by Claire Perry
“She told me that she used to be proud of being my mother and my choices… Then I chose you and I wasn’t good enough anymore–” He choked on the words. Anita let out a piercing shriek that made the back of his neck vibrate. She leaped to her feet and paced around the massive table.
“I’m sorry, Anita! God knows, I didn’t want to upset you! That’s why I didn’t tell you.” He held up his hands pleadingly.
“What? You weren’t going to tell me that your family thinks of mine as being less quality than yours just because we have less money?” She slapped her hands on the table and stomped her feet with childish sobs.
“Honey! I didn’t–” Joe stood up, losing his breath. He didn’t want to admit that he was actually becoming afraid of her.
Anita stopped, her lips gaping.
“I have the perfect solution! She can’t deny me or our union if we have a baby, Joe!” She bounced on her heels will excess pep and giggled. Joe reeled.
“Anita… We just got married less than a month ago. It’s just… I’m not ready to take that step yet!” Joe backed away from the table, feeling his palms sweat and his stomach get sick. The thought of being a father had always scared him senseless. It was more than that, though. A look in her eye that wasn’t love, or even the lust that had propelled them to make heat of the moment commitments.
It was something vicious.
The bottle of nocino was still in the center of the table. She smirked at it. Joe shook his head.
“Please, let’s just wait on planning a family, okay? I agree, she’d probably love a grandchild, but…” He felt cornered.
“I want a baby now. I gave up my life to be with you. My best friend is dead because of the hell I had to go through to be with you! You’ll get me pregnant if I have to make you. Let’s start tonight.” She drew her brows up and down and lifted the bottle.
“What, you mean like, get me drunk and then? Where’s the fun in that, eh? You wouldn’t do that to me!” He shook himself, giggling. There was no way he’d take her seriously.
“I agree that wouldn’t be any fun. But this will!” She swung the bottle into his face, breaking it in his eyes. Liquor, blood, and glass tumbled down his body. He heard himself hollering, as he was instantly blind. There was no way to know for sure if she’d put his eyes out or not.
In excruciating pain and reeling out of shock, he’d gotten the weak shakes. He felt her sink her sharp fingernails into his scalp and pull him into their bedroom. She yanked his belt off and tied him to their bed.
“We should keep it hot like this, Joe. Like we did when we were dating. You’ll be a great father. Wait and see. I’ll give you more babies than you could dream of. Sons at least as handsome as you are.” He felt her toweling his face and picking glass away from him. The alcohol still blurred his vision and he felt tears streaming down his cheeks. She reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of pills.
“I got these for us. Thought they’d help you if you weren’t still happy…” She tried to force them down his throat, but he wouldn’t swallow them. Finally, frustrated, she melted them in the wet napkins and stuck the mush under his tongue.
“Please…” He couldn’t believe that she would actually do something like this to him.
“Come on, you’ll love it. You’ll forget everything she said…” Anita pulled up some scissors to cut him out of his clothes as he lay there tied up. Joe passed out, heart beating much too fast now.
---
Joe woke up lying on his belly on the sidewalk, a burning car behind him. He had no memory at present of how he came to be here. His head was spiraling in figure eights of thought. He coughed and vomited from the excess smoke he’d swallowed.
Ambulances rushed to the scene. He blinked in the glaring light and eased himself to his hands and knees. Instantly, he regretted it. He’d only been dressed in a bathrobe and his stomach and below his waist were raw.
They screeched to a stop and out filed a myriad of EMTs, diving to his rescue. He was numb to it as the chief medic lifted him up onto a gurney and hauled him in the ambulance. They eased the polyester bathrobe off him, cleaning small strips of burned cloth away from his wrists and elbows.
“This guy’s been in a car accident, right? But if I didn’t know better I’d say he was suffering genital trauma…” The chief leaned backward to look at his assistant in bafflement.
Nausea swept over Joe and he leaned up to heave into a small plastic bowl they had sitting beside his head. They all looked at him with a physician’s instinctual concern. His lips trembled as he remembered everything.
She’d attacked him, which was humiliating enough that someone as slight as Anita could find a way to overpower him. Then she’d hauled him blind to their bedroom and confined him to their bed, practically spoon feeding him male performance enhancers.
Then she had forced herself on him. For hours on end. Until finally he’d gotten free of the restraints and ran from her, finding nothing but his bathrobe to cover himself. He’d made for the first car in their garage, the brand new Rolls Royce he’d gotten for her.
He’d shot into the street, unable to focus on the driving task for all the bleeding he was doing on the new upholstery. That’s when the man had collided with the side of the car and rolled into the street. Joe gaped in horror and tried to slam the brakes, only to find that they’d gone soft.
He screamed in rage and sudden terror and watched as the man stumbled under the street lamp. He’d been small, around 30 years old, with soft Caucasian features. He shook himself and cursed when he realized that Joe had seen him. Guilty as his face charged him, he’d twisted around and peeled off into the shadows.
“My brakes were cut and I slid off the road doing about 90…” Joe pressed his face into his palm, gasping when he realized how red and welted his wrist was.
There was a knock at the ambulance’s door and a medic opened it. In stepped a small, blonde police officer with shining blue eyes.
“Well, Mr. Cornwell, it was actually your wife’s brakes that were cut, which leads me to assume that this is another strike at the hot iron by the same people that carried out the hit on Professor Erickson-Law.” She sat down next to him, jaw clenched. He realized with a tiny squeak that he was still uncovered and that she’d seen him. Her eyes glittered like Fourth of July. It was evident to everyone that he’d been viciously abused that night, driven to the street in a frenzy.
“Ehem, gentlemen, provide Mr. Cornwell with something to cover his modesty. Pardon my intrusion, sir, and allow me to introduce myself. I’m Officer Riley Holloway.” She smiled at him understandingly and extended a hand. One of the medics pulled a hospital gown over Joe’s shoulders. Joe took Riley’s hand and shook it gingerly. She leaned closer, eyes tender. He felt her peace eclipse his tormented soul. It was the first peace he’d had since the day he’d said “Hello” to Anita White.
“Sir, allow me to be forward and frank with you for the purpose of your own safety. You didn’t have any reason to shoot out of your neighborhood in your wife’s car at 3 o’clock in the morning with only a bathrobe covering obvious trauma when you’re this country’s most envied newlywed. We’ve talked to her and she’s pretty calm about everything that happened tonight. I think it’s safe to say I can see what’s happened between you both and I know that she’s been reported to have BPD. Is all of this a correct assumption, Mr. Cornwell?” Riley swallowed.
“Yes, ma’am.” Joe scratched the back of his neck, deeply humiliated by the gaping looks of horror on the medics’ faces. Riley had a seat on his bed rail.
“We’ve been put in a difficult position, Mr. Cornwell. You see, with her emotional instability, she should advisably be institutionalized. If she’s deigned to do something so domestically violent and horrific to you, and I can only imagine how she succeeded, after a single month of marriage… Mr. Cornwell, to put it bluntly, we now have a motive for why someone might attempt her murder repeatedly. If she’s this volatile in relationships, it
’s only feasible that a wounded man might go to extreme measures. Which is not to accuse anyone, sir. Only now, I am gravely concerned for your safety. You may have gotten involved in a ring of lover’s revenge or worse… All possibilities should now be considered, as your reputation, wealth, and public image make this a matter of concern to the civil balance of our fair San Francisco.” She bowed her head, eyes dark with gravity that didn’t fit her tender 20-something years.
“Oh God… If it gets out that my wife–” Joe was quaking with embarrassment.
“Yeah, we’re going to have an uproar on our hands. Is institutionalization or protective custody out of the question?” Riley gritted her teeth.
“Unless you do it by force of law, then yeah.” Joe twisted his mouth in chagrin. Riley nodded.
“Normally, I might have insisted. This case is unique. I can’t have the paparazzi charging a hospital to snap a pic of the Psycho Bride if it’s possible that the car in the backyard is rigged with another IED, can I?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ah, come on, I’m only 26. No need for that. Just call me Riley.”
“Well, I guess not Riley. If I can’t do that, then what am I supposed to do? If she didn’t get pregnant from what she did tonight… Which is why she wanted to do it… To have a baby that I’m not ready for and attract my mom’s attention. You know, I don’t know. I might be on guard for another liquor bottle to the face and she’ll slip roofies or something. If she did it once… She could keep doing that to me. How do I live with her?” Joe tore at his hair. Riley bowed her head.
“This, other than the fact that you’re a man whose cases are underreported by your friendly neighborhood newspaper, is standard domestic violence. Is there someone you could go and stay with at night, like a buddy or a relative? It might be the best solution, as night will be when you’re most vulnerable because you’re both likely to be home.” Riley shivered.
“I’ve kind of pissed away my relatives, in case you haven’t been reading the papers.” Joe gulped down the urge to be sick again.
“Sir, I’m a cop. I live the papers before they see the press. Now, here’s my 10 cent solution to this huge pickle the two of us have gotten wound up in. You make peace with your mother. Yeah, I know, or at least you start talking peace with her. It’s not as hard as facing a street war, pal.
Go to her with the statement you give me tonight of everything that happened, what your wife did to you, the accident, everything. Explain to her that the two of you have been shanghaied into some kind of The Young and the Restless crap, and that you’ve been given strict, circumstantial orders from the police department to work together towards bagging this joker. Sound like a plan, champ?” She laughed as his countenance softened. His father had called him that. Maybe if only for that subconscious reason in his hour of horror, he was willing to comply.
“Yeah, I guess. Take me downtown then, Riley. I’ll need one of your sketch artists to give my statement. I think I might have clipped the guy responsible for totaling my mint-penny new Rolls Royce.”
Chapter 4
Only a few months ago, she was terrified of these sorts of places. The life she used to know was thousands of miles behind her now. Alice Cornwell had died, and she was someone else. Someone forced against the odds and facing terrors without faces or even names to lead off.
Matt stood behind her, reaching his hands around her shoulders and guiding her hands along the body of a KahrPM9. His voice was velvet as he tried to muster the energy it took to train her in self-defense.
“Now, whatever the circumstances, you should never shoot unless it is absolutely evident that this is your only option for diverting attack…” He coughed as he chambered the small pistol for her. Kenneth Law stood to her right, pulling the soundproof earmuffs down tight to prepare for this. His jaw was clenched. It was an effort of the Titans for him to even be standing. Alice had never been so sorry.
“Remind me why we’re doing this… I’m like an old woman. Claudia knows Krav Maga, Kung Fu, and Ju Jitzu, to name a few, and you’re like an ex-super spy…” Alice’s shoulders sagged. She was against the concept of violent altercations despite the physical sparring she’d done with her son a few times in the past.
Matt drew a shaky breath and steadied himself.
“This is just in case I’m not around in the future, alright?” Alice felt her blood turn cryogenic. Of course, she knew he meant that he was afraid the end of his life was drawing closer. The tone of his voice suggested he might even wish that.
“Well, I hope we never have to use this…” She swallowed and squared her jaw trying to steady herself for this.
“Look, it won’t hurt you. Just look straight down the sight and line it up with the red circle in the center of the jelly mold. We’ll just work on the basics–”
“What the hell?” Kenneth had twisted around with a serpent’s hiss as wheels crunched down the sand. Matt and Alice flinched simultaneously. Who else that they knew would come pulling up in champagne-tinted limousine with the Cornwell diamond clovers logo emblazoned in gold across its hood?
“What is he doing here?!” Kenneth jerked forward and Alice reached out, gripping his arm. Alice and Matt were highly relieved that Kenneth hadn’t picked up one of the pistols yet. They were certain that if he had, he’d start shooting and several people would pay for his blind rage with their lives.
“Want me to whip that dog, ma’am?” Matt popped his knuckles. His ice and fire fury was more controlled than Kenneth’s, but infinitely more frightening as well. Alice held her breath.
“No, not unless he tries to physically abuse me. Let’s just see what he wants. Who knows – if what Ken says about Anita is true, she may have finally had one of her mood swings and made him a believer in Mama’s wisdom.” Alice bowed her shoulders. Even so, her boys drew closer. She nearly broke into tears. These were the sons she never had. No matter what happened, she would be strong enough.
Joe stepped out of the limo and swept his shades off his face. His eyes were wide as pies and his cheeks had flushed, obviously ashamed.
“State your business fast, while I’m still feeling philanthropic!” Matt cracked his knuckles and pushed past Alice.
“My business is with Mrs. Cornwell and not with you.” Joe licked his lips. He would never stoop low enough to verbally admit he’d done this man wrong.
“Mrs. Cornwell’s business is our business. Don’t even bother dropping threats about how you’ll sue us for our eye teeth or any of that crap I’ve been hearing through the grapevine. I’m a defense attorney, punk.” Kenneth popped his collar. Another new experience in the life of Joseph Cornwell. He was speechless.
“What do you want, Joseph? As you can see, I’m a little bit indisposed.” Alice cleared her throat and handed the pistol back to Matt with shaking fingers.
“Since when are you interested in firearms, Alice?” Joe raised a critical brow. The name burned like whiskey in Alice’s throat. Once more, he reiterated the death of their family.
“Since a good woman that was a personal colleague of mine was murdered for consorting with my company.” Alice wiped her hands on her jeans. Joe froze. Kenneth and Matt were having to hold each other back from attacking Joe.
“I’d like to talk to you alone, Mrs. Cornwell.” Joe’s lips were a thin white line.
“Are you actually going to trust him?” Kenneth’s knees were knocking together.
“I’ve known him longest, Mr. Law.” She smiled and turned back to Joe.
“Make it snappy, boy.”
They walked just out of sight but not out of earshot. Truthfully, Alice didn’t trust Joseph anymore. If he’d blindly accuse her of murder and refuse to call her “Mom,” then he was capable of every form of betrayal. If he couldn’t be her child anymore, then she’d talk to him like one of her young interns, pulling no punches.
“Alright, have a seat. On the fender. No caviar or champagne out here, kiddo. Here off the back 40, it’s always M
iller time.” She pushed him to sitting on the fender of Matt’s old blue truck and handed him a beer. Joe looked at it like it was a dead animal. He’d never drunk anything so cheap.
“Don’t turn your nose up, young man. The way you spend your money, you’ll be shopping at the supermarket soon enough.” She grimaced, using the discarded brass casing from a bullet she’d found in the truck bed to open both beers. Joe raised a brow, watching her take a long pull off the drink.
“Ah. It’s been a while.” She laughed and looked at him sidelong.
“Before I married Anders Cornwell, young Mr. Cornwell, I was a waitress at the trashiest joint in San Francisco. One that served ribs that had to be chiseled off the plate with a butter knife if they got a few degrees cooler than oven temperature. Tea that tasted like motor oil.” She laughed through her nose. Joe was pale. He never knew this about his mother. It was peculiar the things you learned when your loved ones became strangers.
“I used to live in a commercial zoned shanty that belonged to my broke alcoholic parents. They died when I was 17 – one of sclerosis, one of alcoholic poisoning – and I continued to live in that little crack shack with the roof caved in and the boiler room flooding with every summer shower that blew up from the Pacific. Guess that makes me and Cinderella soul mates, eh? Money don’t buy love, boy. Money don’t buy happiness. Being poor won’t break your heart and riches won’t bring you exuberance. Pardon the ancient history, Mr. Cornwell. I always like to give my young clientele this pep talk. Anders Cornwell was one of the most amazing humans that ever lived. He took me from rags and bandages to riches overnight – not to prove anything, not out of lust-haste or out of pity, but out of pure chivalry and love. This is probably the greatest company in the world to belong to for that reason.” She took a sip of the beer and watched Joe’s face swell. Playing his game had worked. Like only a mother can, she’d gotten in his head and planted the seed of conviction.
