Something pulled Abigail from the oblivion of sleep. Her head pounded. Surely someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer. She lay motionless, trying to gather the will to hunt down the Tylenol.
Before she could move, she sensed a change in the room. Her eyes snapped open. It was dark, save for a sliver of light beneath the door. Even as her eyes skimmed past, a shadow fell at its base. She heard the quiet click of her doorknob turning.
Abigail’s heart raced, the pounding in her head all but forgotten.
It’s just Maddy.
She watched the gap between the door and frame widen. The article from the night before surged to her mind, adding fuel to her thudding heart.
A hulking silhouette formed against the background. Broad shoulders, trim waist. Why was Wade coming in here? Did he know about her research? Had she left the laptop in the living room? Had he looked at her history? She couldn’t turn her head to check her nightstand, couldn’t let him know she was awake.
Think, Abigail!
Wade took a step toward the bed and then another. What should she do? Better he think her asleep and helpless, she decided, tensing at his approach. The floor creaked quietly under his feet as his form swallowed the light from the hall.
He held something. The light flashed off it. Her breaths became shallow puffs.
Then he was there. Beside her bed. Leaning over.
Oh, God, what do I do? She pressed her lips together, forbidding the scream that gathered in her throat.
“Abigail,” he whispered.
She clutched the sheet between them, a pathetic barrier. Killers didn’t wake their victims, did they? Except the cruel ones. If he’d wanted her dead—
“Abigail?” His voice was louder, more insistent.
He wasn’t going away. “What?” The croak squeezed from her restricted throat.
“You okay?”
He woke her to ask if she was okay? “What?”
“Making sure you’re all right—no concussion.”
Her fingers relaxed on the sheet, and her pounding head reclaimed her attention. He hadn’t come to murder her. He’d come to check on her. If there were a Ninny of the Year Award, she’d just earned it.
Abigail’s heart rate slipped into a lower gear. “I’m fine.” Fine as could be for someone who thought she was about to be slaughtered in her own bed.
“Brought you Tylenol.”
Of course he did. She sighed.
“Head still banging?”
Was it ever. “Yeah.” She sat up, took the glass, and downed the pills he offered. She set the glass on the nightstand and lay back. “Thanks.”
Wade slipped quietly from the room, pulled the door until there was nothing but the sliver of light beneath it. The clock’s hands read two. His gentle whisper still filled her ears, haunting her. She forced it from her mind, making herself remember the article, remember the new piece of evidence.
She hated inconsistency. Things were usually black-and-white for her. Sure, people had both good and bad in them, but in her experience one dominated. Wade’s past looked black, but his present seemed white. It was confusing, and she couldn’t think with the jackhammer going off in her head. She needed sleep. In the morning she’d be able to separate fact from feeling. That was the only way to get to the truth.
Abigail rolled over and closed her eyes against the banging. The adrenaline surge had left her weak and shaky. Instead of focusing on sleep, her thoughts rewound to earlier in the day when Wade had swept her into his arms. She was not a petite girl, had never been swept up into any man’s arms. Had never desired a man to lift her from her two perfectly capable feet.
And yet there it was. She’d liked it. A lot.
Why was she thinking such things? About a man who may have killed his own wife? What was wrong with her? Maybe she did have a concussion after all. Brain damage, in fact, if she was harboring romantic thoughts about someone who might be a murderer.
But he didn’t seem like the kind of man . . .
Are you going there again, Abigail Jones? Really?
No, she wasn’t. It was easy for people to pretend to be something they weren’t. She knew better than most. The memory fogged her mind, spreading, growing, until it was the only thing.
. . . She was ten years old, wearing her favorite periwinkle T-shirt and the matching braided friendship bracelet Julia had made her. She’d made Julia one too—a yellow one to match her pretty blond hair. After all, they had been best friends since Julia moved in four years earlier.
They were going to make more bracelets tonight and sell them during recess at school tomorrow for a quarter each. Abigail clutched her bag, traipsing through her yard and toward the sidewalk. Mrs. Burk’s yard separated hers and Julia’s, and Mrs. Burk didn’t like her grass trampled one bit. Besides, Julia’s yard had a thick privacy hedge that scratched your arms when you squeezed through.
Abigail stepped on crunchy leaves on the sidewalk as she went, calculating how much money they could make if they made bracelets every night for the next week. Maybe enough for an ant farm. Abigail had wanted one for a long time, but her mom said it was a waste of money, and her dad had only shrugged the way he always did when Mom put her foot down.
Abigail passed the hedge and turned up the drive that wound up an incline and turned sharply into the garage. Julia had the nicest house on the street and the best backyard, too, which was why they usually played at Julia’s.
The garage door was up, and she heard voices coming from inside.
“Why do you always do that?” Mr. Kelley said in a tone Abigail had never heard.
She stopped near the garage opening. Maybe she should go home.
“I’m sorry.” Julia’s voice sounded small, afraid. “I’ll clean it up.”
“Those are my tools. How many times have I told you to stay out?”
“But Mom said—”
A sickening thud sounded. “Don’t argue with me!”
Abigail winced, her breath trapped in her lungs.
A whimper. A scuffling sound. A sniffle. Abigail wanted to put her hands over her ears. Why was Mr. Kelley acting this way?
“Pick ’em up before your mom gets home! And stop that sniffling!”
She should go in. Say something. But what if Mr. Kelley hit her too? What if he told her she couldn’t see Julia anymore?
Maybe she was imagining things. Mom said her imagination ran wild. Maybe she wasn’t really here. Maybe she was at home, in bed, having a nightmare.
“Not like that!” Mr. Kelley screamed. “Worthless girl!” There was a loud ruckus, like metal cans falling.
Julia cried out.
Abigail slapped her hand over her mouth to keep the scream in. Her heart felt like a drum in her chest. Too big for her body. Why was he being so mean?
How could he hurt her? Mr. Kelley loved Julia. Hadn’t he bought her the Slip ’n Slide she wanted for her birthday? Hadn’t he set up the swing set in the backyard?
She had to do something. But for the first time ever, she was afraid of Julia’s father.
Tomorrow at recess Julia would tell her about this, and they’d come up with a plan. Together they’d tell her mom or go to the police. Abigail backed quietly away, hating the feeling that swelled inside her.
When she felt the hedge against her back, she ignored the sharp pokes and darted through it. She didn’t feel the scratchy shrubs or think about Mrs. Burk’s lawn as she put distance between herself and the man she didn’t know anymore. As she put distance between herself and her best friend.
Now Abigail shivered in bed and pulled the quilt tight around her shoulders. Her heart raced as if she’d just witnessed the awful scene.
The next day at recess Julia hadn’t said a word. There’d been no marks on her face or arms. Abigail had told herself she’d imagined it, had almost convinced herself of it because Julia acted so normally that day and every day after.
But Abigail could still hear the thud of Mr. Kelley’s fist hitting Julia’s body, feel the horror of somehow knowing it wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last. Still feel the horror of knowing the truth and being too afraid to tell.
If only she could go back and change things. If only she’d been older and braver. If only she’d told. Then her best friend wouldn’t have lived the nightmare of an abusive childhood.
When Abigail was thirteen, Julia’s family moved out of state. The two girls wrote each other for a while, then they lost contact. Abigail was sure the abuse had continued, and the seed of guilt that started that day grew and spread until sometimes she thought it would strangle her.