Tension wrings my gut.
–Me: Is the guy you took still alive?
–Unknown: How am I supposed to know?
My palms dampen with cold sweat. I should’ve expected this sort of response based on her actions at the Aylster.
–Me: I can tell the cops what you did to him. And your threats.
–Unknown: And I can carve your tongue out of your mouth and hang it up on my rearview mirror. Don’t write a check you can’t cash, little girl.
The air thins in my lungs.
–Unknown: Did my son even fuck you properly? Aaron says Bryce hates you and will never have you as the mother of his child.
–Unknown: Answer me!
–Unknown: You think you can ignore me? Think you’re so special?
My breathing roughens.
–Unknown: You screwed around on him. Infidelity is unforgivable. I’ve been faithful to Prescott since our divorce, even though he remarried that mealy-faced hypocrite.
–Unknown: I should’ve killed you at the hotel.
–Unknown: Stay away from my son if you value your life.
–Unknown: Actually, I’ll kill you anyway for hurting my son in college. You don’t get to abuse my precious baby. My prince, my good boy.
Three dots appear, signaling more insults and threats are heading my way. I block the number and drop my shaking hand. I was hoping she’d never find out who I was, but of course Aaron sold me out.
Bile rises in my throat. I curl up on my side and gag a little, even though nothing comes up. I doubt she knows where I live, but it’s only a matter of time before she finds out. Will she really kill me? Will she hurt someone else to get to me? She wouldn’t touch Bryce, but what about Sherry?
Although she’s never been an attentive parent, she doesn’t deserve to be tortured by someone like Zoe. Now I wonder what she’ll do to the girl who was supposed to have slept with Bryce last night. It’s clear she doesn’t regard any of us as human beings, just tools.
I start to stand, to pull myself together.
Another pinging from my phone—and my mouth dries.
–Unknown: Did you just block me, you disrespectful wretch?
–Unknown: You’re so fucking dead.
–Unknown: You’re next.
A photo pops up. A bloody finger on a gray concrete floor, with poor fluorescent lighting. I scream. The phone slips from my grip. I press a hand over my racing heart. Horror pumps through my veins.Oh my God. What the hell wasthat?
I reach out with a trembling hand and pick up my phone, then study the picture carefully, clenching my teeth to avoid hurling.
The finger is long and slim with a long, lacquered pink nail. Not Aaron’s. Is this from the girl who was supposed to have slept with Bryce last night? My pulse accelerates.
I feel sick. Clammy sweat mists over my spine. A feeling of overpowering helplessness wells up, and I clench my hands, hating it. When I left Harvard, I vowed I’d never let myself be swept away by other people’s actions and decisions. I moved to Wisconsin to reclaim my life. But ever since Zachary died, I’ve let circumstances and other people dictate my life to the point that I’m stuck with a guy who hates me, dealing with a psycho who sends me a picture of a bloody, severed finger and being told I have to head into marriage that’s doomed to fail to ostensibly keep me safe.
Lights come on inside the house. Bryce is home.
The pent-up frustration, fear, bitterness and impotence erupts like a volcano. I march up to the window and knock. “Bryce! We need to talk!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
