Sara's Game (22 page)

And then their little baby boy had come along and the cycle started anew.  More onesies, thrilled relatives, a fresh coat of blue paint on a study converted into a new bedroom.  Brian couldn’t have been happier.  He brought home a baseball glove and model trains that wouldn’t be put to use for years.  Toy fire engines, plastic swords, and building blocks that had to be put away because the pieces were too small.  Brian was still outnumbered, but he’d been thrilled to have another male on his side after living in a home dominated by estrogen.

Brian.

Goddamned Brian.

Two wasted years of pining for him, allowing her emotions to wither, refusing to go on blind dates arranged by her friends, checking the internet
every single morning
to see if any news had popped up overnight, consoling her babies with repeated refrains of ‘Daddy’s not coming home tonight, he might tomorrow,’ after the bouts of depression and putting on a good face for everyone around her, after surviving on hope and good memories alone, it’d come to this.

This.

That one singular moment where she decided to say a silent goodbye to him.  She looked up at the sky, grown darker now in the late evening.  Sun setting, ready to bring light and life to another spot in the world.

Brian, if what he told me is true, and you didn’t make it, if you’re—if you’re dead...I’m—I’m sorry.  What you did was wrong, but you didn’t deserve to die for it.  That’s—I can’t imagine what she did to you and I don’t want to, but you
didn’t
deserve to die.  I waited for you.  Waited and waited and waited.  It took me six months before I could go to bed without crying myself to sleep.  Six months! 

Did you really try to come back?  What would you have said if you had come home?  Would you have told the truth?  Would you?  Would the lies have eaten away at you while I went on, clueless and happy that the love of my life had gone through hell to get back to me? 

I was a good wife, I know I was.  We had a good family.  We were happy, weren’t we?  Damn you.  Damn you, damn you, damn you.  Do you know how hard it’s been?  Did you think about what I was going through while you were lying in bed beside her?  Did you?  God.  I hate sounding so pathetic.  But I have a right to be selfish.  After this, after what you did, I have the right.  I do.  You put us in this spot.  You did it.  Our babies are in that house with the psycho you left me for.  You did it.  You did it.  You did it.

And you know what?  It’s time to move on.  I think I’m ready.  One of these days, maybe I’ll forgive you.   Maybe I’ll put on a black dress and I’ll get you a gravestone and I’ll lay down flowers.  I will.  But for now, you see that rolling down my cheek?  That’s the last one. 

This is your fault...and you don’t get any more of my tears, Brian.

CHAPTER 23

SARA & DJ

Sara watched the young detective approach from a half a block away.  Shirt untucked, tie loosened, sport coat hanging limp over slumped shoulders.  He looked like he’d aged ten years since that morning. 

He recognized her, gave a quick wave, and picked up his pace.  A mixture of concern and relief in his eyes.

When he got within a couple of steps, she said, “You’re alone?”

“I am.  Man, you look like—I mean, good to see you’re alive.  We thought you were—”

“Dead?  It’s not over yet.”

“I’ve got a badge and a gun.  They’re usually good for something.  So
whose
house are we going into?”

She gave him the shortened version.  The Rose Gardens, the run through the city, the phone calls, Michael and the cabin.  She told him about Teddy, but not about sentencing him to die, nor about the remorse.

DJ said, “Spent half the day looking for him.  We thought
he
did it.”

“I did, too.  She was trying to frame him.”

“Shelley Sergeant?”

Sara took a step closer, lowered her voice and said, “You figured it out?”

“I wasn’t sure.  Lots of guesswork, nothing concrete.  What’s your plan?”

“Let’s go.  I’ll tell you on the way.”

Sara and DJ trotted up the street.  She explained what was going on inside, what she expected, what Shelley expected, and what the final level might hold.  They stopped at a neighbor’s hedge fence, ducking behind it. 

DJ whispered, “I’m not letting you go down there by yourself.  Not an option.”

“With all due respect, Detective...
my
kids,
my
choice.”

“At least let me—”

“Just be ready, okay?  Hurry.”  Sara darted around the hedge and up to the front porch with DJ trailing, muttering about bad ideas and no respect.

They climbed the five steps, passing dead plants in cracked pots, avoiding the broken slat in front of the entrance.  Sara felt like a criminal, an intruder, sneaking into Michael’s former home. 

She pushed the front door open, stepping into foreign territory.  Held up a hand to DJ, whispering, “Step hard.  He was huge.”

DJ mouthed, “How?”

“Try to sound—I don’t know—try to sound big.  Stomp, but don’t be obvious.”

“This is ridiculous.  Let me go in first.”

Sara stabbed a finger toward the floor.  “I said
no
.  You go in with guns blazing and my kids are dead, you hear me?  Stay upstairs and let me handle this.”

“But I’m supposed—”  DJ stopped, lifted his hands, let them fall.  Hung his head.  “Yes, ma’am, whatever you say.”

“Good.  Now pretend like you’re pushing me.  Make it sound real.”

DJ stomped forward and shoved Sara. 

She stumbled, hit the ground, and whispered, “Do it again,” and then got to her feet.

DJ stomped another couple of steps, helped her up, shoved again.  Harder this time. 

Sara tripped, reached out, and knocked a vase from a table.  It crashed and shattered as she fell to her hands and knees.  She yelled, “Okay, I’m going,” and gave him a thumbs-up. 

He urged her ahead.  Stomped on the shards, heard them crunch under his heel.

Sara scuttled around the broken ceramic and over to the basement door, looked back at DJ, watched him press his lips together.  Waiting, waiting.

He closed his eyes, tugged hard on his tie.  “Go,” he whispered.  “Be careful.  If anything happens, I’m coming down.”

She reached for the doorknob, pulled herself up.  Took one last look at DJ, mouthed, “No, wait here.”  Twisted the handle, and let the door swing open, screeching like a coffin lid as it went.  Ominous.  Foreboding.

She planted a foot on the creaky first step, paused, and stepped again.

Heartbeat quickening, ears going dull like her head was veiled in cotton, the temperature change of the chilly, musty basement prickling her skin.  She plodded downward. 

Down, down, down, until she reached the final level.

***

She smelled the familiar but foreign scent of laundry detergent first, followed by the sharp light of the single, bare light bulb overhead as she moved into the open space.

Lacey, Callie, and Jacob sat in the middle of the room, bound to chairs and gagged with white cloth.  The twins bookended their little brother.  Eyes puffy, red, and swollen from hours of crying, but otherwise unharmed from the looks of it.  No visible cuts or bruises.

They all saw her at the same time, and pushed against their ropes.  Neck muscles strained against skin as they wailed, “Mommy!  Mommy!”

She rushed for them, arms open wide.

In the final second before she reached her children, their eyes shifted to something at her right.  Instinct and a sixth sense registered at the same time. 

Where’s Shell—

A wrecking ball slammed into her ribs.  Her neck whipped sideways, smashing her ear against her shoulder.  Her feet came off the ground, she was airborne, and then her attacker speared her into the unforgiving concrete floor.  They rolled together, bodies smashing against a cabinet, glass doors exploding.

Sara tried to move, felt a piercing stab in her side.  Broken bone?  Knife?

Dizzy, dazed, glass digging into her arms, she lifted her head and saw the behemoth scrambling to his feet.

Heard Shelley’s voice say, “Upstairs, Samson.  Go.  Kill whoever it is.”

Saw a hand extending toward him, the flash of light on metal, and watched his thick fingers closing around the butt of a handgun.  He moved fast for his size.  He flew around an old workbench and then thundered up the stairs.

Sara tried to sit up, but the dizziness and throbbing pain pushed her back down.  She listened to her children bawling as Shelley knelt over her.

Face to face, Shelley smiled.  “Almost, Sara.  You almost had me.  Something felt
off
about the way he was texting.  He always asks for
black
lace, and that comment about the hammer?  Total lie.  Mother never did a
thing
to him.”

Sara heard shouting overhead.  Two gunshots popped a second apart, followed by a single
thud
.  

Next came the sounds of unsteady footsteps clunking down the stairs.

Please be DJ, please be DJ.

And then
boom, boom, boom
as DJ tumbled down and crashed against the wall.  Left arm broken and twisted behind his back, blood pouring out of the bullet hole in his chest, staining his shirt.  He spat out a mouthful of blood and saliva, then said, “Police,” and collapsed into a lump.

His chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

Shelley smirked.  “Everybody dies in the end, huh?  Brian.  Samson.  You.  Your little angels.”

Sara mustered what strength she had left and swung at Shelley’s head.

Shelley blocked it, grabbed Sara’s arm, used her leverage to pull backward. 

The glass dug into Sara’s back, sliced through shirt and skin as Shelley dragged her across the floor, depositing her in front of the kids.  They screamed through their gags and struggled against their ropes.

Shelley used her knees to pin down Sara’s arms.  Slapped her across the cheek.  Yelled for the children to shut up, backhanding Sara across the other cheek.  She grabbed Sara’s shirt, twisted the material, and yanked her up, screaming into her face, “Where’s Michael?  Where’s Michael?  Where’s Michael?” growing louder and louder with each repetition.

Shelley lifted her hand and balled up her fist.

Gasping, Sara said, “Dead.  He’s dead.”

Shelley punched hard and fast.

Sara’s nose shattered with a sharp
crack
.  The room went white.  Her eyes began to water.

“Did you kill him?” Shelley said, jaws clenched, teeth grinding.  “Answer me.  Did you kill him?”

Sara gagged on the waterfall of blood in her throat.  Tried to swallow it, choking and coughing.  She said, “No, he shot—he shot himself.”

“Liar,” Shelley screamed.  She swung at Sara’s head again, leaning into the motion, putting everything she had behind it.

Sara was ready this time.  She squirmed out of the way and felt the blow grazing against her temple.

Shelley’s fist pounded into the concrete.

Sara heard the bones crunching next to her ear.

Shelley howled, leaning backward, cradling her hand.

It was just far enough.  Sara swung her legs up, wrapped them around Shelley’s neck, and yanked. 

The body followed the head.  Shelley went tumbling backward. 

Sara twisted and rolled with the momentum, tightening her leg-lock on Shelley’s throat, squeezing her thighs together, choking her.  Shelley flailed and kicked, hammering on Sara’s legs with weakening fists.

Sara clenched tighter and tighter, waiting until no more strength remained in the punches.  She released her grip and clambered around, straddling Shelley, pounding a fist into her jaw, her teeth, her temples.  Pounding, pounding, pounding.

She grabbed Shelley by the ears, leaned down, and pulled the slobber-drenched face closer to her own.  Blood dripped from Sara’s broken nose, splattering on Shelley’s cheeks, running into dazed and groggy eyes.

Shelley grinned and slurred, “Do it.  Kill me.”

“No, I will
not
kill you in front of my kids.”  Sara ground her teeth together, digging her nails into the back of Shelley’s ears.  “I don’t give a fuck about the messed up shit you had to deal with, but they don’t need to see it.  They don’t need to see it.  They’re little, they’re little, they’re little,” she said, thrashing Shelley’s head around.  “How
dare
you.” 

Shelley giggled and tried to break free.  “But we’re having so much fun.”

Sara tightened her grip.  “You told me I had one last question.  Well, here it is, bitch.  Are you ready to play
my
game?  I like to call it...
Resolution
.”

She slammed the back of Shelley’s skull into the floor once, twice, three times, knocking her unconscious.

Sara fell over.  Exhausted.  Relieved.

Knowing she’d done it. 

Knowing her children were going to be okay. 

Knowing she’d won...the game.

EPILOGUE

Sara struggled with letting the kids out of her sight, even months later.  Like most children, time passed differently for them, and the events of that day were a distant and lightly scarred memory.  Something they referred to as ‘Remember that time?’
while Sara dreamed of dying in a cage beside Teddy’s lifeless body, night after night.  At the office, she was a frazzled mess in a well-pressed business suit.  The only things on Lacey, Callie, and Jacob’s minds were the inevitable end of summer break and the return to school in a week.  She dreaded sending them back to where it had all started and had entertained the idea of homeschooling. 

But life had to go on.  She kept reminding herself that she’d succeeded, but peace of mind was not a prize that she had won.

The only thing that gave her comfort was a single news article regarding an incident at Coffee Creek, a female correctional facility nearby.  It was vague, hinting at what happened to those who committed crimes against children.  It was easy to assume that many of those women were mothers themselves and hadn’t taken kindly to the new inmate.  No names were given in the article, but Sara had a good idea of whom the victim might’ve been.