Criminal

“Oh, my God.” Amanda realized, “Ophelia.”

nineteen

Present Day

SUZANNA FORD

The darkness. The cold. The noise.

Air sucking in and out, like a car zooming through a tunnel.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Her body ached. Her mouth was dry. Her stomach was so empty that she felt as if the acids were eating a hole in her belly.

Meth.

That was what had brought her here. Brought her low. She had fallen too far. She had put herself in the gutter. She had brought herself to this place.

Dear Jesus, she prayed. If you get me out of here, I will worship You every day. I will exalt Your name.

The claustrophobia. The absolute darkness. The unknowing. The fear of suffocation.

Way back when they were still a family, her father had taken them all on a trip to Wales. There was a mine there, something from thousands of years ago. You had to wear a hard hat to go into the tunnels. They were small because people weren’t as tall back then. They were narrow because most of the workers were children.

Suzanna had gone in twenty feet before she started freaking out. She could still see sunlight from the opening, but she’d nearly pissed herself running back toward the entrance.

That was what it felt like now. Trapped. Hopeless.

I will praise You. I will spread Your word. I will humble myself before You.

Arms couldn’t move. Legs couldn’t move. Eyes couldn’t open. Mouth couldn’t open.

Meth will never touch my lips, my nose, my lungs, ever again, so help me God.

The tremble started slow, coursing through her body, straining her muscles. Her fingers flexed into a fist. She clenched her shoulders, her teeth, her ass. The threads pulled. The pain was excruciating. Hot needles touching raw nerves. Her heart was going to explode in her chest. She could rip herself away. She was stronger than this. She could rip herself away.

Suzanna tried. She tried so hard. But each time, the pain won.

She couldn’t make the skin tear. She couldn’t make the thread break.

She could only lie there.

Praying for salvation.

Dear Jesus—

twenty

Present Day

TUESDAY

Will awoke with a start. His neck cracked as he stretched it side to side. He was at home, sitting on his couch. Betty was beside him. The little dog was on her back. Legs up. Nose pointed toward the front door. Will glanced around, looking for Faith. She’d driven him home from the morgue. She’d gone to get him a glass of water and now, judging by the clock on the TiVo, it was almost two hours later.

He listened to the house. It was quiet. Faith had left. Will didn’t know how he felt about that. Should he be relieved? Should he wonder where she had gone? There was no guidebook for this part of his life. No instructions he could follow to put it all back together.

He tried to close his eyes again, to go back to sleep. He wanted to wake up a year from now. He wanted to wake up and have all of this over.

Only, he couldn’t get his eyes to stay closed. Every time he tried, he found himself staring back up at the ceiling. Was that what it had been like for his mother? According to the autopsy report, her eyes had not always been sewn closed. Sometimes, they had been sewn open. The medical examiner posited in the report that Will’s father would have to stay close by during these periods. He would have to use a dropper to keep her eyes from drying out.

Dr. Edward Taylor. That was the name of the medical examiner. The man had died in a car accident fifteen years ago. He’d been the first investigator Will had tried to track down. The first dead end. The first time Will had felt relief that there was no one around to explain to him exactly what had happened to his mother.

“Hey.” Faith came out of his spare bedroom. He could see that the light was still on. His books were in there. All his CDs. Car magazines he’d collected over the years. Albums from way back. It had probably taken Faith less than ten seconds to figure out which items were most out of place. She held the books in her hand. The New Feminist Hegemony. Applied Statistical Models: Theory and Application. A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

He said, “You can go home now.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.” She put his mother’s textbooks on the table as she sat in the recliner. The file was on the table, too. Will had left it there this morning. Faith had probably paged through everything while he was sleeping. He should’ve felt angry that she’d been prying, but there was nothing left inside of him. Will was utterly devoid of any emotion. He’d felt it happen when he first saw Sara at the morgue. His initial impulse was to weep at her feet. To tell her everything. To beg her to understand.

And then—nothing.

It was like a stopper being pulled. All of the feeling had just drained out of him.

The rest flashed in his mind like a movie preview that gave away every plot twist: The battered girl. The painted fingernails. The ripped skin. The sound of Sara’s breath catching when Will told her—told everyone—that his father was to blame.

Sara was a verbal woman, outspoken at times, and not usually one to hold back her opinion. But in the end, she’d said nothing. After nearly two weeks of living with that inquisitive look in her eyes, there were no questions she wanted to ask. Nothing she wanted to know. It was all laid out in front of her. Amanda was right about the autopsy. Will shouldn’t have been there. It had been like watching his mother being examined, processed, catalogued.

And Angie was right about Sara. It was too much for her to handle.

Why had he thought for even a second that Angie was wrong? Why had he thought Sara would be different?

Will had just stood there in the morgue, frozen in time and place. Staring at Sara. Waiting for her to speak. Waiting for her to scream or yell or throw something. He would probably still be there but for Amanda ordering Faith to take him home. Even then, Faith had to grab Will’s arm and physically pull him from the room.

Close-up on Sara. Her face pale. Her head shaking. Fade to black.