The Last Breath

by Kimberly Belle

  But the reason she hadn’t slept was because last night was also the first time she’d felt even the slightest stab of guilt.

  The only problem was, Ella Mae didn’t know who her guilt was for. She’d done wrong by Ray, that much was certain, but as she took her husband’s hand and sailed past her lover at the bar, Ella Mae couldn’t shake the feeling that the person she was cheating on was not Ray but Dean.

  A light flipped on across the frozen lawn, and Ella Mae’s skin began to tingle. She gripped the counter and waited. Two seconds later Dean appeared in his living room window, just as she knew he would. A look of surprise flashed across his face when he saw her, then dissolved into something dark and far more serious, something that made Ella Mae’s chest feel even heavier.

  He put a hand to his ear, the universal sign for telephone, and she nodded. A phone call this early in the morning might wake the entire house, Ella Mae knew, but she also didn’t care. As of today she’d gone ten days without hearing Dean’s voice, and withdrawal was making her reckless.

  She answered halfway through the first ring. “Dean.”

  His reply was sharp, his voice low and angry. “Did you fuck him?”

  Ella Mae’s breath left her body in a rush, and her caffeine-deprived mind struggled to catch up.

  “Did you fuck him?”

  “Who, Ray?”

  “Yes, Ray. Or are you fucking someone else now, too?”

  “What? Of course not. Only you.”

  “So did you fuck him?”

  “I...” Panic zinged up her spine. Of course she’d had sex with Ray. He was her husband, and yesterday was her birthday. She didn’t have any other choice. “I had to, Dean.”

  A long silence while Dean took that in. “Did he make you come?”

  Ella Mae closed her eyes, and her voice was barely a whisper. “No.”

  “Good.” He paused until she opened her eyes, his gaze lasered onto hers across the frozen grass. “I’m the only one allowed to do that.”

  She nodded.

  His voice softened into a croon, smooth and low and so damn sexy, and good Lord, lust for him hit her like a pharmaceutical. She would do anything to please this man.

  “I want to make you come now.”

  Ella Mae nodded again. She wanted that, too.

  “Do it.”

  “Do...” She thought she knew the answer, but still. She had to ask. “Do what?”

  His answer made Ella Mae gasp, as much from shock as from desire. He told her to loosen the tie on her robe, and she did. He told her to push aside the fabric so he could see, and she did. Dean’s instructions were exact and explicit and erotic, and she followed them to the very letter while he watched from thirty feet away.

  Apparently, she would even please herself in order to please this man.

  “Good girl,” he said when she was done.

  Ella Mae tightened her robe back around her body. She didn’t feel like a good girl. What if Allison had looked out the upstairs window and seen her? What if Ray or Gia had picked up the phone? Ella Mae felt shocked and guilty and kind of dirty.

  And then he said something that thudded her heart to a standstill.

  “You’re mine, Ella Mae. You belong to me.”

  * * *

  Christmas came and went. Lexi and Bo returned from college in a flurry of Christmas presents and dirty laundry, and the phone didn’t stop ringing. Every time Ella Mae heard its incessant trill, her heart thudded to a stop, held there for a bit, then kick-started into overdrive. Surely Dean wouldn’t risk calling with this many people in the house? And surely she didn’t want him to?

  Oh, but she did. She so did. Every time the phone rang, Ella Mae held her breath, waiting, hoping. She told herself she didn’t want Dean to call, but she couldn’t deny her disappointment when the caller wasn’t him. And that made her feel guilty, which in turn made her angry. The emotions looped and curled in her belly until she made herself sick, literally sick, with worry.

  And then, finally, on the very last day of the year, he called.

  Ella Mae was at the kitchen sink, her hands elbow-deep in soapy water when the phone rang. “Get that, would you?” she said to Lexi, who was painting her nails at the kitchen table.

  “But my nails are wet.”

  Ella Mae turned back to her dishes. By now Lexi had alerted every friend in a fifty-mile radius she was home, and they’d been calling all damn day. If Lexi didn’t care enough to answer, then neither did Ella Mae.

  “Ella Mae!”

  She scrubbed at a plate. “What? It’s for sure not for me.”

  Lexi made a frustrated sound in her throat and lunged at the wall phone. “Hello?” She paused to give Ella Mae a told-you-so look. “Yes, she’s right here. One sec.” She stretched the cord over to the sink and rolled her eyes. “Thought it wasn’t for you.”

  Ella Mae took the receiver with a dripping hand and cradled it under her ear. “Hello?”

  She knew it was Dean by the way her cheek burned before the first word came down the line. “Pretend I’m Brad from the Historical Association.”

  “Oh.” Her heart plunged to her toes at the same time her nipples peaked. Damn that man, and damn her body’s reaction to him. She glanced over her shoulder at Lexi, starting in on a second coat of hot-pink on a thumbnail, and turned back to the window. Thirty feet away, Dean looked back at her from his living room. “Hi, Brad.”

  “That red sweater is hot. I want to rip it off.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “With my teeth.”

  She squirmed against the counter, but not from nerves. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Brad.”

  “And I can think of all sorts of fun things to do with that soapy water.”

  She gasped a tiny breath, her insides tingling. “Like what?”

  He told her what, and she had to grip the countertop to keep from falling into a puddle on the kitchen floor. “You like that, do you?”

  Ella Mae hummed out a yes. She liked it. She liked it a lot.

  “I’m going crazy over here. I have to see you. Now.”

  Ella Mae still had a million things to do before the Rotary party tonight. Straighten up the house, wash her hair, iron her little black dress and she promised Gia she’d help with her makeup. None of that mattered, because Ella Mae was going crazy over here, too. “Where?”

  “Meet me at the hotel at exit 23 in twenty minutes. Can you do that?”

  Ella Mae yanked on the plug to drain the sink. “I sure can.”

  “Good girl. And, Ella Mae?”

  She looked out the window, sought out his gaze. “Yes, Brad?”

  “If you wear that necklace Ray gave you, I’ll rip it off your neck and flush it down the toilet.”

  Less than three minutes later, Ella Mae and her bare neck were flying up the hill in her car, an addict in search of a fix.

  20

  IT TAKES MORE than one person to make a lie—one to say it, and another to believe it. But when the person who says it is well-known and respected, more than one person listens. When that same person lays his hand on the Bible and swears before judge and jury that his lie is nothing but the truth so help him God, more than one person believes.

  Sixteen years ago, Dean Sullivan, high school vice principal and most-talked-about man in town, pointed a finger at my father in a court of law and accused him of breaking into his own house the night Ella Mae was killed. The small-town, small-minded citizens of Rogersville hadn’t seen that much excitement since 1916, when the idiots over in Erwin hung an elephant, and they gobbled Dean up. The hand-selected members of the jury took one look at his résumé and believed his every word. Dean might as well have testified he saw Dad wrap the saran wrap around her mouth and nose himself. Even Dad’s own kids were willin
g to accept the possibility he killed Ella Mae Andrews, just because Dean Sullivan said so.

  Only now I know Dean had reason to lie. Did he lie because he was a jealous or scorned lover, to punish Dad for someone else’s murder? Did Dean lie to protect his own marriage, to keep his wife, Allison, from discovering the affair? Or were his reasons more sinister? What if Dean was the killer? What if he murdered Ella Mae because she wanted to break things off, or confess the affair to their spouses? Pointing the finger at an innocent man would serve as an excellent alibi.

  My stomach feels like there’s a fist in it. Jake may have sparked my memory, but he did so sixteen years too late. Too late to save my father from all the finger-pointing and allegations, from losing his job and family and position in society, from sixteen years in prison. Because Dad never, never would have been found guilty if even a wisp of a rumor of improprieties between the victim and the prosecution’s star witness had come out. Sixteen years—what a fucking waste.

  New questions roll through my mind. How long had Dean and Ella Mae been sleeping together? Were they in love? Was Ella Mae planning on leaving Dad for Dean? Or did Ella Mae choose to stay with Dad? Did she try to break things off with Dean? Did Dad ever find out about the affair?

  No. There’s no way Dad knew Ella Mae was cheating on him with Dean. Cal would have destroyed Dean on the stand, and Dad would have never been convicted.

  But I knew. Somewhere deep in the tucks and folds of my brain, I knew. I just didn’t ever understand until today.

  The most important question now is, what am I going to do about it?

  * * *

  I begin with Uncle Cal. I perch on the edge of my bed, scroll until I find his number in my phone and pray a call this early doesn’t give me another funeral to plan.

  Cal picks up on the second ring, his voice croaky and thick. “What’s wrong? Is Ray all right?”

  “Dad’s fine. Well...not fine, but he’s not any worse, either.”

  He releases a sharp breath, then clears the sleep from his throat. “You scared the living daylights out of me, child.”

  “I know, I know, and I’m sorry. But what I have to tell you couldn’t wait.” I pause to make sure my next words carry the appropriate weight. “Ella Mae was sleeping with Dean Sullivan.”

  The line goes still for so long I wonder if Cal has passed out from shock.

  “Did you hear me, Cal? She was sleeping with Dean.”

  Cal’s voice turns from concerned brother to businesslike lawyer fast enough to leave skid marks. “And you know this how?”

  “Because I remembered something. Something that didn’t really make sense to me at the time, but it sure does now. I remember Dean leaving the house, in the middle of the day when I wasn’t supposed to be home. Ella Mae freaked when I came out of my room ten minutes later, and she looked at me funny for days.”

  “What else?”

  “What do you mean, what else?” I turn and look out my window, the same window as all those years ago, and the scene replays itself in my memory. Dean hustling across the yard, straightening his clothes in the middle of the afternoon. The look of guilty surprise on Ella Mae’s face upon finding me in the hall, only minutes later. What other reason could there be? “They’d just had sex. I’m positive of it.”

  “Was either of them naked?”

  “No. But their clothes were mussed.”

  “Did you overhear them talking about anything inappropriate?” Cal’s using his lawyer voice on me again, a voice I’d hate to have to face on the stand.

  “No, but—”

  “Did you ever catch them kissing or holding hands?”

  Frustration heats my skin, and I pop off the bed. “Cal, stop interrogating me! I saw what I saw. Dean was buckling his belt and fixing his shirt, and Ella Mae was all wild-eyed and flustered. What else could it be?”

  “Well, it could be a million different things.” Cal’s tone has cooled by a thousand degrees, and I hear a new note in it, one that sounds strangely like relief. “Maybe he’d just used the bathroom, or ate a big lunch. The point is, we don’t know for sure.”

  I sink back onto the bed, and my gaze travels to the run-down hovel across the lawn. “Dean Sullivan knows.”

  “There’s not a soul in all of Hawkins County who’d believe a word that man says nowadays.”

  The irony hits me in the gut. When Dean lied, he was Rogersville’s VIP, and we all believed him without doubt. If he told the truth now, now that he’s become the crazy town drunk, who would listen?

  “Okay then—I know.” I sit up straighter and square my shoulders, certain. “I know that Ella Mae and Dean were having an affair. I’d lay my hand on a Bible and swear to it. Think what that would mean for Dad’s case.”

  Cal makes a scoffing sound in his throat. “What case? My office has buried the D.A. in so much paperwork, he can’t see the forest for all the red tape. By the time he digs himself out, it’ll be too late for another trial.”

  “But the star witness was sleeping with the victim, which meant he had about a thousand reasons to lie on the stand. To deflect attention from himself. To get revenge. To keep his own ass out of jail for murder. What if he pointed the finger at Dad because Dean was the one who came for Ella Mae that night? Dad spent sixteen years in prison for nothing!”

  Cal heaves a swollen sigh. “Look, baby girl, I understand your frustration. It’s the same frustration I’ve been feeling for all these years. But honestly, the sudden return of your memory doesn’t change a goddamn thing. There’s not going to be another trial, and people are still gonna think your father is guilty of a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “But they wouldn’t if they knew the truth.”

  He grunts. “What are you gonna do, go door to door?”

  “No, but what if I went to CNN? They’d—”

  “No, Gia! No reporters. Your father only wants to die in peace, and I won’t have an even bigger media circus adding to the chaos already on the front lawn. You will not go spouting off to any reporters about this. Do you understand?”

  I pluck Jeffrey Levine’s card from between a fold in my comforter. “But what about—”

  “No! I mean it, Gia. No reporters.” When I don’t respond, he adds, “I want to hear you promise.”

  I look at the card in my hand and puff a breath. “Fine. Whatever.” I brush my thumb over the words under Jeffrey’s name. Professor of Law. “No reporters, I promise.”

  “Good. And I don’t want you putting the possibility of an affair in your father’s head, either. The idea of Ella Mae stepping out on him would break his heart.”

  I suddenly remember Dad’s words to me the day he came home—the only crime I ever committed was loving Ella Mae more than she loved me. If Dad doesn’t know about Dean and Ella Mae, I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell him.

  Cal misreads my silence as rancor. “Do not go putting ideas about Ella Mae’s infidelity in your father’s head. Okay?”

  “I won’t. I won’t say anything.”

  “Look, baby girl. The only people who need to know the truth are the ones who should’ve known Dean Sullivan was lying on the stand in the first place. You, and your brother and sister. Everybody else in Rogersville can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. You kids are the only ones who matter.”

  I hear the hidden accusation behind his words, that I shouldn’t have needed proof of Dean’s lie to believe in my father’s innocence, and it strikes me that Cal is right. How could I have believed Dean Sullivan, a man I barely even knew, over my own father? Dad never raised a hand to me or my siblings or Ella Mae. He loved us, and he worshipped Ella Mae. How could I have ever thought him capable of murdering her?

  A new certainty melts through my body and solidifies, and something inside me clicks. That’s the only way I know how to expla
in it, that it clicks, and becomes unstuck. I may not ever know why, exactly, Dean Sullivan lied to police, but I am positive of one thing.

  My father did not kill Ella Mae.

  * * *

  Four hours later, I’m seated across from Jeffrey Levine at a Perkins all the way over in Colonial Heights, a sleepy little town thirty-five miles from the prying ears of Rogersville. The restaurant is packed with a blue-haired, dentured lunch crowd, but on a positive note, Jeffrey and I don’t have to worry about lowering our voices. The folks in this place couldn’t hear us with a bullhorn.

  “Did you ever hear anything about Ella Mae having an affair?”

  Jeffrey looks up from his Kickin’ Chicken special and nods. “Sure. Who hasn’t?”

  “I would’ve thought you’d be more worried. An affair couldn’t be good for the case.”

  Jeffrey lifts his shoulders in a no-big-deal shrug. “Depends on who it was with. But the point, as they say, is moot. The D.A. is posturing. If he had any evidence at all, he would’ve flooded the media by now. Not even the gossip rags are buying it.”

  My stomach twists but not from the last bite of my burger staring at me from my plate. I take a sip of my Coke and swallow it down, along with the guilt pushing up my throat. “But what if I told you I remembered something?”

  He snorts like he thinks I’m joking. “I really wish you wouldn’t. My editor will go through the freaking roof.”

  I sit silently, waiting while he drags a French fry through a puddle of ketchup on his plate, pops it in his mouth and chews. That’s when he notices I’m not laughing, and the realization hits. He swallows with an audible gulp, and everything about him falls still. And then he leans back in the green vinyl seat and scrubs a hand through those silly bangs.

  “Okay.” He blows out a long breath, pushes away his plate. “Well, the sudden return of your memory would mean a hellish amount of revisions on my end, but honestly, my problem is the least of your worries. An affair would also be really, really bad news for your father.”