Do Not Disturb
a novel by
Freida McFadden
Do Not Disturb
© 2021 by Freida McFadden. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the products of the authors’ imagination, and are not to be construed as real. None of the characters in the book is based on an actual person. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
To Libby and Mel
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
QUINN
While I’m washing the blood off my hands in the kitchen sink, the doorbell rings.
I freeze, my hands full of pink suds, the steaming hot water causing my fingers to burn and tingle. There’s somebody at the door. Somebody waiting patiently on the front porch for me to answer. The timing couldn’t be worse.
Could it be a package delivery? Maybe they’ll drop the package at the door and go away. Or else leave me a note. Sorry we missed you! We’ll be back tomorrow!
And then: three hard raps on the front door.
“Coming!” I call out in a strangled voice, even though it’s unlikely they’ll hear me. I scrub furiously at my fingers, and then at my fingernails, where the blood seems to have settled into the cracks. Who knew it was so hard to get blood off your hands? “Just a minute!”
I shut off the hot water and examine my palms, flipping them this way and that. Good enough? It’ll have to be. I wipe them dry on a light green dish towel, leaving a smear of red behind. Damn, I didn’t get it all—I’ll have to wash my hands again.
As soon as I get rid of whoever is at the front door.
My heels clack against the linoleum floor of the kitchen, then go soft when they hit the plush carpeting in the living room. Derek and I pored over carpet swatches for hours before settling on the charcoal-colored carpet that now goes wall-to-wall across our vast living room. The carpet feels lovely when I’m in my bare feet, and I’m glad I held out for a darker color instead of a pale shade that would show every fleck of dirt. Our carpet can easily hide dust and debris.
Bloodstains too, apparently.
As I hurry to the front door, I glimpse bright lights through the windows. Red and blue flashing simultaneously. That can mean only one thing.
There’s a cop at my door.
Oh God. No no no no no…
I take a split second to compose myself. Keep it together, Quinn. I take a deep breath, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. It doesn’t work. So I go ahead and open the door.
I was right. It’s a police officer at my door. Not just a police officer, but it’s Scotty Dwyer, although he goes by Scott now, or else Deputy Dwyer. About a million years ago, when we were in high school, Scott and I used to date. I remember how awkwardly cute I thought he was, with his red-brown hair that always stuck up straight and all the freckles on his face. But then high school ended, I went off to college, and he went to work for his father’s grocery store. I don’t even remember breaking up with him, but the long-distance phone calls became less frequent, and one day during my freshman year, I realized we weren’t together anymore.
Now Scotty is a policeman with a uniform and a real badge and everything. He used to be skinny as a rail, but now he fills out his dark blue uniform rather nicely. The freckles have faded, and he’s tamed his hair, although he still looks boyishly handsome.
That’s the problem with moving back to the town where I grew up. Everyone I run into is the boy I went out with in high school or the kid who saw me throw up in the locker room or the girl who didn’t invite me to her birthday party. It’s exhausting.
But sometimes it can work to my advantage.
“Hey, Quinn.” Scott smiles at me, but his face is serious. This isn’t a social call—not that I would have expected it, since I have barely spoken to Scott in the last ten years. “Is everything okay?”
I wipe my hands self-consciously on my gray pencil skirt. “Sure. Of course. Why?”
“Well…” Scott’s light brown eyes dart behind me, scanning my living room. The buttery leather sofa, the matching loveseat and ottoman, the wide screen television with surround sound, the photographs on our mantle of our recent skiing trip to Vale. “We got a phone call. One of your neighbors said they heard screaming coming from your house.”
“Screaming?” I paste what I think is a very realistic looking smile on my face. “That’s so strange! Are they sure it was coming from here?”
His eyes lock with mine. “That’s what they said, yes.”
I screw up my face, pretending to think about it. Finally, I snap my fingers. “Oh! You know what it was? I was watching a movie on TV, and then I went out to the kitchen and I turned the volume way up. So they probably heard the movie.”
He nods, considering this. Everyone says Scott is a good policeman—kind but thorough. I squeeze my hands into fists, waiting to see if he buys my story. I look down at my trembling hands again, scared they might give me away. And that’s when I notice it.
A crimson dot on my gray skirt.
Oh God, how did I miss it? How did I let myself answer the door with a drop of blood on my skirt? I quickly avert my eyes, trying not to draw attention to it. If he sees it, he’ll insist on coming inside. And if he does, I’m finished.
“What movie?” he finally asks.
“Well,” I say, “it was Scream. You know, with Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox?”
He clears his throat. “The one with the masks, right?”
“Right. So obviously, there was, you know, screaming.” I smile apologetically. “I’m sorry if somebody got worried. But you can see there’s no disturbance here.”
“Uh huh…”
I hold my breath, keeping my eyes pointed straight ahead. I send Scott a subliminal message: Don’t look down. Please don’t look down.
Scott tilts his head to the side. “Are you alone here?”
I play with my hair, trying for casual and flirty. Easy, breezy. Nothing to see here, Officer. “Yep. Just little ol’ me. Derek is still at work.”
Don’t look down. Please…
Finally, he nods his head. “Okay. Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
“Of course!” I
laugh, hoping it doesn’t sound as weird to him as it does to me. “I’m glad you came. It makes me feel safe to know you’re out there protecting me.”
Scott’s cheekbones turn just the slightest bit pink. When we were in high school and he was embarrassed, his whole face would turn scarlet. “Just doing my job.”
“I appreciate it. And next time, I promise I’ll keep the volume down. Especially when I’m watching scary movies!”
He wags a finger at me. “You do that.”
“And we should catch up sometime,” I add. “Derek and I would love to have you over for dinner.”
“Sounds great, Quinn.”
Scott doesn’t want to have dinner with me and Derek. But that’s fine, since it wasn’t a genuine invitation, anyway.
He ambles down my front steps, and then down my driveway to his parked police car with the flashing red and blue lights. I never quite meant to break up with Scotty Dwyer, but now, for the first time, I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t. If I had married a good, honorable man of the law instead of Derek, the man that I chose. I wouldn’t be standing here with blood on my skirt and on the soles of my shoes. That much is for sure.
I shut the door, but I keep watching Scott through the front window. I watch as he starts up the engine and pulls onto the road, and I don’t look away until his car is out of sight.
He’s gone. Thank God.
Now that he’s out of sight, I inspect my skirt. The drop of blood is about half a centimeter in diameter. I’ve never attempted to get blood out of my clothing before, but I have a bad feeling my best work skirt is ruined. Then again, that’s the least of my problems.
I walk back out to the kitchen, examining the carpet for signs of bloody footprints. The kitchen looks about the same as how I left it a few minutes ago. The sink faucet is dripping like it always does. There’s still that crimson smear on the green dish towel. The three plates I left in the drying rack are still lined up in a row. The refrigerator has that note taped up that I wrote to myself to remember to buy more paper towels.
And also, my husband is still lying dead on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
Chapter 2
I want to make one thing clear. I killed him.
I’m not going to claim it was the butler or a one-armed man. I did it. I killed my husband. All I can say in my defense is I had a good reason.
I look down at Derek, lying where I left him on the kitchen floor, his warm blood forming an uneven circle under his body. The knife is next to him, also dripping with blood and covered with my fingerprints. For a moment, I consider wiping the handle clean, but what would I be trying to achieve? This is my house. Nobody has as good a motive for killing Derek as I do. I tracked my own bloody footprints all over the carpet. Oh, and a police officer just saw me here at what I’m sure will be the approximate time of Derek’s death.
So I would say a few fingerprints are not worth worrying about.
I bend down beside him, getting more blood on my skirt, but I think we can assume the skirt is a lost cause at this point. His brown eyes are cracked open as he stares into nothingness, his perfectly chiseled features frozen. The muscles in his face are completely relaxed for the first time since I’ve known him. Even when Derek is sleeping, he’s tense. He grinds his teeth loud enough to wake me. Maybe in death, he’s achieved that total relaxation that the meditation app on his phone failed to provide. Maybe he’s finally achieved a sublime state of complete bliss.
Would it be a terrible thing to say that I hope he hasn’t achieved bliss? Would it be terrible to say that I hope he’s burning in hell right now?
Well, either way, it’s true.
And now I have to figure out my next move. As I see it, I’ve got two options:
1) Stay here and confess
2) Run
Option number one is tempting. After all, I’m already here. Inertia is powerful. And perhaps I could spin this. After all, my neighbor heard me screaming. Would anyone believe it if I told them the truth? That if Derek weren’t lying here dead, it would have been me. Him or me—that’s what it came down to.
I reach out and touch my neck. It’s still tender from where his fingers were. There will be bruises. He’s never left behind bruises before—at least not in a place anyone else could see. I can still hear his voice hissing in my face: Why are you home so early? Who were you planning to meet here?
Him or me. Maybe a jury would sympathize.
Then again, it’s not likely. Derek was well-liked by everyone in our community and also connected. He owns a business that everyone in New England has heard of. And more importantly, his family is connected. They’ve donated to every state politician currently in office, including the DA. And they never liked me. If they find out what I’ve done, they won’t rest until I’m rotting away in a prison cell for the rest of my life. They will spend every penny they’ve got to make me pay for this.
So that leaves one option: Run.
I don’t want to leave my home. Or my job at the bank. My parents are gone, but my older sister Claudia lives only twenty minutes away, and she would be devastated if I disappeared off the face of the earth. But she would understand. She knows about Derek. What he’s like.
It’s Friday afternoon. If the odds are in my favor, nobody will find out about this until Monday, when neither of us show for work. Of course, that precludes the possibility that Deputy Dwyer pays us another visit. Or my sister pops in to say hello. Or more likely, Derek’s mother comes by for absolutely no reason at all except to count all the ways I’m an unsatisfactory wife. (To be fair, this time she would be absolutely right.)
I get up off the floor and look down at my husband’s body. If somebody comes into this house, I’m done. They will see him immediately, and the manhunt will begin. Derek’s mother has a key, because she likes to come in anytime she wants. The chances of me getting a three day head start are small. But maybe I’ll get twenty-four hours.
Of course, if things had gone differently, and I was the one lying on the ground right now, Derek could easily lift me up, throw me in his trunk, and toss me in a nearby body of water. Then he could come home and clean up the evidence. But I can’t do that. Derek has a good eighty pounds on me. There’s no way I could lift his body. He died on the kitchen floor and that’s where he’s staying. Attempting to do anything else will waste valuable time.
No, if I’m going to run, I’ve got to run right now.
But first, I have to change.
I run upstairs to our bedroom. I made the bed this morning, the way Derek likes, with our Seraphina Ivory Damask bedspread folded neatly over the bed and the pillows propped up and fluffed. My mother always had me make the bed when I was a kid, but I stopped doing it as an adult. Until I got married, and I realized Derek required it. And it didn’t just have to be made—it had to be made in a very particular way, according to his specifications.
I flash back to a moment a couple of months ago, when Derek walked into our bedroom and discovered that I had folded the bedspread over the pillows, rather than under. He narrowed his eyes as I felt my stomach sink.
So this is how you leave our house in the morning? he said. Looking like a pigsty?
To be fair, the rest of the house was immaculate. I had cleaned every inch myself, because Derek did not want to hire a housekeeper. He hated the idea of having a stranger in our house and insisted it was my responsibility. So in addition to my full-time job, I did all the cooking and cleaning and shopping.
I push aside the memory of the way Derek screamed at me that day. I stare down at the blankets on the bed, seized by a sudden irrepressible urge to mess them up, just to spite him.
But no. No time for that. I spited him enough by murdering him.
Even though there’s precious little time, I spend ten minutes stripping off all my clothing and jumping into the hot shower. There’s so much blood in the kitchen. More blood than I thought possible for somebody to have in their body, and I can�
��t risk having a drop on me. Wherever I end up, I have to look sweet and innocent. Bloody hands and crimson-speckled cheeks are not an option.
I turn the shower up as hot as it can go. Scalding. I let the water run over me, immune to the pain. Every time I shut my eyes, I see him coming at me.
You’ve made a fool out of me for the last time, Quinn.
His fingers closing around my neck, compressing my windpipe. Flailing around with my right hand until it made contact with the knife rack on the kitchen counter…
I swallow, and with trembling fingers, I turn up the water temperature as hot as it will go. My nerve endings are screaming, but I welcome it.
When I get out of the shower, my skin is bright red. I wrap a towel around my body and stare at myself in the mirror over the sink. Unsurprisingly, I don’t look great. My eyes are sunken in their sockets. My blond hair is plastered to my skull, cascading down my shoulders in limp clumps. Even though it’s wet, I can see the dark roots growing in—he pointed it out to me last night. Time to get to the hairdresser, Quinn. When I first met Derek, my hair was shoulder length and brown, but he liked my hair long and blond. But even after years of being blond, it never felt like me.
Well, that’s one thing I can change now.
I can’t do anything about the color—at least not yet—but it doesn’t have to be so long. I pick up the pair of scissors from inside the medicine cabinet. Before I can overthink it, I slice my hair off at chin length. I don’t spend too much time making sure it’s even, and also, my hands won’t stop shaking, which doesn’t help matters. The entire process takes about sixty seconds. I flush all the hair down the toilet so nobody will know I did it.
There. I look a lot different with my hair so short. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
I pack a bag as rapidly as I can—I toss in some shirts, bras, underwear, and pants. I take all my jewelry, figuring I could hock it if I need to. I also open the shoe box in the back of the closet where I’ve been stashing money whenever I can, as well as my passport. Somehow I knew I would need it for a day like today. The money isn’t much, but it will get me through a few weeks, at least. I can also hit an ATM or two, but I have to be careful about that. Every time I withdraw money, I’ll be leaving a trail the police will follow.
Do Not Disturb: An addictive psychological thriller Page 1
