Tell Me Every Lie

by P J Stanley

  Kate had nowhere to go.

  She couldn’t hide forever.

  Emily threw her foot up, slamming it against the wooden door as it flew open. Emily charged inside to see Kate halfway through the second-story window in the corner of their bedroom.

  “Someone help me!” Kate cried out as Emily sped forward. Emily wrapped her arms around Kate’s neck from behind, dragging her back through the window. “Someone!” Kate screamed as Emily threw her forward, slamming her against the dresser across from the window. Kate’s eyes darted to her right as she reached forward, her hand wrapping around the thin base of a lamp on the edge of the dresser. Kate spun around and swung the lamp forward, smashing the shade into the side of Emily’s head. The bulb shattered as Emily stumbled to the right, slamming against the wall. Kate limped to the right, making her way into the private bathroom in the corner. Emily shot up and ran toward the door as Kate began to close it behind her. Emily slammed her shoulder against it as the door swung open, the edge smashing into Kate’s nose.

  “Ah!” Kate cried out as she fell back on the tile bathroom floor, blood trickling from her busted nose and down her chin. Emily reached down, her hands wrapping around the collar of Kate’s shirt as she dragged her up to her feet. Emily slammed her forward, smashing her into the edge of the sink counter. Emily then grabbed the back of Kate’s head and slammed it forward, smashing Kate’s forehead into the mirror. The glass shattered, the pieces falling into the sink and on the counter as Emily dragged Kate from the broken mirror. Emily threw Kate back, throwing her into the filled bathtub behind her. Kate’s body crashed into the tub as the hot water splashed through the air, soaking the entire tile floor.

  Emily leaped into the bathtub, straddling Kate, pinning her on her back. Emily wrapped her hands around Kate’s throat as she pushed down, shoving Kate’s face below the bubbly surface. Kate thrashed beneath Emily as she pushed on her throat, harder and harder. Air bubbles fluttered to the surface as Kate’s legs kicked beneath Emily, back and forth, the water splashing and swishing over the curved edges of the clawfoot tub.

  “Just fucking die!” Emily growled as she watched Kate’s wide eyes staring back at her from below the surface of the hot water. Kate’s body then grew still. The last air bubble escaped from between her parted lips and popped to the surface. Emily’s chest heaved up and down as she pulled her hands from Kate’s throat. She stared down at Kate’s dead body, her blank, dead eyes staring back at her from beneath the surface of the water.

  One down.

  One to go.

  ***

  Greg McCallister stepped through the back door and into the kitchen as he tugged at the necktie dangling along the front of his white dress shirt.

  “Babe, I’m home,” Greg called out as he stepped into the kitchen and stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened as his lips parted. He scanned the wrecked room in front of him: the glass, the blood, the smashed cabinet. “Oh, my God, Kate! Kate, where are you?” Greg cried out, rushing around the center island and into the foyer. “Kate!” he called again, making his way to the staircase.

  “She’s in the tub. She’ll be in there for a while,” a sing-song voice rang out. Greg’s eyes widened as he stopped and turned to his right, staring through the living room doorway. He put his briefcase down, anxious. In the living room, he saw Emily rocking Blair’s baby, who was fast asleep.

  “What the hell happened here?” Greg asked as his voice trembled.

  “I think you know what happened here, Greg.” Emily nodded as she glanced up from the baby girl in her arms. “I found her in the attic. You guys made quite the secret little nursery up there for her.”

  “Where is Kate? What did you do to her?” Greg asked as he gulped, tears flooding down his cheeks.

  “I did to her what she did to Blair,” Emily said “I did to her what she did to my daughter.”

  “None of this was supposed to happen, Emily. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was all supposed to end very, very differently. Blair was supposed to move on with her life and we were supposed to be happy new parents.”

  “Your plan clearly went off the rails, didn’t it?”

  “Please don’t do anything stupid, Emily,” Greg cried.

  “I’m doing what any rational mother would do, Greg. You raped my daughter. You took her from me. You took everything from me,” Emily said as she stood up from the chair, rocking the baby in her left arm. “What do I have left to lose, huh?”

  “You can take the baby and you can go. You can have her. Just please don’t do anything irrational.” Greg nodded.

  “Irrational would be letting you live,” Emily said sternly as she reached back into the waistband of her jeans with her free hand and pulled out a 9-millimeter. Emily pointed the gun forward, aiming it right at Greg’s groin … and pulled the trigger.

  BAM!

  “Ah!” Greg cried out as the bullet shot directly in his penis and scrotum. Greg fell back, slamming on the wooden floor as tears streamed down his face.

  “Heavy sleeper just like her mama.” Emily smirked as she stared down at the baby in her arm, still fast asleep. She laid the baby gently on a cushion of the sectional beside her. Emily then turned, stepping up beside Greg as he held his gushing groin in his hands; the blood trickling through the spaces between his fingers.

  “Please! Just stop! Please! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for what I did to her! I was drunk! I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Greg cried out as he stared up at Emily.

  “I bet she begged you to stop, too, didn’t she? Did you think you could get away with this? Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?” Emily snarled as she aimed the gun directly at Greg’s right knee. She pulled the trigger. Perfect aim, right in the knee.

  “Ah! Oh God! No!” Greg screamed in agony as he withered back and forth on the blood-covered floor.

  “You know, Greg, a mother’s love is endless. That’s something a man would never understand. We birth them and then we raise them. Then the world chews them up and spits them out. And nothing pisses a mother off more than a son of a bitch like you. Someone that breaks and snaps … preys upon the good that we tried so hard to create,” Emily said as she shifted the gun to the left, shooting him in the left knee cap.

  “Ah! God! Please! Stop! Stop! We’re even! Please! Just let me die!” Greg sobbed as blood trickled from between his lips.

  “Even?” Emily smirked as she stared down at Greg. “Almost.” Emily smiled as she lifted the gun, pointed it directly at Greg’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

  BAM!

  “Now we’re even.”

  love, mom

  Emily stared down at the silver handcuffs secured around her wrists that laid firmly on top of the metal table in the interrogation room of the Elwood police department. She shifted to her left as the orange, itchy fabric of the jumpsuit prickled against her bare flesh beneath.

  “Why did you not just call me?” Sheriff Alan Ross asked as he stared back at Emily from across the table. Emily swallowed hard as she stared down at the shiny surface of the table, the fluorescent light above glimmering against the top.

  “I was tired of waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Justice.” Emily smiled as she nodded.

  “I could have been there in a heartbeat. I could have arrested both of them. This would have all been over, Emily. Now, you’re looking at years behind bars.”

  “Do you have children, Sheriff Ross?”

  “Yes, I do.” Sheriff Ross nodded. “I’ve got two girls and a boy.”

  “What would you have done if you found the person that killed one of them? Would you have waited? Would you have called your team and had them come and place them in cuffs and ship them off to a cell? Would have wanted them to go to a place where they’ve got a bed, free food, and TV for the rest of their life?”

  “We aren’t talking about me, Emily; we’re talking about you.”

  “Answer the question,” Emily o
rdered.

  “To be honest, I probably would have done the same thing that you did.” Sheriff Ross nodded. “But think about all that you’ve lost, Emily. You won’t ever be able to see that baby again. You won’t ever be able to watch her grow up.”

  “She’ll know I love her. Someday, somehow she’ll understand.”

  “So, this was worth it to you?”

  “Yeah, it was.” Emily smirked as she nodded. “I don’t give a damn about jail time. I don’t give damn about rotting in a cell for the rest of my life,” Emily said as tears filled her eyes.

  “You don’t want freedom?”

  “I’ve got it,” Emily said as a tear trickled down her cheek. “When you’re a mother, you will go to unimaginable lengths to protect your child. You’ll fight and you’ll kill, and you’ll sink to the lowest depths to do whatever it takes to take care of them, to love them and to guide them and to keep them safe.”

  “And is that what you think you did?”

  “I think I got her justice,” Emily said as her voice trembled. “I don’t care about anything else in this world. I’d kill for her. I did kill for her. I can sit in a cell for the rest of my life with a smile on my face knowing I did just that; I got justice and I got it for her. And that’s all that’s ever mattered to me. That’s all I ever wanted.”