The Bad Husband (The Husband Series Book 2)
Page 9
She grabbed his phone from off the bed’s headboard and opened it. “Look. Tell me what you see.”
He looked. It was the suicide note. Or the love note.
All the colors
Lust for the sea
Inside the bulb
Comes the love for the will
Escape the man, with the can times three
“Escape the man with the can times three? What can?”
“No, Charlie! Look at the first letter of each sentence!”
He looked again. “Oh shit,” he whispered.
“Yes, oh shit! Now this person knows me? Knows I knew puzzles?”
“Your father?” he hated to ask but had to.
“Okay,” she conceded. “But how does that explain you?”
He didn’t want to state the obvious but… “He could easily have known my name and address.”
“Ugh,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Forget I said it.” Last thing he wanted was to fight with her or upset her.
“No, I won’t pretend it couldn’t be. But why, would be the next question.”
“How about we deal with the knowns. What is the can times three?”
“The canvas had a paint can!” she cried.
She snatched her phone up and located the image. “Send it to your laptop,” he suggested.
“One step ahead of you, Super Charlie Brown.”
He smiled and pushed hair behind her ear, tracing the shell with his finger.
She whacked it off. “Stop looking at my ears!”
“Why?” he wondered, amused that she could possibly have an issue with them.
“They are like dumbo.”
The absurdity of it brought a burst of laughter which earned him a punch in the arm.
“Don’t even talk to me about it,” she warned, letting him know there was no convincing her otherwise.
“Later,” he promised, going serious when the image was on the screen. “Can you blow that red part up?”
As she did, his stomach tensed. “Oh God,” he muttered right as Alice jumped back a little.
“Is that a head?” she whispered. “Oh my God, he’s headless! His head is in his hands! That is definitely not a coinkidink, Charlie!”
No, it wasn’t. “Shrink it back,” he hurried, creeped out.
She hit the button and brought the pic to its normal size. “The can has the numbers!” they both blurted at the same time.
“The music notes gave the numbers that led to me,” Charlie said. “The suicide or love note, gave the code to you that led you to the can. You need to figure out what the numbers on the can mean,” Charlie thought.
“Well…it’s paint. Paint is color and colors have numbers.” She opened another tab.
“What are you thinking?” Charlie asked.
“Maybe I’m supposed to find the name of the company that makes this paint?”
It was a good enough start.
After a moment she said, “This number means black paint. Just like in the picture. But every paint company makes black paint.”
“Try a popular name brand first and we’ll see what local paint stores carry it maybe?”
After a couple tries, she sighed. “So many names for black! Black onyx, charcoal, death decay? Ew!”
“Check the local stores and see what paint brands they carry.”
She went back to the image with the pic, staring at it.
“Look,” Charlie pointed. “What is that?”
She blew it up more. “Initials?”
The paint drips cut parts of the word off. “What about the other pictures you took?’
“Oh, right!” She swiped through and found them. After a couple, she paused. “Look! Isn’t that the same kind of paint can?”
“Looks like it.”
Another swipe hit the jackpot.
“Definitely his brand of paint,” he said. “Can you see the name of the store it’s from maybe?”
“How many paint stores can Friend have?” she wondered.
“You keep looking and I’ll check that.” It didn’t take long to find that out. “Two stores.” His pulse spiked at seeing it. “Alice.” He showed her.
“It has the music note!”
“One of them, for sure,” he said.
“See what brand of paint they sell if you can.”
“Shocked they even have a website. Okay, I see Pallidens. Burns. Friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yep. Seems they have their own paint.”
“That has to be it. What’s the name of their blacks?”
“Looking now. Onyx. Midnight. Pitch. Sable. And… no, that’s it.” He looked at her pursed lips as she stared in the air between them.
“Onyx…midnight…pitch…sable,” she muttered. “Onyx, midnight, pitch, sable.”
He stretched his legs and took a deep breath, exhaustion weighing heavy on his eyes.
“Midnight, sable, onyx, pitch. M--s-o-p. P-o-m-s? Poms? Mops?” She let out a sigh.
“Take a break,” he suggested.
“Ugh,” she groaned, her head dropping back. “This will haunt my dreams until I get it now. And whoever knew me, knew that.” She put the laptop aside and laid back, staring at the poem on the phone. “All the colors…Lust for the sea…Inside the bulb…Comes the love for the will…Escape the man, with the can times three. The love for the will? Inside the bulb? Bulb could mean idea. Inside the idea? Inside the idea comes the love for the will? He had an idea for his will? What’s his will? What man are we, or is he escaping? And what about the can times three will free, what will it free? The man is holding something hostage and if we escape him, then the can will free times three.”
She suddenly bolted up, holding the phone to Charlie. “SABLE! Look at the last letters of the poem! It spells SABLE!”
“Holy shit again,” Charlie said. “Is that a name? Somebody’s name?”
They were both back on their laptops, clacking away. But thirty minutes later and they were back to nothing, or a dead end they couldn’t pursue from a laptop.
“We’ll sleep and pray on it.”
They shut the laptops and Charlie put them on the floor and turned the light out. Climbing in bed behind Alice, he assumed his part in their favorite sleeping position, fitting his body tightly against her backside and draping his arm over.
She clutched his wrist at her chest like a security blanket, making him smile as he closed his eyes. “I love you Alice in Wonderland,” he whispered.
“Mmm, I love you more Super Charlie Brown,” she said around a huge yawn.
He smiled and snuggled his face in her hair then put his leg over hers. Another round of burrowing and wriggling and they finally settled on a position. He didn’t think he could ever get close enough to her, but it would have to do.
The Can Times Three
Charlie had no idea how long he’d slept before he bolted up in bed, fighting for air.
“Charlie? Are you okay?”
He reached over and turned on the lamp, sitting at the edge of the bed and scrubbing his face while Alice hugged him from behind. “You had a bad dream?”
He nodded, his heart hammering still. “Those pictures,” he whispered, unable to sit anymore.
“Tell me,” she said as he attempted to walk it off.
“It was that…stupid canvas…” He paced around aimlessly then dropped his hands from his face. “My dad was the man and he was…holding the head. It was Frank. The head, I mean. And he was chasing me, trying to give me the head and the head was saying, “Sable. Sable. Sable.” He kept repeating it like a creepy robot, over and over. Everywhere I ran, he was there. And his eyes…the look on his face…”
“What was it?”
A full-body shiver coursed through him. “Desperate and yet…dead. Like he was there but not. I ended up having to jump out of the dream.”
She gave a light gasp. “You jumped out of the dream? Is this the trick you told me?”
&nb
sp; Her never-ending need to learn secret techniques had an odd calming effect on him. He made his way to the bed and sat, welcoming the press of her soft body into his back and lips on his cheek.
The sound of a scream bolted Charlie up and sent him running out of the room. His body seemed to know exactly where it came from, sending him up the stairs to his parent’s room. He shook the handle and banged on the locked door. “DAD!” he screamed.
“Charlie, help!”
The terror in her voice sent him flying down the stairs and back to his room. He dumped his bag on the floor and grabbed the gun. “Stay downstairs!” he yelled to Alice as he sprinted back up, his heart hammering in dread. He aimed the gun at the door handle and fired two shots then slammed his shoulder into it. It flew open, causing him to stumble into the room.
“Get out Charlie!” his dad yelled, pacing before the bed. “This is between me and your cunt whore mother!”
Charlie aimed the gun at him as he took in the horror of his mom standing on the bed in a bloody sheet. Blood, so much blood. On her on him. He fought to breathe and caught sight of the spiked metal in his dad’s right hand. “Get away from her!” he screamed, stepping toward him with the gun. “Mom, get out!”
She stumbled awkwardly off the bed and Charlie roared through a sob at realizing she was hurt. “I’ll shoot you I’ll fucking do it!” He blinked the tears from his eyes, heaving with agony. “Call Uncle Leroy don’t call the cops!” he yelled as loud as he could.
His dad seemed to finally realize he might actually use the gun and the idea had his face twisted in rage. “You’re gonna use that Charlie? On your dad? Your good ole dad?”
“You’re nothing like my dad,” he whispered, his heart shattered.
“I thought you and I agreed that your mother was a lying whore cunt. I told you we’d have to do something with her, I told you that,” he reminded, matter-of-factly as he slowly stepped toward him.
“You told me to get the gun!” he yelled at him, hoarse. “You made me swear, and I did. I won’t let you hurt our family.”
“What are you gonna do, Charlie?” He tossed the spiked metal to his other hand, still stepping toward him. “You gonna kill me? Gonna shoot me? Been there, done that.”
“Stop!” he ordered, aiming the gun at his chest. “I love you! I don’t want to shoot you, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Uncle Leroy is coming!” his mom screamed from below. “Ben! Don’t you hurt our son!”
“Our son?” he boomed, looking toward the door. “I highly doubt that, you filthy-whore-of-Satan!”
“Alice!” his mother screamed as rapid footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Alice, stay downstairs!” Charlie ordered.
His dad laughed when Alice appeared in the doorway. “Another one that just doesn’t listen.”
“Charlie, tell him about what his mother told you,” she gasped.
His dad snapped his furious gaze at him. “You talked to my mother.”
“I couldn’t tell you, Dad,” he said as the gun quivered in his hand. “You weren’t yourself.”
“Myself,” he said with a low chuckle, tossing the jagged metal in his other hand now. “You think you know me, Charlie?”
“I’ll shoot you,” Charlie whispered, his breaths burning in his lungs. “I’ll do it. You know I will,” he said, sadness suffocating him.
Charlie realized he would have to. His dad was going to make him. Maybe even wanted him to. Then he’d be dead. “I don’t want to kill my dad,” he strained to God, the gun shaking more. “Help me.”
“I don’t want to kill my dad,” he mocked in a small voice, his face turning dark. “What a pussy you turned out to be.”
“Charlie, tell him about the note! Ask him what it means.”
“I don’t remember it,” Charlie yelled. He couldn’t think of anything but the pressure he had on the trigger and how much more was needed before the bullet left the chamber. And if he’d have to shoot him more than once.
“All the colors lust for the sea, inside the bulb comes the love for the will, escape the man with the can times three,” Alice hurried from the door.
His dad paused and looked at her then turned a grin back on Charlie. “She’s cute. I can see why you want to fuck her.”
“The music notes on your head mean Charlie,” she went on, her words shaking. “The letters led to your address in Kansas. You’re trying to tell us something, Frank. The first letters in the riddle spelled my name and the last letters spelled sable, the color of black.”
His evil gaze remained hard on Charlie as his upper lip rose over his teeth like her words were only pissing him off more.
Alice shot into the room and got behind Charlie, holding his shoulder. “Times three, Charlie,” she whispered at his ear. “I think you have to say it three times!”
“Say what three times?” he begged as his dad dragged the spiked metal across his stomach, drawing a line of blood with his growl. He stepped towards him, drawing another line of crimson above the first one.
“Do it,” his dad seethed, carving rows of gashes. “Better hurry, because when I reach the top, I’m gonna cut this fucking head right off!” he roared.
“Stop,” Charlie gasped as he cut faster and harder, raging in fury when the metal reached his neck.
“SABLE- SABLE- SABLE!” Alice screamed behind him.
His dad froze and stood there, looking like somebody had unplugged him. Charlie recognized the look on the face, just like from the nightmare. His head slowly turned until the dead eyes looked right at him. “My name is Frank,” he whispered. “They want to kill me. You can’t let them find my head.”
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