Kellen was right. Cecilia couldn’t look at herself, into her own haunted, shamed eyes.
Kellen continued, “We used to resemble each other so much people thought we were sisters, called us by the other’s name. Now…you’re haggard, old before your time.”
Cecilia sighed, a feeble whimper that made her ashamed. Again. So much shame.
In that distinctive, decisive tone, Kellen said, “Cousin, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re leaving him today. Now.”
Fear grabbed Cecilia by the throat. “I can’t. I need my…things. My…” Cecilia struggled to think of what was important. “My photos. Of my parents.”
“Don’t you have them on digital?”
“I don’t have a…phone or a…”
“He doesn’t let you have electronics. Okay. First I’ll put you in a cab and send you down to my hotel in Greenleaf.” Kellen called the taxi. Because Kellen did what she said she would do when she said she would do it. “You’ll have the same cabdriver I had. Talkative, but really nice. You’ll be safe with him. I’ll walk to that pissant little house you call a home and get your photos. I’ll meet you at the hotel. We’ll drive to my place in New York. I’ll take care of you.”
Cecilia felt as if she was fighting a spiderweb, trying to free herself yet caught ever tighter. “I should tell him. Explain.”
“I’ll tell him. I’ll explain. I’d like to do that.” Kellen’s relish weighed her voice with pleasure.
Cecilia had to tell the truth. She didn’t want to. Kellen would despise her. Who wouldn’t? “You don’t understand. He’ll come after me. I tried to leave once and he was watching me.” If you leave me, I’ll kill you and I’ll kill myself.
“He has cameras in that house?”
“I’m so clumsy. He wants to make sure I don’t hurt myself.”
“Can you hear yourself? Hear the things you’re saying? You’re so terrified and battered you’re brainwashed.”
Cecilia stared at Kellen, mute with terror.
Kellen knew. Kellen saw. “Honey, I won’t let him get you.”
“He’ll be angry. He’s strong.”
“I know. But you’ll be safe. That’s what matters. You can live with me. Heal. Be yourself again. Come on.” Kellen helped Cecilia to her feet.
Kellen was so brave. Bossy, of course. She always had been. Cecilia had never been like Kellen, but she knew, too, her marriage had changed her from a hopeful girl on the edge of womanhood to a trembling leaf in the frigid wind, always waiting, fearing that shocking moment of violence.
Kellen towed Cecilia down the hill toward the road and in a bracing voice said, “It won’t take me more than a half hour, then we’ll be outta here. We’ll drive down the highway, windows down, and laugh at the world. Remember how we used to travel together?”
“Yes.” Nevada roads. Battered old barns. Long straight stretches of desert roads with no turns or kinks. “Those were…good memories.”
“We’ll have them again. Today.” Kellen dug money out of her jeans pocket, handed it over. “Here’s twelve dollars for the cab, then a few bucks for something to eat out of the gift shop. Here’s the key card for the room. Don’t let anyone in except me. Wait here for the cab.”
Cecilia sat in the grass on the side of the road and watched Kellen stride toward the honeymoon cottage. Honeymoon from hell. She wanted to laugh; she sobbed instead. It had been so long since she had been down to Greenleaf, over a year since her trip to the hospital. The town wasn’t three miles from the Lykke estate, yet she didn’t want to leave. Because she loved Gregory, even when…he hurt her.
She gripped the clumps of grass, her fingers aching. She did love him, didn’t she?
She had once, two years ago during that brief warm summer when he had seen her walking the rocky beach. He told her she delighted him with her laughter, that he wanted to spend his life making her happy. He bought her flowers, candy. He tried to buy her jewelry, and when she rejected it, he said he respected her. It was the courtship she had read about in books, the gentle wooing she had imagined. He begged, and she had married him. He had made love to her, a glorious experience of worship and respect.
She hadn’t wanted to live in the main house with his mother and sister; clearly, they weren’t enamored of her and she thought the concept of living in the family home was weird, a guy in his thirties living with his mommy and sister. She had put her foot down—or so she thought—and Gregory had been glad to move into the cottage at the edge of the cliff. He called it their honeymoon cottage and Cecilia was gloriously happy.
Slowly, gradually, the atmosphere had darkened. A cold dark winter such as Cecilia, desert girl that she was, had never imagined.
She talked about inviting her aunt and uncle and cousin; Gregory wanted to be alone with her.
He pointed out the things she did wrong; she argued.
He didn’t care for her tone of voice; he was older and knew better.
Eventually, she found it easier to concede…to everything.
He arbitrarily changed his mind. She pointed that out, and he brutally corrected her.
She got bored and asked for a job.
He laughed at her, asked her what she imagined she could do, her, a high school graduate without an exalted family background or a higher education.
She walked to the village, went to the bookstore, bought lofty tomes to improve her mind, a few paperbacks for fun reading, an e-reader so she could grab a magazine while the northers blew in off the Atlantic…
In a humiliating scene, he came and got her, dragged her out, took her home and spanked her. He hadn’t cared about sex, not since the first month, but when she cried, he consoled her. Then she was pregnant. When she realized—oh God, she had always wanted children—she rushed to the main house to tell him.
That was when he had pushed her down the stairs—broken bones and a baby’s life that faded before it began.
The doctor said there wouldn’t be any more children.
Gregory said, You and me, together forever. The two of us, alone.
Now, as she waited for the cab to take her to the village, she tried to think how Gregory would react when Kellen confronted him, what he would do when he discovered Cecilia intended to leave him.
I’ll kill you and I’ll kill myself.
That was what he had promised, and she believed him.
But first…he would kill Kellen.
Cecilia scrambled to her feet.
He would kill Kellen.
She ran through red-leafed huckleberry patches.
Why hadn’t she told Kellen about the baby? Why hadn’t she told Kellen about the cruelties?
Because she was embarrassed to be so stupid as to pick an abusive man, humiliated to be so weak and afraid. In withholding that information, she had sent Kellen to her death.
Cecilia reached the rise half a mile above the cottage and stopped, gasping, holding her broken ribs. The sun shone on the old tar-and-gravel roof. Yellow daylilies surrounded the foundation…
Gregory walked around the corner of the house holding something metal, long and cruel-looking.
He would hurt Cecilia. He would kill her.
Cecilia froze, gasping, fear and chills holding her in place.
He would hurt Kellen. He would kill her.
Desperation and guilt fought to send Cecilia forward.
Gregory knelt at the gas meter, using something—a pipe wrench?—to fiddle with the connection.
Cecilia scanned the area, looking for Kellen, and she spotted her. There she was, inside the house, sitting on the couch, facing the front door, her back to the picture window, waiting to confront Gregory.
Gregory stood, dropped the wrench onto a clump of golden daylilies, wiped his hands on his dark trousers. He was handsome, tall, strong. And so cruel… He walked briskly around the house, as if on some kind of timetable.
Without him in sight, Cecilia was able to move. She ran toward the house. Through the window, she saw him come through the front door—with a pickax, its long spike lethal and shining.
“No!” Cecilia ran faster. “Kellen! Come on!”
Kellen didn’t budge. Maybe she was afraid.
No, not Kellen. Even if she was afraid, she would react.
As Gregory approached, Kellen slumped forward on the cushions.