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It doesn’t matter. I can’t open the door, even if I wanted to. I have no idea what killed me, but I sure as hell know who did.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ethan
When the bathroom door opens, I am not expecting to see men’s shoes in my face. I’m expecting to see Ali, or hopefully, paramedics. But no, the doctor has come. At least that’s how he identifies himself. At first, I don’t believe him, even though you can be anything you want these days.
“Dr. Kemp here,” he says with an even tone. “I’ve come to help.”
I blink rapidly several times. At this point I’ve been in and out of consciousness several times and a part of my tongue is gripped inside the palm of my hand. Anything is possible. “It’s possible,” I say, with a wince. “I’m dead and this is hell.”
“You’re not dead,” he tells me, making a clucking sound with his mouth. “What a terrible, terrible shame.”
He leans down and gets right in my face, so close that I can smell his breath. It’s minty. Not at all like I expected, and a welcome respite from the scent of my own. The closer he gets, the more he comes into focus and I realize I know him.
It’s the man from Nadia’s photos. Only he’s not in a wheelchair. He’s standing, and he’s placing his fancy shoe on my neck, cutting off my air supply. Things get really strange the closer you are to death. It’s like a dream where your mind puts the most random memories together, unfamiliar faces on familiar people, friends from the past, become people in the future. His face is the same.
He lets off my neck. He’s distracted, it seems. I suck in several deep breaths, and the more oxygen I inhale, the more my eyes can focus. I reach up and grip his pant leg, hoisting myself up.Lloyd’s Plumbing,his shirt reads. He has a knife in his right hand. Not a typical tool of the trade, but by this point I’ve figured out that he hasn’t come to fix the toilet.
“She’s so much trouble,” he says, shaking his head. I can see that he’s listening for something in the living room. He keeps straining his neck in that direction. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”
I want to tell him I get it, I’ve been married before, but I know he isn’t here to commiserate. Who has the time? Certainly not me.
He checks his watch. “You should be dead already.”
Believe me, I know.
“I’m sorry it’s taking so long. I could put a bullet in you, but you see, I’ve already gone to all this trouble.” He offers a pathetic frown, the kind that lets me know he isn’t sorry at all. “I don’t like to change things last minute. That’s the sort of thing that gets you into trouble.”
He leans down and uses the tip of his finger to pull my eyelid up. My eyes are open, and have been open, so I don’t know why he insists on exposing my eyeball. I only know that I feel it moving in its socket and I’m trying desperately to close it. Bright light hits me and my eyelid strains against his fingers. “Aconite poisoning,” he says like he’s making a diagnosis. “Ten to one, that’s what this is.”
The light moves and I realize he’s holding a flashlight. Better than the knife. I’ve already lost part of my tongue. I’d like to keep my eyes. “Can you hear me?” he calls, a little too jovial for my liking. It’s the kind of tone that lets you know a person is batshit crazy.
“Hello? Anybody home?”
My throat is closing. I think this is it. This must be it.
“You’d think she’d learn. But she never does.”
I feel myself being pulled under. The darkness is beckoning. It’s too bad because I sort of want to hear what he has to say. I can’t figure Ali out. He seems like the kind of guy with answers.
“All she had to do was stay home. Be a good wife. But no. Women these days. I swear nothing makes them happy.”
I roll onto my side.
“Hey,” he quips. “Where do you think you’re going?” He peers into my face. He has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, but they’re hollow and empty.
I roll again, giving it everything I’ve got. He comes for me and I use my feet against the counter to gain leverage. I roll a little farther this time. He thinks it’s comical. That is, until I reach under the cabinet and grab the pistol I have hidden underneath and shoot him in the ankle. Blood spurts like a broken pipe, and it’s really something. He’s not laughing so much now. He falls and stabs at me with a knife I now see is from my own kitchen, which is a little annoying. Other than my car, those knives are the only thing I was awarded in my divorce.
It takes him several tries, but finally he contacts my thigh. I’ve just about got the gun aimed when the white-hot searing pain envelops me. He slides the knife out, and then there’s more blood, and our blood mixes together, and it reminds me of being a kid, where you cut yourself to become blood brothers.
He pushes the knife in again. I feel it hit bone. It grazes along it, ripping and tearing through muscle achingly slowly. “And to think,” he says. “All this time you had a gun. You should have said so. We could have made this so much easier.”
He’s right. I could have used the pistol on myself about five minutes ago, before he kicked in the door. I gave it serious consideration, anything to put myself out of this misery, but what a mess that would have been. A clean-up job on that level really affects the resale value of your home.
We wrestle a little more until we’re both soaked and covered in blood. His uniform shirt is dunzo. It’s definitely not coming back from this. All the blood on it looks like some weird art installation.
I finally free myself. He jumps off me and staggers backward. I finger the trigger and take aim. My second shot hits him in the shoulder. The rest hit center mass. He falls on top of me. I dip my finger in blood and write the wordaconiteacross the white cabinet. Then everything goes black.
