The Crash

by Freida McFadden

I’ve never killed anyone before. I’m not a murderer. I’m a good person. I don’t lie. I don’t cheat. I don’t steal. I hardly ever even raise my voice. There are very few things I’ve done in my life that I’m ashamed of. Yet here I am.

No, the reason my coat doesn’t close anymore is that it no longer fits over my distended belly. I am nearly eight months pregnant.

He is not, by the way, the father of my unborn child. He’s not my boyfriend either.

Soon, I’m going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams. And it’s all because of the baby growing inside me.

And very soon—after the papers are signed—I’ll likely never see him again.

She’s judging me because I am twenty-three years old, eight months pregnant, and unmarried.

But the fact is I did get pregnant at age twenty-two. It was a one-night stand. And up until recently, I didn’t know who the father was.

The only thing I can remember are the nightmares of his face that have been haunting me with increasing frequency. But I can’t blame the guy for my nightmares, can I?

Simon slipped something into my drink. And then when we got back to my hotel room, he… Oh God.

Bright light floods the car, and all of a sudden, I get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What if this basement was used for a different purpose? What if I am not the first visitor to lie in this bed? I wonder if the last person to occupy this bed made it out alive.

But as I search the depth of my handbag, I notice one other thing that’s missing. My pepper spray.

I think back to the lunch Polly made for me. I had attributed the sour taste I had in my mouth to our conversation, but now I’m not so sure. Is it possible she slipped something into my lunch, and that’s why I slept so long?

After all, Hank can’t keep me here forever. Can he? I lift my face to look up at Polly’s eyes, staring down at me. Her eyes are bright green, but in the dim overhead light, they look much darker. And a sudden terrible certainty goes through my head: I’m going to die here.

“If you light a candle before you chop onions, it burns off the toxins so your eyes don’t water.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Polly.” His lips twist into a grimace. “You think I don’t know how you went to the crazy house two years ago? I know. Everyone knows. You’re the last person I want around my kid!”

It’s pepper spray. I slip the pepper spray into my pocket as well, nestled next to the cell phone. Not that I think that girl would hurt us, but I don’t like the idea of a guest in our home having a weapon.

Tegan Werner claimed she was married, but I suspect she lied. She doesn’t have a wedding band after all. And when I asked her, she hesitated a bit too long. And she’s so young. I don’t think she’s married. I think she’s one month away from becoming a single mother. A single mother who carries around a full flask in her purse. Who drives recklessly into a blizzard. A liar.

Oh gosh she wants the kid

He is going along with this, but when tonight comes and Tegan is still in the basement, he’s going to start asking a lot more questions. When that happens, he may not like the answers quite as much, but when it comes down to it, he’s going to do exactly what I tell him to do. He doesn’t have a choice.

Tegan won’t give that baby the life she deserves. I will.

I let out a sigh of relief. The police are gone, and there’s no reason to think they’ll ever come back. We got away with it. Tegan’s baby will be mine.

Oh my God, what am I doing? I relax my grip on the hammer, letting my arms fall to my sides. I can’t believe what I almost did. I almost just smashed another human being’s leg with a hammer—on purpose!

But no. It’s real. Hank really did drive me to the hospital, and now he’s pulling up in front of the entrance.

“Hank,” I say breathlessly. “I…I was just in the basement. Tegan is… She’s gone.” I expect him to react with panic like what I’m feeling. After all, the police would arrest both of us, not just me. But instead, he just stands there rigidly. “I know.”

Today is the first time in the twelve years since we met that I have hated him.

But the weird thing is that the two of them almost seemed like they already knew each other. Dennis even called Jackson by his name. Which is really strange, because how could they know each other?

He doesn’t blame me for that crash, does he? The accident brought his career as a professional skier to a screeching halt, sure, but he always seemed happy with his life as a ski instructor.

Except then I realize she’s not alone in the room. There’s a man standing at her bedside. It takes me a second to recognize him as the man who was at my house looking for Tegan. The man who said he was her brother. Except he’s not just visiting with Tegan. Something else is going on in this room. The man has a syringe in his hand. And he’s trying to hook it up to Tegan’s IV, but he’s fumbling a bit.

“What did he do?” he barks at me. “He was trying to inject something into her IV,” I say breathlessly. The bespectacled stranger doesn’t even look surprised. I can hear him hiss in the man’s ear, “I knew it! I knew you did it, you piece of shit!”

I came here to kill Tegan Werner, to stop her from sending my husband to jail. But the truth is I never could have done it. I didn’t have it in me after all. So instead, I saved her life.

“Your brother and Lamar were business partners,” Maxwell explains. “Lamar was financing a bunch of new ski resorts with your brother. This was a huge deal for him. And Lamar was very clear that if you went to the police, the deal would not happen.”

Someday, your family will be complete. I’ve spent so many years of my life focusing on the child I wanted so badly. But Hank is my family, and he’s given me more love than I would have gotten from a dozen kids. It took almost losing everything to realize how blessed I am.

“I don’t know who Polly is,” I finally say. “I never heard the name before in my life.”

She looks at me for a long time. She remembers—it’s all over her face. I wonder if she’s mad at me for what I did. She knows I killed him. She knows I’m the one responsible for taking her father away from her. She must hate me, at least on some level. Wouldn’t she have to? She doesn’t understand why I did it. She doesn’t understand what I felt when I saw that man was beating up on a defenseless little girl. “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally says. She tilts her chin up to me. “You’re my dad, Hank.”