Ree
For so long Bram and I coasted. We were on cruise control, autopilot. We had made it through our individual storms, come out on the other side, and we were glowing with love, frolicking through our happily ever after. Isn’t that the reward you get after a bone-breaking trial saps you of all your sanity, of all your strength? You find your way home. The underdog finally gets his prize. The wicked past is decimated, and the light comes pouring into your soul. So, how in the hell is this happening again? Simple. My mother is still alive. The only way to squeeze peace out of this equation is to kill her. And after that, I must do the unthinkable. I must kill Bram.
Bram and I stare at one another while sitting on the bed like a couple of teenagers. The coroner’s van rolled out of our neighborhood an hour ago. There is a box full of severed fingers in the garage, and I’ve been listening as Bram steadily fills my head with things he thinks I should know about Simone. She didn’t write the diaries. Correction—she fabricated their lives. These were not the right vacations. Not the right sentiments. There were pertinent verbs and nouns out of place. She may have killed her own children. She most certainly killed those hookersPeterdid not have an affair with. She killed Loretta, a woman Peter did care for at one time, but he was very, very confused. In his right mind, with the right wife—me—that would never have happened. She killed the prostitute I found, the woman from the fundraiser, and baited me toward her. She killed Astrid. A staggering body count, considering Simone has supposedly killed from beyond the grave. The kicker, of course, is that Simone is not dead. She could not be dead. There is no way of telling who was killed because Peter and his former in-laws mutually decided to have her cremated, and rightly so since there was hardly anything left of her head.
As if perfectly timed, Bram’s brother calls and drops a bombshell. Meredith, Simone’s sister, has not been seen since before Simone’s murder.
“It was her.” Bram nods into this lunacy.
“What about dental records? Even siblings have different teeth. Surely the coroner—”
“Her teeth were obliterated. We went off DNA and matched them to her parents.”
My heart drums wildly. A blast of anxiety rockets through me, throws me off balance and makes the room feel as if it’s starting to spin.
“Ree”—he reaches over and picks up my hand, rubbing small circles over my palm like he did when we first met—“I love you. I swear, I would never lie to you.”
I pluck my hand away as if pulling it from the flames. “You just keep things from me. You painted your relationship with Simone as perfect. You never demonized her until now. Why now?”
His eyes bulge with a strangulating stare. “Because we have a box of human digits smelling up the garage. Why would I send those to myself? Toyou?”
I shake my head, my gaze flitting through the north wall to that demonic place where my mother’s sick mind resides.
“She’s been here. She’s been in the yard. Lena probably let her in the house. Wherever you’ve had them hidden, she’s known about them for months.” My mother must have hit her zenith once she found that box of severed human remains. It was right up her twisted alley. “I’ve been getting these emails.”
“What emails?” His voice is curt, a little too loud for my liking.
“They have nothing to do with it. Not really,” I say, inching back on the bed. For the first time since we’ve met, I want to get away from this man, this enigma who I not only thought I knew but who I thought I understood on a deep, intimate level. It was all a joke to him. I was the easy wife, so gullible, very willing to buy whatever he was peddling.
I ate my way through his bucket of bullshit and asked for more. Thank you, Bram. May I have another?
Even his name is a lie. My children are born from this half-truth. My God, we’re going to have to get away, far away from Percy, and this time there will be no Lena, no old Bram, no support whatsoever to help me navigate my way through this difficult, difficult world. And worse than that, I’ll have spent my life looking over my shoulder for Bram of all people. My own husband, the murdering monster. But that’s not happening. That is simply not where this is headed. It’s a good plan C or D, but it’s not my first choice.
No. Bram is proving to be wily, but I will prove to be far more deceptive. I have always believed that if necessary I could kill someone. If absolutely necessary—if I truly put my mind to it, I can get away with it, too. None of thisI’m a woman with a broken minddefense either. This will have to be a bona fide murder, just not by my hands. I need someone with a history of violence and, lucky for me, I have my mother. What a strange victory to rid the world of my mother—andplace the blame of my husband’s own unfortunate demise on her shoulders. And if Lena dares get in my way, she will have to go, too.
“Ree”—he pulls me back into the room with the firm command of his voice—“what emails?”
“My mother sent them.”
I pull my phone forward and show him every last one.
Bram’s features mold into a permanent look of disdain.
“It’s not fair.” His chest bucks. “It’s not fair that you have to bear the burden of your cold-hearted mother, and I have to bear the burden of a psycho bitch ex-wife.”
“Wife,” I correct. “You never divorced. If she’s alive, she still belongs to you.”
His gaze penetrates mine. It saysplease believe me. I would never lie to you. I would die for you.
Yes, Peter, Bram, whoever you are.
You will most assuredly die for me.
It’s time to put a call in to my mother—and then do what I must do.
