The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

repeated, hoping to understand. But now, as I repeat the two words—a total of three letters—there’s a clarity that’s eluded me for thirty-seven years. There’s a beauty in the words. A beauty and a sadness. And an absolute, stunning revelation.

I am.

I am.

I am.

“Goodbye, Rose.”

“Goodbye, Colin.”

He opens his door.

I open mine.

Seventy-Two

This world is no longer a familiar one. The landscape is a blazing white; the reflection of the sun off the snow sears my eyes. I blink. Tears gather, run halfway down my cheeks, then freeze in place.

I’ve walked a few feet toward my car when I stop and follow Pearson’s shuffle up to the house, watch as his boots plunge into the soft snow, leaving behind deep, dark imprints. Between ten and ninety minutes, he said. Ten minutes does no good. Ninety is probably enough to get me to the airport without being hunted down. I touch the front pocket of my jeans, feel the folded paper inside. The single phone number, my get-out-of-jail-free card. For all I know, whoever is supposed to answer the phone is long dead. The number no longer in service.

Pearson reaches the porch, and I can’t move. I should be back in my car, at least making the most of any few minutes I have. I should be fishtailing though this snow to Boston Logan, hoping not to see a swarm of blazing red-and-blue lights in my rearview mirror.

But I can’t. I have to watch.

I wipe my eyes, squint to focus. I haven’t breathed in a hundred years.

My future depends on if the Benners are at home. Everything that happens next results from whether or not they open that door.

Pearson stands and waits. Waits some more, gloved hands tapping against his thighs. Frosted breath, tight little clouds.

I can’t look away.

And then.

Then it hits me, and when it does, it releases me from my unwavering stare and I turn my head and look over to the Suburban. To where my son sits, waiting for me, the weight of the world on top of him.

My future doesn’t depend on the Benners being home. Nor does it depend on some unknown person paid to help me disappear. Those things are pieces of the puzzle, not the puzzle itself.

My future depends on one thing only.

I walk the last few feet to the car door.

When I climb into the Suburban, I look back to Max. He holds my gaze, strong and confident. Doesn’t drop his eyes, not once. It’s as if his confession ushered him into a manhood from which he can never turn back, which is both beautiful and achingly sad.

I start the car and turn around in the street, avoiding looking over at the Benners’ house as I crawl through untouched snow. As I drive back down the street and away from this lonely place, I think all I have to do is flick my gaze to the rearview mirror to see if Pearson is inside the house or headed back to his Jeep. Ten minutes or ninety minutes. A split-second movement and I could find out.

But I don’t, because the answer won’t change my direction.

A deep, focused breath. I try as hard as I can to stay in the present moment, because living in the past or wondering about the future doesn’t serve me any longer. It can only be about the now.

“What now?” Max asks, his voice deeper than I think I’ve ever heard. Those two words will be the only ones he’ll say for the rest of the drive.

And the five I answer with will be my only ones.

“Our lives belong to us.”

I press down on the accelerator. The Suburban responds, busting through the snow, barreling toward whatever is next.

Ten minutes or ninety minutes.

The clock starts.

Read on for a look at The Dead Girl in 2A by Carter Wilson

Available now from Poisoned Pen Press

One

The Day Of

Jake Buchannan placed his palm on his eight-year-old daughter’s cheek, hooked a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, and wished again that he could change the past. Em lay on top of her bed in her room, beneath a ceiling light needing two of its three bulbs replaced, and Jake thought her scar seemed a deeper shade of purple than usual.

Thirty-seven stitches. That was how many it had taken to sew his little girl up again. The scar wound from just above her right eye across her temple, then up over her ear, looking like a millipede forever crawling on her face.

I’m sorry, Jake thought. His therapist had told him to stop apologizing out loud, because it wasn’t helping his own healing process. Apparently, he had to learn to forgive himself first, and though Jake said he understood this, he didn’t really. Or didn’t want to. He wasn’t ready for forgiveness. Not from himself, or anyone else.

“I gotta go now, honey,” he said.

“For how long?”

“Just a few days.”

“I wish you didn’t have to.” Em’s words were better, but not perfect. The word didn’t came out slurred, as if she were just coming out of anesthesia.

“I know, me too. But this is a good job. Good money.”

“How much?”

More than it should be, Jake thought.

“A lot,” he said.

“Enough?” she asked.

That one word caught Jake off guard. There was only one way his young daughter could have an understanding of how much money was “enough,” and that was because she’d overheard the arguments. Arguments about the accident, arguments about the medical costs, and…god…arguments over whether their little girl had permanent cognitive damage. Em had certainly overheard things neither Jake nor his wife wanted her to hear.

They had argued less since Jake moved out a month ago.

“Let me worry about money, and you take care of your homework,” he said.

“Okay.”

He reached down and kissed her forehead, and his lips could feel the tight, rippled skin along her scar. “I love you to the moon,” he said.

“I love you to Mars.”

“I love you to Jupiter,” he said.

Jake knew what was coming next.

“I love you to Ur-anus.” Em