What Lies Beneath: Romantic Suspense (4 page)

6

I could have stayed in the bed for the rest of my life, but I had to pick Aiden up from school. I picked up my car keys and purse. My cell phone showed a missed call. I groaned. I knew it was Theo. To my surprise, it was Maddie. She’d called three times. There were no calls from anyone else. She hadn’t called me in months. What could she possibly want now? Letting her talk me into having a coffee had been a mistake. Now she wanted to be friends again. I just wanted to left alone.

I started to put my phone in my purse when it rang. It was Maddie. I hit Ignore. The phone rang again almost immediately. Again, it was Maddie. I started to worry. What if there had been an emergency? What if something had happened to Aiden? I answered the phone fearing the worst. I was greeted by Maddie’s cheerful voice.

“What’s up? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a few hours now.”

“I was taking a nap. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, fine. I just wanted to call and see how you are.”

I was relieved Aiden was okay, but I didn’t feel like talking. Besides, there was something probing in her voice that I didn’t like. I frowned.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Look, I was just on my way out the door to pick up Aiden from school. I’ll call you back later.”

I started to hang up.

“Wait!” she protested. “I have something to confess.”

“What?” I was intrigued, but Maddie’s confessions usually amounted to nothing. Nearly in hysterics, she once called me to confess how she’d forgotten to pay for an item at the grocery store. It was on the bottom of her cart and she didn’t notice it until she was loading her car. She was convinced the police were going to arrest her and send her to jail. I assured her it happened all the time; it was an innocent mistake.

At the time, I’d found it amusing. But I didn’t have the patience for her made-up crises today.

“I know about what happened today,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, Alison’s husband was at the same bar as you this afternoon. They saw you arguing with Theo. They said you took off down the street alone. Is that true?”

I shook my head and considered hanging up. It was none of her business and I didn’t appreciate be gossiped about.

“Look,” Maddie said after her question was met with silence, “I’m just worried. I told Alison it wasn’t true, that her husband had mistaken you for someone else. I just want to know you’re okay.”

“I’m swell. Never been better. Life is a bed of roses.”

It was Maddie’s turn to pause. I sensed she was trying to decide the best course of action.

“I appreciate your concern, but I have to go,” I said.

I hung up and headed out the door.

For once, Aiden wasn’t late. He did however spill the contents of his backpack all over the sidewalk. I was shoving everything back in against his protests.

“Mom! You’re going to break them.”

He was worried I’d break the rest of his colored pencils. I’d already broken one in my haste to pack his things.

“I’ll buy you new ones,” I said.

“Now what kind of lesson will that teach him?” a voice said from behind me.

I turned to find Mr. Devereaux leaning against his sports car. His hands were in his pockets and he had an amused grin on his face. The top of his shirt was unbuttoned. I could see his hairy chest beneath. I was surprised by how lean and muscular he was. The man was handsome despite being a creep.

“What are you doing here?” I said a bit rudely.

“Can’t a father pick up his daughter from school?”

I’d never seen Mr. Devereaux at the school before. He never picked up Bella. That was a job for someone else as far as he was concerned.

“Did you bring my dinosaurs?” Aiden asked.

“I sure didn’t, sport. Did you leave them at my house?”

Aiden nodded shyly.

“Tell you what,” Mr. Devereaux said, “why don’t you come over this evening and pick them up. You can play with Bella and your mother and I can-”

“No,” I said cutting him off sharply.

I didn’t want to deal with Mr. Devereaux’s advances or with the awkwardness of Theo’s presence.

“We don’t have time today,” I added. “Sorry.”

I could tell Mr. Devereaux knew I was lying. “Well, some other time then. I heard you had a date with our manny, Theo.”

He said ‘manny’ with a smirk as if the idea of a male nanny was hilarious to him. Mr. Devereaux struck me as the type of guy who saw childcare as ‘women’s work.’ He probably viewed a man occupying that role as weak, or submissive.

Theo was anything but. Not that Mr. Devereaux cared.

“Heard it didn’t end well,” he said.

“Good news certainly travels fast in this town, doesn’t it?”

I managed to get the rest of Aiden’s things in his backpack and lead him to the car.

“I don’t mean to seem insensitive. Lord knows, I’m in no place to judge,” Mr. Devereaux said, following us to my car. “I know I’ve been the target of some colorful rumors in the past.” A big, shark grin spread across his face. “I would hate to see your name slandered.”

I glanced at Aiden; he was listening to our conversation intently. I started to get angry all over again. This wasn’t something that needed to be discussed in front of a five year old. I pushed Aiden into the backseat of the car and slammed the door.

“Or your wife’s,” I replied. “She’s certainly been the target of some ‘colorful rumors’ herself.”

His mouth twitched as if he was fighting to keep the smile on his face.

“When the gossips get ahold of something juicy they can’t help themselves,” he said. “They blow things out of proportion, twist the truth to suit their means. It’s disgusting.”

“Is it? Twisted out of proportions, I mean?”

The shark-toothed grin returned. “Well, where there’s smoke there’s fire. And some of things I’ve hear about you are enough to burn this town to the ground.”

I stared at him dumbly. I had no idea what he was talking about. Death was unusual in our town. When my husband died, it was all anyone could talk about for months. Half the town thought it was suicide, the other murder. I knew it was all nonsense, though I wasn’t exactly sure what events had transpired to lead my husband to that bridge in the middle of the night. But he was not suicidal, or depressed; he would never take his own life and he didn’t have an enemy in the world.

The way people speculated about him after his death made me sick, but I tried to ignore it. I’d cut myself off from almost everyone in the town so most of the gossip never reached my ears.

I sensed that Mr. Devereaux wanted me to ask him to explain what he was talking about, but I refused to take the bait. I was curious, but it wasn’t important. I didn’t say a word. I simply walked around to the other side of my car and got behind the wheel.

As I was closing the door, Mr. Devereaux called: “My wife might be a handful, but she’s nothing compared to you. Lord help me, I do love a challenge.”

I slammed the door shut and drove away.

7

Cold bit at my face as ice pellets rained down from above. I slipped, falling hard on my right side. I braced for impact a second too late. My knee absorbed most of the blow. Sharp pain shot through my leg. I clutched it and opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

I shook violently from the cold. Icy water soaked my nightgown. My hands were numb and my skin burned from the sting of sleet. A strong wind threw the ice pellets against me. I felt like I was being pelted with rocks.

I opened my eyes and looked around. It was dark, pitch black.

Where was I? Was I dreaming? The pain in my knee argued against a dream. It was far too real. There was a flash of lightning. For a brief moment, I could make out my surroundings. I was sitting on a road at the foot of a bridge. Not just any bridge, the bridge my husband’s body had been found floating under.

I started to tremble with fear. How had I gotten here? It was the middle of the night. There was another flash of lightning. A dark figure loomed ahead. I gasped. I wasn’t alone.

I tried to stand. I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg. The wind whipped my hair into my face. The sleet had turned to heavy rain. My body trembled, not from the cold, but from fear.

I felt along the road, dragging myself to the stone wall that surrounded the bridge. I used it to pull myself up. Two lightning flashes in quick succession showed that the figure had moved closer. He was wearing a raincoat with the hood pulled down low over his face.

Thunder boomed around me; rain mixed with hail pounded the street. The night was loud with chaos. I managed to take a few steps away from the bridge towards the main road. I lived about a mile away. I would have to walk. It wasn’t going to be easy.

I turned to look behind me. The glow of a flashlight lit up the bridge. The shadowy figure was getting closer. In my panic, I walked off the road and slipped in the mud. I slid down a steep hill, coming to a rest on the edge of the lake.

I could hear the water rushing past me in the dark. It churned loudly, as if it was a living breathing creature.

I clawed at the muddy hill behind me and tried to stand. It was impossible. I’d crawl a foot then slide back down. I slid down the embankment on my hands and knees. My right knee screamed with every inch. I wasn’t going to make it far at this rate.

It had been a long time since I’d been down here, but I remembered a covered picnic area at the bend in the lake. If I could make it that far I could hide from the man in the hood and I’d be sheltered from the storm until morning.

I had no idea what time it was, but I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

I crawled another foot. Mud squished between my fingers and toes. I was filthy. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder. I screamed, but my voice was lost on the wind. I twisted and fought against the stranger.

A mad thought entered my mind: what if my husband had been murdered? What if this man was responsible? I kicked with both legs, sending a shock of pain through my right side. I hit my attacker’s lower leg. He stumbled back.

“What the hell are you doing?” a woman asked.

I stopped, frozen in my tracks. I tried to rub the water out of my eyes, but only succeeded in smearing mud all over my face.

“Sabine,” the woman said, “you’ve got to stop doing this.”

The flashlight lit up the woman’s face. My mouth fell open.

8

I sat in front of the fire, cradling a mug of hot chocolate in my hands. I stared into the dark liquid and tried to remember: did this feel familiar? I sipped from my drink and winced. It was scalding hot, but it felt amazing in my stomach.

The woman returned with an ice pack.

“Here you go,” she said, handing it to me.

Afraid to meet her eyes, I took it from her shyly. I placed the ice pack on my filthy knee. My legs were streaked with drying mud.

“Thank you,” I said timidly.

The woman shrugged and waved her hand in the air, dismissing my gratitude.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

I stared at her blankly. She was an older woman with severe, dark eyes and long gray hair she wore parted on the side. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. The woman frowned and sat down heavily in a recliner beside the fire.

“That’s okay. You never remember. We’ve had this discussion before,” she said.

“When?”

“Last time was about a month ago. Before that, about six weeks. You have a habit of coming out here during storms.”

“I don’t understand. How did I get out here?”

“Sleepwalking as far as I can tell. You always seem to be in a trance. When I try to wake you up, you scream and fight me, start yelling for Tom to help you.”

I swallowed hard. This woman knew about Tom. I drank from my mug to try and hide the expression on my face. I was horrified by the idea of coming out here in the dark. I had no memory of it at all.

The woman leaned back in her recliner and started to speak. She sounded as if she was reading a script. It wasn’t the first time she’d repeated this story to me.

“I live here by the lake. I keep late hours for reasons that are my own.”

There was edge to her voice that warned me not to ask why.

“The first time we met was the night your husband died. You were out there wandering around the bridge in such a state I thought you’d escaped from the mental institution outside of town. You were babbling nonsense. I brought you back here and managed to get your address out of you. I drove you home an hour later. That morning I woke to sirens and lights. My whole backyard was covered with search and rescue and law enforcement. They were searching the lake. I found out later they’d discovered a body. Immediately, I thought of you. I figured you killed your husband. Maybe he was treating you badly and you’d had enough.”

The woman shrugged as if it this was a totally reasonable excuse for killing your husband.

“In any case, it’s no business of mine. The cops came around here asking me if I’d seen or heard anything the night before. I said no. I’ve known plenty of women who had good reason for murdering their husbands. I’d hate to see one of them go to prison for it. Besides, I don’t like the police. I don’t get involved with them under any circumstances.”

There was a hardness to the woman that spoke of a rough life. Had she been involved in criminal activity? Clearly, she’d had issues with men. Why else would she be so ready to forgive a woman for getting rid of her spouse?

“I didn’t think about it anymore until a month later when I found you wandering around in the dark out there. It was raining and you were half frozen. I invited you in to warm up. I tried to get you to fess up about what really happened out there, but you had no idea what I was talking about. You kept on insisting Tom was still alive.”

The woman shook her head as if she was saddened by this.

“I find you out here every so often when there’s a storm. It’s gotten to be so frequent that I come looking for you every time there’s bad weather. Sure enough, I find you on the bridge, sleepwalking.”

It was a lot to digest. I had no memory of sleepwalking, or being present the night my husband died. The woman had to be mistaken. I was at home the night of his death.

“You’re about to tell me, ‘You must be mistaken,’” she said. “You always say that.”

She stretched out her arms high above her head and yawned. I had the impression I was boring her.

“Did you see my husband that night?” I asked.

“Around midnight, I was having a cigarette on the back porch. I saw him talking to a woman on the bridge. I assumed it was you.”

My chest felt tight. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. What this woman was saying was impossible. The last time I spoke to Tom was before I went to bed. He was up late working on a project in his art room. I kissed him goodnight, told him I loved him and went to bed. That last image is etched in my mind. I can still see Tom bent over his canvas, nearly oblivious to my presence. When he worked the rest of the world disappeared. He became obsessed.

“You still don’t believe me,” she said with a tilt of her head. “That’s okay. You never do.”

She grabbed a blanket off the back of her couch and wrapped it around me.

“Let’s get you home.”

I didn’t have to tell the woman where I lived she drove me straight there. This fact disturbed me. It added credibility to her story. What if everything she said was true? It couldn’t be. I refused to believe it.

She pulled to a stop in front of my house. It was still pouring outside, but I hadn’t really dried off in front of the fire. It wouldn’t matter if I got soaked again.

I opened the car door and stuck out my foot. The woman grabbed my arm, stopping me.

“I know it’s useless to say this, but I’m going to anyway, so listen.”

I looked down at the hand that held my arm. Her fingers were long and bony; her skin had the look of an elderly woman, but she had the strength of a young man. Even if I had wanted to break free from her grasp, I don’t think I could have. I didn’t fight her, though; I wanted to hear what she had to say.

“What happened on that bridge is not your fault-
even if it is your fault.
Do you understand?”

I shook my head, no. I had no idea what she was trying to say. She sighed.

“These things happen to good women. Sometimes, men force us into uncomfortable positions. The law doesn’t understand. Life has a way of forcing you to take matters into your own hands.”

I started to protest, but the woman held up a hand silencing me.

“I don’t judge you for what you’ve done,” she said.

“But I haven’t done anything.”

The woman stared deeply into my eyes as if she could see something invisible inside me. Coming to an unspoken conclusion, she nodded and released my arm. I felt like I needed to say something more, but I wasn’t sure what.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” I whispered.

I couldn’t look the woman in the eye. I kept my gaze trained on the puddles of rain on my lawn.

“No problem.”

“Goodnight,” I said as I stepped out of the car.

“Till next time.”

I closed the car door and promised myself there would never be a next time.