josh. She looked like a cornered animal. "Keep away from me.
God help you, I'll use it on you."
Josh stopped abruptly, only inches from the end of the poker. "Oh, Kate. You don't understand," Josh pleaded.
"Educate me, Josh. Tell me why. Why did you do it?
Come on now, the spotlight's on you." Kate positioned her arms like a magician's assistant highlighting a master illusionist's achievement.
Fighting with himself to give a delicate, more softened version, Josh struggled to speak. But knowing lies and deceit were useless currency, he paid with the truth. "I started the affair three months after you lost the baby. We were strangers to each other. We were both unsure what we wanted or even if we wanted each other."
"That's it? Because we had a rough patch you ran off to find the first bitch you could fuck?"
"No," he recoiled. "You didn't want to know me, you pushed me away like it was my fault."
"I'm so sorry. It must be my fault you put your dick in your secretary." Sarcasm laced the tirade.
"No, I'm not saying that. I'm telling you the truth-- something I should have done a long time ago. I had an affair for my own selfish reasons, but I realized it was wrong. I came back for you and I made this family work, did my best to make us happy. I love you, Kate, and I want you." Josh maintained his distance; Kate still had the poker and he feared what she would do with it in this distraught state.
"How do I know you won't run off with the next pair of pretty tits that jiggles by?"
"Because I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere.
I'm one hundred percent behind this family, for this family."
Kate glared. Her face, screwed tight with the fury and pain, suddenly relaxed. She dropped the poker to the floor. It twanged against the fireplace tiles.
The Kate Josh knew came into focus. It was going to be okay. He managed a weak smile.
The house was silent; not even a noise from Abby's bedroom.
"I want you to go, Josh," Kate said.
He couldn't believe it. He had lost. He tried to challenge, but she knocked his pleas down with a raised hand.
All the emotion had drained from Kate. "I don't know what I want, but I do know I don't want you."
Kate's fury, present moments earlier, now possessed Josh. He knew he could do nothing here. He'd lost his family and stormed out of the living room.
He yanked on the door, but the security chain was still attached. The door ripped itself from his grasp and slammed shut. He jerked on the door even harder. With a crack of splintering wood, the fixings tore from the door frame. The chain attached to the door recoiled and swung out, narrowly missing Josh's face. The door's momentum sent him sprawling.
Josh tore over to his car and flung himself behind the wheel. He gunned the engine, yanked the gearshift into reverse and the car roared backward into the street. He jammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, trails of black smoke pouring off the screaming tires.
"Fucking bitch," Josh growled. He would be damned if Bell would be allowed to get away with this.
She would pay dearly for what she had done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The journey to Bell's house took mere minutes. The rules of the road didn't apply to Josh. He bullied his way past every vehicle in his path. The engine screaming in pain, Josh tore along the roads, taking each bend too fast and stopping too late.
The car screeched to a halt outside Belinda Wong's borrowed house. The car rode up over the rolled curb and positioned itself untidily on the sidewalk, trailing a pair of black, wavy lines on the pale road surface. Josh leapt from the driver's seat. A Pontiac Grand Am missed him by inches as it passed him. He ignored the driver's violent overcorrection and the subsequent insult.
Blinded by rage, he charged up to the house.
Josh yanked on the door. It was unlocked and opened easily. It wouldn't have mattered if the door was locked--nothing would have prevented him from getting in.
Bell appeared from the bedroom dressed only in a white silk teddy and skimpy panties. The silk was opaque, but it clung to her delicate frame. The peaks of her nipples were easily highlighted under the seamless material. When she moved, the material momentarily stuck to her like wet cotton, giving glimpses of the contours beneath.
"You bitch. You fucking bitch." His rage was so intense he thought he would puke.
She smi
led sweetly, not showing a hint of surprise at his uninvited intrusion. "Josh, so good to see you. You must have gotten the news."
"You had to tell her. You couldn't have taken the money. You had to destroy my family."
Bell cocked her head to one side and flashed a tightlipped smile of regret. "Things not too good at home then?"
"You knew what Kate's reaction would be." Violently, Josh grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her supple flesh. He shook her in some vain hope of making her understand the significance of what she'd done. Bell's raven hair scattered over her face and shoulders.
Still in Josh's grasp, she shook her head, revealing blazing eyes and an open mouth excited by Josh's energy.
"God, you have no idea how horny you're making me."
There was no talking to her and he found it hard to speak. Different emotional states fast-forwarded through his mind--anger, rage, desperation, loss and defeat. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. A knotted ball of frustration in his brain prevented him from doing either. Releasing a primal growl of frustration, Josh shoved Bell away from him. Stumbling, she fell backward, striking the floor unceremoniously. Legs in the air, panties showing, Bell lost all the seductive allure she'd ever inspired. Frustrated, Josh collapsed onto the couch behind him.
Bell got to her feet. She dropped her mocking tone and in all seriousness said, "What did you expect me to do, Josh?"
"Accept what happened. I don't know."
Bell glanced out the window. "Nice parking job, by the way."
She came over to him. She looked at him with a pitying expression.
"Why did you do it?" Without the rage, he sounded tired.
Crouching on her haunches, she placed her hands on his knees. "You gave me no choice. You refused to give me what I wanted. I wasn't just going to disappear to make it convenient for you."
"But this way, you've destroyed everything you wanted. You don't get any more money. You've destroyed my family, so you don't get me. You've lost as much as I have."
"You still don't get it, do you? This has never been about money. It was about making you pay for what you did to me." Pain was evident in Bell's rising voice.
She pushed herself away from him and stood up. She went into the kitchen, got herself a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top with the bottle opener on the fridge door.
Josh followed Bell into the kitchen after a moment.
His face was long, stretched by a more powerful gravity than that experienced by anyone else on the planet.
Bell saw the sad expression and moved toward him.
She wrapped her arms around him. The condensation from the bottle soaked Josh's shirt where it touched it.
Its coldness burned against his flesh. She raised herself on tiptoe, bringing her head close to his. The instability made her teeter on her toes and Josh steadied her, putting his hands around her waist. Taking that as her signal, she kissed Josh, her tongue seeking entry to his mouth.
Sickened by the intrusion, Josh's face contorted in disgust. He twisted his head to break the kiss. He tasted the sharp bite of alcohol from her in his mouth and its odor filled his nostrils. She'd been drinking, and more than one beer. It wasn't a good sign.
Bell leaned into him, applying more pressure. Her heat marked an outline against Josh's body. Although slight, her weight seemed heavy on him and resistance was difficult. Finally, he broke the cloying embrace with a powerful shove that almost made him topple.
The force propelled Bell backward. She lost her hold on Josh and her balance. In an attempt to save herself, she let go of the bottle of beer. The bottle slammed into one of the overhead cabinets before striking the vinyl flooring without breaking. The spilt contents fizzed on the floor. Bell crashed into the cupboards and grabbed onto them to save herself from falling.
Josh dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and looked at it, half expecting to see blood.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
"You still don't get it, do you?"
"You're right. I don't."
"I love you. I want you back. Why do you think I've been doing this?" Bell answered her own question.
"Because I want you free from all things so you have only me left."
Bell's motives shocked and abhorred him. She was crazy. She had to be to think destroying him would drive them together. It was a madness he never thought possible in Bell. Did she expect him to thank her, flattered by the lengths she had gone to? Josh shook his head.
"Do you honestly think I would come back to you? I broke up with you because I made a choice. I chose my family. And even though you've taken that away from me, I still wouldn't come back to you."
Josh stopped. He had expected a tirade of verbal abuse fueled by disappointment and rejection, but there was silence. There was nothing further to be said.
Bell had stopped looking at him. Her gaze was aimed over his shoulder. A blank look took over her face, as if she didn't understand what she saw. Josh turned his head to the point of interest.
A flash of colors was all he saw. At the speed it was moving, Josh didn't get enough time to focus on the object, only its blur, before it hit him. He felt it, though. It smashed across his head, numbing him with its force. Josh fell forward, out cold before he hit the ground.
Josh came to. He had no idea how long he'd been unconscious.
An intense ache emanated from the back of his head. It rippled outward from its epicenter like waves in a millpond. He raised a hand to the ache, but the briefest movement drove knives through his skull.
He found a lump the size of an egg on the back of his head and the pain forced his eyes closed. He left the bump alone, but became aware of his sore cheek, which must have broken his fall.
Bell looked very concerned with her head cocked to one side, her face so sad, so disappointed. For the first time since her return, she looked human, possessing a weak as well as a strong side. She looked like a nervous child waiting her turn to go into the doctor's office for her shots. She spoke, but the words came out as an inaudible murmur.
He saw the knife. Not the whole knife, just the handle, its blade embedded in her chest below her left breast. He noticed the blood. Too much blood. It stained the white teddy; the harsh crimson made more vivid by the pale silk. The material clung tightly to her punctured body. The blood, still oozing from the wound, ran down her onto the floor and formed a pool around her legs. His slow-witted brain hadn't registered that she was sitting. Before the blow she had been standing, but now she was slumped untidily against the cupboards. He tried not to entertain thoughts of who had done this to Bell, but failed. He had to get out, but he couldn't stop staring at the blood.
Slowly, the pool expanded across the floor in Josh's direction. He recoiled on hands and knees from the creeping mass like it was scalding lava. Josh had seen deep cuts before and there'd been blood, but he had never seen a cut so deep or with as much blood as this.
Doctors dealt with these sights every day, but he couldn't cope. Josh slunk further away from the injured woman.
Bell raised her right arm with her hand outstretched and beckoned to him. Blood trickled between her pale lips. "Josh."
Josh stopped moving. He stared at the pool, the light reflected on its smooth surface. He got to his feet. His head swam. He wasn't sure if the blow or the bloody sight caused it. He came as close as he could without stepping in the mess. Still, it wasn't close enough for Bell. She called to him. He had no choice. He walked in her blood and crouched at her side.
Bell looked at him with sad eyes. The color of her rich Asian skin had drained to a jaundiced yellow. "I love you, Josh," she whispered.
"I know you do." Josh honestly believed she did and though he didn't return that love, this wasn't the time to be brutally honest with her. She was dying and he wasn't going to give her cause to curse his name with her dying breath, even after all she'd done to him. He had possessed feelings for her once.
Josh'
s eyes flicked between her face and the wooden knife handle poking out from her chest, disconcerted by its movement. The handle shifted back and forth with the weak breaths she took. He found it hard to concentrate on Bell with the knife moving in time with her breathing, as if the blade were part of her body.
Should he remove the knife or leave it? Josh didn't know what was best, but watching Bell die wasn't the answer.
"I'll get help," he said.
He went to get up, but Bell snapped a grip on his arm with a strength that terrified him. He looked at her bloody hand on his wrist. He sneered as the fluid squeezed out either side of her palm and between her fingers. Her bloodstained handprint on his forearm was his first physical contact with the stabbing. Up until then, he'd been a witness to the wound, but the blood on his arm made him part of it, tainted him by its contact.
"No. I want you to stay. I want you to be near me,"
Bell said.
Josh hesitated. He nodded to her and shifted from a crouch to kneel beside her, so he was better positioned to comfort her. As his knees dipped into the blood, he felt its lukewarm heat soaking through the fabric of his jeans. He clasped a hand over hers and squeezed out a thin smile.
He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, the doctors would sort her out, but the lies didn't come. Instead, he watched Bell die, the blood slipping from her punctured body taking her life with its flow.
"Josh," she called. She didn't look at him, but directly ahead into the dark of the living room.
"Yes, Bell?" Josh couldn't take his eyes off her, not out of lust, which he once held for her, but out of a bizarre compulsion to see this woman die.
"I'm so sorry, Josh."
"It's a bit late to be sorry. We've done what we have done and there's nothing we can do to change that."
"I'm sorry about what I did."
"I know you are." He slipped an arm around her, and being careful not to push the knife any further into her, he half-hugged her.
Simon Wood Page 24
