The Storm

 

 

I trudge through the snow ahead of him and I know without looking he’s got the shotgun on me.

The snowstorm hasn’t gone full whiteout yet, so I can see where I’m going. I follow the teal-blue vinyl flags in the trees, counting them as I go. The snow has altered the landscape from a few weeks ago but my hands are loose at my sides, thankfully still in gloves, and as I twitch and tap my fingers nervously against my thighs, I’m actually ticking off flags.

The wildlife seems to be in hiding, not even a peep from the birds that usually fill the woods. Snow crunches under our steps, audible over the steady whine of the wind.

The cold is...something beyond what I think of as “cold” and getting worse. In the south, I was used to the way the cold brushed across my skin and made me shiver, the rise of goosebumps on my flesh. Out here, it moves straight into that deep bone-aching cold that makes my brain sluggish and body shake. If not for the adrenaline keeping me going, I’m not sure I’d be walking so steadily. He didn’t give me time to grab a coat or hat, just marched me straight outside. He’s geared up in a heavy winter jacket and dark gray toque with gloves, prepared to be out here.

I expect I’ll be dead of a gunshot before hypothermia has time to set in.

Derrick hasn’t said much, and I’m debating starting a distracting conversation when at last he says, “You even used his gun safe code, Chloe.”

I resist the urge to lick my chapped lips; the cold is so bitter, it would make it worse. “I needed something I’d remember in a hurry.”

I should’ve picked a date, like Nadia’s birthday. Should’ve forgone all that advice not to; of course Derrick was a greater threat than someone who might know my daughter’s date of birth.

“Before you decided to spend the night at my place,” I ask, “were you camping out here?” When I went out to confront the girls and take them home, that gave him an in. The alarm was off, the perfect time for him to lie in wait—until I hadn’t come home. He’d been expecting to kill me last night.

And all that meant he had to have been nearby watching the house—too much of a coincidence otherwise. There was no way he was staying at a bed and breakfast in the city.

“I was. Nice place.”

The thought of him overnight in Nick’s house, of touching the fridge Nick picked, of walking across the floor Nick ordered, of staring out the windows Nick made...I didn’t think I could feel any more sick, but Derrick always managed to exceed those particular expectations.

“When the snow hit,” he continues, “I didn’t think you’d be back.”

“I’m aware of the irony now that I thought I’d feel safer in my own home for the storm.”

He chuckles. “You’re different. Did killing my best friend suddenly give you a set of balls?”

Oh, he has absolutely no idea what I’m capable of now.

I’m still scared. Because he’s got my shotgun on me and he knows how to use it. And he will use it. If he was a cop out for justice, he would’ve phoned the RCMP as soon as he confirmed my identity was false, which he clearly did not.

But that also means he hasn’t told anyone Chloe Morgan is not only alive but killed her husband—or at least not anyone who will listen to him—which means I still have an out here. No one probably even knows he took this trip to the Yukon. His plans to kill me will work to my advantage.

I have been anticipating this for two weeks, planning all the ways it could go.

Now I watch the teal flags of colour on the trees.

The branches block out some of the falling snow, but wind still blows through the woods, gathering deep drifts we have to walk through. I stumble and fall left, my hand going to the nearest tree to steady me. His steps crunch after me and I feel the barrel of the shotgun press through my thick sweater to the middle of my back, nudging me to keep going.

This could all go very, very badly. It’s not a movie where I can swing around and grab the gun out of his hands—he’s bigger than me, stronger. If we wrestle for that gun, I will lose. I still remember trying to drunkenly push his hands off me as he settled between my thighs, and the lowering temperature around us is nothing compared to the icy storm of fury in my veins.

I stand straight and keep going.

“What are your plans for my daughter after you’ve killed me out here?” I ask. The stinging cold has my teeth aching now.

“You mean Will’s daughter?” he scoffs, and I realize then he doesn’t know.

“Are you going to leave her there back at the house? During a snowstorm? At least call in an anonymous tip that she’s alone.”

“I’ll worry about that, Chloe. You should worry about yourself right now.”

Not only has he not been looking closely at her recently, but he clearly didn’t see much today.

Because Nadia is not in her bedroom at the house; a snowsuit I picked up at Walmart stuffed with socks is. Nadia is at Janelle’s. There is no way I would bring her home with Derrick there—regardless of what happens to me, whether I succeed or fail to exorcise this one last demon, she is safe.

There are two teal flags left, if I’ve counted right. If I haven’t, well...

Talking might distract him. I make a show of how difficult it is to trudge through the snow and say, “Was it the Lost Ones site? Where you saw me?”

“I emailed them two years ago about you,” he says. “They looked into it, said they don’t find missing bodies. Brought the case again last year—didn’t bite. Never expected you to turn up with another dead husband—guess you’ve got a pattern.”

Of all the people I expected to have trouble with Will’s death, it’s his parents I thought might still be campaigning to turn his reputation as a wife-killer around. I’m certain there’s abuse in that household as well—Will did not grow into that in a vacuum—but of course his mother would never believe her perfect boy could’ve killed his pregnant wife, despite all evidence I’d left there to the contrary. But even if they didn’t believe the apparent murder-suicide, I knew they’d never believe I was capable of killing him and faking my death.

But Derrick knew Will well enough to believe he’d kill me, I’m sure of it. He just never would’ve bought that Will would then kill himself with remorse. That was my gamble that did not pay off. As far as the authorities were concerned, the case was solved, and I had no other loved ones out there actually pushing to find my body for a “proper burial” or something—I was right assuming that.

I never have given Derrick enough credit, though. Chloe outsmarted the authorities and murdered her husband—of course he wouldn’t let that go.

The trees around us thicken, blocking some of the wind that’s picking up. What gets through is bitter and needles through my clothes to bite skin beneath. I can’t feel my face anymore, and I keep wiggling my fingers to ensure the blood is flowing and they’ll obey me. I think briefly of Nick last year somewhere out here in this, of some unknown force pulling him from the house into these woods with the snow, and I’m sick at the thought that this is the fate that might’ve befallen him.

If some part of you is out here, Nick...get me through this.

I squint against the blowing snow and see another teal marker fifteen feet ahead—that should be it.

Then Derrick says, “I think we’re far enough.”

Fuck.

I keep walking. “To be out of earshot of the house? No. Sound echoes out here. If Nadia hears the gun, she’ll call 911. I’ve taught her what to do in emergencies.”

There’s hesitation but he takes a few more steps. None of the tension leaves my shoulders because he’s clearly itching to shoot me. I assume he’s expecting to leave my body out here for wildlife, thinking no one will find me—if he’s making detailed plans at all.

Maybe he’s winging it. Whether Imogen Sharp goes missing or is found dead, more digging will be done into my past and someone will figure out I’m not who I say I am. That might lead them back to Chloe Marie Morgan, or it might not—surely DNA and prints are on file, but that information might not be shared across provincial and territorial borders. If it does go back to Chloe, Derrick might be suspected, but he’s very used to acting without consequence, as Will did, so he might not have thought this through that far. Men like him are used to leaping without consequence, the system they built ready to catch them.

We’re nearing the teal marker I’ve been waiting for and god I hope this is it. The snow is piling up, blowing against my shins, and it’s not a show this time when I stumble a little.

“Did you get a look at my daughter while you were watching me?” I ask, glad my voice comes out clear because I can barely feel my lips.

“Will’s daughter,” he corrects, and I don’t think it’s because he actually cares—it’s likely more to irritate me.

“Did you really look at her? Her dark eyes?”

He says nothing as we near the tree I’ve been praying for and I hope I’ve knocked him off kilter enough for this.

I stumble again, fall heavily to my left against the tree, and my gloved hand plunges into the snow gathered there to balance me.

Please, please, please—

“What the fuck are you talking about, Chloe?” He’s close now, his voice orienting him in the space behind me...

Just as my fingers wrap around the handle.

I wrench the hatchet free of the snow, turn, and swing.

The blade hits the shotgun barrel, knocks it skyward; a booming shot cracks the air as his finger squeezes the trigger. I catch a note of surprise in his eyes and I think this is how Will might’ve looked at me if he’d been conscious for what I’d done.

I slice again before he can right the shotgun, the blade hitting his forearm and biting deep. Blood sprays, painting snow red as I jerk it out, then I bring it down again. My shotgun falls to the side as Derrick stumbles back.

I do not stop.

I swing the hatchet again. And again. I swing it when he falls to the ground; I swing it when he puts his arms up to protect himself; I swing it when they crumple uselessly to his sides; I swing it when his screams fall to gurgles as my blade sinks into his chest. Blood splatter sprays my glasses, throws spots over my vision, but I keep going. My gloved hands are soaked in his blood, warming them against the cold, the hatchet’s wood handle is slick in my grip, and I pant over him with the exertion while his feet kick feebly in the snow.

As if he can get away from me now.

I stare into his dark eyes while he chokes on his own blood, crimson splashed across his face and soaking his hair, fog rising as the heat from his sliced open body hits the cold air. I don’t know how much he understands right now, but I speak to him anyway.

“Will had blue eyes.” I tug my glasses off with one blood-soaked hand. “So do I. She’s almost five years old—do the math, you evil son of a fucking bitch.”

He blinks once. Twice. His mouth is open but doesn’t make a sound, white teeth stained with blood. His eyes are glassy now and he sips in a last bit of air before letting it out and breathing no more.

My shoulders sag with exhaustion but at least I don’t feel the cold anymore, my heart pumping so violently and adrenaline soaking so deeply in my veins that it puts everything else aside. I’m tremoring with rage and pleasure and relief, so hard I might drop to my knees any second.

Then snow crunches ahead of me and I shift my attention to the direction we’d been walking from.

Owen.

He stares at me from a dozen feet away, frozen in the spot. His eyes are wide, oblivious to the snow beating against his face, and his hands, loose at his sides, are shaking.

I don’t think from the cold.

I let the hatchet drop and stand straight, some burn coming into the muscles of my arms now from the effort. “Owen.”

“The—the alert went off.” He’s staring at Derrick’s body at my feet. “That your house was... I-I came back. I came back.”

Came back to save me, because I’m prey.

Because I can’t defend myself.

“We have to call the police,” he says, and my hopes for how this is going to turn out dwindle.

The blood on my face is rapidly drying in the cold and cracks this time when I speak. “I can’t. He has family who will go after custody of Nadia if they find me. It won’t be over.”

I watch him, study every movement from his face to his shoulders, to see how this is taken. If he believes it. If he’ll help me.

“I can’t,” I repeat.

“But...but it was self defence?”

There’s a little question at the end of it, as if he’s not sure.

Of course it’s self defence. Of course there isn’t a question. Even from his perspective, someone broke into my house and marched me out here with a shotgun.

But when they’re faced with this, they’re uncertain. Was I hurt enough? Did I suffer sufficiently for this to be considered an act of self-preservation? Would he look less frightened if I was bleeding out too? If he’d been too late, would he fall on his knees and cry out, But why didn’t she defend herself?

Why didn’t she stop him?

Why didn’t she call the police?

Why didn’t she leave?

Why didn’t she just say “no”?

Owen is faced with a moment of uncertainty because the woman he thought was an innocent hare has fangs and claws and can chop a man into bits without stopping.

Owen is seeing that a woman has the power it was assumed she never had, power that always lies in hands like his—whether a white knight or a monster, it’s always theirs.

Owen no longer knows what he’s looking at.

“Okay,” he says, his voice a little shaky as he straightens his shoulders. His hands fold into the pockets of his heavy trucker jacket. “Okay. Yeah. Can we...can we just go back to the house? Figure out what to do?” He’s hopeful. He’s rearranging this situation in his head so that it makes sense and doesn’t adjust his place in the world as much.

I nod as he takes a few steps back, then he turns from me and starts toward the house.

Only one hand is in his pocket now and I can’t see the other.

I reach down and wrap my fingers around the barrel of the shotgun, lifting it silently as I step after him. I shift the weapon so it’s ready, braced against me.

A few steps more and I call out, “Owen.”

He freezes.

It’s an instant but I recognize the terror in his shoulders as they seize, the rigidity of his spine as he snaps to attention. Very slowly he turns back toward me and his hand can’t drop to his side fast enough for me to not see the cell phone. Its glass face shows the keypad, one number dialled so far.

9

He looks down at the phone. And back to my eyes.

I pull back on, then push forward, the shotgun’s forend; the empty shell falls at my feet as the hammer cocks again.

His lips part.

I squeeze the trigger.

I feel the kickback up my arms, twinging already sore muscles. Owen falls back in the snow gasping, blood painted against his chest. His old Edmonton Oilers cap tumbles aside, exposing his pale shocked face to the falling flakes. The cell phone sinks into the snow and the screen goes black.

Slowly I walk over on stiff legs—the adrenaline is abating and I’m starting to feel the cold again. I set the shotgun down and I’m calm as I step over to him.

There’s a gaping bloody hole in his chest and he shakes as he tries to draw in breath. His eyes, wide saucers, blink at the snow and then at me, lips moving wordlessly like a gasping fish on land as he tries to speak.

“Nick,” he wheezes out and his hands flail at his sides, a bloody snow angel. “Nick...you...”

I crouch beside him and peer down. “I never hurt Nick. I never would hurt Nick.”

Nick knew all of it—literally all. After Nadia was born, my mind and body off-kilter with a cocktail of postpartum hormones, I broke down and confessed all I’d only ever vaguely hinted at. My real name. My husband I killed. How I escaped.

And his response? He asked if he could be listed as Nadia’s father on the birth certificate to protect her if anyone ever suspected anything.

“He knew all of it,” I say to Owen. “He saw every part of me, and he accepted it.”

What I don’t point out is that Nick would’ve helped me hide the body—no questions asked—because it feels like salt in the wound at this point for Owen. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.

Owen shakes his head and his lashes flutter, a rattling in his throat as he fights to get in breath.

“I didn’t hurt Nick,” I repeat. “I don’t know what happened to him, but it wasn’t me.”

And the truth is entirely laid out in front of Owen now—not all the details of Will and what I did to escape to here, but he sees now the predator under my surface, the manipulation I am capable of, the role of the hare I can still play before I strike. I hope, too, he sees the truth of what I’ve said about Nick, that he is granted at least the dying knowledge I haven’t lied about that.

And as he releases his last breath, I hope that wherever Nick is now, he understands and forgives me for this.

That he knows it’s still self defence.

I rise on sore legs and look back at Derrick’s body. The grave I dug while the ground was still soft will have to fit two of them now, and I worry the tarps meant to keep the snow out might’ve collapsed. I’m already shivering with the cold and the temperature is going to keep dropping—I have to work fast.

I take Derrick’s wool toque and tug it on my head over my ears to keep some of the cold at bay, then survey the bodies. Once I’ve checked Owen’s pockets and slipped away his phone, I grab his feet to move him first.