The Girl in the Water

by A J Grayson

  I move more slowly now, a different resolve beginning to fill me as I take the last of the stairs. I am not the plaything for a liar’s games. Not some memento for a killer to keep on his mantle, stalking victims along a river or through a house by day, then coming home to organic veggie stir fry and a skin-tingling embrace by night.

  I’m nobody’s toy, and I’m sure as hell not going to be anybody’s victim.

  I’ll confront David, but I’m done living at his mercy. He’ll hear what I have to say, and he’ll answer. I’ll demand it of him. What comes now will go according to my plans, not his.

  Back in the kitchen, I select the right position to meet him. I want David away from the door as quickly as I can get him to move. There’s only this one way in and out of our apartment, apart from the window fire escapes, and I want a direct line of access kept open. I find a spot at an angle across the table. It will keep distance between us, and a barrier, and the angle should prompt him to move, to come a little closer to face me, away from the entrance.

  And screw it, I’m not sitting here without some means to defend myself. I waffled on the question through my drive, but in this instant the decision seems too straightforward to permit deliberation.

  David’s taken the knife from the bag. God knows what he intends to do with it.

  I’m not a victim.

  I walk over to the counter next to the sink, our little Krups coffeemaker standing in its usual spot, and slide open a drawer beneath it. I’m not sure which is the right size kitchen knife to use as a weapon. In movies it’s usually some great big thing, but I have a feeling that a big knife would be hard to wield. I opt for a smaller one and practise inverting my grip in a way that seems like it would be useful in self-defence. I can’t believe I’m going through these motions. This is Carrie shit. This isn’t me.

  But I am not a victim. I make my grip tight. It doesn’t feel entirely unnatural, after all.

  Then, in the silence of my preparations, I hear footsteps. They’re not canine movements from a dog who’s escaped her enclosure. They’re heavy, a man’s steps on wooden stairs, and they’re leading up to our landing. They slow as they approach.

  I’m certain it’s him, and that means there is no more time for preparations. The knife in my hand will have to do. I sit myself at the table, tucking it under my thigh so I can have both hands free, and I lay them on the tabletop.

  In the oddest sensation of the day, I realize that I am calm. For all that it has fluttered and halted before, my breath in this moment is even. My shoulders don’t feel like rocks. My vision is clear and open.

  A key slides into the lock, the knob begins to turn. David is here for me.

  And I’m ready.

  54

  Amber

  The look on David’s face is not what I expect. Our kitchen door opens, my husband enters, and I expect to see a visage transformed by the exposure of his true self. I’ve found him out. This is when Dr Jekyll becomes Mr Hyde, when evil is unleashed and the killer is revealed.

  But David’s features aren’t angry, or fearsome, or fearful. They are surprisingly difficult to read. He looks concerned – a loving husband overcome with anxiety for his wife. It’s the same beautiful face I met on the cliffs by the sea. The stubble at his chin catches in the ceiling lights. But there is something colder there, too. Something in the wrinkles at his eyes that speaks of a different, darker emotion than tenderness.

  He speaks before I can.

  ‘Amber, I’m glad you’re here. You’ve had me absolutely panicked.’ He doesn’t look panicked, and the word feels disingenuous; but the emotion in his voice is real, like it wells up from deep inside him.

  Hard to fake, but not impossible.

  He’s about to speak again, and my chest clenches with a sudden jolt. No, an interior voice shouts, don’t let him take control of this moment. Don’t let him start with the lies.

  I hold up a hand. ‘Don’t, David. Don’t say anything else. I don’t want to hear any more stories.’

  He doesn’t react. There’s no attempt to sputter out a kindly ‘What are you talking about, hon?’ or ‘Don’t talk nonsense.’ David knows exactly what I mean, and he stands motionless. His solidity is disturbing. He holds his bearing like a rock, and I feel smaller and smaller before it.

  My questions tumble in my head.

  ‘Emma Fairfax.’ Her name simply shoots out of me. Not a plan, just the way things start. With it my mind suddenly goes clear, vacated by the desire to see how David will react.

  He appears to freeze solid. He’s already been still, but now … it’s just like a few nights ago. Motionless as ice.

  ‘You remember her name,’ I add, given an odd strength by the sight. ‘I said it to you before. You went quiet then, too.’ He can’t deny it, and so he says nothing, though with flexing cheeks and hands that are balling into fists at his sides.

  ‘Who is she, David? Who is Emma Fairfax? I mean, to you.’

  His stoicism evaporates. For an instant he looks squeamish, wiggling on his feet. I can see the workings of the Dr Seuss-like machinery in his head that fabricates fantasies and lies. His eyes still look dark.

  ‘I’m not really … I don’t kno—’

  ‘Before you say you don’t know,’ I cut him off, disgusted already, ‘let’s get something straight, David. I saw what was in your briefcase. Let’s neither of us pretend I didn’t. Sadie’s leash, wet and muddy.’ The slight shift of his eyes gives away his guilt. ‘The same type of rope all the reports say was used to kill that woman. In a river. In the mud. And now there’s a new replacement hanging on the wall. So don’t go saying you don’t know her. I’m just not going to buy it. Be honest, for the first time in your life, and tell me. Who was she?’

  I’m trying to keep my voice under control, but I can’t help the volume rising.

  He’s thinking about his answer, concocting some story, before he finally looks straight at me. His stare is startlingly hard.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Can’t!’ My disgusted snort isn’t forced. I push down the urge to reach out and slap him. ‘Let me guess, David, it’s “confidential,” like the fabricated insurance paperwork you supposedly bring home to work on.’

  I don’t expect he’ll answer, but I have plenty of words left to throw his way.

  ‘It’s not going to fly this time, David. Such a petty lie, but it turns out you’re chock full of them. In fact, let’s just be totally clear, why don’t we? You never bring home paperwork in that briefcase, at least not legitimately and definitely not from the pharmacy in San Francisco. Because you don’t work there at all, do you?’

  You heartless liar.

  He tries to move closer, but I gesture again for him not to close the gap. The table, my hand commands. You can sit there if you want. He hesitates, the muscles in his shoulders flexing, but then steps towards the chair opposite me. Another foot away from the door. He’s almost out of a direct line between me and the exit, but not quite.

  He doesn’t sit.

  ‘Amber, you don’t know what you’re saying,’ he says. His voice is uncomfortably firm. ‘Things aren’t what you think.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth!’ I shout back. There are tears and sobs that want to get out with the words, but I won’t allow them. Not yet. I have to stay in control of this one situation, if nothing else. ‘There’s a damned good reason I’m not crystal clear on all the details of things. You’ve been lying to me since … since when, David?’ I don’t even give him the chance to reply before I add, ‘Turns out, I can’t say it’s since we were married, can I?’

  For another instant, David appears thrown off balance. His expression morphs in quick succession like a kaleidoscope. Sorrow into worry, worry into fear. Then panic.

  Panic. That’s fucking good. He’s trying to look menacing, I can almost feel it, but I’ve scared him. He didn’t know I’d discovered this little secret. He’s still not sure how much I really know.

  ‘I c
an’t say you’ve been lying since the day we were wed, can I?’ I continue, encouraged by the effect my prodding is having on him, ‘because, if I’ve come to understand my position correctly, we’re not married at all, are we, David?’ I fire all my anger into the glare I project at his scowling face.

  With it, David’s emotions, whatever they might actually be, puncture him. The tension in his shoulders collapses. His scowl evaporates. His head falls towards his chest.

  ‘That’s right,’ I persist, ‘turns out your lovelorn non-wife can actually figure out a thing or two when the situation warrants it. Never thought I’d have to look into my own life this way, or our life together, but then, I never thought you’d turn out to be – whatever it is you actually are, either. It’s all there in black and white, though, once I went to look for it. Or more accurately, it wasn’t. No records, David. No birth certificates, tax records, nothing. So much for your story of being Californian born and raised! I have no idea who you are or where you actually come from, but one thing I know for sure: Mr David Howell, who dotes on his “wife” like the very best of the best of men, has never been married in his entire fucking life!’ I lean forward, my hands balling atop the table. ‘You heartless, unloving bastard. How could you do this to me? How could you make me fall in love with you, all based on a lie!?’

  David’s eyes are glassy. I think my accusations have broken him, and for an instant he looks weak. But though his downcast face won’t directly meet mine, I can see him drawing deep breaths, and with each his features grow harder. Sorrow is becoming resolve. I don’t want that to happen.

  ‘I’m not sure how you pulled it off,’ I quickly add. ‘The wedding service in the Presidio. The vows. It sure as hell felt real to me, David. It was supposed to have meant something! But then, so much that’s felt real has proven itself a mirage over the past days. Don’t even know if it’s an actual memory, or one I’ve dreamed up, or something you’ve fed into my head.’ It’s becoming harder to hold back my emotions. I can see the twin bouquets of flowers on the wooden altar table, smell the Bay air floating in through the chapel windows with hints of sea and salt. But then, we’ve been there a dozen times. Seen those windows and smelled that air a dozen times. Maybe this isn’t a memory, but a story woven out of nothing, a testimony to suggestibility.

  ‘Amber, you’ve got this wrong.’ David’s words are barely more than a whisper emerging through clenched teeth. ‘Things aren’t what they seem to you. I love you, I always have.’ He still isn’t looking at me.

  ‘Love me? Love me!’ All my rage erupts. ‘The way you loved Emma Fairfax?’

  His eyes shoot up to mine. The fierceness that had been brewing there is momentarily displaced.

  ‘Love … Emma?’

  ‘Don’t think I’m so simple I can’t string two and two together, David. What was she, another non-wife on the side? You have an apartment with her somewhere else? A mirrored mockery of the life we’ve lived together?’

  He doesn’t shake his head. He barely moves, but his eyes grow wider.

  ‘What fabulous string of lies have you dreamed up to define yourself in that little world?’ I keep on going. ‘Pharmacist is probably too dull to use twice. Are you a businessman this time around? Maybe a banker? Come on David, what’s the story you spun for her?’ You unmitigated, heartless ass.

  The taunts broaden the concern on David’s face. He stares at me – not so much as if he doesn’t understand, but as if he’s trying to decide what to do with my words.

  His own are surprisingly steady when they finally come.

  ‘Amber, I was never in love with Emma.’

  ‘I don’t fucking buy it, David!’ I simply won’t be stopped. ‘You don’t keep another woman in your life secret without some pretty powerful emotions driving it. Until what … did that love dry up? All the emotion finally run its course, leaving you groping for what to do?’

  ‘Amber, you need to be quiet now. It’s time for you to listen to—’

  ‘Is that why you killed her?’ I finally lay the question out between us in its plain, stark contours. David’s face whitens, and his features become even more unreadable.

  Deny that, you bastard. Deny it to my face.

  ‘What justified doing that, David? To kill the woman? Couldn’t keep your emotional high at a strong enough level with me? Had the need for some passion I couldn’t provide?’ My accusations flow so fast I can barely make my lips accommodate them. ‘Or maybe all these lies, these ruses, were just getting to be too much to maintain? Christ, you and I have been together for over two years!’

  David’s face grows harder and harder.

  ‘Amber, I’ve told you I didn’t kill—’

  I bang my wrists on the table. I’m simply not prepared to listen to him mock me with denials. With one of its legs shorter than the others, the action sends the whole table rattling, the noise reverberating in the suddenly claustrophobic space.

  ‘What about the man, David?’

  My non-husband’s Mediterranean skin loses its colour entirely. I laugh, almost maniacal, yet satisfied to have caught him off guard once again with more knowledge than he apparently thought I had.

  ‘Ah, so you didn’t know I knew about the second body? Stabbed in the entrance to his house, that one. And you know full well that I found the knife upstairs. You can’t just empty out the bag and wipe it down, and pretend that erases what I saw!’ I force myself to draw in a long breath. The fire inside is threatening to consume me. ‘For God’s sake, David, the girl wasn’t enough? Who was he? Someone who found out about your affairs? Your lies? Didn’t want some big mouth setting your make-believe little world a tumble?’

  David has dropped his head again, and I want to read the motion as a defeated slouch. He reaches out to the chair to stabilize himself, but his shoulders are growing tighter, his chest broader. He seems to be gaining in size, right before my eyes, and I can’t help but feel a jolt of fear at the sight. I’m making the gravest accusations I can think of – they should evoke despair, protest. Anything other than calm.

  His eyes rest at the surface of the table in front of him. His breathing has slowed.

  ‘You can’t even bear to look at me, can you?’ But I can hear my own fierceness falter. Still, I can’t stop. ‘I don’t even know if that’s the extent of it,’ I add. ‘Haven’t been following the news so much over the past day – enough of my own shit to come to grips with. Maybe there have been others.’

  David lifts his head. His eyes silence me. Their hazel irises appear eerily dark, almost black. His jaw is like iron. His nostrils are flared, and he draws long, almost supernaturally slow breaths. I can see all the muscles in his arms flex and turn to rocks.

  In this instant, I am as terrified as I have ever been in my life.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I whisper, feeling myself push back in my seat, trying to increase the space between us. I’m certain the room has grown colder. ‘There are others. Besides Emma and that man.’

  I’m shaking my head, willing him to deny it, wanting him to deny it; but the ice in the air has me certain he won’t.

  His lips part in a strange snarl before sounds follow. His eyes are cold and dead.

  ‘Two,’ he finally says, emotionlessly, and his mouth hangs open.

  Just like that. An admission in a single word. The end of any hope of innocence.

  ‘Oh, David, my God, I can’t—’

  ‘Two men,’ he adds, his body ramrod straight, but I can hear the wood of the chair squeak under the intensity of his grip on its back. ‘After the first. Three altogether. All of them with a knife.’

  Even though I’m seated, I feel I might topple over. The man I’ve loved is not just a liar. He is a killer to a degree I could never have dreamed. And he announces his acts so calmly, as if they were simple, ordinary facts.

  Suddenly, in a heartbeat, all my dread and outrage turn to fear. Reality has been laid bare, and what had captivated me as a mystery now horrifies me as a certainty. The
man – I won’t call him my husband – standing across the table kills and lies and kills and kills again. He’s gripping at the chair with hands that have gutted the life out of four people. He’s just admitted it. And his eyes are black and resolute, staring into me with a fierceness that, I suddenly realize, cannot be that different from the resolve his victims would have seen as he cut them down and …

  Terror spikes inside me. Every cell of my body is overtaken with the need to get as far away from this man as I can.

  With all the self-control I can manage, I lower my right hand down to my thigh and wrap it around the hilt of the knife.

  ‘David,’ I say, with a forced quiet to my words that takes every ounce of my interior control, ‘I don’t know who you really are, or why you’ve done the things you have. But whatever role you’ve been playing with me, it’s over.’

  He shakes his head slowly, refusing my pronouncement. The movement is measured, almost practised. ‘No, Amber. That is not how things are going to go from here.’

  Dread numbs my skin.

  ‘I am going to get up,’ I somehow manage to insist, ‘and I’m going to walk out the door behind you, David, and you’re not going to move as I do. The charade of a life we’ve had together ends right now.’

  Once more, there is a strange instant of cascading emotion that flickers across his eyes. Behind the resolve is a glint of despair, then grief, then some other emotion I can’t pinpoint. But their presence is like flash paper, bright for an instant but just as quickly gone. When the flash is over, the blackness in his stare is even darker than before. His whole body is resolute and he stands taller, removing his hands from the chair back and balling them at his sides.

  ‘Amber, I am not going to let you do that.’ He moves himself towards the door, blocking my path of escape. ‘You are not going to leave this room.’ His eyes never leave mine.