A Flicker in the Dark

“You’ll be home Sunday, then?”

I nod, the prospect of four full, uninterrupted days enough to make me melt into the carpet. It’s a relief, really. Getting away. Getting to stop the pretending, the constant acting that’s required of me every time I step foot in my own home. And hopefully, after this trip, I won’t need to act anymore. I won’t need to pretend. I won’t need to sleep with my body pressed against his, concealing the cringe that shudders down my back every time his lips graze against my neck. After this trip, I will have the evidence I need to go to the police, finally. To make them believe me, finally.

But that doesn’t make what I’m about to do any easier.

“I’ll miss you,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed. I’ve been distant since the night of the alarm and he knows it. He can sense it, sense me pulling away. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and force myself to stand, to walk over toward him and take a seat by his side.

“I’ll miss you, too,” I say, holding my breath as he pulls me in for a kiss. He holds my head in his hands, cradling my skull in that familiar way. “But hey, I have to go.”

I pull back, standing up and walking to my suitcase, closing the flap and zipping it shut.

“I have a few appointments this morning, then I’m leaving straight from the office. Melissa and I are riding together, and we’ll pick up Shannon on the way.”

“Have fun.” He smiles. For a brief second, watching him sit on the edge of the bed by himself, his fingers laced together as his palms rest heavy in his lap, I sense a sadness that I’ve never seen in him before. The kind of desperate longing that I had once recognized in myself, before Daniel, when I felt the loneliest in the company of others. Just weeks ago, I would have felt guilty, that familiar pang in the chest when you lie to someone you love. I am sneaking around behind his back, digging into his past the way I have always chastised others for doing to me. But this is different, I know. This is serious. Because Daniel isn’t me—I know he’s not me. But I’m becoming increasingly certain that he may be just like my father.

I arrive at my office thirty minutes before my first appointment, duffel bag slung over one shoulder. I walk quickly past Melissa’s desk, waving at her as she takes a sip of her latte, trying to avoid lengthy conversation about my upcoming trip. I told her it was for wedding planning, but beyond that very vague description, I’m lacking any legitimate details. My primary concern had been providing a believable alibi to Daniel, and so far, I think I’ve done pretty well.

“Doctor Davis,” she says, placing her cup on the desk. I’m halfway through my office door before turning toward the sound of her voice. “Sorry, but you have a visitor. I told him you have an appointment, but … he’s been waiting.”

I turn toward my waiting room, glancing at the cluster of couches in the corner that I had completely ignored on my way in, and there, sitting on the far edge of one of them, is Detective Thomas. He’s holding a magazine open in his lap and smiles in my direction before flipping it closed and tossing it back on the coffee table.

“Good morning,” he says, standing up to greet me. “Going somewhere?”

I look down at my duffel bag, then back up to the detective, who has already halved the distance between us.

“Just a little trip.”

“Where to?”

I chew on the side of my cheek, very aware of Melissa’s presence behind me.

“New Orleans,” I say. “I’m running some last minute wedding errands. They have some boutiques there, different vendors I wanted to check out.”

When I find myself caught up in a lie, I’ve found it’s always best to simplify it. To stick to the same version as often as possible. If Daniel thinks I’m in New Orleans, then Melissa and Detective Thomas might as well think the same thing. I catch Detective Thomas’s eyes glancing down at the ring on my finger before looking back up, nodding gently.

“This will just take a few minutes.”

I extend my arm to my office, turning around and smiling at Melissa as I lead him across the waiting room, attempting to convey a sense of calm and control despite the panic rising in my chest. The detective follows me inside and shuts the door.

“So, what can I do for you, Detective?”

I walk behind my desk and set my bag on the ground, pulling out my chair and taking a seat. I hope he’ll follow my lead and do the same, but he remains standing.

“I wanted to let you know that I spent the week following up on your lead. Bert Rhodes.”

I raise my eyebrows; I forgot about Bert Rhodes. So many things have happened over the past week that have shifted my focus—the necklace in our closet and the revelation about Aubrey Gravino, the perfume on Daniel’s shirt and the lying about the conference and the scratch across his side. The visit with my mother, the things I had found in Daniel’s briefcase, now tucked into my own duffel bag. The evidence I had been looking for, and the evidence I’m traveling this weekend to find. The memory of Bert Rhodes in my home, holding that drill, his eyes boring into mine, feels so distant to me now. But I still remember that feeling of paralysis, of fear. Of my feet firmly planted on the ground despite the mounting sense of danger. But now danger has taken on a whole new meaning. At least I wasn’t living under the same roof as Bert Rhodes; at least he didn’t have a key to access the doors that I had locked behind me. I’m feeling almost nostalgic for last week, yearning for that moment—standing in my hallway, back against the door—when the line between good and bad was so clearly defined.

Detective Thomas shifts on his feet and suddenly, I feel guilt, too. Guilt for sending him down this rabbit hole. Yes, Bert Rhodes is a bad man. Yes, I felt unsafe in his presence. But the evidence I’ve uncovered in the past week doesn’t point in his direction—and I feel like I should say so. But still, I’m curious.

“Oh, really. What did you find?”

“Well, for starters, he wants to take out a restraining order. Against you.”

“What?” The shock of his statement sends me shooting up from my desk, the screech of my chair against the hardwood floor like jagged nails on a chalkboard. “What do you mean, a restraining order?”

“Please take a seat, Doctor Davis. He told me he felt threatened during his little visit to your house.”

“He felt threatened?” I’m raising my voice now; I’m sure Melissa can hear, but at this point, I don’t care. “How in the world did he feel threatened? I felt threatened. I was unarmed.”

“Doctor Davis, take a seat.”

I stare at him for a moment, blinking back my disbelief, before slowly lowering myself into my chair again.

“He claims that you lured him into your home under false pretenses,” he continues, taking a step closer to my desk. “That he arrived under the impression that he was completing a job, but once he stepped inside, he realized you had other intentions. That you were interrogating him, pushing his buttons. Trying to get him to admit to something incriminating.”

“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t call him to my house, my fiancé did.”

I feel a lurch in my chest at that word—fiancé—but force myself to push it down.

“And how did your fiancé get his number?”

“I imagine from the website.”

“And why were you looking at the website? It seems like a pretty big coincidence, considering your history.”

“Look,” I say, pushing my hands through my hair. I can already see where this is going. “I had his website pulled up, okay? I had just realized that Bert Rhodes lives in town and I was thinking about how coincidental it is, to your point. I was thinking about those girls and how desperately I wanted to figure out what was happening to them. My fiancé saw it pulled up on my laptop and called him without me knowing. It was just a stupid misunderstanding.”

Detective Thomas nods in my direction. He doesn’t believe me, I can tell.

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