Forget Me Not: A Novel (Crossroads Crisis Center) (31 page)

John stilled. Darla went to him. His eyes were rolled back in his head, his mouth slightly open. She pressed her fingertips to his throat.
No pulse
. John had drawn his last breath.

She thought quickly, then decided on the only course of action open to her that would keep the truth buried forever. After keying in a return message, she hit send.

Her course was now firmly charted, and there was no turning back.

It meant spending the night with a corpse, but she’d been married to John far too long for one more night to matter. She was fond of him and she would miss him. He had loved her, and that was rare in most long-term relationships. It was unfortunate that they had become embroiled in a battle of the fittest. But even for love, that was a battle she refused to lose. She had learned young.
Above all, survive
. And to survive, she would do what she must—even to John.

No one other than her ally—particularly not the arrogant Gregory Chessman—could know that John was dead until tomorrow. Otherwise Gregory would surely interrupt the shipment to the beach house, and that would cost them both a fortune.

That stupid woman surely knew her identity by now and that she owned the beach house. Odds were against her being willing to sell it—she’d been adamant thus far, despite Gregory’s best efforts to persuade her. So if not tomorrow night, their opportunity for shipping would be lost forever.

She looked down at John, recalled his inane banter in the elevator. He preferred her wearing red.

But black had been appropriate. She looked gorgeous in black. Darla turned to the mirror and studied her expressions, practiced responding to the well-intended if trite expressions of sympathy. Oh, there’d be comments about it being a blessing he went so peacefully in his sleep. About his unexpected death being such a shock. About how tragic his death was for her.

She walked to the door, opened it, hung the Do Not Disturb sign on
the knob, then closed and locked the door. The one risk was that John would be discovered too early tomorrow, word would get back to the village, and Gregory would interrupt the beach house shipment. To prevent that, Darla and her ally had developed a simple but highly effective plan. One with very high odds of success.

As she passed the beveled-glass mirror, she smiled at her reflection. “Oh, Darla. You’ll make a dazzling widow.”

Kicked back at his desk, Gregory drew on a Cuban cigar in his study and waited for a response to his text message. He sipped at an insanely expensive brandy. Frankly, he’d never cared for the taste, but it was the best the world had to offer, and drinking it reminded Gregory he’d acquired the best of everything. He loved the taste of that knowledge.

A soft sound chimed.

Gregory set down his glass and reached for his phone. A return text from John waited. Eager to see it, he reached over and pressed the button necessary to recall it. P
ERFECT TIMING
.

He snapped the phone closed, tossed it onto his desk, then rocked back and took a content sip from his snifter. “Excellent.”

T
he smell of coffee teased Kelly’s nostrils.

She flipped over in bed and scrunched her pillow, not yet ready to wake up, but the rich scent called to her, tempting her to give up and get out of bed.

She groaned, turned over, and memories flooded her mind, taking her back.

Kelly had stood alone at her parents’ graves, a child of seven all dressed up in a pristine dress, her black patent leather shoes sparkling in the sunlight. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe at them, just stood twisting, wishing herself back to a time when her mom and dad would be standing beside her.

She was so scared.

A beefy arm draped over her shoulders. “They’re not coming home again,” her father’s friend, Samuel Johnson, said. “You understand that, right?”

“The lady told me.” Kelly had come with the policewoman, who had been kind.

The funeral ended and the pastor came over and clasped her hand.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He looked up at Mr. Johnson. “You take good care of her.”

“I will.” Mr. Johnson nudged her to move.

They left the cemetery and he put her in the backseat of his car. She looked back, watching the coffins for as long as she could see them, tears still blurring her eyes, wetting her cheeks.

“Stop that crying now. Your sniffing is wearing thin.”

“I’m sad.”

He glared back at her in the rearview mirror. “I said, stop.”

Why was he being mean to her? “Yes sir.” He’d never before been mean to her. “Where are we going?”

“Atlanta, to my penthouse.” He sighed. “I’m not crazy about having a kid underfoot, but if you stay out of my way, we’ll do fine.”

“I want my aunt.” She choked down a sob. “Take me to her.” Aunt Beth wouldn’t tell Kelly to stay out of her way.

He stopped suddenly and glared back at her. “Do
not
tell me what you want. I don’t care what you want. You’ll do as I say, and you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

Too shocked to answer—no one had ever talked to her that way—she didn’t dare risk even a nod. And she’d kept her mouth shut the entire way.

The penthouse was white—walls, ceilings, floors, and furniture. She hated it.

“This way.” He walked straight through to a hallway and then to the second door on the left. “Your room. Stay in it when I’m home.”

There were no toys. Just a bed and an empty box. No dresser for her clothes, no pretty pictures like her mom had hung on her walls at home.

“Come with me.”

She followed him back down the hall to the front entryway, where he opened a door. “Get in.”

“But it’s a closet.”

“I know it’s a closet.” He shoved her back, pushed her inside, and slammed the door shut. “I’ll be back in a little while—and you’d better be in there.”

Swallowed by darkness, she sank to the floor and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. “Mama, help me. It’s so hot,” she whispered. “Help me … ”

The die had been cast that first night.

Whenever Samuel had left home, he locked her in the front entry-way closet—until he’d discovered her passed out and drenched in sweat from the heat.

That had scared him. He hadn’t gone anywhere or let her leave her room for days. But he’d been itchy to go, and soon he did. This time, he’d come to her room. “Come on, girl.”

She dreaded what was to come. He was going to put her in the closet again. She just knew it.
Please, don’t let him. Please
.

He led her to the terrace instead. “You can stay out there while I run some errands. Lots of fresh air on the terrace, and it’s not too hot.”

It was sweltering, and he’d locked the door so she couldn’t get back inside—or get down to the ground. Following her pointed finger, she counted the stories to the ground.
Fifteen. And no stairs. No door. Nothing but the railing
. She swatted at another mosquito, then another, and what that firefighter had told her in school on his visit to her classroom haunted her:
“Always have an escape plan in case of fire.”

She had no escape plan.

Tears welled in her eyes, and something flashed in the trees in the distance. Her mom had put a chain ladder in her room. If there was a fire, she was to hook it to the window and crawl down.

But there was no ladder here. There was nothing here.

God, can You help me? My mom and dad are with You in heaven
. She swatted at a mosquito, squashing it. It dotted her arm with blood. She smeared it with her hand.
Can You be my escape plan?

Shaking, she dropped to her knees on the rough concrete.
I’m sorry I’m so bad that he locks me up. I’ll try really hard to be good. Just please don’t let there be a fire. I don’t want to burn
. A sob tore loose from her throat.
Please, don’t let me burn …

It was the longest night of her life. Dark and wet—it rained and she couldn’t get anywhere to stay dry. Bugs she couldn’t see buzzed in the air. She swatted at them half the night, cried most of it, and prayed all of it. God had made it rain so there wouldn’t be a fire—or if there was, the rain would put it out.

He’d helped her. Kept her safe.

Sometime before dawn, she heard noises inside and looked through the slats in the blind on the french door. Samuel Johnson had returned—and he was walking funny. She started to call out to him, to knock on the glass, but something warned her not to make a sound. So she bit her fisted hand and stayed silent.

Dawn finally came, and then the sun rose. She looked at herself in the glass door. She was shocked. Nearly eaten up by mosquitoes, her face and arms were dotted red and swollen. She looked like a monster. A drenched, gross monster.

The door swung open.

She jerked back, gasped.

“Stupid, stupid girl.” Samuel’s red-rimmed eyes bulged. “Get in
here.” He snagged her shirt at her shoulders and dragged her in, nearly sweeping her off her feet. “Didn’t you hear me come home?”

“Yes.” He was still staggering, and he stank like the alcohol her mother had used to dab her ears when she’d had them pierced, only his smelled sour.

“Why didn’t you knock?” He turned her loose.

She caught her balance. “I don’t know.” She’d been scared of him, but she couldn’t say that. Dropping her gaze, she saw just how swollen her arms were. Would they fall off? They might. They were huge and peppered with welts and red spots, dotted with streaks of blood. “I need some medicine.”

“No.” He swiped at his rumpled hair. “No medicine, no doctors—and don’t you tell a soul about this.”

He was scared somebody would get mad at him.

“Promise me. Right now.”

Her arms might fall off. She blinked to clear the tears blurring her eyes, her chin trembling. “I promise.”

“You should have knocked. This is your fault, girl.” He huffed and slammed the terrace door. “If you tell anyone—anyone at all—the police will come. You know what will happen then?”

She didn’t answer. He sounded too angry and she didn’t want him to get worse. What was the right thing to say?

“Do you?” he pushed. Then before she could think of what to say to get him to stop so she could run to her room and hide from him, he answered himself. “They’ll lock you away forever.” He looked down his nose at her. “That’s what they do with stupid girls.”

“I won’t tell. I’ll never tell … ”

She’d missed school for three days.

When her teacher, Mrs. Williams, asked why she’d been absent, Kelly nearly had told her. But afraid she’d call the police and they would lock her up forever, or that Mr. Johnson would put her on the terrace again, she lied.

He hadn’t locked her on the terrace anymore. He moved her back to the entryway closet.

Oh, she hated that closet. Sometimes he’d leave her there so long she felt starved. Her stomach pushed against her backbone, and more than once she had to sneak to look at the television to see whether the time it showed meant it was day or night. He hated her being in his life almost as much as Kelly hated being in his life and being locked up.