by Ivy Smoak
I looked back up. I noticed the front door slowly opening. Porter! Oh, thank God. "You don't have to do this," I said. I needed to distract her. I couldn't let her hear him coming in. "We can just tell the cops it was an accident. You won't have to go to jail."
"Nothing I do will send me to prison. People like me don't end up in jail."
Criminals? I thought about James' rap sheet. He never ended up serving time. Maybe she was right. People like her didn't end up in prison. I needed to think of something to stall her. "Who's been telling you everything?"
"It's not just one person, Penny."
"Who then?"
"This is really what you want to know on your deathbed? As your whole meaningless life flashes before your eyes? I pity you."
"At least tell me how you got up here." Please let this be working. Isabella seemed happy about the way she had tricked everyone. She seemed to like to brag about her connections and tricks.
"You really are quite dense. Why do you think I'm dressed like this?" She gestured to the yellow gloves. "It's crazy what a little flirting at the front desk will get you. Men have always been easy for me to manipulate."
"Of course they have."
She laughed. "Flattery isn't going to save you, Penny."
I glanced at Porter who was slowly turning the corner into the kitchen. I didn't even realize my mistake until it was too late.
Isabella smiled and shook her head. She quickly turned around.
"Porter!" I yelled.
Three shots rang out and Porter fell to his knees. Three holes appeared on the front of his shirt.
"Porter!" I choked. I didn't want to be weak in front of Isabella. But I had just gotten to know Cole. He was sweet and kind. He had a girlfriend that he was missing. He stood by James' hospital door every day to make sure he was safe. I owed everything to him. He put himself at risk every day for me and James. And now... I watched Porter's lifeless body fall forwards and hit the ground with a sickening thud. Now, he was dead because of me. I let my tears fall down my cheeks. I let the guilt swallow me whole. Because nothing mattered now. Porter was my only chance at surviving this. Isabella was going to kill me next.
"Kneel on the fucking ground, Penny." She grabbed Porter's gun and slid it into her pants pocket.
I knelt down in the ever expanding pool of blood by Rob's head.
"Porter's body complicates things slightly." Isabella sighed. "We'll need a new scenario now." She tapped her gloved finger to her lips. "Okay, here's what happened. You and Rob were fighting upstairs. You didn't want him to tell James the truth. So you shot him at the top of the steps." A shot rang out as she shot Rob in the shoulder.
"No!" God, Rob.
Isabella laughed. "Don't worry. Odds are he's already dead." She cleared her throat. "And after you shot him, the force of it made him fall down the stairs. Dead. Porter rushed in because he heard the gunshot. So you decided to shoot him too. Because you're the fucking worst! God, you really are a bitch. And then you realized you made a terrible mistake. You realized that you just murdered two people in your crazy rampage. There's no coming back from that. Such an awful feeling. It just ate you up inside. Your only redemption was to kill yourself after it's all said and done."
She smiled her cruel smile. "And the best part? Everyone will think you were the one that tried to kill James on your wedding night. Maybe Rob persuaded you to run away with him. And then after your plans went south, you changed your mind. This bloodbath was the only way out in your delusional mind."
"I'm not the delusional one."
"In the eyes of the whole world, you're about to be." She lifted her gun.
"Okay. Okay, Isabella, you win."
"Of course I win. I wouldn't have played this game if it was possible to lose. Everything is always stacked in my favor. I'm Isabella fucking Hunter."
"I'll divorce him. You don't have to kill me."
"Maybe that would work if you didn't get knocked up like the slut that you are. But James has a soft spot for children."
She really didn't know him at all. "He doesn't. He doesn't even wants kids. And he doesn't know I'm pregnant. He doesn't need to know. I'll disappear. You'll never see me again." I was lying through my teeth. If she let me go, the first thing I would do would be to find a police officer at another precinct. One that she wasn't in bed with.
Isabella eyed me coolly. "He really told you that he doesn't want kids? That's rather ironic since it was the only reason he married me."
My heart seemed to skip a beat. "What?"
She laughed. "He never tells you anything, does he?"
Don't listen to her. My last thoughts would not be about James lying to me.
"I told him I was pregnant. He always believed everything I told him. That's probably why he has such a hard time trusting you."
"Were you actually pregnant?"
"Of course not. I would never risk my figure for children. That's what surrogates are for." She waved her hand dismissively. "And when I told him I lost the baby, it brought us closer together. That was the happiest time in our marriage."
"When he was depressed about losing a child?"
"No. When he leaned on me. When he needed me." She took a step forward. "And it all made sense when I found out you were pregnant. He was marrying you out of obligation instead of love. It gave me the hope I needed."
"He doesn't know that I'm pregnant."
"You're a terrible liar."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Porter stir. He's alive. Oh my God, he's alive! "I'm not lying. James doesn't know. And he never has to."
"Exactly." She took a step forward.
"You don't have to do this."
"It's already done." She smiled. "Your fate was set as soon as you slept with my husband. As soon as you decided that you were more important than the rules. As soon as you gave into temptation."
As she inched closer, I knew it was now or never. This was my one shot at escape. I had to grab her gun. But I didn't have to do anything.
Porter had stood up. He quietly stepped forward and grabbed Isabella's gun from behind.
"Get off me!" She yelled and pulled the trigger.
I closed my eyes as a shot rang out. But I didn't feel anything. My eyes flew open.
Isabella was squirming in Porter's arms. And I did the first thing I could think of. I grabbed a pan off the kitchen counter and whacked it hard against the back of her head. Isabella went limp in his arms.
"Jesus Christ." Porter shoved her off of him and she fell to the floor. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." The pan fell to the floor with a clang. "But Rob..."
"Call 911." Porter was already crouching down next to Rob's body.
I fumbled with my phone, spilling out all the information to the operator on the other side.
Porter lifted one of Rob's eyelids.
"Is he okay?"
Porter didn't respond.
Rob couldn't die. Not like this. I didn't know anyone as full as life as him. I didn't know anyone as kind and selfless as him.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Chapter 31
Thursday
I stared down at the blood. But it wasn't the puddle of it that wrenched my heart. It was Rob's bloody handprints on the wooden floor. Where he had struggled to get up. Where he had been knocked back down. That's what the detective said. Rob had gotten hit on the head at the top of the stairs and fallen. He had tried to get up at the bottom but Isabella had hit him in the head again. I couldn't seem to stop staring at Rob's bloody handprints.
A flash made me blink my eyes. The crime scene investigators were taking photos of the blood.
"Penny." Porter lightly touched my shoulder. "Let me take you back to the hospital."
"This was my fault." I put my hand over my mouth.
"This was not your fault."
"It was my fault!" I shrugged away from his hand. "There were a million signs. There was no reason for Rob to ask me to come here. He would
have just brought the evidence to the hospital. And the texts didn't sound like him. He didn't even use any funny jokes. And even the guy at the front desk asked if Ellen was single. I thought he was asking for his dad or something. I never thought..." I was choking on my tears. "It is my fault. What happened to Rob..."
"You're acting like he's dead. He's not. He's just unconscious. He may already be awake."
"I just...he's one of my best friends." I hadn't realized it before that second. But it was the truth. There was no one else I could ever confess my worries to as much as I could Rob. Sometimes it was even easier to talk to him than it was to talk to James, because he understood my fears about James being an addict. He understood me. And he always had my back. He was always there for me.
"And he's going to be okay." Porter touched my shoulder again. "He's going to wake up. Just like James did."
He didn't know that. "If you hadn't been wearing a bulletproof vest, you'd be dead. I never could have forgiven myself."
"You can't live your life in what-ifs. I'm not dead. I'm fine. And Rob's going to be fine too. None of this was your fault."
"I should have seen it."
"You can't blame yourself for not thinking like a criminal."
I shook my head.
"Look, it's not your fault because it's mine. And Briggs. Aren't you wondering why I came up?"
"No. I just assumed you were worried when I didn't answer my phone."
"Yeah. Partially. But I was calling to tell you something. When you didn't answer, I did assume the worst. Because while I was waiting in the car for you, I got a call from Briggs. Apparently after some digging from the investigators that James and Mason hired, the hospital announced that there was a malfunction with the ventilator that was helping James breathe. It randomly stopped working. That's why his lung collapsed. Briggs made them pull the video footage of when it happened. I was on break at the time. And Briggs had gone to the bathroom because his stomach was upset. He thought James' parents were going to stay with him. He never would have left his post if he knew James was going to be alone.
I already knew where this was going. Isabella had said she tried to kill James twice.
"There's footage of Isabella slipping into James' room right before the malfunction," Porter said. "And she left the room right after the ventilator apparently stopped. There are no cameras in the actual hospital rooms, just in the hallways. Her timing was so impeccable that we're almost positive that Isabella somehow slipped something into Briggs' coffee so that he'd need to use the restroom. Especially since he feels so much better today. He'd still be sick if it was the bug that's been going around.
"This," he said and gestured to the blood on the floor, "is enough to put her away for a long time. There still isn't proof that she was behind the shooting. Her being in James' room when the ventilator malfunctioned is suspicious, but not damning. But she's still going to prison for what she did today. She's still going to pay."
"She told me she had tried to kill him twice. She said she had failed both times she tried. That must have been the second time. Isn't that proof enough?"
"It's her word against yours. I believe your word will hold better in court due to what happened today, but it's still not guaranteed."
"She tried to kill my husband."
"And there is no hard evidence to support that."
I thought about what she said. That people like her didn't end up in jail. "They'll send her to a hoity-toity prison. She'll get off soon for good behavior. She'll come after us again. Rob thought that there might be evidence here. What if he found it? Or what if it's still here?"
"Then we'll talk to Rob when he wakes up. Right now, I'm taking you back to the hospital."
"Just give me five minutes. I think I might..."
"I'm sorry. I have strict instructions to bring you back immediately. James has been calling me nonstop for the past half an hour. We're leaving now."
"Excuse me," the detective working with Officer Daugherty said. "I found this at the top of the stairs. Does this mean anything to you? Possibly about why the assailant may have attacked the victim?"
I took the crumpled slip of paper from his hand and quickly read the brief note:
"If you marry her, I will end you. There is no coming back from this."
"He knew," I said in a whisper. James fucking knew. Rob was right. James knew and he let it happen.
"Penny, as far as we knew it could have been about ending his reputation," Porter said.
"You knew about this?" I held up the note.
"We were briefed on it, yes." Porter quickly explained its significance to the detective.
The detective agreed to run it for prints. But I wasn't listening to their exchange.
Of course Porter knew. Of course Briggs knew. Because why would James tell me? He never told me anything.
I had been avoiding going back to the hospital. But it wasn't because I was shocked by what had just happened. Or that I was horrified that my new apartment was now a crime scene. I was still standing here because I was furious. The whole time James was unconscious, I blamed myself. I thought that it was somehow my fault.
But Porter was right, this wasn't my fault. It was James'. He had hidden something from me again and I was so angry I could almost feel the anger pumping through my veins. Rob came here because he could feel it to. The secrets. Rob was hurt and unconscious because James hid something important from both of us. And I knew there was no solid evidence of that, or whatever people kept telling me. But I had a piece of paper from Isabella saying she'd try to kill him if he married me. That was the interpretation. And I knew James. I knew that he thought that's what it meant too, but he decided to keep it from me. And at this moment, I hated him for that. I hated him for what had happened. I hated that he always tried to protect me when I didn't need protecting. All I needed was the truth.
And I wasn't just mad about that either. I was mad at him for having a DNR. I was mad at him for thinking he could control everything in both our lives and that he'd just be willing to leave it without asking me. He had changed his will after he met me. He had left me all his money. But that was the whole problem. He had decided to leave it to me because he decided that if he got hurt he'd leave me without trying to fight. He willingly decided to give up on the life we created together without even asking me what I thought.
And the worst part was that he'd lied again. Because that's all he seemed capable of. It hurt me to the core that he was still keeping things from me. Yes, maybe he didn't want children because he thought he'd be a bad dad. His father had been awful to him growing up. His role model was crap. I understood that. I understood that he was worried his addiction problem might put his children in jeopardy. I understood it all because that was the crap that he fed me. But it seemed to me that he didn't want a child because he thought he lost one. That he was still silently grieving a baby that never existed. And I hated him for not sharing that with me. I hated him for not sharing his pain with me. I loved James more than I thought I could ever love another human being. But I fucking hated him too.
"You're right. Let's go back to the hospital." I needed to have a word with my husband.
Chapter 32
Thursday
When I arrived back at the hospital, James was arguing with the nurse. He was trying to stand up and the nurse kept telling him to stay in bed. He looked pale from the effort. I wanted to be able to comfort him. I wanted to be able to tell him that everything was going to be okay, but I didn't know that it was. I didn't know that it could be.
He glanced at the door and spotted me. "Penny! Are you okay? I've been trying to reach you."
I swallowed hard and walked into the room.
"You need to sit down, Mr. Hunter," the nurse said. "This is your last warning or I'm going to have to sedate you."
James stopped trying to get past her and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was breathing heavily when I reached him.
"Are you hurt?" He
winced as he reached up to touch the side of my face.
"I'm fine."
"Is Rob okay?" he asked. "Is he going to be okay?"
I could hear the pain in his voice. But all I could think about was the fact that he shouldn't just be upset. He should feel guilty.
"I don't know. He's unconscious. His leg is broken and he has a bullet in his right shoulder. There was so much blood." I pressed my lips together. I wasn't going to cry right now.
The pain wasn't just in James' voice. It was all over his face. He did feel guilty. He knew this was his fault. But he wasn't saying anything. He wasn't telling me the truth. And he certainly wasn't letting me in. I wanted to hug him and slap him at the same time.
"Do you know why Rob was there in the first place?" I didn't give him a chance to answer. "Because he thought his big brother was dying. And he wanted justice for you. He was searching for evidence that Isabella was behind the shooting. Because of something that you said to him. About how you wanted him to watch out for me if something happened to you. And that you were willing to die for me."
"Penny..."
"Because you knew what Isabella was planning to do! You knew." My voice cracked on the last word. "You knew, James."
He didn't say anything.
"Rob got hurt trying to find evidence to put Isabella behind bars. He got hurt trying to protect you. Because you thought lying to us protected us. It didn't, James. It only ever hurts me. It hurts me."
"Penny..."
"No. James, I spent every day by your bed torturing myself. Blaming myself. Agonizing over my mistakes. It almost killed me. Every time you tell me something new, I feel like it's the last secret you have. That you finally trust me completely. But that's not the case. It's never the case. Now's the time for you to throw out insults and push me away. Go ahead. Tell me to leave. Kick me out of your life. Tear me down like you love to do. Because pain is easier for you than love."
