A Week in the Snow (25 page)

Rebecca closed the door firmly and made her way up the sidewalk to the front door. She tried the knob and, sure enough, it was locked. She made a point of trying it again, rattling the door to make her intentions clear, and finally knocked with an impatient air.
Amanda opened the door with a wide smile.

Rebecca looked at her for a moment. She was in her mid-forties, short blonde hair and blue eyes, with fine lines under them. The tiny wrinkles actually looked good on her. She was not drop-dead gorgeous, but she was definitely pretty enough to turn a man’s head. She had an athletic body and wore a cross around her neck. It caught the sunlight and winked at Rebecca.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Rebecca returned her smile, determined to be just as friendly. “I’m Rebecca Connors. I was hoping to fix some lunch for Richard before he got home from the office. Thanks for opening the door—I forgot my key. You must be Amanda.”

Rebecca stepped right in, and the cheery look on Amanda’s face turned dark. “Excuse me, but this is my house,” she said, as if that settled everything.

“How’s the packing going?”

“This is my house,” Amanda repeated.

“Just like Richard is your husband?”

Amanda stood very still, staring at this new arrival. Rebecca gave her a benevolent smile as she pulled off her gloves and shrugged out of her jacket. She tossed them on to the couch as if she had done it a thousand times. “I figure you’ve got quite a bit of boxing up done by now.”

“I’m not packing,” Amanda said, an incredulous look on her face. “I’m staying right here. Richard and I are trying to work things out.”

“Are you, now?”

Rebecca sauntered to the kitchen as if she were the one who owned the house. She grabbed the apron from the nail on the wall and pulled a coffee cup from the cabinet. She sniffed of the coffee already in the pot, made a face, dumped it in the sink, and set about making a new pot. “Richard likes it stronger than that,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I know what he likes,” Amanda said coolly, inching towards Rebecca. She was obviously nonplussed and had no idea what to do, which suited Rebecca just fine.

“You used to, I’m sure.”

Rebecca opened the refrigerator. Amanda’s hand slammed down on the door, holding it halfway open. She pointed a finger at Rebecca, her wedding band glittering in the sunlight through the windows.

“You’re a little hothouse pansy, aren’t you? Thinking you can come right in here and take away a woman’s husband. Well, I’ve got news for you, honey. The moment I walked through that door, Richard was falling apart with relief, and last night we slept in our marital bed. Together. So you can just pack your saucy little ass back to that car of yours and hit the road, you arrogant little bitch. We don’t need you here.”

Rebecca looked Amanda right in the eye. “Are you planning on moving your boyfriend into Richard’s house when the divorce is final? Is that why you’re making yourself at home?”

Rebecca could see the wheels turning in Amanda’s head as she tried to figure out how much the younger woman really knew. Rebecca made it easier for her. “Yes, I’ve been with Richard this morning. I went down to the office and he told me the whole story.”

“The whole story, huh?” Amanda’s grin turned wicked. “He told you about our reunion, then?”

Rebecca shook her head, as if the whole thing were terribly shameful. If Amanda wanted to keep up the charade, let her. It would all come to a head soon enough, and Rebecca was determined she would have the upper hand when it did. “Rejection always hurts, doesn’t it, Amanda?”

Amanda closed the refrigerator door with a slam that rattled everything inside it. She pointed a finger again at Rebecca. Her voice was a screech, the sound of a woman losing her composure. “He did not reject me!”

“He rejected you because he’s in love with me. He was confused at first, seeing you after so long, but he came to his senses pretty quickly, didn’t he?”

Amanda’s finger was shaking. “Get out of my house.”

“It’s Richard’s house, and I’m an invited guest.”

“You are my husband’s whore, is that it?”

Rebecca gave her a genuine smile. Paybacks were hell—Amanda was losing it, and losing it fast. “Takes one to know one, sweetheart.”

Amanda lunged. Rebecca let her come, ready for it, almost hungry for it. She hadn’t wanted to give anyone their comeuppance in a long time, but now the quiet and demure part of her was gone, and Rebecca was more than ready to do battle. It would have shocked her, had she taken the time to think about it.

The older woman landed against her and they both fell to the floor. Amanda grabbed handfuls of Rebecca’s hair with one hand and scratched at her face with the other. Rebecca twisted away but didn’t fight back, and this infuriated Amanda. She began to pummel Rebecca with her fists, hitting her everywhere she could reach. Rebecca lay on the floor and counted to twenty, then abruptly rolled back over and slammed the back of her hand into Amanda’s face.

The shock of Rebecca suddenly fighting back was enough to send Amanda flat to the floor. Rebecca quickly got to her feet, her shoulders and arm aching from the blows, and stood over the enraged woman. Amanda grabbed at her legs. Rebecca could feel the tiny drips of blood coming from her temple, and realised Amanda had scratched her after all.

At that moment, Rebecca heard the faint sound of siren, and she knew what she had to do.

Rebecca ran into the living room, where she grabbed the cordless phone. She kept running down the hallway to the guest room, where she slammed the door behind her. She could hear Amanda coming after her, and she had just enough time to dial the number before Amanda hit the door with her full weight, making the lock creak.

“Yes,” Rebecca said, speaking quickly. “I’m at one-one-two Dearborn Lane. Amanda Paris has just attacked me. I think she’s gone crazy.”

Amanda kicked open the door. The lock screamed and splinters flew.

Jesus Christ
, Rebecca thought.
She’s going to kill me.

Amanda came towards Rebecca with fists flying. The next good punch sent Rebecca to the floor, knocking the breath out of her.

“I’m going to kill you, you fucking whore bitch!” Amanda screamed.

Rebecca turned and lifted her legs, planted one of her feet against Amanda’s hip, and shoved as hard as she could. The woman stumbled back and hit the wall with a grunt, then barrelled towards her rival again. Rebecca realised she was in the midst of an all-out catfight, and she could accept that—but the look in Amanda’s eyes, the totally unhinged look that seemed almost unreal, was what frightened her more than anything else.

Amanda was crazy.

And she was beyond pissed off.

The sirens were loud now, right outside the windows. Amanda reared back to kick her, and Rebecca grabbed her foot in mid-air. She pushed upwards, hard, and Amanda screeched as she fell back on to the floor with a thud. Amanda kicked out at her again and caught her anyway, a glancing blow to the side, and the pain seared through Rebecca.

Amanda landed one more kick before a deep voice came from the doorway. “That’s enough!”

Rebecca looked up from the floor. Though he was in plain clothes, she recognised the man instantly—it was the young police officer who had eyed her so curiously the first time she went to Richard’s office. Now he was standing behind Amanda, trying to get her under control. Amanda turned her fury on him and slammed her fist into the side of his face so hard Rebecca could hear his teeth clatter.

“Oh, hell, you did
not
just do that,” he growled, and pinned Amanda against the wall while she called him every name in the book. Rebecca watched as he pulled handcuffs from his jeans pocket, breathing hard and struggling to keep Amanda under control.

Then Amanda froze, and the sound that came from her was a wail of pain. Rebecca sat up and saw why—Richard was standing in the doorway, staring at all of them.

“Amanda?” he said, his voice small and scared.

The young officer hauled Amanda out of the room before she could say a word.

Richard reached down for Rebecca’s hand. Her hair was a mess, her lipstick smeared, and fine lines of blood were trickling down the side of her face. She had a bruise blooming under one eye. But when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, she whispered into his ear, “Something is wrong with her, Richard. What’s wrong with her?”

Amanda was dragged from the house, kicking and screaming. “He’s my husband!” she hollered back at Rebecca, who had come to the doorway. “He’s my husband, this is my house. It’s mine, not yours, not yours, not yours!” She spat in Richard’s direction as the police officers tried to get her into the back of a car without hurting her. “He’s shacking up with somebody and they both deserve to pay!”

Richard watched as his wife was loaded into the back of a police car. The young officer came to Rebecca, introduced himself as Steve, and took her arm gently, leading her to the porch. The ambulance arrived and, after a bit of tense discussion, the officers and the paramedics approached the police car. Amanda screamed curse words as she was led to the ambulance and strapped to the gurney. The doors closed on her tirade and the ambulance began to move slowly back towards town, carrying a very angry woman in the back.

Richard watched every move. As the ambulance drove away, he looked back at Rebecca. She was talking to Steve and nodding at something he said. He watched as she signed the paperwork he handed her. When she turned to look back at the ambulance, Steve put his hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear. She nodded and gave him a grateful smile.

Richard looked back at the ambulance and watched until it was nothing but lights in the distance. He wondered again at Amanda’s reasons for leaving, but this time he thought he might have the real answer.

Chapter Seventeen
 

Rebecca sat at the kitchen table and dabbed at her eye with a cool washcloth. It was swelling up and her vision was getting blurry. Her side hurt something fierce, and she knew the bruises there would look terrible in a few days. What hurt most of all was the realisation that she hadn’t been involved in a fair fight. There was something wrong with Amanda, something she couldn’t put her finger on, and she felt an enormous amount of guilt for pushing her over some edge she hadn’t even known was there.

Richard sat on the chair in front of her, gently washing the cuts on her face. She had refused help from the paramedics and they had let her go, assured she was in good hands with Richard. After all, everyone knew him, and they knew he would take care of her.

“I had no idea,” she said as he put a Band-Aid over one of the worst scratches. “She’s really crazy, Richard. I could see it in her eyes. Batshit crazy.”

He nodded sadly. He was upset for a multitude of reasons, and now he had a new one. He had never seen Amanda like that before; she had been kicking, screaming and glaring at them like they were the spawn of Satan himself, and that was something his wife had never done. It was something she never would have dreamed of doing, and he couldn’t make himself believe it was all Rebecca’s fault. There was something more there, and the thought of what it might be scared him.

“I need to check on her,” he said, and Rebecca immediately nodded.

“She needs you,” she agreed.

Richard looked into Rebecca’s eyes and touched her face. She had taken a real beating.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Rebecca shrugged. “I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did,” she said.

“You provoked her?”

“Yes. But I didn’t hit her until I had no choice, Richard. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“You didn’t do it with the intention of getting a restraining order and having her kicked out of the house…did you?”

Rebecca blushed. “It crossed my mind. But then I saw that look in her eyes.”

Richard put another Band-Aid on the scratch on her face. She looked like hell.

“She’s sick,” she said softly, and Richard nodded.

“I think she is.”

“Do you think that’s why she left?”

Now Amanda had come back and fallen apart, things from the past started to make sense. He did remember her crying as she did the dishes, and he remembered the times she would stare off into space, seemingly in another world. He remembered her sleepwalking, waking up in the kitchen and once in the backyard, naked in the moonlight. She always started crying after those episodes, claiming she was just really tired or there were things on her mind. He had tried to get her to open up but she had refused, saying it was nothing, but now he knew it had been much more than that.

Before she had disappeared, she had taken a trip with her mother. They had driven to Chicago and spent several days shopping, but when Amanda had come back she hadn’t had anything new to show him, not even a little souvenir. “There was nothing I wanted,” she had said.

Now he thought back on that day and wondered if she had really gone to Chicago.

“I need to see her,” he said. “I need to see her family, too.”

Rebecca nodded.

“It might be best if you stay here,” he said, and she nodded again.

“I will do more harm than good,” she agreed. “Do what you have to do.”

“Will you be here when I get back?”

She leant forward and kissed him, though her lips were swollen and it hurt her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

At the hospital, Richard leaned over the information desk. “I’m looking for Amanda Paris,” he said. The attendant gave him a slip of paper with a room number. He recognised it as the seventh floor, and the realisation of that seemed to suck all the breath out of the room.

The seventh floor was the psychiatric ward.

“Mr Paris?” the young woman asked, standing from her desk to hold on to his arm.

“I’m all right.”

He got on the elevator and closed his eyes while the floors flashed by. He had been on the seventh floor only once before, when his grandmother had been diagnosed with dementia at the age of eighty. He had hated the place, with the bars on some doors and rubber walls in some rooms. He supposed it had to look that way, but it still made him think of old movies and procedures that were more like torture than medicine.