The Narrows(62)

It seemed to take an eternity to climb the basement steps. Upstairs, the house was as silent as a crypt. Listening, she could hear the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the hallway clock. Nothing more. When she crossed through the kitchen and into the living room she spied her broken wineglass on the floor. Shards of glass sparkled like jewels and wine spread from the epicenter like a bloodstain. Beyond the windows the night was still dark, though there was a predawn shimmer of pink light in the fork between the two mountains.

Somewhere inside the house, Maggie’s cell phone rang. She cried out at the sound and felt her heart threaten to push up into her throat. When it rang a second time, she became aware that this had been the sound that had woken her up in the basement just moments earlier.

Having forgotten where she’d put her phone, she wandered quickly through the house, following the digital chirping until she located it on the nightstand on her side of the bed. She snatched it up mid-ring, her blood running cold as she read the name displayed on the screen: Schuler, Tom.

She let the phone clatter to the floor. Though it could have been a coincidence, the ringing stopped. She had the desire to kick it under the bed and forget about it. Or take the battery out first.

She didn’t realize she had backed up against the bedroom wall until the phone rang again, startling her into striking her head on a picture frame. From where she stood, she could see the phone’s display with horrific clarity: Schuler, Tom.

Shimmering in digital light like an accusation.

Too easily she could imagine the phone ringing and ringing forever until it drove her insane.

Grab it, pop the battery out, she thought. And if that doesn’t silence it, flush the f*cker down the toilet.

The phone was already in her hands before she’d even finished the thought. Yet instead of prying out the little rectangular battery, she hit the button and accepted the call. It was like someone else was controlling her now.

With an arm that felt like it was made of rubber, she brought the phone to her ear.

“Come out back,” Tom said. It was his voice…but, at the same time, it had changed. Something had turned Tom into something else. My child, she thought frantically. My child did that to him.

The sound she made into the phone approximated a bullfrog’s croak.

“Maggie,” Tom said firmly. It was then that she knew it wasn’t Tom at all. Somehow, it was Evan, her husband. “Did you hear me? Come out back. Now.”

Trembling, she hit the End button. Just moments ago she hadn’t wanted to touch the phone at all; now, walking back down the hall to the living room, she found she could not let go of it, as though it had been fused to her flesh. On the living room wall, she toggled the switch for the floodlights but they did not come on. Either the power had been cut or the bulbs had been removed.

When she reached the back door, her hand paused in midair on the way to unlock the dead bolt. Things were happening too fast; she didn’t have time to think things through clearly enough. How did Evan get Tom Schuler’s cell phone? None of it made sense.

Dreaming, she thought, undoing the dead bolt. I’m dreaming.

She opened the door.



3



In the wine-colored light of dawn, Evan sat on the sloping hood of the Volkswagen. The shotgun lay across his lap and he had one boot on the front bumper. His eyes locked on Maggie, who remained standing in the doorway. Seeing him there, coupled with the sheer impossibility of Evan having called her from Tom Schuler’s cell phone number in the first place, Maggie’s hold on reality slipped yet another notch. Absently, she wondered when exactly reality had ended and the nightmare had begun. Had she actually had the affair? Was she still a little girl under the oppressive rule of an abusive father?

“Come ’ere,” Evan called to her. His voice boomed.

Maggie didn’t move.

Evan held up something small in one hand. He kept his other hand around the maple stock of the shotgun. “Recognize this?” he asked her. “Your boyfriend’s cell phone.” He looked at it himself now. “Saw the call log. Read the texts.” Then he fell uncomfortably silent.

Maggie tried to speak but found her voice absent and her throat impossibly dry.

“Just answer me one thing,” Evan spoke up eventually. There was a pathetic crack in his voice this time that jabbed a barb into Maggie’s heart. Mostly masked in shadows, she couldn’t make out the expression on his face. “How long has it been going on?”

She thought she spoke. Her face burned.

“Answer me!” he shouted. “How long?”

“It was just once,” she said.

“What?”

She realized she’d just muttered the words, and that they’d come out in a jumble of nonsense. “Just one time, Evan,” she repeated, more loudly and clearly this time. “I swear it.”

Evan stood the shotgun up, the butt planted firmly on one of his thighs. He looked like the photograph of a prideful hunter slouching over a kill. Looking at him turned Maggie’s blood to ice.

“Went by his house earlier,” Evan said. “Son of a bitch wasn’t home. I waited for a while but he never came. Lucky motherf*cker.”

“Evan, please—”

“Shut up!” It came out as a partial sob, as if something vital had just broken deep down in his throat. “You just shut the f*ck up, you whore!”