Cora stared down at the page; her eyes blinking. She sat in a leather club chair in the small den on the bottom floor of the house. She hadn’t had time yet to devour Mackenzie’s journal. The thick blue book might hold the key to secrets about her son that she needed to know and the thought had frightened her so, that every time she picked up the book she found herself unable to even open the cover. A small light on the end table now illuminated the page. She hunched over in her chair, her mouth twisted into an expression of misery. She held the journal with both hands so tightly her finger tips were white. Mackenzie’s frantic writing flowed across the page.
My marriage is going to fall apart unless I do something now. But what and how? If I can get him to trust me, that would help. I know almost nothing and when I try to get him to open up he pushes me away.
“This was last year,” Cora muttered.
She kept reading, the deep vertical line that formed between her brows becoming more pronounced with each passage.
Today was the best day in a long time. Nick actually had fun at the barbecue. We talked for a long time. Very unusual for the quiet man. Maybe it was the four beers he had, but he was different. Just more open. Finally!
Cora got up and paced the room. “Barbecues? He was having stupid barbecues? While I was just sitting here holding everything together!” Her voice started as a whisper but became louder as the moments passed. “Drinking beer? Like a…..” She threw the book and it hit the wall, falling onto the floor near the fireplace.
Small flames sputtered and it caught her attention. She walked to where the book lay and held it open by one corner, ready to drop it into the fire and watch it burn. It dangled by her fingertips when she stopped.
Nick got something in the mail today… Reading those words made her hesitate. She took the book back to her chair to finish the passage.
Don’t know what. Whatever it was he was so upset that he ran upstairs and practically destroyed his office, not that there’s much you could do to make that room worse. I don’t know what it was. He wouldn’t say and I never saw the envelope. He was shaking. Really shaking. He left the house and hasn’t been back since. That was three hours ago. He’s not answering his cell. I’m getting worried.
The corners of her mouth curled up just a bit. He didn’t tell her, Cora thought. She felt a calm come over her for a moment and she took a breath. This girl would stay for only a few days and then she could end the visit and send her home. The thought only flitted through her brain, for her eyes had landed on a particular passage further into the journal. She’d flipped to it quite by accident. She read and reread the words, panic spreading through her body, her breath catching in her throat, not moving into her lungs.
Blood is all over me. It is stuck in my pores. It’s under my fingernails. I killed my husband yesterday. He fought for his life, but not long or hard enough. You don’t know what it feels like to kill someone until it happens. I dream about him. He wakes me up at night, calling my name. He doesn’t seem angry but I know he is seeking revenge because I was driving the car. He is trying to break through, capture my mind. A carefully detailed plan was laid out for me. What I have to do now. I have no choice but to go through with it. She is a force to be reckoned with. A nice glass of wine, and a clean soft bed and things will…..be the same in the morning. Will dream tonight about blood on my hands and James.
These words screamed through Cora’s mind. Harrison had said there was nothing in this book. He was wrong. Oh, he was so wrong, she thought. Nick’s entire deception was in this book. His trust in the woman was in this book. The ultimate final betrayal was in this book.
She ripped the page from the journal and crumpled it into a ball. Her thoughts were racing but she knew she had to find Harrison. He was the only one who could calm her now. She flung open the thick wooden door leading out into the hallway, then stopped short, standing still. There had been a loud noise, a thump, coming from somewhere near the kitchen. Cora had become accustomed to the groans of the old house. She knew them intimately. This was something different. She hesitated. Investigate the noise or find Harrison? In a flash her decision was made; she raced across the hallway and into the dining room. She flung open the French doors. A bit of wind raced about her body, pushing her cotton dress against her knees. Darting across the lawn, and into the woods, she clutched the book in her arms.