The Ex

by John Lutz

  She tried to roll over and found she couldn’t move. It was then that she saw the wooden pick handle extended upward at an angle from her body. She glanced down and there was the rusty pick itself protruding from her chest just below her heart.

  …couldn’t be real!

  When she inhaled, a terrible pain jolted through her body.

  She lay back and was very still, as if her life depended on an intricate balance she didn’t understand.

  “Hurts…” she heard herself moan.

  Above her, Deirdre grinned wildly and shook her head in mild disapproval. “Picky, picky!”

  Lisa saw her bend slightly and grip the wooden handle firmly with both hands. She planted her foot on Lisa’s stomach and grunted with effort as she withdrew the pick. As its long, rusty point pulled from the gaping wound, pain too severe to allow breathing or thought raged through Lisa like fire.

  Through blurred, agony-slitted eyes, she saw Deirdre raise the pick high, saw its bloody point descend in a rush toward her head.

  She tried to turn her head to get it away from the deadly arc of the pick. Pain exploded in her temple-and was gone in a burst of brilliant red.

  Then she was falling, plunging faster and faster, and everything was white.

  Then black.

  43

  Deirdre lowered the pickax and listened to her own breathing in the quiet bedroom.

  “My God!” a breathless voice said.

  When she raised her head, Deirdre saw Darlene’s reflection in the dresser mirror.

  “She wanted David,” Deirdre said to the reflection.

  “She wanted what you wanted, so you killed her.”

  “Exactly. I have the right. David was always mine, and always will be mine.”

  “You’re evil, Deirdre. You were always evil.”

  “That isn’t true! Evil was done to me.”

  “That’s not an excuse.”

  “You were lucky. You died when you were five. You stayed good. Father never had a chance to-”

  “To what?”

  “You know. Mother knew too, but then she didn’t know. So I was never good enough, never bright or pretty enough. I was never you. I couldn’t live up to you because you weren’t there to live up to. It wasn’t fair!”

  “Scarlet fever wasn’t fair to me.”

  “I would have been better off dead too. Almost every night I wished I was dead. Someplace where I couldn’t be touched. At peace like you. You could never have been what they pretended. You would have been just like me if you hadn’t gotten sick and died, not some pure and perfect angel that belonged in heaven. That’s where they always said you were. When you died, I was condemned to hell. I wish it had been you in the bedroom when the door opened, and you who was forced-”

  “Forced?” Darlene smiled. “You know that isn’t true.”

  “Not after a while, maybe.” Pressure built in Deirdre’s throat and she swallowed. “You never knew what it was, never saw the blood on the sheets. I have scars, inside and outside. I look different from what I am. Sometimes people think a sexy woman is dumb.”

  “Not you, Deirdre. Nobody ever took you for stupid after they knew you for a while.”

  “But when they did think I was stupid, I made them sorry.”

  “It’s time to be honest with me. Honest all the way.”

  “I learned to do to men what was done to me. To control them.”

  “That must have proved useful.”

  “It’s still useful.”

  “What about the fire?” Darlene asked. “Remember that night? Mother and Father? It was like our house was screaming, only it was-”

  “Shut up! Now!” Deirdre stood very straight and glared.

  “You don’t like thinking about it, do you?”

  “You don’t know about the fire!”

  “Oh, sure I do. And I know about that place you ran away from.”

  “I’m not surprised by that,” Deirdre said bitterly. “You’re nosy, a spy. You’ve spied on me for a long time, haven’t you?”

  In the mirror, Darlene smiled. “You sound just like a little girl I used to know.”

  “I didn’t do what they said I did,” Deirdre told her.

  “Sure you did. But you don’t remember.”

  “Hah! Like you were there!”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. Still spying, sneaking, working against me. You’ll tell the police what I did here, won’t you?”

  “Of course I won’t. We’re sisters. You more than anyone know how certain things must stay within families.”

  “Mother and Father! You’ll tell them!”

  “They know all about you, anyway. Everybody who’s dead knows all about you. I won’t tell anyone who’s alive.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Darlene’s reflection said smugly. “You can’t trust me any farther than you can know me.”

  Deirdre drew a deep breath, then turned away from the mirror and faced Darlene.

  She raised the pickax.

  Darlene didn’t move.

  Only closed her eyes and smiled.

  44

  David took care of the matter the next morning, as promised.

  He was aware of Molly watching him closely, standing in the center of the room with her arms crossed, her shoulders slightly hunched in a manner that was becoming habitual.

  “This will solve the problem,” he said, looking down at the red-handled hammer and the small box of nails he’d bought at a hardware store on Second Avenue. Hammer and nails were lying on Michael’s bed, within easy reach of Muffin’s permanently propped-open window.

  “Of course,” he said, “this is breaking the city code, interfering with access to a fire escape.”

  “We don’t have fires in this building,” Molly said flatly, “only fire alarms.”

  “Nevertheless, I bought long nails so we can leave them sticking out half an inch and I can easily pry them out with the hammer. We’ll keep the hammer on the top shelf of Michael’s bookcase, where he can’t reach it and we can get to it fast if it becomes necessary.”

  She said nothing, and he was aware of her in the corner of his vision as he wielded the hammer and drove a long nail into each side of the wooden window frame.

  “It’s always possible the faulty wiring that causes the alarm to sound might also cause a fire,” he said.

  She remained silent and solemn, ignoring his pass at irony.

  He tucked the hammer in his belt then, with effort, worked the paperback books loose that had been propping open the window. The rending action ripped the cover from the top book, a bestselling British mystery novel of a decade ago, and caused the pages of another to come loose from the binding.

  “Do you want to keep any of these?” They were used paperbacks they’d bought years ago at the Strand, and he knew they wouldn’t have been used to prop open the window if they’d had any lasting value in the first place. But he thought he’d better ask the question anyway before he condemned the books to the incinerator.

  “They’re out-of-date reference books and a couple of cozies,” Molly said. “Go ahead and pitch them.”

  He dropped the books into Michael’s painted wicker wastebasket then returned to the window. It was frozen open six inches now. Spreading his feet wide for leverage, he yanked and pulled on the sash to demonstrate to Molly that the window was immovable.

  “See, Mol,” he said, turning to her and smiling, “problem solved.”

  She simply walked from the room, saying nothing.

  He wondered if Molly knew or merely suspected that nailing the window frame had been a show for her benefit; that not even changing the locks would help. He had to find some way to stop Deirdre.

  He propped his fists on his hips and stared at the window. At least his handiwork should be good for Molly’s peace of mind.

  And they owed her some peace of mind, he thought guiltily as he laid the hammer and remaining
nails on the bookshelf and left the room.

  He walked into the living room and got his sport jacket from the coat closet, then picked up his attache case from the chair. Molly was nowhere in sight. She’d already dropped Michael off at Small Business. Maybe she was in the bathroom, or had decided to jog and was changing clothes in the bedroom.

  “I’m going, Mol!”

  There was no answer.

  More concerned than angry, David draped his jacket over his shoulder and went out the door.

  The business with the window had made him late leaving the apartment. Then someone had fallen ill on the subway, necessitating an unscheduled stop and emergency treatment, and causing all the trains on the line to grind to a halt and not move for more than an hour. It was almost eleven o’clock when he finally arrived at Sterling Morganson.

  He’d barely gotten settled in his office when Josh, carrying a tall stack of manuscripts, stopped at his door and stuck his head in.

  “Heard from Lisa, David?”

  David looked away from his flickering computer monitor. “No. Should I have?”

  “She didn’t come in this morning, and she doesn’t answer her phone.” Josh was obviously worried.

  David didn’t see any big problem here. “Call her father’s number. It’s in her file. He might know where she is.”

  “I called him. That’s what seems odd about this. He says she was supposed to meet him for dinner last night but didn’t show or call, and she didn’t answer her phone. He hasn’t heard from her this morning. He phoned back a few minutes ago and said he’d gone to her apartment but she wasn’t home, and there was no indication of where she might have gone.”

  “It’s only ten minutes past eleven,” David said. “I don’t see why you’re concerned.”

  “Her father noticed a throw rug in her bedroom where there hadn’t been one before. When he lifted it, there was a damp, dark stain underneath.”

  David looked at him more closely. “Are you saying you suspect foul play?” God, he’d sounded like one of the characters in the manuscripts that poured into Sterling Morganson.

  Josh seemed puzzled. “Well, I don’t know. But her being so late and not calling in, and standing up her father last night…it doesn’t seem like Lisa.”

  “Maybe she would have called her father this morning, but she got sick and went to see a doctor. That would explain the stain on the carpet. Also explain why she hasn’t called in yet.”

  “Waiting rooms have phones,” Josh pointed out.

  David suspected that Lisa might have gone to an early job interview somewhere and had been taken seriously enough to be asked to stay for further consideration. She was overqualified for her work at the agency and had gone job hunting before, and now she was scheduled to do more work for the same salary. He wouldn’t blame her for switching jobs.

  Josh smiled suddenly and shook his head at his own concern. “I guess it’s too early to bring in the police,” he said.

  Another line from the amateur manuscripts piling up at the agency. It was affecting them all.

  “When the time comes,” David said, “they’ll round up the usual suspects.”

  Perceptive Josh knew what he was thinking. “Maybe I’ve been reading too many unsalable mystery novels and it’s gotten to me,” he said. “Still, it’s after eleven o’clock, David. You’d think she’d have called by now. Or that she’d be home and answer her phone. I don’t know why, but I’ve got an uneasy feeling about her. It really is possible something’s happened to her and she needs help.”

  David imagined Lisa dressed in a business suit, sitting for an interview at one of the major publishing houses. “Anything’s possible. Maybe she fell in love and eloped.”

  Josh looked at him curiously, then smiled wryly and shook his head. “I doubt if that’s what happened, boss.”

  David had so many other problems that he couldn’t work up much worry over Lisa not coming in for work. “If she doesn’t turn up tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll call the morgue and all the hospitals.” Another deliberate cliche.

  “Bad joke,” Josh said. “Anyway, tomorrow’s Saturday. But if nobody makes contact with her and she isn’t here Monday, I think we’d better bring in the police.”

  “That would be Morganson’s decision.”

  “No,” Josh said, “my decision.” He went on his way, as serious as David had ever seen him.

  David got to work and didn’t think any more about Lisa except to wish her luck job hunting.

  Lisa didn’t report for work that day, nor did she phone in sick.

  Her father, worried now, went back to her apartment to see if she’d returned there. He rang the doorbell, knocked, then used his key to enter.

  The apartment was still and silent. There was a faint, peculiar odor in the air. He couldn’t quite place it, but it disturbed him though he couldn’t say why. He did know that for some reason it carried him back more than thirty years to the early days of the Vietnam War, when he’d been an Army infantryman. He might have guessed it to be the coppery scent of blood, but thirty years was a long time.

  “Lisa!” he called.

  “Lisa!” More worried. Afraid. Maybe with the same premonition as Josh’s.

  Before leaving the apartment, he walked around to make sure she wasn’t there ill and unable to speak, perhaps unconscious. He looked in the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom.

  Everywhere but under the bed.

  Josh called Lisa’s apartment three times that weekend, then Sterling Morganson called him with bad news of a lesser nature than Josh had feared. There was a glitch in the software program that had to be dealt with before Monday, when the agency’s new system was going into effect. Everyone was instructed to come in to work Sunday afternoon to solve the problem.

  Josh wondered if “everyone” would include Lisa.

  45

  After achieving the proper mix from the faucet so the spiraling stream of water was lukewarm, Molly poured bubble bath powder directly into the tumult of swirling crosscurrents at the bathtub’s rubber drain plug.

  She sat on the curved edge of the claw-footed tub and watched the water level rise, then disappear beneath the spreading, foamy layer of bubbles. It was nine o’clock Sunday evening. David had gone into Sterling Morganson to help program the computers for the new system they were to begin using the next day. He’d phoned at five to say he’d be late. Nine o’clock was late, all right. But Molly wasn’t surprised. His behavior hadn’t adhered to any sort of schedule or structure for weeks now.

  She’d called him at work at seven to see if he’d left, and he’d answered the phone, complaining about the unreasonableness of the tyrannical Morganson in having his employees work so late on a Sunday. At least he hadn’t lied to her; he was actually at Sterling Morganson. And she knew it was true that the agency was instituting changes to make the operation more cost-effective.

  There was actually no reason for her to have thought David wasn’t really in his office. Yet she’d suspected his phone wouldn’t be picked up. In fact, she knew her phone call might have been an effort to confirm her suspicion that he’d lied to her. Dr. Mindle would no doubt have a medical term for that sort of behavior.

  The bubbles were almost at the halfway point of the tub. Molly stood up and slipped out of her jeans and panties, her T-shirt and bra. She left them in a pile on the tile floor. Catching sight of herself unexpectedly in the medicine cabinet mirror, she noticed how she’d begun to carry herself, with her shoulders slightly hunched. Was twenty-seven too early to begin worrying about developing dowager’s hump?

  Leaning over the bathtub, she twisted both large white porcelain handles to the off position. Then she submerged a hand to make sure the water temperature was right. It was a bit too warm, but it would do.

  After testing the temperature again with her big toe, she started to climb into the tub.

  She stopped when she noticed that Muffin had entered the bathroom through the half-open door and was ly
ing curled cozily on the clothes she’d just taken off.

  No sense loading the washer with cat hair, she thought.

  She withdrew her foot from the tub, shooed the reluctant Muffin from the clothes, and put them in the wicker hamper alongside the washbasin.

  Finally she was able to settle into the old, deep bathtub. The warm water was well up on her breasts, the lush layer of bubbles almost to her chin. She began to perspire almost immediately, but she knew the water would soon cool enough to be comfortable.

  Luxuriating in the warm bath, she rested the back of her head on the gentle curve of porcelain and let herself relax. She took the brown washcloth from where it was draped over the side of the tub, submerged it, then raised it and wrung it out so trickles of warm water played over her shoulders and upper arms. Muffin had returned and was curled on the hamper lid, watching her as if mildly amused and contemptuous of such bizarre human behavior.

  This was as secure and sane as Molly had felt in days. For the moment, anyway, her life seemed under control. She knew where her husband was, and Michael had just gone to sleep in his bedroom.

  In a way she was glad David was working so late. The strain of recent events was creating a barrier between them; at times they were uncomfortable in each other’s presence. Silences had begun to weigh.

  She raised the washcloth again, let water trickle over her, then closed her eyes and spread the wet cloth over her face, breathing through its soapy warmth.

  A shrill clanging sound, like a school bell, shattered her peace and relaxation.

  Muffin looked startled and leaped down from the hamper and fled.

  Molly wadded the washcloth and hurled it into the layer of bubbles, then slapped the edge of the tub.

  Damn! Another fire alarm!

  “There is no fucking fire!” she told herself softly. “No smoke, no smell-only the alarm.”

  But she couldn’t be sure. And she wasn’t the only one in the apartment.

  Sighing, she dutifully climbed out of the tub and dried off with a thick towel. Then she opened the hamper and dug out the clothes she’d just thrown into it.