CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

JENN

March 18 One Day before Drowning

It was time. I had to act, to make every possible preparation that day because if Rick got his way, we’d go on the boat trip tomorrow. I had about twenty-four hours to get ready.

While Ivy was down for her late-morning nap, I slipped one of Rick’s credit cards out of the box he kept in the top drawer of his nightstand. I’d just put it into my purse when Ivy woke up. After feeding and changing her, we headed out in the car.

First stop: the Maple Fork library for a few more research items. On the drive, my mind drifted to the day that started this entire mess: the day more than a year ago when I got the tattoo. Would my life have turned out like today if I hadn’t gotten inked? That was arguably the thing that set off this unbelievable series of events.

I’d still have gotten pregnant. But if I hadn’t started digging into who Rick was when I did, I probably wouldn’t know enough now to stop his plans. I’d still be living with a murderer, but unwittingly. I certainly wouldn’t be planning something as unthinkable as I was now.

If I could go back to change the last year, would I? No. Ivy was worth everything, and the steps I was taking now would, God willing, keep her alive and well. No matter what happened to me, a piece of me would live on in Ivy.

We arrived at the library, and I carried her inside, still buckled in her carrier. We wouldn’t be here long. I smiled at the librarian at the reception desk but moved quickly enough to hint that I was in a hurry and couldn’t talk.

I found an unclaimed computer along the back wall and sat at it, tilting the monitor so that others would have a harder time seeing it. I knew the librarians had set them up specifically so that no one could hide their screens—we had similar reasoning for the public computer setup at the Harvest Valley library. A slight tilt was all I could do without drawing attention to myself. It would have to do.

I took a few of the little slips of paper and a short pencil meant for taking notes. A couple of searches and about five minutes later, I knew what I’d be looking for at the grocery store. I closed out the browser and headed out of the library, Ivy babbling happily in her carrier, which sounded extra loud in a library—and when I was already on edge. I barely noted the librarian at the circulation desk as I left but hoped I gave her at least a polite smile.

Now I was on a mission: off to Mecham’s Market—the biggest store in Maple Fork that wasn’t a chain. I chose it because the security at the store wasn’t the best. A neighbor, Valerie, used to work there and she once told me how she hoped cops would never need their security tapes because the recordings only went back a few days before getting recorded over. If my luck held, by the time anyone would ask for the tapes to verify who made purchases here today, they wouldn’t exist.

I’d already made sure that Rick didn’t have any official meetings on his calendar today, so he wouldn’t be able to prove that he didn’t make this trip. As I pulled into the grocery store parking lot, I got close to backing out of my plan. What if I went on the boat trip, knowing I’d die, but left Ivy with Becca to make sure she’d be safe?

No, that wouldn’t work. For one thing, Rick would still be able to take care of—and hurt—Ivy. My body would probably never be found, and he’d disappear again. Kill again. I had to make sure that Rick would be stopped once and for all.

I stopped in the medication aisle to look for Benadryl. Rick could overpower me pretty easily: knock me out or drug me, then bind me with zip ties and drive me there. But if I was going to be drowned, hopefully I could make it less terrifying. Something better than being thrown into icy cold water, wide awake, like Rick was planning.

If my life was nearly over—and I was convinced it was—then it needed to end on my terms.

I grabbed a bottle of Benadryl and a few other cold medicines that I knew could make a person sleepy. Then I headed for the automotive aisle. When I reached the shelves of antifreeze, I found several colors.

I consulted my notes from the library and compared them with the labels on the jugs. I needed the kind with an ethylene glycol base, which, according to the colored chart I’d found, neither my Prius nor Rick’s Lexus used. Having a jug of it lying around would be suspicious. Good.

After casually thunking a jug of the greenish stuff into my cart, I headed to the frozen food case. I’d get Phish Food, my favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s, along with Rick’s favorite, Red Velvet Cake, which I found to be a disgusting parody of a bakery classic.

I found a container of Red Velvet ice cream and got one—not to butter up Rick, but so that this trip would look that much more like one he’d made. I paid for it all with Rick’s credit card. The total was small enough that I didn’t have to sign for it. He tended to pay more attention to the transactions in the checking account in my name rather than his.

“Have a nice night,” the checker said, handing me the bag of ice cream pints. I’d already hefted the jug into the cart.

“Thanks,” I said, not wanting to say anything else that would make this transaction stand out in his memory.

As I left the store, I glanced up at a camera above the exit. Had the system been upgraded since Valerie told me about the backups? How long ago did she tell me about the cameras? A year ago, maybe?

I looked back down at Ivy and made faces so she’d laugh, shaking off the idea that the camera had caught anything that would ruin my plans.

Back home in the garage, I camouflaged the antifreeze in the back of my car with a blanket, making it look like it was just part of the same old pile of stuff usually back there: a blanket, a case of jumper cables, a first-aid kit, and a stack of reusable grocery bags. Rick rarely, if ever, looked in my car, but I wasn’t taking chances.

As soon as I got Ivy settled in her high chair, I went upstairs to the master bedroom, where I replaced Rick’s credit card exactly where I’d found it, making sure to wipe my prints from it first, then wipe the drawer handle after I pushed it closed.

A happy screech floated up from the kitchen—Ivy’s babble that always made me smile. How many more times would I hear that adorable voice? Not enough.

Every time I hesitated about my plan, every time I wondered if I had what it would take to go through with it, all I had to do was think of Ivy.

I could do this. I had to do this.