Leann Sweeney - Pick Your Poison

Knowing I should call 911 and tell the police to follow her, I instead sat on the bottom stair, anger, fear, and confusion taking over. Maybe Jeff got my message. Maybe he was available.

I opened my purse to find my cell phone, but instead my fingers touched something at first unfamiliar. And then I remembered the small videotape from Hamilton’s office. I’d forgotten all about it.

I imagined myself huddled behind the door that day at Parental Advocates, holding my breath as Hamilton came in for the copy of the check.

And then it clicked.

Hamilton had come back to her office with a man that afternoon. I’d heard his voice. Probably wasn’t Feldman the Phobic, if what she said about him earlier was true. I had a sick feeling I knew who it was, though.

Hamilton’s shoes, the ones I’d seen her put on upstairs, were the same Pappagallo shoes tucked under Steven’s coffee table the night I went to his apartment about the canceled checks. Could the man who accompanied Hamilton to her office that afternoon have been Steven? Had I felt so guilty about rejecting him, been so worried he’d relapse into alcoholism, I chose to be blinded by his “I’m so in love with you” act? Hell, they write country songs more believable than the game he’d been playing with me.

The checks Daddy had written to Steven loomed large in this picture. My ex-husband had indeed changed in the last few months, but not in the direction I thought. When he stopped drinking, that conniving mind of his had kicked into high gear. And then the night Steven and Jeff had fought on my lawn returned like it happened yesterday. What if Steven had dismantled the attic looking for evidence connecting Ben and Daddy? What if he was leaving my house right after he’d done just that—and was not arriving , as I’d assumed? He probably spotted Jeff Kline’s car across the street, and knowing the neighborhood, correctly assumed that a stranger parked there at one A.M. had to be either a cop or private security. That was when he came back in the house and fabricated the blueprint cover story—after making enough noise to ensure that I awoke and investigated. I nodded, my mouth settling into a frown. Another betrayal, one I should have expected.

I stared at the tape I held. Here was the proof. When I had hidden behind the door at Parental Advocates, the camera was recording everything. With the door wide-open, it would have taped the outer office—and whoever was in the outer office.

I turned the tape over and over, eyes closed, jaw tight. “Don’t do this, Abby,” I said. “You don’t need to see this right now. Give the tape to Jeff.”

I was feeling what Steven probably felt every time he thought about taking a drink. I shouldn’t. This will hurt me. Don’t destroy what little hope you have left.

And like Steven, I couldn’t stop myself.

“There’s got to be a VCR somewhere in this mausoleum,” I said, rising.

After wandering through the lavish home, I found a room large enough to accommodate the Houston Rockets for preseason practice. Beyond the pool table and bar sat a big-screen TV. I supposed that if you hadn’t left your house for three years, it helped to have a few fancy toys to pass the time. Feldman had all the equipment I needed to confirm my suspicions about Steven, even an adapter for the smaller-size tape.

Not the greatest quality, I noted, once I got things working. The picture was huge, very grainy.

There I was, sneaking around in the hallway. And there I was hiding after I heard them arrive. The door opened and... yes! I could make out a man’s figure framed in the front doorway. But the daylight behind him made it hard to make out his features. In the next few frames, Hamilton walked back out with the paper in her hand and picked something up—her purse—then shut the door. I rewound, stopped the tape, and advanced frame by frame, then paused and took in the man’s poorly focused face. That hairline, the curve of those lips, God, I knew them almost as well as my own. Knew the face of a killer.

I called home once I was back on the road, and Kate answered, sounding breathless and anxious.

“It’s me,” I said. “Did Steven call?” I swerved to avoid a patch of high water on the right.

“No. I’m relieved to hear your voice. Where are you, Abby?”

“Galveston. What about Jeff?”

“He phoned. I gave him your cell phone number. After I told him you were looking for that CD, he sounded pretty irritated, and I’m feeling the same way. You took a bad fall yesterday, and the roads aren’t fit to travel. You should have been home long ago.”

“With this weather, it’ll take me an hour to get back to Houston. Expect me about nine.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t you have your radio on? An eighteen-wheeler overturned on the causeway and it’s taking an hour to get from Broadway off the island.”

“Damn. I’ll wait on P Street, if it’s not flooded over there already.”

“That street sometimes fills with water, Abby. Why not wait it out in a restaurant or—”

“I need a quiet place, somewhere to think things through.”

“Are you okay?” Kate said.

“I’m fine. Call me when the causeway is clear. The digital networks jam up in emergencies, so phone me at the Victorian.”

She didn’t know the number, so I gave it to her; then she said, “If Steven calls, I’ll tell him where he can reach you and—”

“No!” I practically shouted. “Tell him nothing.”

“There is something wrong,” said Kate.

I steered around more gigantic puddles. “You’ve had enough revelations for one day. Besdies, you’re starting to break up. ’Bye.” I clicked off the phone and, seeing that the battery was low, plugged it into the cigarette lighter.

I turned onto Seawall Boulevard and found the street practically deserted. Usually the tourists hung in like a hair in a biscuit no matter what the weather, but not tonight. A jagged flash lit the murky gulf to my left, and a tremendous clap of thunder followed.

My neck ached and my rear throbbed where that nail had punctured me. I wanted to be home sleeping, free from the truth now invading my life like Attila stomping across Europe.

When I turned onto P Street, the water was almost to the curb. I’d have to pay attention, be ready to leave if real flooding was imminent.

The house next to the Victorian was vacant and sat on higher ground than ours, so I took the precaution of parking the 4Runner in that driveway. I used the back entrance leading to the kitchen, anxious to swallow more pain medicine. I ached all over.

Steven had cleared a path through the mudroom and patched the damage done by the fallen bathroom, but he hadn’t tidied up. I found empty Gatorade containers, bug spray, crumpled brown bags from McDonald’s... but not a glass amid the clutter. I gave up and cupped my hand under the faucet, gulping the pills down.

I wandered back into the front parlor, knowing I should go upstairs and make sure the whole second floor wasn’t soaked because of that gigantic hole in the wall. But the pain in my legs reminded me of the challenge stairs presented.

I limped to the window and opened the wood shades, checking on the street flooding. Just then I noticed a truck turn the corner and deaden its lights.

I quickly narrowed the shades, recognizing that pickup. I turned out the light and slipped into the closet, not wanting to confront Steven alone. Not stranded here. I huddled in the far corner, praying he’d come and go quickly.

The back door opened and I heard Steven grunting and groaning, then dragging noises.

He must have turned on the hall light, because a sliver of brightness appeared. Almost simultaneously the closet door flew open.