The Widower's Wife: A Thriller (34 page)

I wiped my face and tried to concentrate on my work: filling the bucket with water, pouring capfuls of cleaning solution inside. I would rescue my daughter. The insurance investigator was looking into my claims that Tom and Eve had caused my death. My parents had told him that Tom had abused me—a lie, but not a big one considering he’d thrown me off a moving cruise ship. The PI would have to see that Tom couldn’t be Sophia’s custodian and recommend that my parents get custody. Once he did, everything would be fine. Sophia would be able to keep her identity and her money. My parents would send for me. We’d be happy.

If the insurance investigator didn’t come through, I’d have to, somehow, kidnap my kid. Life would be hard for Sophia without documents, but still better than any existence with a sociopath.

A phone rang in the bedroom, a piercing buzz that could be heard all over the house. Dina had left her cell on her dresser. Heels clopped upstairs. My old neighbor always sounded like a trotting pony.

I tried to disappear into the background, appear to be little more than a freestanding human mop. In the neighboring room, the phone stopped ringing. Through the bathroom’s open door,
I could see that Dina had put the Bluetooth device in her ear and was sitting on her bed with the television remote in her hand.

“Yeah. I know. I’m putting it on now. ABC?” She sounded excited. Nervous. Had she heard more about Tom? Dina loved gossip. She’d apparently figured out that my husband had been cheating when I’d had no clue.

The television shouted to life. A male anchor spoke with a grave voice:

A young woman, shot dead earlier today in her Long Island City, Queens, home. Police are calling the death of Eve Dreher, a twenty-four-year-old financial recruitment specialist, suspicious
.

“That’s her,” Dina shouted. “That’s the woman I was telling you about.”

I squinted to see the image on the television without stepping into the neighboring bedroom. A static photo of Eve, probably from a work ID, dominated the screen. I’d have recognized her anywhere. The monster who’d held a gun to my child’s head.

My breath caught in my chest. Tom had killed Eve. That couldn’t have been his plan. Something had to have changed. Maybe the cops were after him. Maybe she’d betrayed him. If he was on the run, what would he do with Sophia?

I darted from the bathroom, past Dina who was shouting something after me about the mop, past my coworkers downstairs. Out the door. Dampness from the snow-flecked lawn seeped into my socks as I made a mad dash across the side yard.

I stood beneath my daughter’s closed bedroom window and shouted for her. If she would just come outside, I could take her away. I had saved what little of my earnings hadn’t gone to the coyotes or rent. We could get a bus ticket to the middle of the country somewhere. We could hide.

“Sophia.” The cold air carried my voice from her window. “Sophia.”

The image of her from moments before came back to me. She was sitting on the floor. From her vantage point, all she could see was Dina’s roof.

I flew around the house to the front door. I had no choice. I had to confront my husband.

I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I went to the side door and began pounding on the glass. Tom opened the door with a smile, as though he was expecting someone else. “Did you forget—”

His mouth hung open upon seeing me. It closed with a scowl. “I was wondering when you would turn up.”

“The police know you killed Eve,” I lied. “It’s over. Let me have Sophia.”

He grabbed my forearm and yanked me inside the mudroom. The door slammed behind me. I pulled away from him and scanned for weapons.

“I think we’re overdue for a civil conversation.” His voice was steady, but his eyes—those blue-gray irises that I’d once fallen in love with—they were as stony as ever. How had I ever gazed into those eyes and not seen the lack of soul behind them?

I followed Tom into my former dream kitchen, stripped bare of my personal touches. The whiteness reminded me of a hospital. He walked over to the sink and leaned against the counter. I stood on the other side of the island, as far as possible from my husband and as close as I could get to the open dining room. Just beyond the concrete table was the foyer and the stairs leading to Sophia’s bedroom.

“I assume you’ve come with some sort of proposal . . .”

I hadn’t had time to work out a bargaining plan, but I knew the key was to offer him money. “Give me Sophia, Tom, and I’ll stay dead. You can still claim to be her custodian. You’ll have the cash, I’ll have our daughter. We’ll both win.”

He chuckled at my words.

“It’s the only way you’ll get the money,” I said. “There’s no policy if I come forward.”

He continued snickering. “I don’t have to do anything. You fell overboard while I was on the pool deck.” He sighed with overacted drama. “Such a stupid way to die, really, but Darwinism does have a way of taking care of problems.”

The insult didn’t sting. He’d always seen me as the idiot wife. And clearly, I had been. I’d been married to a sociopath for years without knowing it. “The cops will figure out the truth,” I said. “They must already be on your trail, since you killed Eve.”

He stuck out his bottom lip in a mock pout. “Shame but . . .” He sighed. “Eve was problematic. Not like Lena. She really loves me, and she feels so guilty that you found out about our affair and jumped. She would never say I wasn’t at the pool with her.” He smiled. “Guilt and love. The way to a woman’s heart. Right, babe?”

Had that been what kept me tied to Tom all those years? I winced away the thought. He was a master manipulator. I couldn’t let him control this conversation. “The cops know about you and Eve. They’re going to be coming for you. Leave Sophia with me.”

“What do they know? That I was sleeping with an obsessed young woman.” Tom looked at his fingernails, as though admiring their cleanliness, or examining them for blood. “I’ll concede that. After all, it’s why she blew her head off. She had a history of being unstable. Jealous.” He shook his head, as though scolding her ghost. “She wanted me all to herself. So selfish. Not like my wife. You’ve been so good to stay hidden. Always putting other people first. Thinking of Sophia’s future. Her safety.”

I caught the threat in his tone. “I have no reason to hide if Sophia is in danger. Let me take her. You don’t want her.”

“Of course I do. She’s my daughter.”

I took a step back toward the dining room. “You don’t love her.”

“Well, it’s true I can’t love like you can. I can’t sacrifice. If there wasn’t money to take care of her, I . . .” He exhaled, mimicking a small explosion. I continued to step backward. “But as long as there are ample funds to go around, I want her well taken care of. I’m not my father.”

“You’re not a father at all,” I shouted. “You’re barely human.”

I turned and ran up the main staircase to Sophia’s room. Footsteps didn’t follow me. Tom wouldn’t let us get away that
easy. Did he plan to climb up the back staircase and surprise us? I couldn’t think of his intentions. My adrenaline had one purpose, to get my daughter.

I burst through her door and scooped her into my arms. She gripped my neck and nestled into me, understanding that now was not the time for explanations or tears. She absorbed my silence, my fear. I prayed not my pain.

I hurried down the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other on my daughter’s back. Though my heart hammered in my chest and the blood pounded in my head, I could hear Tom coming down the back stairs. Whatever he’d gone up for, it hadn’t been for Sophia.

“Stop right there, Ana.” His voice sliced through the air. I froze at the bottom step, a deer in front of a Mack truck. Tom stood in the dining room, both hands extended in front of his face. A gun was wedged between his fists. The barrel pointed at my chest—at my child, wrapped around my torso like a shield.

I kept my eyes on the gun as I shifted Sophia to my side, out of the direct line of fire. The gun wasn’t the same one that Eve had used. This weapon barely looked real. It was old, more like a prop out of an eighties western than anything I’d seen on recent television. A walnut barrel peaked above Tom’s knuckles.

“Come downstairs, dear,” Tom said. “We’re going for a family drive.”

I could imagine where my husband would take us: a wooded area, perhaps one of the hunting grounds in nearby Rockland County where the sound of gunfire wouldn’t raise suspicions. He wouldn’t need to spend much time hiding my body. I was already dead. No one would be looking for me.

“If you shoot that, the neighbors will come running.”

He shrugged. “And I’ll have to tell them all about defending my daughter from a strange intruder. Of course, I’d rather not explain that—or do this in front of Sophia.”

A strange clarity erased all my other emotions. Tom was going to succeed this time. He would kill me. The best I could hope for was to make sure Sophia didn’t see.

I crouched to set her on the step. “I love you.” Emotion choked in my throat yet, somehow, I controlled my sobs. “No matter what happens, know that your mommy loves you so, so much.”

Sophia’s eyelashes fluttered against my cheek. I inhaled her strawberry shampoo and the unnamable scent that I would forever recognize as my little girl. She cried on my shoulder. Her arms still clung to my neck. When I began peeling her hands apart, she clawed at my skin. “Mommy,” she howled. “Mommy, no.”

“I need you to go back to your room.”

Sophia shook her head. I patted her back and stood. “Please, baby, back to your room.” She continued shaking her head as she took a retreating step up the stairs. Her lips pressed together, opened and closed, silently calling my name.

Tom’s voice rang out in the rafters. “Sophia, stay right there.” His tone threatened. She’d be hearing that tone for the rest of her childhood.

I turned toward Tom and his gun. “I’m coming. You don’t need our daughter.”

My voice caught on the word “our.” Tom didn’t deserve any claim to the little girl on the steps. But I needed him to remember that she was part of his legacy. Even he wouldn’t want to damage his own flesh and blood.

Tom shifted the gun from my chest to Sophia’s little form. “Oh, but I do need her. You behave so much better when the kid’s around.” He gestured toward the floor with the gun. “Both of you, down the steps. Now!”

The screamed command sent Sophia flying down the stairs. She stood at the bottom, shaking, confused. I hurried to her side. Tom gestured with the gun toward the kitchen. “You first, babe.”

I held Sophia’s hand as we walked through the dining room. She clung to my forearm, a sign that she wanted me to pick her up. I ignored it. Though I wouldn’t be able to outrun the bullets pointed at the back of my head, maybe I could push Sophia out the side door before we reached the garage. Tom would kill me. But she’d be running to the neighbor’s house. She wouldn’t witness it.

Tom’s footsteps thudded behind me. I didn’t need to see the gun to feel its presence or to know that my husband’s finger flexed by the trigger. When we reached the kitchen, he ordered us to stop. It took a moment for me to understand the reason. He needed to grab the car keys from the drawer in the island.

I released my daughter’s hand. Her free fingers dug into my arm. I wrested away. “Run.”

Tom was on her before she took a step. She screamed as he grabbed her thin arm and yanked her toward him. “No, honey. Mommy is confused.” The gun was pointed at my head. “She must not have heard me when I said
we
—all of us—are going to the car.”

“Please, let her go.” Tears bubbled in my words. “Please, Tom.”

He pushed her in front of him and pointed the gun at the back of her head with one hand—just like Eve. He was even crazier than his monstrous girlfriend. “If you escape, there’s no reason to keep her.”

“Please, Tom!” My knees felt weak. If it weren’t for the adrenaline, I would collapse on the floor. “Please. Leave her alone.”

He fished in the drawer with his free hand. Keys jangled. As he palmed them, he ordered Sophia and me out to the garage. I looked to my side as I walked, tracking the gun held to my baby’s head, pleading with my husband to just let her go.

My cries had no effect. Tom’s eyes appeared glazed, as though he was not fully aware of his actions. He opened the door to the garage and pushed my back with his free hand. My old Toyota beeped open. The locks popped up.

“Get in the car.” He spoke slowly, as though I may be mentally impaired instead of reluctant.

I opened the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom’s hand recoil with the gun. Metal slammed into my temple. I felt myself fall to the ground. The back of my head hit the concrete floor. Then everything went black.

*

Shouting woke me. My vision blurred as my eyes opened. How long had I been out? Minutes? Hours? Where was I?

The room came into focus, surrounded by fuzzy blackness. Tires and a silver bumper blocked my view. Something was humming. I pressed my hand to the cold floor beneath me, struggling to get a better vantage point. A black exhaust pipe blurred into view. The noise suddenly made sense. Tom had left the car’s engine running. He was trying to poison me.

A loud knock sounded from somewhere beyond the garage door. “Police, open up.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My mind played tricks on me, inventing saviors at the gate. Where was Sophia?

My vision swam as I stood. Instinctively, my fingers pressed against my temples, trying to counteract the blinding pressure in my head. “Sophia.” Coughs shattered my attempt to scream her name. My heart threatened to explode in my chest. “Sophia!”

I put my hand on the trunk and peered into the rear window. She wasn’t inside the car. Of course not. Tom needed her alive.

A coughing fit doubled me over. The air in the garage had to be thick with carbon monoxide. I’d die if I couldn’t get out.

I stumbled to the inside door, my limbs heavy with sleep, as though I were dreaming. The knob refused to turn. He’d locked it.

“Mr. Bacon, police. Open up.”

Did poisoning cause auditory hallucinations? Or was it possible that the police were really outside the door? I ran my hand along the wall for the garage door opener. I saw it, knocked half off the plaster holster. Wires stuck out from the inside in a broken, jumbled mess.