Chapter 2 - THE ESCAPE
The master bathroom door shuddered on its hinges.
"Linda, open the door!" David’s voice was a guttural, desperate roar. It wasn't the voice of the polished corporate VP I’d been married to for a decade. It was the sound of a cornered animal.
"David, move! Let me do it," my mother-in-law, Eleanor, snapped from the other side. I heard the sharp scrape of a wire hanger sliding into the lock mechanism. Eleanor never left home without her lock-picking toolkit, a habit from her days as a real estate agent dealing with foreclosures. Now, she was using it to trap me with a murderer.
My phone screen glowed weakly in the dark: 11%.
I dialed 911, my thumb hovering over the call button. But I couldn't press it. The police would take at least ten minutes to navigate the winding roads of our suburban subdivision. The lock was already turning.
More importantly, I couldn't just run into the night. Because sleeping soundly down the hall in the guest room was six-year-old Lily. Maya’s daughter. The little girl I had legally adopted and raised as my own after Maya’s hit-and-run three years ago.
I couldn't leave Lily in a house with the man who killed her mother.
Click.
The doorknob turned.
Adrenaline, cold and sharp as ice, flooded my veins. I didn't think; I moved. I shoved the heavy oak linen cabinet directly in front of the door just as David pushed it open. The door slammed into the wood with a violent thud, pinching his fingers.
David howled in pain. "Linda! You don't understand! She stepped out of nowhere!"
"You killed my sister!" I screamed back, tears of pure rage finally hot on my cheeks. "You let me cry on your shoulder at her funeral!"
"It was raining!" he sobbed through the crack in the door. "I was terrified. I was going to lose everything!"
I didn't stay to listen to his pathetic excuses. I lunged for the frosted glass window above the garden tub. I cranked it open, the humid night air rushing in, smelling of rain and the expensive cedar mulch David had laid down just last weekend.
I hoisted myself up, ignoring the sharp scrape of the window track against my bare thighs. I dropped into the darkness, landing hard in the azalea bushes below. Thorns tore at my expensive silk cocktail dress, but I didn't care. I scrambled to my feet, my chest heaving.
I needed to get to the back stairs. I needed to get Lily.
I crept along the brick facade of the house, staying in the shadows. The living room windows were lit up, but the fifty guests were gone. They must have scattered the second Chloe dropped her bombshell.
As I rounded the corner toward the garage, a figure stepped out from the darkness.
I stifled a scream, grabbing a heavy terra-cotta garden trowel from the potting bench.
"Wait. Don't. It's me."
It was Chloe. The mechanic. The "mistress." She was shivering in her oversized denim jacket, her mascara smeared down her pale cheeks.
"Why are you still here?" I hissed, gripping the trowel so hard my knuckles popped. "Are you waiting for your next hush-money payment?"
Chloe flinched, shrinking back. "I didn't know who she was, Linda. I swear to God. Three years ago, he brought his SUV to my shop at 2 AM. The front end was smashed to hell. Blood on the grille. He told me he hit a deer. He paid me twenty grand in cash to crush the hood and replace it off the books."
"And you just took it?" my voice broke.
"I was twenty-two and my mom was dying of cancer," Chloe choked out. "I needed the medical money. I didn't know it was a person until two days later when the news reported the hit-and-run on Route 9. By then, the car was fixed, the money was spent, and I was an accessory to murder. He’s been paying me every month since to keep me terrified."
"You came here tonight to stop," I said, realizing why she had crashed the party.
"I couldn't take the guilt anymore. But Linda, listen to me," Chloe stepped closer, her eyes darting frantically toward the house. "He didn't just hit her and drive away."
My blood ran cold. "What do you mean?"
Chloe reached deep into her jacket pocket. Her hand was trembling violently as she pulled out a small, rectangular object sealed in a plastic evidence baggie.
"When I was replacing the shattered windshield, I found this wedged deep in the air vents. It must have slid down when the impact happened."
She pressed the baggie into my hand. The security light flickered on above the garage, illuminating the object.
May you like
It was Maya’s phone. The pink, glittery case was cracked, but it was unmistakably hers.
"If he just hit her by accident," Chloe whispered, her voice laced with dread, "why was her phone inside his car?"
