Page 20 of The Girl from Widow Hills
CHAPTER 7
Saturday, 2 a.m.
RICK LEFT WITH Ayellow flashlight and nothing else. No knife, no gun, no means of protection. Just a look over his shoulder and a glance toward my hands: “Now,” he said.
I stumbled toward the hall bathroom, which I had used only once before.
There was peeling yellow wallpaper behind the mirror, the green stems of the flowers gone gray from humidity. The shower faucet behind the curtain was dripping, and the second door connecting the bathroom to the bedroom was slightly ajar.
In the silence, I tallied the ways out: the door I’d just come through; the door leading to his bedroom, the windows beyond the bed—which was made. Insomnia, I was guessing. The pale light always shining from his house, even in the dead of night.
In the garish bathroom light, my hands looked almost comical. Theatrical. And I had to use my elbow to turn on the faucet. My hands were shaking, even though the water was on hot, the red swirling down. I couldn’t feel the temperature until it was already scalding, and I yanked my hands back—a baby pink.
As the water circled, I imagined the shadow again. The shape of the body. The stillness. What Rick might see.
The beam of the flashlight sweeping the earth. His footsteps approaching—
I closed my eyes. Maybe I was wrong, the scene too dark and fractured. Maybe whoever lay out there was just injured, bleeding. Passed out drunk.
I waited as the water ran cooler, rubbed soap up my arms to my elbows, scraped my fingernails against one another. Until there was no more visible blood, just the scent of vanilla, so thick it was almost cloying.
I scanned the rest of my body for signs; my hands were clean. Turning them over: a small nick near my wrist, barely visible. Clean shirt. Dark pants. A tear at the knee; stiffness settling in. I sat on the edge of the tub, rolling up the leg of my loose pajama pants. A gash running down the kneecap.
I pressed a stack of toilet paper against the cut, trying to stop the blood, then opened the cabinet under the sink, looking for a bandage. An amber prescription bottle, a pair of nail clippers, a pile of towels. A small trash can and something wedged beside it, in the corner. Something black and metal—
I leaned closer, nudging the garbage can aside.
The metal fell with a clunk, and I jumped back, pulse racing.
A gun.
A gun, hidden. Not one of his shotguns, locked up in a safe down the hall. But kept here. Four steps from his bedroom. Three steps from his living room. So he could get to it fast, should he need it.
I heard Rick’s footsteps coming up the porch again, slow and steady. Behind the trash can, there was a roll of black electrical tape. I tore off a piece with my teeth, wrapped it over my knee, pulled the fabric back down my leg.
I looked fine. Everything was fine.
The sound of the front door opening and closing, footsteps pausing for a moment at the entrance. Like the danger had passed.
Had he nudged the man with his toe, gotten him to wake, gotten him back on his feet, walking him to his car—
Had there been a car?
I hadn’t noticed. Had I even looked?
I remembered the light from Rick’s, the darkness of my own house. The open doorway. I didn’t remember a car . . .
Footsteps again, and then a tap at the bathroom door.
“Liv? You okay?”
“Just a minute,” I said. I eased the cabinet door closed, holding my breath.
“Liv. I’m going to have to call the police now.”
A pause. And then: “Okay,” I said, speaking to my own reflection. Not a call for help. The police, he said.
He was dead.
