With the flashlight trained in front of him, he peels off his mask with a slow, dramatic move. His longer hair falls loose around his shoulders. As his dark eyes meet mine, I'm unable to move, frozen in place by the shock of seeing my editor standing right in front of me.
"It's time for me to explain." Micah's tone is beguilingly gentle. "I know you will understand. Just don't make any sudden moves." With his free hand, he pulls a pistol from his jacket pocket and levels it at my chest.
Before I can take a deep breath, the weight of suppressed memories plows into me like a wrecking ball. I crumple to my knees, no longer aware of Micah looming in front of me. Instead, a heavy snowfall blurs my vision, just like it did that fateful night.
I nearly skidded off the road a couple of times, but my tires finally found a spot to grip the icy pavement. I pulled into a guest space outside Renard's townhouse, hoping I wouldn't run into his girlfriend Tiffany, who resembled a Barbie doll.
I rang the bell and Renard threw the door open, smelling like he'd drenched himself in cologne for the evening. He smiled at me with teeth so whitened, they glowed. He wore a fitted tee and tight jeans, and he'd pulled his wavy hair into a short ponytail. His slippers looked like real leather.
"Alex." The word came out like "Ah-lix," because he was using his affected accent. "How delightful of you to show up. It's too bad you missed Tiffy. She just headed out to hot yoga." I didn't know which was more repulsive—his childish nickname for his girlfriend, or his smug look insinuating that I rarely worked out when we were together.
I looked closer. His nose was unusually red. "You catching a cold?" I asked. He didn't sound stuffy.
He gave a sniff. "No." Without elaborating, he reached onto a nearby table, then extended my unwieldy espresso maker toward me. "Here you go." His lips curled. "The only thing you really wanted out of our relationship, apparently."
I struggled to balance the weight of the machine. I didn't have to explain myself to him, ever again. I needed to cut my losses and walk away without a word.
But words were the only playground I had left. For so many years, Renard had wielded insults like swords against me. Now it was my turn.
I met his watery eyes. "You're a spineless, loveless coward. You're a parasite." With each word, I felt my strength building. "You'll die alone, because you can only take, never give. Tiffy's just a flash in the pan. The minute you run out of funds, she'll run out of your life."
He gave a growl. "How dare you, you—"
I raised the espresso maker like a barrier between his hatred and me. "You don't know how to make a woman happy. In fact, you can't handle a real woman, with opinions of her own. At least I'm walking out of this marriage with my pride. All your friends know what you did, and they support me. They think you're a selfish pig. Good luck holding onto your shining online image—I have my author interview with The New York Times next week, and I plan to lay your infidelity bare."
Having thus informed him of the wrath to come, I pulled the machine closer, then picked my way across the icy sidewalk, toward the parking lot. Sticky snow fell, coating my head and clothing, but I didn't really feel it. I couldn't feel much of anything.
He cursed, then slammed his door. The next thing I knew, his slippers slapped along the pavement behind me.
"Stop right there. You are not going to do some kind of raunchy expose on me. I won't let you."
I turned my head. "You can't hurt me anymore."
I stalked forward, but felt his arms wrap around me. "Don't make any sudden moves," he said darkly. "You wouldn't want to get hurt on this ice. Now, give me back that espresso maker so I can put it in the dumpster, where it belongs. Just like those stupid novels you devote your life to."
He grappled for the appliance, but I held fast, diving into a deep well of strength I didn't know I had. I'd earned the espresso maker, fair and square. It was proof that my writing was valuable. I couldn't give it up.
I clenched it tight to my chest, as if to ward off Renard's ill-will. He continued wrestling with me, his feet sliding around in his slippers. My own rubber-soled boots maintained their purchase.
"I...said...no sudden moves!" he shouted, yanking the top of the espresso maker free.
But as he spun away, he lost his footing and crashed to the sidewalk. The heavy espresso maker flew out of his hands, then somehow landed directly on his head.
He gave one long, low groan against the ice, then fell silent.
Fearful of the worst, I knelt down beside him. Horror spread through me when I saw blood seeping from his head and discoloring the pale concrete walk.
I glanced back at the townhouses next to Renard's, thinking I could ask someone for help. But there were no lights on, and no one appeared to be watching what was going on. The parking lot was empty.
I was on my own, just like I'd always been in this marriage.
If I touched his neck to make sure he was breathing, my prints would be on him. Instead, I carefully lowered myself to the concrete beside him and placed my ear next to his mouth. If he were alive, I would hear his breathing.
But no air was moving, in or out.
Now that I was level with his face, I sucked in a breath and turned to look at it. Oh, those hideous, glassy eyes—I still see them in my dreams! They stared blankly at the dark sky, as if he'd been utterly shocked at the way things had turned out.
So was I, but I had no time to lose. Making the snap decision that protecting myself was more important than making some heroic post-death effort for an ex who had made no effort for me in life, I inched to my feet. Moving onto the crunchy grass, I walked quickly toward the parking lot and slid into my driver's seat. After throwing one final look at the tangled heap of my abandoned espresso maker and my dead ex-husband, I drove away.
Five words ran in a loop through my head all the way home: "No one has to know."
And, even after the police investigation into Renard's death, no one did. It didn't take long for them to uncover Renard's heroin addiction, which I'd known nothing about. It explained why he'd gone through my income like water.
They questioned Tiffany, of course, but she'd been witnessed in her hot yoga class at the time of Renard's death.
They found Renard's text to me, but I explained that I hadn't been able to get out in the icy weather since I didn't have my snow tires on yet. I would've been crazy to risk driving over that night just for a fancy coffee machine.
When they told me he'd died with my espresso maker nearby, I made the tentative suggestion that it would have been just like him to throw it out to spite me. The female detective verified that there was a dumpster nearby, then she clicked her tongue and said, "I know the type."
That was the end of that line of questioning.
I forced myself to forget, shoving down the hatred Renard had continued to level at me all the way up to the end, when he'd threatened to trash my espresso maker.
Then my neurodivergent brain whipped out a tool to help me move on. My therapist called it "dissociative amnesia." What this meant, and what I was now realizing as I stared down the barrel of a gun, was that time had actually frozen on that doomed night. In my reconstructed reality, Renard hadn't died—he'd just fallen silent and refused to text me. That's why I'd assumed he could be my stalker. Hadn't I felt the whispers of his spiteful presence all over the cabin?
TWENTY-FOUR
