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Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ethan
Iam the kind of sick where you wake up and don’t remember it. The kind of sick where you come in and out of consciousness and days and time cease to exist. It’s a strange feeling, knowing that you’re on death’s doorstep and it could go either way.
All I think about is how I ended up here.
Thankfully, Max visits and helps fill in the blanks. When Max visits, he tells me that when I stepped out to purchase the bottle of wine, Edward Kemp had doused my Italian meatballs with aconite.
“Ali is a vegetarian,” he remarks as he sits at my bedside, fumbling with the TV remote. “Something that Edward Kemp knew, and you didn’t. She never would have touched those meatballs.”
“Apparently,” I say. I speak with a terrible lisp. And probably will for some time. “Edward Kemp knew a lot of things.”
“Sure did. He meticulously followed his wife’s comings and goings.”
“How?” I hate the way I sound, so I try to keep my answers short and sweet. I limit speaking at all whenever I can.
“Well, for one he studied the men she was involved with. He followed her. Often from city to city. He faked his injuries. Not all the injuries, just the extent of them. Then he murdered people, anyone who stood in his way. Sarah Shepard and Lucas Bennett included.”
Max goes on to tell me that the day I planned to confront Ali, Edward had camped out in Kelsey’s closet. He shakes his head. “We found a twelve-pack of bottled water and half a dozen protein bars. Cable ties, a stun gun, breath mints. Edward Kemp came prepared.”
“He sure did.”
“Mr. Stevens, your neighbor. The old man. You know the one?”
“I know Mr. Stevens.”
“Well, his security camera showed Kemp crossing his lawn and walking straight into your garage. In the same frame, you’re elbow deep in a flower bed.”
“I had just finished mowing my yard. I had the garage open.”
Max nods. “Yep.”
“The stun gun and cable ties,” I say. “Those he used on Ali. The breath mints and poison he reserved for me.”
* * *
The roadto recovery is a long one. Even after I am released, I am incredibly weak. A shell of my former self. I spent thirteen days in the hospital, six of them on the brink of death. My quick thinking by writing the name of the herb that Edward Kemp used to poison me is what saved my life. That and having several handguns placed around my home, just in case. You learn a lesson once, it’s best if you don’t have to learn it again. If it hadn’t been for the neighbor calling 911 after hearing shots fired, I would have died on the bathroom floor. But had it not been for Ali, I would have bled out long before the cops or paramedics arrived. I don’t recall her tying the tourniquet around my leg. I had passed out well before then, but I’m told that she saved my leg, if not my life. What kind of woman can free herself from zip ties? If anyone can, I should have known it would be Ali.
I am released from the hospital on a Wednesday, my former least favorite day of the week. Bethany and the kids arrive to take me home. “You’ll do anything to get out of therapy,” she says, as she loads my belongings into her car.
I’ve been going to physical therapy at the hospital. I’ve learned to transfer from a wheelchair to a bed and the toilet, but it is my first time transferring to a car. I think of Edward Kemp and those photos and how only a crazy person could fake-live their life this way.
“You got this, Dad,” Kelsey cheers as my arms shake. Nick holds the chair. I see him breathe a sigh of relief when I stick the landing, although when I turn to him, he manages a straight face.
“I was thinking I could stay over for a few days,” Bethany tells me on the way home. “Help you get on your feet.”
“It might be a while before that happens. Six weeks at least.” I smile because I’m testing her. She’d kill me in the first twenty-four hours, and I might not mind. “Anyway, home healthcare is coming.”
“Can we stay?” Kelsey asks.
Nick says, “It’s Wednesday.”
“It is Wednesday, isn’t it,” Bethany remarks, glancing over at me. “What do you think, Ethan? Are you up for company?”
I’ve never wanted anything more. “I’d love it.”
I hadn’t wanted to get poisoned or stabbed in the leg, but if it brings out this level of sympathy from my ex-wife, it’s not quite so bad.
