Daisy
This is more than a summer rain. It’s been raining for hours, with no signs of letting up. There must be a hurricane or tropical storm closer to shore, and we’re getting steady rain accompanied by a wind that threatens to send the shed Dorothy-express to Kansas.
I pull a finishing nail from between my teeth and use a rock to pound it in. Then I squint up at the roof. One never truly appreciates the phrase “leaking like a sieve” until one experiences it. I’d done a cursory examination of the roof when I arrived, and it had seemed solid enough, but it seems I missed half a dozen small holes. No matter. I can fix them.
I’ve been a carpenter since I was seventeen, conned into a Habitat for Humanity project by my suburban friends. They’d quit after a week. I was the one who stayed and discovered a passion.
It wasn’t veterinary school, but by then, I knew just how foolish a dream that was for a girl who struggled to get Bs in science. After my mother got sick, those grades plummeted. When graduation came, I clutched my diploma the way others might clutch a doctorate degree.
No veterinary school for me. No college at all. I needed a job that let me care for my mother as cancer dug in its claws and we ran out of belongings to pawn.
Discovering both a talent and a passion for a trade was like fate handing me a gift, more precious even than I realized at the time. No matter what fresh hell life dumped on me, there was always work for a carpenter. Even here in this shed.
I paw through my box of scraps and tools. The wood and nails come from a collapsed tree fort two properties over. A city dweller might have looked at that heap of half-rotted wood and declared it free for the taking. They might even tell themselves they were doing a good deed, hauling off a mess that the owner couldn’t be bothered clearing away. Knowing better, I’d assessed the value of the scrap and tucked ten dollars into the owner’s mailbox. Those people were not the woman in this house. They deserved to be treated fairly.
I select two more rusty finishing nails and give them a quick sanding. Then I use a small hatchet to chop a shingle-sized piece of wood from a chunk of lumber. The hatchet—along with a few other decrepit tools—came from a property where someone had been repairing a fence and left the tools out. They’d been there for years, half-sunk into the earth, which convinced me I could safely borrow them.
I’ve been fixing leaks all day in hopes of a semidry sleep. Night’s falling, and I’m finishing up by the sickly glow of my flashlight. At least I don’t need to hide it anymore. The woman knows I’m here. Knows and doesn’t give a shit.
That’s good, right?
Sure.
Don’t tell me you’re actually annoyed because she’s ignoring you.
Part of me is thrilled that she isn’t alarmed enough to even call the police. It is the best possible response, and I will take full advantage of it. As soon as this rain stops, I’ll move faster.
I’m about to tap in another nail when something crackles outside the shed. Even as I go still, logic demands I ignore the noise. It’s a storm. Of course things are crackling. Lightning. Broken branches. We even had hail earlier.
Still, something about that particular crack isn’t right. It sounds like something moving through the undergrowth, twigs cracking in its wake. Except, well, after hours of rain, nothing’s dry enough to crackle like that.
There’s a rotted spot along one wall, big enough to put my fist through. I have only loosely covered it to leave a peephole. I lift the board and peer out.
Something passes in front of the hole, and I fall back, stifling a yelp. I strain to listen, but all I hear is the pound of rain. I inch back, lift a floorboard and pull out my gun as I keep my gaze trained on the door. Then I crawl back and lift the board again.
Nothing.
I can’t see—
Someone steps right in front of the hole. My breath stops, and all I see is denim. One leg of worn blue jeans. Then the squelch of mud under shoes as the leg moves. I side-creep to the door and rise until I’m standing.
Silence.
I glance at the open hole. Through it, I see only the hazy green of distant ferns. Another squelch. Then a creak, and the door moves, boards creaking inward. I hold my breath, gun in both hands. The door moves again. This time, it hits the makeshift stopper I’ve set up so no one can enter without me knowing it. A solid shove, though, and it’ll pop open.
The door creaks. Whoever’s out there is testing it. I brace for the slam that’ll send it flying open, but all that comes is that creak. Silence. Then the squelch of retreating footsteps.
I count to ten and then ease open the door just enough to see footprints in the mud. Men’s prints, at least a size ten. A heavy work boot tread. I slip out to get a better look, only to have them disappear before my eyes, washed away by the rain.
Celeste
It’s dawn, and I have drunk enough coffee that if one of Aaron’s goons came crashing through my window, I doubt I could shoot straight enough to even hit him. I’ve been on this sofa all night, waiting for the doorknob to turn, a window to shatter, even a call on my cell, Aaron’s deceptively soft voice telling me to look out my back window. Instead, I’ve heard nothing but the steady pound of rain and that relentless voice telling me I’m being silly, being stupid.
You never were the brightest bulb, were you?
Whose voice is that? Aaron’s? Or my mother’s? In my memory, the two swim together in a single current that washes over me on nights like this.
Stupid. Weak. Silly. Worthless. Pointless.
Were we wrong? Look at yourself. Spending all night on the couch with a gun because you saw someone taking shelter in your shed during a storm. Because you’re convinced that a guy you left twelve years ago still cares enough to want you back.
Pathetic.
No, I’m not deluded enough to think Aaron wants me back. He wants to punish me. I humiliated him, stole from him, and he’s killed people for a hell of a lot less.
I have reason to fear, and I need to stifle that voice that says I’m being silly and weak.
I remember those early days with Aaron, when he was still playing savior. Okay, so he wasn’t eighteen, as he’d claimed online. Wasn’t in college, as he’d also claimed. And his money sure as hell didn’t come from rich parents. But he was handsome and charming, and he owned his own business . . . if one called drug-dealing a business, which he certainly did, and I did, too, in those early days.
I remember late nights at the kitchen table, helping him with his accounting books—I was always good at math. If I made a mistake, even one I caught myself, I’d fall over myself apologizing, and he’d rub my back and tell me I was doing great.
I’m not your mother, baby girl. I think you’re brilliant. Brilliant, gorgeous, and tough as nails.
All the right things to say, at least for a little while. He used to laugh about my mother, ask what she did for a living. High-powered defense attorney, right? Or former military? Maybe a CEO? Some profession that had turned her into such a battle ax. That made me laugh. My mother was what they’d called, at that time, a homemaker. Gave up her career for her family. Whatever that career had been. I didn’t know, but she’d never let me forget that she’d given it up, and for what? A daughter like me? Spoiled and silly and stupid?
But I proved her wrong in the end, didn’t I? I did something that made my mother long for that spoiled, silly, stupid girl. I helped kill a girl. That was the story anyway.
I banish the voices that tell me I’m being ridiculous, sitting with this gun on my lap, jittery from mainlining caffeine all night. There’d been a time, maybe five years ago, with a little extra cash in the bank, that I’d invested in something that would have horrified my mother. I’d gone to therapy.
I’d only been able to afford a few sessions, but I’d found gold there in the kindness of a stranger who, yes, was being paid to be kind, but sometimes, that is still a nugget of gold, sparkling in the dirt.
You know that it was in Aaron’s best interests to make you feel small and insignificant. To convince you that you couldn’t survive without him. Is it possible your mother did the same? That she needed you to need her? That they both taught you not to trust your own instincts, because it benefited them?
Who did it hurt for me to sit here with a gun on my lap? To stay up all night? I was self-employed as a graphic designer—I didn’t have a job to get to in the morning. How much worse would it be if I listened to that mocking voice, went to bed and woke up to one of Aaron’s goons looming over my bed after I already realized someone was in my shed?
Soon I make breakfast, keeping the gun within reach. It takes another cup of coffee before I work up the nerve to go into the screened back porch and look out. I can see the white shed through the rain, which has let up a little. As I watch, the shed door opens. I snatch up the gun so fast I fumble and drop to one knee catching it.
The shed door stays open, as if someone is looking out, and I bend the other knee until I’m low enough not to be spotted. A head appears. Then a figure holding a partial sheet of plywood up as a makeshift umbrella. For a moment, I have to blink, certain I’m seeing wrong. Knowing Aaron’s taste in evil goons, I’m expecting a hulking behemoth, and with that in mind, this figure looks like a child.
It’s not a child, though. It’s a woman. A young woman, slightly built, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, her feet bare.
The young woman slips out and behind the shed, only to return a few moments later. A bathroom break. In moments, she’s back in the shed.
Once that shed door is closed, I rise and head inside to think about what I saw.
I’ve been working for a couple of hours when the phone rings.
“Hey,” Liam says when I answer. “Just checking to see how you’re holding up. Storm hitting hard there?”
I answer in kind, playing the role of girlfriend, even with no one around to observe the performance. That’s what men like Liam expect. He’s not some lowlife drug dealer. He’s a lawyer, damn it. A respected and respectable member of the community. If he’s inclined to treat me like a real girlfriend, then I’d damn well better appreciate that and respond accordingly.
The worst of it is that Liam isn’t just expecting me to play a role. He really does consider me his girlfriend. He takes me to work functions, sends me flowers, acts as if it’s a normal relationship. That’s how he sucked me in at first. Compared to what I was used to, it seemed normal. He seemed normal.
“How about I come by after work?” he says. “Bring dinner. We can hang out, watch a movie, weather the storm together.”
It sounds like a suggestion rather than a demand. I know better, but as long as he’s phrasing it as optional . . .
“Another time?” I say. “It sounds awesome, but I had a rough night, and I’m running on half power today. I expect to be hanging out with my laptop into the wee hours.”
“Then we’ll just make it dinner.”
Dinner and sex, he means. Also, a movie and sleepover, if he decides that’s what he wants. Normally, I’d give in. This isn’t worth the fight. But if he comes over, he could see the girl in the shed, and he’s not going to just ignore her. He might invite her in for dinner because it would amuse him.
“I wish I could,” I say, managing something akin to genuine regret. “But I’m really feeling off. I don’t think I could stomach dinner.”
“It’s ten in the morning. You can’t possibly know how you’ll feel by dinnertime.”
“I just—”
“I want to come over. Tonight.”
“I just—”
“Is this really the choice you want to make today, Celeste? Think about it. I’ll give you a minute.”
“Yes, it’s the choice I want to make, Liam. Not tonight.”
“You have a headache?”
His tone has changed. It’s deceptively light, almost teasing.
“Yes, actually, I do have a headache, but that’s not why I’m saying no. I’m tired and under deadline, and I’m asking for a night to myself. I’ll make it up to you.”
“I know you will.”
I try not to grind my teeth. “May I have the evening off, Liam? Please?”
“You may, Celeste. I need to head to Miami for a couple of days next week. I was going to invite you along, but you’re obviously busy.”
“Miami?”
He laughs, pleased by my feigned dismay. I roll my eyes. I have no interest in going to Miami. I’ll appreciate the time to myself so much more. But I know how to play this game.
“Too late,” he says cheerfully. “You missed your chance. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“All right,” I say with an audible sigh. “I really do need to work, so I suppose it’s for the best.”
“And you’ll make it up to me next weekend.”
“I will.”
“Oh, that wasn’t a question, Celeste. Not a question at all.”
He hangs up, and I’m left looking down at my phone. The urge to run slams through me, but I stifle it.
No more running. This is my home. My house. My job. I could finally have a place in the world, and the only thing standing in my way is Liam, holding a guillotine blade over my head. He is the keeper of my secrets—all my secrets. He owns me.
I have two options. Run from the threat or eliminate it. I am tired of running.
I sit at the window, watching the shed and thinking. After about a half hour, the door opens again. The girl taking another bathroom break.
The more I think about the girl, the more I have to wonder what prompts a young woman to sleep in a shed. She looked like a backpacker. A modern-day hippie. What would make someone decide to backpack by herself through rural central Florida? Is it a choice? Or one of those situations where you pretend it’s a choice to hide the truth that you’ve run out of choices, that you’re alone and desperate.
How desperate might this girl be? How alone?
An idea plants itself in my brain. It is a grublike thing, barely pushing from the earth. It needs more to grow. More time. More data.
It is possible, just possible, that this girl is a gift from an indifferent god. An answer to my prayers. I need to get free from Liam, and this girl might be my way to do it.