The Girl From Home: A Thriller (28 page)

Tonight she hopes that she'll fall quickly asleep, but she's not that lucky. Instead she lies awake, thinking about the life she has and the life she wants. They're so far away right now, but she's hoping that soon, maybe very soon, they will merge.

R
ick Williams wasn't at all happy about not being able to reach his wife, although that disappointment was nothing compared to his anger that the fucking room-service guy interrupted his kicking the shit out of that scumbag Johnny Caine. The guy was an absolute nothing in high school. Didn't even register. Unless you were on the chess team or into astronomy. It was just like Jackie to go for that type of asshole. Thinks he's worth fucking because he went to some college with ivy on the walls.

Rick soothes himself with the thought that his bitch of a wife can't hide forever. She's going to have to come back for the kids, and for the time being, he's just as happy to have the house to himself. In fact, after the fireworks at the hotel, he decided to give Brittney a good fuck in his marital bed. And he's got no interest in changing the sheets, either. Let Jackie do it, the whore.

Rick's even thinking that maybe he'll bring Brittney back again tonight. Nothing he'd like more than to have his wife walk in on them going at it.

The one thing Rick knows for certain is that when his slut for a wife does show her face, she's going to be in for a world of pain. He no longer cares about leaving a mark. In fact, he wants to brand her so the world will know that she couldn't get away with the shit she was doing. After Jackie has been dealt with, he'll turn his attention to cutting the balls off Johnny Caine. He wishes he'd saved the scumbag's cell phone number from when he called him last week because at least then he'd be able to let little-boy Johnny know what was going to befall him.

He figures that he can find out where the guy lives easily enough, though. His Google search indicated a New York City address, but Rick doubts that this prick is coming through the tunnel to fuck his wife. He must be local now. If need be, he'll call Caine's old man and pretend he was Johnny's asshole buddy from back in the day and he's trying to reconnect.

First things first. Jackie is the top priority. So that morning, on his way to work, he dials her up. Of course, he fully expects Jackie's going to let the call go to voice mail, just like she has every other call.

After four rings, that's what he gets.

“Hey there, sweetie. I just wanted to hear your voice. I love you.”

He's laughing out loud after he disconnects the call. Jackie will know the coded language. Only an idiot would threaten his wife before beating the crap out of her. Jackie will find this message twice as terrifying as any threat he could make.

Rick steps out of his truck with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Nobody but nobody gets the better of Rick Williams, he thinks to himself. And those who try . . . well, they regret it in a hurry.

Rick doesn't see the weapon that ends his life until it's already speeding toward him. By the time it registers as a threat, it's too late. The truck closes in within a second. No time to even move one way or the other. It's just barely enough time for the thought to register that he's seriously underestimated his wife in the worst way.

J
ackie woke to see that she'd received yet another voice mail from Rick. Same modus operandi as before.

“Hey there, sweetie. I just wanted to hear your voice. I love you
.”

She didn't delete it. It may come in handy.

*  *  *

When Jackie comes downstairs, she follows the aroma of the coffee and finds her mother sitting at the kitchen table. She doesn't have a newspaper or other reading material beside her, just a mug of coffee. It's as if she's been waiting patiently for Jackie to come down and explain to her why she's still married to a wife-beater.

“Good morning, Mom,” Jackie says brightly.

“Did you sleep well, sweetheart?”

“I did.”

Jackie helps herself to a cup of coffee, but she can't find the sugar in her mother's kitchen and has to open several cupboards before her mother says, “It's the one over the sink.”

“Thanks,” Jackie says, and then opens the refrigerator and pulls out the milk.

“Are you ready to talk now?” her mother asks as Jackie sits down at the table.

“As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose.”

“So, tell me.”

Jackie shrugs. “There's really nothing to say that you don't already know, or couldn't have guessed. Rick's a son of a bitch. He drinks too much, he chases anything in a skirt, and he's got a temper. The trifecta. The other day we got into a fight about something and he hit me. And I decided enough was enough. I arranged for the kids to be with friends for the rest of the week, and I ran away to see you. End of story.”

Her mother takes in this information without showing much reaction besides offering a soft nod of support. But when Jackie's finished with her tale of woe, her mother takes her hand. Jackie enjoys the warmth of her mother's touch, which was intensified because her mother had been cradling her own coffee cup in her hands.

“I'm proud of you, Jackie,” her mother finally says.

Jackie laughs. “It doesn't take much to get hit. You just need a face.”

“You know what I mean. I'm proud of you because you realize that you're worth more than that. I'm proud of you because you're able to fix things when they need to be fixed. And I'm proud of you that you're not going to take Rick's shit anymore.”

“I'm glad you're proud. I'm just ashamed. How did I ever let things come to this?”

Jackie's mother offers a sympathetic smile. “I think that's what everyone says before things get better, right? There's no shame in finding yourself in a bad situation, Jackie. The shame is in being in that situation and not doing anything to fix it.”

Jackie nods that she understands. She wonders whether her mother will still be proud of her when she realizes how Jackie had decided to fix this problem.

*  *  *

Jackie's mother's favorite place to eat breakfast is the Flashback Diner. They go there every time Jackie visits. Sometimes more than once. It's about a five-minute car ride away from her mother's house and is hard to miss from the street on account of the fact that it has mirrored siding. There's a life-size cutout poster of Elvis beside the door, and to the King's left is a case full of desserts of every conceivable variety.

The hostess tells them to take any seat they'd like, and they find a four-top near the window to call their own. They both ask for coffee, and the waitress returns with a small coffeepot for them to pour themselves. Jackie's mother orders a Greek omelet, which has been her standard diner breakfast for as long as Jackie could remember. Jackie is not one to throw stones on this issue, as she selects egg whites with tomato, her invariable selection.

As soon as the waitress leaves, Jackie's cell phone rings. She expects to see Rick's number on her caller ID, but instead it reads:
Unknown Caller
.

“Hello,” Jackie says tentatively.

“May I speak to Jacqueline Williams, please?”

It's a man's voice. Very serious sounding.

“This is she.”

“Mrs. Williams, my name is Detective Quincy Martin. I'm a police officer with the East Carlisle Police Department. Are you currently at home?”

“No. I'm at my mother's in Baltimore. Is something wrong? Are my kids okay?”

It's enough of a cue that her mother whispers, “What's wrong?” but Jackie shakes the question away.

“Yes, ma'am, they're fine,” the detective says.

“Okay . . . so what is this about?”

“I'm sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, Mrs. Williams, but there was an accident at your husband's workplace and he's been killed.”

She's silent, uncertain of what to say. Finally she manages, “How?”

“Your husband was crossing the street in front of his place of business, and he was struck by an SUV. Unfortunately, the driver fled the scene.”

Jackie exhales deeply. It feels like she's in a dream. So much so that she's tempted to pinch herself, but she doesn't because, if it's not real, she has no desire to wake up.

“Mrs. Williams, are you still there?” Detective Martin says.

“Yeah. I'm . . . I'm sorry.”

“We would greatly appreciate it if you came back to East Carlisle right away. Please come directly to the police station.”

“Um, okay. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

She disconnects the call and places the cell phone on the table beside her. Her mother is saying something, but Jackie has tuned it out. She's completely and utterly focused on the fact that Rick is finally dead. It's no longer a fantasy. Her nightmare is over. She's free.

*  *  *

“Who was that? Where will you be as soon as you can?” Jackie's mother says.

The words pull Jackie out of her trance. After taking a deep breath, she says, “That was the police. Rick . . . he's dead. A hit-and-run accident, they said.”

“Oh my God, Jackie,” her mother says.

Jackie suspects her mother doesn't believe it was an accident. The odds of Rick being killed by a random motorist only the day after he struck Jackie seem astronomically high not to find the two connected. Still, abusive husbands are sometimes the victims of fatal accidents, so who is she to say that her mother's initial impulse must be to assume murder?

“I need to go back to East Carlisle.”

“I'll come with you,” her mother says.

“No,” Jackie says quickly. Then more softly, “Thank you, but . . . I'd like to do this alone. I need to go straight to the police station, and then after that, I'll need to tell the kids, so . . .”

“You're going to talk to the police?”

The question's tone implies the correct answer—Jackie should not talk to the police. The reason is self-evident: Jackie's mother believes Jackie is a murderer.

Will the police be equally quick to reach that conclusion? Jackie thinks not. They won't know that Rick was the kind of guy who should have been killed long ago. So there's no reason for them to see this as anything but a random hit-and-run accident.

“They asked me to come in,” Jackie says. “I can't say no.”

“Maybe . . . I don't know . . . maybe you should call a lawyer.”

It was a good idea, obviously. Yet Jackie knew it was going to be tucked away with all the other advice her mother had dispensed over the years that she'd rejected. Number one on that list was not to marry Rick in the first place.

“No, I can't do that. How many wives of victims of hit-and-run accidents do you think immediately get a lawyer?”

Her mother sighs deeply, apparently understanding the logic of Jackie's position, if not accepting its correctness. “Just be careful, Jackie,” she says.

This advice Jackie plans to take fully to heart.

*  *  *

Jonathan recognizes the number of Jackie's burner phone. He answers immediately. “Hello.”

“God, it's good to hear your voice,” she says.

Jonathan can tell at once that something's off. Jackie sounds scared.

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. But Rick's dead.”

For a moment, Jonathan's not sure he heard her right. Could it actually be true? Rick dead?

“Hit-and-run accident,” Jackie says without inflection before Jonathan can form a question. Although if he had been given more time,
How?
would not have been what he asked.

“I'm going to the East Carlisle police station now,” Jackie continues. “But I wanted to call you right away. You need to be careful now.”

You
need to be careful 
?

Why would she say that? Does she think he ran down Rick?

Maybe she does. After all, at the hotel he promised to kill Rick. And he meant it, too.

But he didn't kill Rick. He assumed she did, but if she's not taking credit for it, then maybe Rick was really the victim of a random hit-and-run.

And then a darker explanation comes into focus. Maybe Jackie did the deed but is now trying to pin the murder on him.

“Jonathan,” she says, as if it's a completed thought.

“Yes.”

“It's going to be hard to stay away from you, but we shouldn't be seen together for a while. We can still talk—just call me on this number, okay?”

Jonathan wonders whether he should get a burner phone, too. That would make him look guilty, he thinks. Besides, if his contact with Jackie is hidden through her burner phone, he doesn't need one.

“Okay,” he says.

“And Jonathan . . . I love you.”

He doesn't want to confirm that he's in love with Jackie, for fear that if she is recording him, it would be an admission. Then again, he doesn't want to give her any reason to distrust him, either.

“Me, too,” he says.

J
ackie's last visit to the East Carlisle police station was on a fourth-grade field trip. It's still located in the same complex of buildings as it was back then, across the pond where she ice-skated as a girl, with the public library right beside it.

A female officer introduces herself, but Jackie doesn't catch her name. The officer leads Jackie through the squad room, where the detectives sit in cubicles on the perimeter of the room with an oval conference table in the center. The cinder-block walls are a dingy gray and badly in need of a touch-up, and the smell of stale coffee permeates the air.

Jackie's taken to a small, windowless room. Pushed up against the wall is a metal table surrounded by three metal chairs. A video camera is perched midway up the corner of the wall, which is enough to identify that the space is used for interrogations.