"Where are you keeping her?" she finally asked.
He didn’t answer immediately, and he never moved away from the doorway from where he studied her every move.
“She didn’t suffer, Alice. I didn’t…” His voice trailed off, shame an acrid note to his words. “She’s dead, Alice. She’s dead because I refuse to let you go.”
Anger bursting inside her with such vehemence that it shot her to her feet, Alice spun on her shaky feet to stare at the expressionless face of her husband.
Satisfied with having gained her full attention, Max closed the distance between them with measured and controlled steps.
“How could you even think of leaving me, Alice? Haven’t I loved you enough? Provided for you enough?”
His hands reached out to grab her and Alice stepped back to avoid his touch, her leg tripping over the coffee table before she crashed down on top of it, her weight splitting the wood before she fell to the ground.
Max lunged to pick her up, but she crawled away, ignoring the pain that sliced across her body in electric shocks.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned, her voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you ever touch me, Max.”
His eyes narrowed with the rage her behavior was creating inside him, but instead of continuing towards her, he stared down at her with betrayal set behind his stare.
He said nothing as he stood watching her, and Alice was the first to cut through the suffocating silence.
“How? How did you even find her?”
He grinned, the expression a slice of steel across her bruised and battered senses. “You led her right to me. Like a beautiful gift wrapped in a pretty pink bow. I came home early last night and what do I see stuck on the winding path through the woods? Another car driven by a woman that had no business being on my property.”
Alice’s eyes rounded, her head shaking in disbelief.
He smiled brighter to see the panic written clearly across her face. “She deserved what she got, Alice. You should have heard the things she said about you. But I didn’t kill her like the others. I wouldn’t do that to you, my love. I knew you would never forgive me for doing something as terrible as that.”
He was insane. She’d known that since the moment he’d hurt her for the first time. But the realization had never been as immediate as it was to her right then.
Forcing herself to speak calmly in an effort to temper the rage she could clearly see building up inside him, Alice asked, “Didn’t you think I’d be upset that you killed her at all?”
Max didn’t answer her, and instead he looked away. Several seconds passed before he explained, “I thought you’d understand, Alice. I thought you’d appreciate the fact that I silenced one of the people who caused you so much pain. I dug a hole for her, a plot next to my parents in the family cemetery. She doesn’t deserve to remain in your garden. Her body would only destroy the sanctity of your space.”
Stepping away, he stopped before he’d crossed through the doorway into another room. Turning his head to talk to her from over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll finish burying her before her body starts to rot, and when I come back inside, we’ll fix this. I won’t let that bitch break us apart.”
It was the final straw, the unforgivable event that finally broke through Alice’s carefully constructed web of denial. Reality slammed into her like a runaway train, the realization that with one phone call – one single bad decision – she’d handed over her sister to the Devil himself.
Something snapped inside Alice, a cord pulled taut that had once held all her delicate and fragile pieces in place. And with that snap came the stark and blinding truth that the only kindness Alice could ever provide the man she loved was to end him and finally put the monster down.
She waited in place for Max to climb down into the musty depths of the dark and damp basement, for the door to close behind him so that she could move quickly without fear of being heard. Dashing into the kitchen she saw the cleaver on the black granite counter, its silver blade gleaming beneath the pendant lights that swung softly above it.
Her fingers gripped around the wooden handle, the metal sliding against stone as she pulled it away and held it down at her side. Tears streamed over her cheeks at the thought of what she had to do, at the harrowing reality that she’d been left with no other choice than to end the nightmare of her life.
Shock was a balm that numbed her sorrow, and with furtive steps, she crept forward until she stood by the basement door.