Chapter 1
Abigail
I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.I have to run.
I can’t stand the feel of Brandon’s hands on my body or the stench of whiskey on his breath. And I know without a doubt that I won’t survive another one of his beatings, no matter how much he tells me I deserve them.
I should run.
Lord knows I had tried. Six months ago, I packed a bag and ran away while Brandon was out overseeing his holdings. I drove as far as two towns over and checked into a motel. I was laying in the lumpy motel bed, the sheets scratching my skin, but I didn’t complain. I would never complain. I had less, much less growing up. Especially after my daddy left us and we moved to the trailer park.
I was laying in bed when the key turned in the lock, it was one of those old school motels that still used real keys. I turned over to see who was coming in my room.
“I see you’ve been a naughty girl, wife,” Brandon had said.
I slid up the bed and pulled the blankets up to my neck. My back was to the headboard. My eyes were wide, unblinking. Brandon had stalked to the bed like a jungle cat and ripped the blanket and sheets from my grasp. Then he proceeded to give me a sound beating for thinking of leaving him. When he was done, he cried and begged me not to leave him while he made love to me. I laid there, waiting for it to be over, but the whole time in my head, I was plotting, planning. I would leave again only next time I would be smarter. Next time I wouldn’t make such careless mistakes. And I knew without a doubt, Brandon would never let me go. I would never get out alive.
I knew without a doubt then that Brandon had to die.
So, I bided my time. I was the perfect wife. I planned dinner parties. I sang in the choir at church. I looked perfect every time I stepped out of the house, doubly so when I was on Brandon’s arm. I was an upstanding member of the community. And I took the beatings like it was my job.
And all the while I was poisoning his morning coffee.
You’d be surprised how far a little rat poison in your coffee will go. Unfortunately, in Brandon’s case, not far enough. That asshole has the constitution of an ox. So, I had to up the dose.
When Brandon started to feel ill, he became a little suspicious. He started watching me prepare his morning coffee, mixing in the cream and sugar to the ridiculously expensive and extremely pretentious Colombian brew that he had preferred.
One day, he came home with the top of the line Keurig machine. Finally, I had to change my plans. So, every morning, when he left for work, I would mix the rat poison that I kept under the kitchen sink with a little bit of water and inject it into the coffee pods.
Brandon was getting weaker and weaker.
This morning when he came down for his breakfast, he didn’t look so good. He had bags under his eyes and his clothes hung on his body showcasing how thin his frame had become over the last month. I set his eggs and bacon in front of him at the table and smile sweetly as I handed him his coffee mug.
“Maybe just the toast and coffee this morning, babe,” he says. “I’m not feeling so well today.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Is there anything I can do for you?” I ask.
“No, honey, I’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
He takes a bite of toast before finishing his cup of coffee, I am careful to watch him to make sure that Brandon doesn’t notice me watching him. He takes a shaky breath and then keels over right at the breakfast table.
I immediately walk to the entry hall closet where I had kept hidden a duffle bag with a week’s worth of clothes the gold locket my mother gave me before turning me out into the world, and as much cash as I could secretly collect in six months’ time.
And then I grab my car keys and walk out the door. Never once looking back.
I drive all day and all night. By the time I got to Kentucky, I trade my car in and leave in an old pickup with a little more cash in my duffle bag.
I drove on from there straight to Texas where I stopped in a sleepy little town just this side of the Texas-Louisiana border until the Sheriff there, Holt Stone, started asking too many questions about me. He was a nice enough guy, but I just couldn’t risk it and decided to move on heading south.
I drive straight for another two days. I see the signs for a sleepy little town in Texas called Mason, that looks like the kind of place I can get lost in for a while. I think I’ll stay.
