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Careful not to tear any of the bags, I managed to get him across the vinyl without incident, using a clean patch on my shirt to open the door, and then flip on the light.
A strong, dank smell floated up from below. When Mom was alive, this odor was non-existent. She made sure of that.
Using the lone bare bulb hanging from the ceiling as a guide, I began to ease Tony down the steps. Emery never set foot here, she said it freaked her out. I wasn’t sure she even remembered that we had a deep freezer sitting in the back room. That would be Tony’s resting spot.
The thing was rusting from old age, and made a faint humming noise, but it worked. I lifted the lid and pulled out the few frozen dinners that had been abandoned within it.
The golf club I’d taken from the Reedsies had frosted to the side. Martin’s blood was barely visible anymore. I stared at the club for a minute, thinking of that night.
I’d debated with myself many times about what I had done, denying the truth. Over the past few weeks, every time someone mentioned what a good person I was, I’d be reminded of the man’s head I bashed in.
He’d known me since I was a little girl. He and Pamela, his wife, were like the grandparents I never had. All he’d wanted to do was hand over what my father had given me to look after, to keep himself self. I couldn’t let him do it.
I knew if I could take his life in such a brutal fashion, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. Today confirmed what I’d been trying to deny, but I still wasn’t at a place where I could truly admit it to myself. So, I was going to place this body in my freezer, and then go upstairs to clean up the blood and vomit that was all over the kitchen floor.
Before I left town, I’d have the car in the driveway towed. No one was going to know what happened to Tony Roland. On the off chance someone discovered him, it would save me from having to tell the truth.
Everyone in town would know I was never as innocent as they made me out to be.
CHAPTER FIVE
NOVA
Chaos entered my life without having the decency to knock first. It brought snakes to my garden, and enough pain to last me until I was gray. And still, it wasn’t done with me yet. In some alternate reality I had to of been a nightmare, far worse than the one I was becoming now.
Maybe that was the point.
Everything has balance, right? You get back what you put out in the world. It came full circle with my belief that sooner or later we all had to deal with the consequences of our actions. And because of that, I was totally screwed.
I sat at the dining table, checking my phone every few minutes with more than a little impatience. My bags were packed, the blood was gone, the body hidden. I’d even texted Emery an address for where she could meet me.
I still wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of taking her along for my grand escape, but if I decided to leave her behind, it was going to be somewhere safe.
That was ten minutes ago.
I should have been gone by now. Instead I was sitting here with my father’s urn in front of me, the contents of the envelope off to the left, and a near empty bottle on my right. It was the same one I’d been nursing before I went to see Rhett. What a major turn of events that wound up leading to.
The day I met him, my life which was already in a tailspin, started to spin a little faster. I saw him in the super-market, and felt like an awe-struck schoolgirl.
I knew he was exactly the kind of trouble a girl like me didn’t need. He’d all too easily managed to disarm me of all my defenses, finding a way past the wall I had constructed around myself.
I’d accepted that sooner or later what we had between us would end. All good things did. It was meant to be a summer fling. I’d never be in any position to love a man like him.
I knew my battered heart would be a little more torn the second he left town. It would make me question things. I’d been prepared for all of that. I thought he’d be worth it. I’d felt so much with him in such a small amount of time.
He made me feel as if everything in my world would be okay, even as it crashed and burned around me. I never thought, couldn’t have imagined, that he would be the one holding the explosive.
Worse was the way I’d come to need him in such a short amount of time. He a drug, gradually becoming the sweetest kind of poison. Coming to terms with the fact he wouldn’t be in life anymore made me want to break into a million pieces.
I hated things had turned out this way. He took away the pain, and then he slowly gave it back. I didn’t want the heartache or the confusion. I already had enough to deal with. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. But that was my life. It never stopped hurting. I just had to take things a day at a time and numb the pain as best as I could.
I checked my cell again, the only notice of time the minutes changing on its display. I lifted the bottle of liquor, and gave it a gentle shake, watching the contents swirl about in a gentle vortex. One long sip brought a satisfying burn to my throat. This was the last I could take, though, no matter how much I wanted more.
Being drunk was the last thing I needed. A good buzz on the other hand wouldn’t hurt. Examining the contents of the envelope for thousandth time, I sighed and sat the bottle back down. There were names I didn’t recognize, each coordinating with a line of symbols and numbers that looked suspiciously like hieroglyphics.
Why on earth would Dad or Mr. Parker have this left for me? I’d wanted answers, instead I got another impossible riddle. I stared at Dad’s urn, wishing I could resurrect him so I could kill him myself. All of this was his entire fault.
I grabbed the navy cannister and pried the lid off the top. This was all that was left of him. Mom was buried in the cemetery just outside of town. I hadn’t been to see her in a while. Maybe I’d stop on my way out. I flipped Dad’s urn over, and watched his ashes rain out, spilling into a pile on the table.
