The door swung open as if the place had been expecting him.
His heart began to thud in his chest.
'Beth?'
He listened for an answer. When he didn't get one, he followed with his son's name.
The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator.
His gaze shot around the kitchen and living room; then he was running up the carpeted steps.
Drip, drip, drip.
Coming from the bathroom.
Drip, drip, drip.
A leaking faucet.
He moved down the narrow, carpeted hallway, following the sound.
The bathroom door was ajar. He slowly pushed it open. Slowly stepped inside.
Lying facedown in a tub of water, blond hair spread around his head, was his son.
'No! God, no!'
David pulled him from the tub, turning the child in his arms, water gushing around him. He attempted CPR, but it was too late.
Christian's skin was blue. His lips were almost black.
He'd been dead a long time.
David let out a cry of anguish and hugged the dead child to him, out of his mind with grief.
A sound made him look up.
Beth stood in the doorway, her eyes red and swollen from tears, clutching the cat, Isobel.
'Wh-what happened? What happened?' David asked, unconsciously rocking his dead child, unable to comprehend.
'He told me if I got rid of the kid, he'd marry me.'
She stroked the cat, cuddled the cat, tilting her head toward it.
'Wh-what? Wh-what are you talking about?'
' Franklin. He said if I got rid of Christian, he'd marry me. So I did. Then I called him to come and get me, but he refused. He hung up on me.'
'Y-you did this? Y-you murdered our child?'
The tone of his voice frightened the cat. It squirmed and jumped from Beth's arms, disappearing from the room.
'I had no choice,' Beth said.
He had no memory of the next few seconds. Rage was like that.
He didn't know exactly how he got from the floor to her, but suddenly he had her by the throat, pressing his thumbs into her trachea, shutting off the murdering bitch's air.
He would have killed her if the police hadn't come. Her boyfriend had called them, saying he thought his girlfriend may have murdered her child. One more minute and David would have been in prison too.
Killing her would have been worth prison.
'I'm not sure I'm going to sign those,' Beth said from her chair across the table.
The lawyers looked at each other.
Her lawyer cleared his throat. 'Come on, Beth. Sign.'
David wouldn't have even had to come, but he'd thought doing it in person would give him the closure that had been eluding him for so long.
She signed. Paper after paper. When she was done, she tossed the pen down. It slid across the table and hit the floor. Her lawyer had to retrieve it, examining it with concern.
David signed, and they were done.
'You creep! It's all your fault,' Beth shouted, her face contorted with rage and hatred. 'All your fault! Look what you've done to me! I could have been somebody! I could have been a model. An actress.'
She stuck out her chin, displaying a plump and ravaged face. 'Look at me now! LOOK AT ME!'
He turned and walked from the room, his shoulders sagging with an incredible weight, while she continued to scream after him.
Chapter 17
Somebody was knocking on his apartment door.
David had gotten home from Virginia a few hours earlier. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he'd made a beeline for the liquor store and was now fairly fucked-up.
Didn't help.
Maybe made it worse.
He couldn't get his head to shut off. Replay after replay.
Flashes.
Beth. Fat. In an orange jumpsuit. A slimmer Beth, at the door, holding Isobel.
Christian.
David could feel the dead weight of his son in his arms.
He let out a sob. He bit the back of his hand, smothering the sound.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It's over now, he tried to tell himself, rocking back and forth on the floor.
Over, over, over.
Christian. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Another sob was wrenched from deep inside him.
Knock, knock, knock.
Dead, dead, dead.
'David?'
Voice at the door. Woman's voice. Who? Beth?
'David, are you in there?'
Not Beth.
He shoved himself up from the floor. How had he gotten there?
Barefoot, he shuffled to the door and looked through the peephole. Somebody with long, dark hair. Who?
He undid the chain, unlocked the door, and opened it.
Oh. Her. Flora.
'Hi,' she said.
It was dark in the hallway. It was dark behind him.
'I went to the SCAD art fair in Forsyth Park,' she said, lifting something in a frame. 'I picked this up for your apartment.' She swung it around.
Lots of color. Bright reds. Bright blues. Was that a cat? He liked cats. Swirly, spinning cats.
'Howdy,' he said, stepping backward. The room slanted and he had to grab the kitchen counter for support. 'Shit,' he muttered, closing his eyes and resting his heavy forehead against the cool Formica.
Flora closed the door, leaned the framed print against the wall, pulled her purse strap from her shoulder, and dropped the bag on the floor. 'What are you doing to yourself?'
She'd seen a lot of wasted guys in her life, but the man she'd been fantasizing about for the last several days was about as wasted as a person could get while still remaining conscious.
He was dressed in a pair of black pants that matched a jacket slung over the back of a nearby chair. Along with the jacket was a leather holster and gun. His shirt and tie had been removed, leaving him in a white, V- necked T-shirt.
'Oh, no, you don't,' she said when she saw him lifting a fifth of something to his mouth. She snatched it away and read the label. 'Gin. No wonder you smell like a Christmas tree.' She walked to the sink and dumped the rest down the drain.
