The Glimpsing (35 page)

“Because you’re responsible, Gabrielle.
 
Everything that happened to me in this
bedroom,
is your doing.”

“I don’t understand,” Gabrielle sobbed.

“I died here all because of people like you.
 
This room was filled with my blood, because of people like you.”
 
Portia reared away, sitting erect.
 
The stiletto, however, she kept pinned to Gabrielle’s chin.
 
And now I’m going to return the favor.”

Gabrielle grimaced.
 
‘Please, don’t.”

“I want you to know it, Gabrielle.
 
I want you to feel what I felt, to hurt like I hurt, to suffer like I suffered.
 
I want you to
lay
in a pool of your own blood, taste it in your mouth, see it staining every square inch of this bedroom, just like I did.
 
And most of all,
when your eyes fall shut, and you pass from this world to the next, I want you to see what’s waiting for you, all the ugly horror of it.”

“Please Portia,” Gabrielle begged.
 
“Don’t do this.
 
Not to me.
 
Not to my baby.”

Jack was astounded by the confession.

Portia looked deep into Gabrielle’s eyes, “The day Jack Parke came to your house, you made a decision.
 
Today, I’m making mine.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At that, Gabrielle seemed to settle back, clearly shamed.
 
A tear streamed from her eye as she nodded up at Portia—in acceptance.

Portia gazed up into the closet, making sure that Jack was watching—making sure all of them were watching—then brought the stiletto up to her right shoulder.
 
She gazed down at Gabrielle, who now seemed strangely docile… and then swung the blade.

What followed next would haunt Jack’s mind for the rest of his existence.
 
There came a nightmarish ejaculation of bright red blood, which splattered the front of Portia’s dress, and speckled one side of her neck and face.

Gabrielle's hand immediately came up to her neck, trying to stay the flow pouring from her jugular, but it helped little.
 
A pool of the cardinal liquid was already forming beneath her shoulder.

Portia kindly reached forward and pulled Gabrielle’s hand away.
 
It clumped to the floor, its scarlet palm turned upward.
 
She stared at Gabrielle, waiting mindlessly, watching her chest rise and fall in panicked heaves.
 
It soon slowed.
 
Gabrielle eyes seemed to haze slightly,
then
drifted off deep into the corners.

That disturbed Jack greatly.
 
Gabrielle’s stiff, cornered eyes now seemed to be staring directly up at him.
 
But something in their language, something subtle, for a moment provoked him to believe she might actually be able to see him.
 
He immediately dismissed the thought, knowing that it was probably just a nervous fluke brought on by her nearness to death.
 
Embittered, he shot a hateful gaze at Portia, and was startled to see that she was staring up at him as well, her face freckled with blood.

“Jack,” he heard a soft voice whisper.
 
Portia’s mouth had not moved, and for a moment he thought she might be communicating with him on some psychic level.
 
Then he heard it again: “Jack.”

Stunned, he shot his gaze back to Gabrielle.

Gabrielle swallowed, trying to summon words.
 
“At Mark Joseph’s, I wanted to tell you…”
 
She struggled again, and now unable to speak, could only mouth the words.
 
“I love you,” she said.

Jack was in disbelief.
 
Impulsively, desperately, he wanted her to know that he was going to tell her the
same, that
he loved her like nothing else in this world, but speaking was
just as impossible for him as for her.
 
So instead, he did the only thing he could do: he told her he loved her as loudly as he could, in his heart.

Jack then saw something else he would never forget.
 
Gabrielle’s mouth parted in surprise… as if she’d heard every word.

Portia sat there watching them, a new form of rage exploding within her. She now understood what it was that had so bothered Gabrielle these weeks since Jack's disappearance, what had made her grow sadder with each passing day.
 
She'd actually done something more profane than either Susanna or Holly could even dream.
 
She’d actually fallen in love with the man who betrayed her.

Wearing a dark scowl devoid of all sanity, Portia slowly extended a hand and grasped the closet door.
 
Recalling the doom closing it signified, she stared up at Jack… then violently hurled it shut.

Jack found himself gazing into utter darkness.
 
For that he was thankful.
 
He would not have to see Portia’s vile act. But he could still hear it, those neat flicking sounds as Portia wielded the stiletto, hammering Gabrielle’s body with such force that it severed flesh, skewered bone, and pierced the hardwood floor beneath her body.
 
Never once did Gabrielle scream.

Only then did Jack realize why Thomas McCain had tried to kill him.
 
Only then did he realize what the man had been trying to save him from.
 
Thomas had been right all along.
 
He really was better off dead.

There are days when I tell myself that none of this is my fault.
 
I convince myself that had I not started an affair with Susanna, had I not betrayed Portia’s love when she was so young, that she still would have become the monster that she is today.
 
I tell myself that someone else would have used
her, that
they too would have broken her heart, that she would have reacted by taking her own life, and that she would have been miraculously raised from death.
 
On those days, I tell myself that whatever was meant to happen was going to happen, with or without my involvement.
 
Fate is unchangeable.

But this is not one of those days.

Gabrielle is now the third woman whose life I’ve watched Portia savagely extinguish.
 
I am not sure I can endure another.

The first was Susanna, of course.
 
Portia, being young and emotional, had shown far less tact then.
 
She hadn’t even the patience to wait until she’d gotten Susanna into the bedroom but had begun stabbing her even as they proceeded down the hallway.
 
Susanna had tried to escape by running into the bedroom.
 
I saw her dash by the closet door, her face wrecked with fear, her back saturated with blood, attempting to escape through the rear window.
 
But it was winter and the window was frozen shut.
 
She’d eventually decided to smash it open, but by then Portia had caught up to her.
 
She’d dragged Susanna back in front of the closet; back to where I could see everything that was about to take place.
 
But thankfully, just as the stabbing began, Susanna’s leg had jerked sideways and kicked the door shut, sparing me the worst parts of her murder.
 
When the door opened again, the floor was so full of blood that I could barely make out Susanna’s corpse lying partly beneath the vanity.
 
Portia hadn’t left very much of her behind.

For some time I believed Portia would never kill again.
 
It was clear that she intended to give up men and focus on her modeling career—which she did, in time launching
herself
to status as one of the world’s most recognizable and beautiful faces.
 
A decade later, however, after creating an international uproar by announcing her retirement, she made it public that she was now eager to “try men again.”
 
I feared the worst.

To my surprise, the first year of her search for love passed without incident.
 
Yes, she’d had a string of short-lived romances, but, thankfully, those men, when they discovered how insistent she was about her celibacy, simply moved on.
 
None had been so foolish as to take out their frustrations by cheating on her—at least, not until she met Thomas McCain.

Thomas was a wealthy, middle-aged attorney, which, in the eyes of certain women, more than made up for his lack of looks.
 
Unfortunately for him, Thomas had become very accustomed to getting what he wanted out of women, and when that wasn’t happening with Portia, he responded by engaging in a sexual tryst with a hard-partying intern named Holly Grace.
 
Portia’s discovery of their infidelity sealed both their fates.

Portia promptly took the painting to Thomas.
 
Although I knew what this meant for the man, I can’t say that I wasn’t happy to be out again.
 
I’d been staring at nothing more than Portia’s bedroom for just
under
eleven years.

Portia had given Thomas the painting under the pretense that despite her knowledge of his affair, she somehow still had feelings for him.
 
He’d foolishly accepted, taking the painting into his luxurious study, the place where he spent most of his time.
 
He’d fallen asleep there and later awoke to find Rose, clad in that damnable red dress, trembling beneath a table.
 
I don’t think I have to tell you what that led to.

After Thomas’s entrapment, Portia had lured Holly to her house by pretending she needed some legal advice.
 
Holly had at first refused, stating that she was only an intern, not a lawyer.
 
However, when Portia told Holly that she was offering $1500 for a mere one hour consultation, Holly, true to her nature, couldn’t help but take advantage.

Portia had led the girl up into the bedroom and b
utchered
her in front of Thomas, just as she’d
murdered
Holly in front of me.
 
However, seeking to punish Thomas more severely, she’d taken the additional step of storing Holly’s corpse in the closet for a few days.
 
She then disposed of it in a Central Park dumpster—a far less than subtle sign of the way Portia felt about the girl.

Last month, when Portia removed the painting from the closet once more, I knew that yet another horror was about to take place.
 
I wondered who the victims would be this time, and when she delivered us into the hands of Jack Parke, the world renowned playboy, I can’t say I was very surprised.
 
What did surprise me, however, was who I saw in Jack’s bed that night.
 
Gabrielle, Portia’s best friend.

In the beginning, I had little sympathy for the woman.
 
I viewed her in much the same way as I viewed Susanna and Holly; just another stupid girl so addicted to a good time that she didn’t care whose feelings she trampled, a girl who, to a small degree at least, deserved some of what Portia was intending for her.
 
But on that first night, after I watched Jack throw Gabrielle out of his house, I saw in Gabrielle’s face, in the truly pained expression there, something far more than mere hurt feelings. I saw what I
thought was love.
 
And tonight, as I watched her dying at Portia's hands, she confirmed what I had suspected all along.
 
While in the very throes of death, while just beginning to glimpse the world beyond, she saw Jack, and used the moment to tell him that she loved him.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more beautiful thing.

For some time I believed that this detestable cycle would never end, that Portia would merely go on forever, imprisoning the men who betray her, and butchering their lovers in front of them.
 
I believed that her very existence in this world was divine punishment, a judgment from God against those of us who use infidelity as a weapon.
 
But I believe that no longer.
 
Not after today.
 
Not after witnessing what Portia did to Gabrielle, to a woman who not only, unlike Susanna and Holly, had come and confessed everything, but was also carrying a child.
 
No, I now know, with absolute certainty, that Portia is not a judgment of God.
 
She is the spawn of hell.
 
She is evil in its purest form.

Knowing that, I have now committed myself to praying daily, asking God to send someone to stop her.
 
And yet I cannot help but wonder if that is even possible.
 
For Portia cannot be forced into handcuffs, nor can she be arrested.
 
She can’t be placed in a straight jacket, or physically injured in any way.
 
Even if a bullet were put through the middle of her forehead, she would merely smile and walk away.
 
For the dead cannot die.
 
And if they cannot die, then how can a mere mortal bring about their destruction?

What we need is someone greater than ourselves, someone who knows the world beyond, and can use its power to finally bring this wretched woman to an end.
 
What we need is a miracle, a miracle worker.
 
That is the only way.
 
For it is by virtue of a miracle that Portia lives.
 
So only by virtue of a miracle can she be
destroyed.