Chapter Fifty-Nine
Susan Pollack watched from the woods, smoking. Her car was hidden safely around the block from the apartment house.
At around one P.M., she saw Charlie and his brother pull up.
Chase.
The two of them stayed in the car and talked for a while before going in. Though far away, something in Chase’s hanging head and tormented expression gave her a feeling of delight. It was too bad that his nosy brother and his whore of a wife had escaped the little present at the market earlier.
It had made her giddy, watching the two of them fighting for their lives in the flaming car. As it was, just hearing the bitch’s screams, seeing the shell-shocked looks of panic and fear on their terrified faces, had almost been enough. She knew there would be other times for them. And soon.
Soon, my darling. Mags smiled from the woods.
Her blood stirred with an exhilaration she had not felt for many years. Susan, that shell of a dried-up woman, who had dutifully done what was asked of her, was dead now.
But Mags was very much alive.
You never left me, all these years. Not for a single second. Our thoughts have always been entwined. I know it was me all along who nurtured you. The one you truly wanted. The others were just the playthings who threw themselves at you. They were candy to make you smile. But it was me, your Maggie Mae, your Mags, who was your music. Who gave you the will to do what had to be done.
Who was your true music!
She saw movement coming from the car. Charlie and his brother got out and went inside.
Well, wait till you see what the music has in store for you now, Charlie.
Her thighs felt alive, moist for the first time in years. Isn’t that what you said, my love? That nothing could ever be evil, not if it comes from love.
And what greater love could I have shown for you? This is my gift. I am yours whenever you want me. I always have been.
I know you can hear me, Russell. There are walls, but what is between us cannot be kept out. It knows no walls.
“No one knows when the master will choose to come back, or in what manner.”
I have never forsaken you for a second, my love. You gave me the gift of love back then. You protected me.
You left me behind.
Now I give it back to you. In full.
Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross's books
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone