He's At Your Door: a gripping psychological thriller

by Alex Sinclair

  Tears fill my eyes and heart as Dad shows he understands why I'm touching his wrist.

  "Are you sure?" he asks me, both hands ready in case I change my mind.

  I nod, unable to speak.

  "Okay," he says as he puts the cloth into his pocket. He stands up and walks away, no doubt having seen enough people hurt this way in his life.

  I stay squatted down as Marie half rolls over to face me. Her fading eyes find mine in the dark and plead. Does she understand what’s happening? Can she see her end is coming?

  I watch as it happens, as the fight drains from her soul one second at a time. With her last burst of energy, her arm reaches out to me. I don't know if it is to beg or to stop me from watching her. Either way, I hold her hand and forever seal this moment away inside my mind.

  Her head drops to the asphalt with a thud as she stares up at nothing. She's gone. I have finally brought Tommy's killer to justice. Death will stop her from ever harming another human being.

  I wait for the change to happen, for the moment I've been desperate to see arrive. It has given Marie what she deserves, but my mind isn't purged of every emotion this week has thrown at me. I don't feel a sense of righteous joy overwhelm me with the knowledge she is dead.

  "Come on," Dad says as he grips my shoulder. "It's time to go."

  I rise to my feet and take in the choice I have made.

  Chapter 59

  Marie is dead. Officially, she died from a hit-and-run driver carelessly texting on his phone when she stepped out into the road. The man came forward a few hours later to see if the person he'd struck was still alive. The police arrested him straight away when he admitted the truth in an open and shut case.

  I finish reading the news report on my phone in our hotel room, exhausted from the night we'd spent trying to encourage Marie to re-confess to shooting Tommy. Nothing went to plan, but we didn't get caught.

  We were fast to go back to Dad's car and drive straight out from the area before someone called the police. So far, no one has reported our SUV to the cops, so it appears we are in the clear.

  I'm almost in two minds about the whole thing. On one hand, I'm glad we both made it through the night without either of us being arrested or worse, but on the other, I feel like we got away with something. No amount of jail time could ever punish me for what I did to Marie.

  Dad asks me on a loop if I'm okay. He can see it in my eyes, a change within my core that is slowly resonating out to my entire persona.

  "Can I get you anything from room service?" he asks me from his twin bed for a second time.

  "No thank you." The thought of food makes me sick. Who could desire a single bite to eat after what we experienced? I stare at him as he flicks through the pages of the menu, trying to decide what the right choice is to make before he contacts the kitchen service. What if he orders the wrong thing? Will he ever forget it?

  My heart beats so hard in my chest I have to force myself to get up out of my bed. "I'm going for a walk," I blurt.

  "Okay. Don't stray too far. We'll be heading to the airport in about an hour or so."

  I don't answer as I step by a bag full of all the items I packed up from Marie's house. As Beth, I kept my possessions to a bare minimum. I had to be prepared to be able to pack up and run at any time as if I never lived there. We had no rental agreement on paper, and we'd paid Marie my share of the rent in cash. There was nothing to trace back to us.

  When I reach the elevator at the end of the hall, I press the button and see my reflection in the metal of the doors. I look like hell. Bloodshot eyes, frayed hair, and blotchy skin. I feel as if I've aged a decade in as little as a few days.

  The elevator dings and opens in front of me. No one is inside to share the ride down fifteen floors which I'm not unhappy about. As I shuffle into the car, I turn to reach for the button for the lobby and see a small advertisement fixed to the wall above the array of floor choices. My hand freezes in the air before I can hit the circle as the ad grabs my attention.

  An image of a perfect beach stares back at me with text describing the ultimate getaway to a tropical paradise. I think of Champagne Beach in Vanuatu. She dreamed of going there, believing she deserved to despite all the pain she caused. I stopped that from ever happening when I decided to let her die. Dad could have saved her. The rest of her injuries weren't so bad that she wouldn't have recovered from them.

  My hand draws away from the lobby button.

  A second later, I find myself back out in the hallway, headed for the stairs. I shove through the heavy door and feel the wobble in my legs collapse me down in seconds. Before I know it, I'm pressed into a concrete corner with my head against the wall, tears flowing.

  Why did I let her die? Why did I allow my thirst for revenge take over at a time when I was in no state to make such a decision?

  I'm not crying for her. I'll never shed a tear for that woman. She tried to kill Dad even when he was willing to meet her halfway. She deserved to pay for what she did to our family. Whether death was the correct punishment will be an internal debate that may rage on for the rest of my life. No, the reason I'm crying is far worse.

  I once asked Marie what she was afraid of. At the time, I was trying to gauge how best to mess with her if Dad and I ever found out she was Tommy's killer. When Dustin told us everything only a few days later, I knew I would use the answer against her.

  Dustin surprised me at the Denver hotel. He seemed like he was mad at us for daring to come to him in the first place, but something inside him burst like a dam when he spoke. Perhaps seeing the two of us after five long years still determined to find the truth got to him. Whatever the reason, he led us to the end.

  Although Marie never told me with words, I could see it in her eyes the thing she feared more than anything else in the world: to die alone.

  I held her hand when she died. But it wasn't to give her comfort in her last moments. It was my attempt to show her my contempt for the life she chose to live with the disappointed look I had on my face. I wanted her to understand that she destroyed my family and only showed remorse for the impact it had on her life. She always felt she had suffered from shooting Tommy, but no amount of self-absorbed pain would ever make up for her pointless actions.

  Whether she acknowledged what I had attempted to show her in her dying seconds, I'll never know. All I can be certain of is I never want to be like Marie. I never want to feel above the choices I've made, the good and the bad. Does it mean I'll turn myself in for letting her bleed out in the street? Probably not. I can't leave Dad on his own to process these last few days. We need each other now more than ever.

  The door to the stairwell opens. Dad pokes his head through and sees me crying in the corner like a kid who's done the wrong thing. "Toni. I thought I'd find you here."

  I try to wipe my tears away in a hurry, but my eyes are red, and my nose is runny. There's no hiding what I'm doing.

  Dad walks through and places his hands in his pockets as he leans against the wall beside me. "Do you mind if I join you?"

  "No."

  He settles in next to me and doesn't utter a word. We spend a few minutes in a comfortable silence that stops my tears from returning. The fact that he knew where to find me is enough to calm me down.

  "Did I ever tell you about what motivated me to become an EMT?"

  "No. I always figured you just wanted to help people."

  "That's a good reason, but I'm afraid your old man isn't that selfless. It was to impress your mother."

  "Really?" I look up to him.

  "Yeah. We'd had you a few years earlier than we planned and were two clueless first-time parents trying to figure out the way things worked when you had a young baby in the house. You were about three months old when I lost my job at the plant in a wave of layoffs. It came at a terrible moment when we had hardly any savings in the bank to keep our heads above water."

  I let a smile form on my face. Dad wasn't one to speak about the past like this.
I had often tried to get him talking about the old days, but he never liked to reminisce.

  "To make matters worse, you got sick with a vicious cold. It was the last thing we needed, but you can't tell life what it's allowed to throw at you. Anyway, we tried to get you better doing everything the doctor told us, but nothing seemed to work on that damn sickness of yours. You only got worse to the point where your mother freaked out and called an ambulance when your breathing became too shallow one night."

  "No kidding."

  "Yeah, you almost died on us, but the EMTs came and were amazing. I'll never forget the way they took control of the situation and made us feel so reassured everything would be okay. Your mother was beyond impressed by these people. You could see it in her eyes. As soon as we left the hospital, I looked into becoming an EMT."

  I smiled up at him. It took a few years from what I'd heard, but Dad worked his butt off to complete his training and study.

  "If you’re wondering why I'm telling you this, it's because I think I need to go back to being an EMT. It's what your mother would have wanted. I know it. I just have to push myself."

  "That's really awesome, Dad. I think it's a fantastic idea."

  "It is, but I want you to know that I'm not going to push you back into school or work until you decide it's what you want, okay? You've been through enough recently."

  I have been through a lot. I'd squeezed in too many painful up and downs into a short period. When we get home, I won't know what to do with myself. Not having what felt like an endless goal begging for my attention will be strange.

  "Thanks, Dad." I feel some weight on my shoulders lifting away.

  I thought the only way we were ever going to find peace was to force Marie to pay for what she did to Tommy. The more I think about it, the more I realized what we did in her home failed to ease the burden my and Dad’s lives had become. Her confession didn't bring Tommy back as much as letting her die did. I can't help but question where we would be today if we had moved on and never given Marie another thought.

  We both stare ahead at the grimy stairwell in silence. One flight leads up. The other down. Where we go from here is a choice only we can help each other make.

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