He flipped through the channels, stopping on the nightly news. He loomed over the television blocking her view. Renee watched him, noticing the tight grip of his fists, the tenseness of his shoulders. He was definitely angry, but she didn’t know what had triggered him this time. Since he’d told her that Ava was off on a spa retreat, Renee figured he couldn’t be pissed at her. Probably one of the maids who hadn’t done something to his exact specifications. He was always going off about the worthless help, firing them left and right, never happy with anything anyone did. She often wondered why he didn’t just do it himself if he wanted it done right.
Her attention was back on him, which was why she noticed as he stumbled back two steps, a heavy gasp escaping him.
He moved just enough that she could see the television screen. A picture of Ava appeared beneath a heading that read: missing woman found battered and left for dead.
Renee’s eyes widened, but she didn’t make a sound as she listened to the news anchor, a dark-haired man with a pleasing face and weird cupid’s bow lips, explain how Ava March had been discovered early on Thursday morning by a local sheriff in the small town of Embers Ridge.
“Fuck,” Harrison thundered, his hands gripping his hair tightly.
She didn’t dare speak because it would only result in him taking out his anger on her. Then again, she didn’t need to ask questions because she already knew. She’d known all along the danger her daughter was in. Somewhere deep in her drug-induced haze, Renee had known this man was a monster. She’d known, but the drugs had made it impossible to care or to help.
This was her fault, she knew. Her fault that Ava had suffered the wrath of this bastard all these years. Ava had done it for Renee. She’d endured because Harrison had told her that if she didn’t, he’d have Renee committed, locked away in a padded room for the rest of her life. Well, that was on a good day. During the height of his tirades, she’d heard him threaten to kill her a time or two, but again, Renee hadn’t had enough energy to care. Sometimes she welcomed the idea of death. Now, for instance. It would be so much easier for everyone if she were dead.
Harrison gripped his hair, yanked as he stared up at the ceiling. “I cannot fucking believe this!”
“Where’s Ava?” Renee asked.
Harrison lowered his head, glared at her. “Not where she should be, that fucking bitch.” He dropped his hands to his sides, took a deep breath, then another personality seemed to slide neatly in place.
“But I can still fix this,” Harrison declared. “I can still make it right.”
Renee watched him as he began to pace the room.
“She just can’t talk to the police,” he muttered, stopped abruptly. “I’ll need to pay her a visit. Fix it once and for all.”
Renee didn’t bother to remind him that Ava had probably already talked to the police. If she was found yesterday morning, she’d had nearly two days to reveal the horrors that Harrison had put her through. She prayed she had.
“Did you mean to hurt her?” she asked, keeping her tone bored so as not to rile him more.
“Did I mean tohurt her? Fuck no.” His eyes burned with menace. “I meant tokill her!” he confessed. “That bitch should be dead, not laid up in the hospital, making my life a living fucking hell.”
Renee swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. The thought of Ava dead because of her … it renewed her self-loathing, the hatred she had for her mere existence.
Harrison stood tall, his mask falling back into place. The one he used when he was shaking hands and kissing asses, the politician in full force. Renee hated this persona the most because it was the fakest of all.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said confidently, glancing over at Renee. “Tomorrow, I’ll visit my poor, battered wife in the hospital, play the dutiful, terrified husband, explain how I’ve been worried sick because she’s mentally ill like her mother.”
I’m not the only one in this house who’s mentally ill, she thought.
Renee didn’t move, watching as his vicious smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
Several hours later, in the dark of night, Renee got out of bed. She retrieved the gun she’d stashed under her pillow. It was the one she’d found in Harrison’s desk drawer, the one with the spinning barrel that held the bullets, the kind that was easy to load. A revolver, she believed it was called. There were only three bullets, although it held six. She knew because she’d hidden three of them. A backup plan in case he found the gun and emptied it.
Renee turned the gun this way and that, staring at it as her plan firmed in her mind. She was familiar with the weight of it in her hand because she’d picked it up and held it a few dozen times over the course of the past few years. Each time she was driven by the dark thoughts, the ones that told her to use it because it would end all the suffering, she had gone back to find it.
She’d never had the guts to pull the trigger.
Until now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Saturday, March 19, 2022
“I’M SURPRISED THAT THING STILL WORKS,”BRANTLEYsaid when he came out of the bedroom, dressed after his shower.
Reese had woken early and joined Brantley and Tesha for a run despite his reluctance to commit to ten miles. Fortunately for him, Brantley’d gone easy on him today, cutting the time in half as long as Reese promised to make it up to him when they returned to the house.
Reese had gladly made it up to him, and his knees were still sore from where he’d knelt on the shower floor while Brantley had fucked his face and rasped vulgar words until he came. Then Reese had endured while Brantley jacked him off under the guise of getting him clean.
