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Chapter Forty-Four
Lena
Istrolled into the kitchen, thinking I should fix something to eat, though I didn’t have much of an appetite. I was upset and worried about Troy finding me. Making love with Jackson helped take my mind off of it briefly, but now the fear was back.
I glanced around, and something was missing. We’d hurried out of the car, and I’d left the flowers in the SUV. I raced outside to get them so I could place them in some water. I hoped they hadn’t wilted from being in the car all day. I opened the car door, and there they were, on the floor, on the passenger’s side, right where I’d left them. I picked them up, and one fell out onto the seat. I picked it up and held it to my nose, inhaling its sweet aroma.
As I turned to head back up the stairs, a hand covered my mouth, and Troy whispered into my ear. “Lena, baby, it’s been a long time.”
I gasped into his hand and dropped the bouquet of roses on the ground. I held onto the loose one. I didn’t know why, other than something in the back of my mind told me I should, that I might need it or something.
“Don’t make a sound, Lena. This isn’t just a piece of metal sticking into your side.” My eyes flicked down to the pistol digging into my ribs, hoping I didn’t see what my skin felt. Troy shoved me toward the side yard, back toward the cottage. All the blinds were down on the windows on this side of the house, so I didn’t think Jackson would see what was going on. I prayed that Jackson would realize I went outside. I should have said something, but I knew he would jump up and offer to fetch the flowers himself, and I didn’t want to bother him. Stupid. I should have trusted my instincts and realized Troy would find me without the help of anyone in that bar.
“I bet you thought you’d killed me. Huh, Lena? Well, let me tell you, you nearly did.” He laughed, and his familiar hot, boozy breath assaulted my ear.
“Fuck, Lena, you were never any good at finishing things. You made me have to lie to the doctor, though.” He said the word “lie” through clenched teeth as if it were poison to utter the forbidden word. “I had to tell the doctor I punctured my stomach in the garage while trying to hang a new garage door opener. I told her that the whole thing snapped, and the steel rod flew down straight into my stomach inches from doing any significant damage, like the pathetic little knife you shoved into my gut. Of course, I had to make the wound you inflicted look jagged, which hurt like a son of a fucking bitch. Lucky for me, you didn’t thrust that knife in a bit further or I would be a dead man.
“I’d waited a couple of hours before going into the emergency room. Hell, I needed to sober up a little first. I almost considered skipping the stitches entirely, but when I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop after shoving the damn steel in my gut, making the wound worse and more jagged, I’d had no choice. That was your fault. I suppose the extra irritant to the injury with the metal rod didn’t help much since the fucking doctor almost didn’t believe my story anyway and nearly called the cops. I had to do some fancy sweet-talking to convince her I was on the up and up. Good thing the doc was a woman; I’ve always been able to sweet talk women, you know.
“And on top of that, you bitch, I’d torn my shirt and got it all stained with blood trying to make it look like an accident. I had to tear the shirt, and that pissed me off. Work shirts aren’t cheap, so you’re gonna pay for that too.”
He kept shoving me forward. The gun pressed firmly against my side, and his hand still covering my mouth. We made our way past my old Honda and snuck around the side of the garage. Too bad I didn’t have my keys. I could have sounded the alarm on the car. The woods were about a hundred yards away, and I had the feeling that was where he was taking me. He must have left his truck somewhere down the road and hiked in through the woods. My hand still clasped around the stem of the rose. I didn’t feel any thorns that I could use to scratch his face. Since when did roses come without thorns? Of course, that would have only made him more deranged, and God, I didn’t want to do that. He was sick. I knew that now.
“It took me some time to recover from that, Lena. I lost time at work, and damn it, bitch, you made me miss Taco Tuesday at the bar that night. You know, I thought I could trust you.” He continued his rant through a clenched jaw. “I thought you’d be back at home, sitting on the couch, waiting for me to return from the fucking emergency room. When you weren’t there, I threw my keys against the wall, made a big gash in the plaster, too. Landlords gonna want some money for that.” Troy was rambling now as if him telling me all this would somehow make it all better. “I had to get drunk all over again just to dull the pain from the stabbing. I must have guzzled several beers down in one gulp. Woke up to find all the empties in the sink broken. You’re gonna clean them up, ‘cause I left them for you.”
I was right; we were heading into the woods behind the garage. As we made our way into the forest, I tripped over a log and almost fell. Troy was strong, though, and he managed to hold me up without moving his hand away from my face. “Watch where you’re stepping,” he growled. Troy didn’t bother with the trail, and there was no way to know what sort of foliage or shrubbery we’d be running into until we were right on top of it because I couldn’t move my head very well to see with his hand covering my mouth and holding my head still that way. Branches and thorns scraped my legs as we hurried past them.
“I figured you’d run over to one of those druggy friends you used to hang out with when I’d first met you. What was her name? Oh yeah ... Gabby, Gabrielle D … something or other, and what was that jerk’s name? Geezer? No, Weezer. Weezer Storm. Well, hold on, Weezer, my man, looks like Daddy’s found his girl, and as soon as I get my Lena home, we’ll need to pay good ol’ Weezer a visit,” he muttered as though Weezer was walking along with us. “Oh, and you can thank your friend Gabby for tipping me off about where you’ve been hiding. Why here, for fuck’s sake, anyway?”
I heard Rufus bark not so very far away. If Rufus was close, then I knew Jackson was, too. And I hoped to God they didn’t find us because Troy had a gun, and I didn’t want Jackson or Rufus to get hurt.
As Rufus’ bark got closer, Troy’s grip tightened on my mouth.
“It sounds like that ass wipe you’ve been staying with is following us. Adultery is a sin, Lena. I thought I could trust you.”
Apparently, the final divorce papers didn’t mean anything to Troy. He was refusing to recognize the fact that we were no longer married. “You better hope he doesn’t get any closer. I have no problem silencing that thing or the adulterer he belongs to.”
Troy’s arm became tighter and tighter around my head, and his hand smashed against my mouth. I considered biting his palm, but the way he had it positioned made it impossible; plus, with the gun sticking into my ribs, I thought it best not to provoke him. Panic seared through my mind as I tried to suck in some air. His fingers covered my mouth but also blocked all the air from my nostrils. I was feeling faint, and my body went limp as my consciousness drifted away.
Rufus’ barking became a muffled sound in the distance, and Troy swore under his breath. “You stone-cold, frigid bitch. I can’t carry you all the way to the fucking tru—”
Troy’s voice trailed off, and everything went black.
