Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller (13 page)

“Keep going.”

“Go to hell,” I say.

He smiles.
“You and me, we’re a lot alike.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“Most women are as dull as dishwater, but not you, Amelia. Your daddy
didn’t deserve such a smart and beautiful daughter.” He cocks the gun and points. “Tell me more.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“When I was thirteen I caught a glimpse of him in a Target store, but by the time I made it to the aisle he was gone. Then I saw him at the intersection in a gray late-model Nissan. I begged my mom to stop but the car had already driven off.”

Rex looks sad. “Like I say, he didn’t deserve you.”

“It’s in the past.”

He pauses and stares at me. “There’s something else.”

“No.”

“You’re holding back. I know you better than you think, Amelia.”

“I told you, he left. I never saw him again.”

“Did he abuse you?”

“Of course not,” I stammer, but I feel something, the black heart of that long ago time rising up from the depths of my soul.

“You’re crying,” says Rex.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

Oh, and it hurts, this feeling, like I’m right back there again, the day I climbed the stairs to his study.

“And shaking.”

“Please,” I say. “Please stop.”

“Tell me what happened, Amelia.”

And I see me, nine years old, carrying the tray with his lunch, leftover pasta bake, a packet of saltine crackers, tumbler of blackcurrant juice, and the little card I made for him that said “Time for lunch” in pink felt-tipped pen. I’m turning left on the landing, taking the stairs one at a time, hearing the cutlery rattle and being careful not to splash the juice over the side of the glass and onto the white paper napkin, and reaching the closed study door and balancing the tray on my knee with one hand and using the other to turn the knob, and pushing open the door and the tray slipping from my hands when I see my father’s sock-covered feet swinging right in front of me.

“I found him,” I whisper in disbelief. “I thought he must be playing a trick. Then I saw the chair, kicked away, heard the sound of rope rasping against the wooden rafter.”

“Oh, Amelia.”

I’m sobbing now and I bury my face in my hands and it all becomes clear, those hazy images on the edge of my dreams, my loathing for blackcurrant juice, the scar just below my left knee from running out of the room and tumbling down the stairs and landing on a nail on the second to last step.

Rex lays his hand on my shoulder. I look up and he’s frowning.

“You didn’t deserve that,” he says. “Let me take care of you, Amelia. We’ll go away, just the two of us, live a simple life.”

Behind him, Nhung moves. At first I think I’m imagining it—that she’s still alive—but then Nhung opens her eyes and stretches for the shotgun.

“You know how I got rich, Amelia?” says Rex. “It was my uncle’s land. My bitch of a mother sent me to live with him when I was five. A little kid didn’t fit with her objectives in life, which were to sleep with every man who paid her even the slightest bit of attention. Uncle Ron worked me like a slave. He beat me and whooped my ass just for fun. I slept on the barn floor with the pigs until I was fifteen years old, until the day I got in that wheat thrasher and drove right over him and tore that bastard limb from limb, the same day the sludge bubbled up from the well at the back of the property and erupted like a god damn geyser. That dumb son of a bitch had been sitting on millions and didn’t even know it. By then my mother was dead from God knows what venereal disease so as his only living relative, I got it all.” He looks at me. “But I’m prepared to leave it all behind. The money. Everything. I would do that for you.”

I steady my breath and wipe my tears and try not to let on to what’s happening behind his back.

“You would?” I say.

Nhung picks up the shotgun and nods at me. I look at Rex, pulse racing, thinking this is my and Nhung’s only chance, so I push the image of my father’s swinging body to the back of my mind and take a deep breath.

I roll onto my side and a shot rings out. Rex yells in pain and looks over his shoulder at Nhung. She fires again, but he ducks, and the shotgun blast gets me. A dozen hot pokers slam into the tenderest parts of my flesh.

Rex is moving now, grabbing a log, charging at Nhung, and smashing it down on top of her head. There’s an ungodly crack as she crashes to the floor in a heap. He pivots and we both see his gun on the ground.

I reach it before he does. I lift and point.

“Amelia.”

I fire a shot into his chest. Darkness spreads across his gray shirt. He stumbles backward into the tiny shrine, knocking the candle, where it rolls off the table and onto the stack of papers, which bursts into flames.

“Amelia,” he wheezes.

Rex staggers in a circle and tries to say my name again but nothing comes out. He drops to his knees then falls forward on his face and lies there as still as a rock.

The gun rattles in my hand. I killed him. The monster is dead.

A window explodes. The fire is raging through the tiny cabin. I have to get out. I fight my way through the dirty black smoke over to Nhung and grab her feet and make it as far as the bearskin rug before giving up. I’m too injured and the fire’s too fierce. Above my head a beam is beginning to crack so I leave Nhung’s body and lunge for the door and make it outside before I hear the beam collapse behind me.

I reach Rex’s truck, lift the radio, press the button, shout.

36

It comes in flashes. The whoosh of the copter blade. The spray of cold as they lift me onto the stretcher. Smoke. The smell of burning bodies. Many hands upon me, tugging and cutting my clothes. Someone is screaming,
What the hell happened down there?
Another voice yells,
She’s losing blood, apply pressure before she bleeds out!

Somebody shakes me. “Ma’am, how many people are in the house?”

I can’t breathe.

“
Ma’am.
”

“Two,” I wheeze.

“Who shot you, ma-am?”

I try and think of his name but can’t remember.

“Truck,” I say.

“She says there’s a truck down there. Get them to check.”

A few seconds later, the pilot shouts over her shoulder, “That’s a negative on a vehicle.”

I shake my head. “Black truck.”

The pilot radios the team on the ground again. “She’s adamant there’s a truck. Look again.”

“Ma’am, who owns the vehicle?” says the paramedic.

“The man who shot me,” I gasp.

The pilot cuts in, “There’s no truck.”

I shake my head. “Not possible.”

“Calm down, ma’am.”

“Not possible. I killed him.”

“Heart rate is elevated.”

“Ma’am, you’ve got to calm down.”

“Truck. Truck. Truck.”

“She’s in distress. Get me some midazolam ASAP.”

I feel a dull prick and lava floods my veins. Suddenly I remember his name. Rex Hawkins. And five of the ten things. Kermit the Frog. Aviator sunglasses. Wood-beaded seat cover. Partial plate O, K, and 4. A son called Noah.

I move my lips but no sound comes out. The paramedic comes closer.

“What was that?”

“He’s not dead.”

Epilogue

I watch Lorna pour water into a tumbler and sit back down in her leather executive chair.

“Will that be in your report?” I ask.

She smiles. “Our sessions are confidential, Amelia. You know that.”

“I want this job.”

“I understand.” She sips the water, sets it down on the glass-topped coffee table between us. “Why do you think my report will be unfavorable? Have you been holding back?”

I think of the eight months of therapy, telling her what she wants to hear. My hand curls around the cane.

“How’s the physio going?” she says.

I shrug. “Doing the rumba is pretty tough with half a foot.”

“How do you feel about that?”

I look at her. “Really?”

She lifts her hand. “Sorry. Patronizing.”

Pivoting, she retrieves a bright blue folder from her desk and opens it.

“It’s bound to be high pressure. Being a state prosecutor is not going to be a walk in the park. Especially if you are fragile.”

“I’m not fragile.”

“You want to help.”

“Yes.”

“There are other, less stressful, ways to help people, Amelia.”

I try to soften my face. “Please, Lorna. I know I can do this. I just need a clean psychological assessment.”

Behind her, out the window, pigeons are nesting in the stone gargoyles.

“And him?” says Lorna.

“What about him?”

“It can’t be a great feeling knowing he’s still out there.”

I don’t tell her about the hang-up phone calls. The three deadbolts on my front door. The guns stashed in every room of my apartment.

“I’m not going to let Rex Hawkins control my life.”

She shoots me a smile. “Good for you, Amelia. But you need to be careful. I’m not just talking about physical safety here, I mean emotional too.”

“I know the signs.”

She nods. “That’s important.”

I look at the tiny Dictaphone on the glass coffee table, barely the size of a pack of gum, at the pinprick of red light and the tiny, hollow slit, recording everything I say.

Finally Lorna speaks. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll clear you,” she says. “But you need to come in every second week. There’s still work to do.”

My heart leaps and I feel an unfamiliar boost.

She looks at her watch. “That’s time.”

Lorna rises and I follow her to the door.

“Go do good in the world, Amelia.”

*

I step out onto the pavement, button my parka at my throat, and head left. My cane wobbles beneath the weight of my hand. I’m still not used to this third leg and the fact I will have to live with a limp for the rest of my life. But it’s the cane or a wheelchair.

“Hey, lady, spare a dollar?”

I ignore the shifty guy in the yellow Nikes and carry on, clomping up the street, avoiding missteps in the cracks.

“God bless,” he calls anyhow.

You too, I think, God bless you and your sorry state and the cardboard box you crawl into at night with the bottle of whatever you can get your hands on but I don’t stop for strangers anymore.

Downtown traffic roars by, tourists take selfies, a guy in a Yankees cap sells dolls from the trunk of his battered Honda. I head south, past Central Park and into the diner on East 45th Street. My mother is talking to the waitress about the best way to steam okra. I go over and she folds me into a hug of turpentine and home-baked bread.

“Hey there, sweets. How you doing?”

I spy the crusts of aqua paint in the crescents of her forefinger and thumb.

“Better than average.”

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THE DEVIL’S WIRE

By Deborah Rogers

Jennifer’s new neighbor, Lenise Jameson, is a liar. Lenise claims to have witnessed a disturbing incident involving Jennifer’s husband, Hank, but as far as Jennifer is concerned, the forty-something single mother is a vindictive backstabber just out to make trouble.

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A tale about secrets and obsession, and what can happen when you forget to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

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