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I’ve got enough pills in that cabinet to kill a horse. Or even more easily, a five-foot-ten woman who weighs approximately 130 pounds whose entire life has fallen apart. Not that I thought about it. Not recently anyway.
The next thing I find in her purse is her cell phone. I swipe at the screen, but it’s locked. I start to drop the phone back in her bag, but at the last second, for reasons I don’t quite understand, I power it down and slip it into my own pocket.
I discover one more item that makes me very glad I took one final look. 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.
He’s worried about me being around a pregnant woman. He doesn’t say so, but ever since The Incident, he’s been waiting for me to crack again.
had to work an overnight shift in the newborn nursery at the hospital. I should have refused, given how I was feeling. But I thought I was stronger than my feelings. I thought it might lift my spirits to be around all those new babies. I was wrong. After what happened that day, I lost my job at the hospital. I’m lucky they didn’t lock me up.
But that’s okay. Because I made up my mind tonight. Very soon, we will have a child of our own.
Oh boy here we go
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 sleeps all afternoon. It’s no surprise since I crushed twenty-five milligrams of Benadryl into the sauce I cooked her chicken in for lunch.
“Hank, if you do this, I’m going to call the police.” He freezes midway up the stairs, his hulking frame rigid. “And,” I add, “I’m going to tell them what you did.”
“The whole thing was your idea!” “Yes, but it’s your signature.” “Yours too, Polly.”
“You swear you’ll let her leave?” “Of course. I’m not mentally ill.” He shoots me a look. I suppose there are a few psychiatrists out there who might disagree with that statement. And several staff members who were working in the newborn nursery on that morning two years ago.
My husband is the most honest person I’ve ever met. It’s something he’s always prided himself on. It’s only because of me that he’s ever bent the rules, when he was on the brink of losing his auto shop.
So I fudged the tax return—a bit.
When Hank loses his appetite, it basically means the world is coming to an end.
“What do you care more about—walking or your own child?”
Really lady?
When he said good night, the two of us lingered in front of my door, and for a split second, I was sure he was going to kiss me.
“It’s not your decision! It’s my decision!” I push her plate slightly closer to her on the tray
before I can process what’s happening, she has plunged the prongs deep into the flesh of my hand.
A lot of the websites suggest sex and long walks. Well, she’s not doing either of those things. She can’t take long walks. And as for sex, I suppose I could ask Hank to… No. No way. He’d never even agree to it.
Well she's clearly lost her mind if she entertains asking her husband to rape a pregnant woman
I’m worried that no matter what, I’m leaving here in a body bag.
the dread on her face when I say my husband’s name is unmistakable. She’s terrified of him, which is a bit ironic since he’s the one who wants to bring her to the hospital. But she doesn’t know that.
“If you take her to the hospital,” I say quietly, “I’ll kill myself.” As the words leave my mouth, I realize it’s not an idle threat. I mean what I’m saying. I want this so badly, and if he takes it away from me when I’m this close, I won’t be able to go on.
The next morning, when my shift came to an end, I was sitting in a rocking chair, holding one of the newborns. And I just…I wouldn’t give him back.
I handed in my resignation, and that night, I went to the bathroom and took every pill in the medicine cabinet.
“But here’s the thing. I keep thinking about this over and over. And every time I think about it, I can’t think of a way for this to end without us going to jail unless…” “Hank?” In the moonlight, his eyes look glassy. “Unless we kill her.” His voice breaks. “And, Polly, I don’t want to kill her.”
He knows how this will end. And when it comes down to it, I bet he’ll help me get rid of the body too.
I pick up the hammer, testing the weight in my own hands. Yes, this will do nicely.
She's Not gonna pull a Misery on the poor woman is she?
I’m not going to break her leg, exactly. I mean, I’m not a complete psychopath.
Sureeee Jan, of course you aren't.
He stares at me for a long time, as if struggling to figure out what to say. “I love you, Polly,” he says. I don’t know why he said that to me. He seemed furious with me all morning. It makes me a little uneasy, but I push the feeling away.
“The officer said your car had been tampered with prior to your accident.” What? I thought I couldn’t possibly feel worse than I feel right now, but there it is. Someone tampered with my car and caused my accident? How could that possibly be? Who would do something like that?
There’s a glint in his eyes that sends a chill down my spine. “Tell me, Tegan. What do you need?”
I had expected to feel the tension drain out of my body with his exit, but somehow I still have an uneasy feeling I can’t seem to shake, like there’s still danger on the horizon.
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?
OMG Did the brother try to kill her off for the money he thought she was getting
there was something he wanted to tell me. And the look in his eyes—it wasn’t menacing. It was something else. It was fear.
I stand in the doorway, frozen. Tegan’s brother is trying to hurt her. I came here to keep her from turning me and Hank in to the police, but this man is doing the job for 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.
It turns out Dennis was never as okay as I thought he was with losing his chance to go pro. I never realized he blamed me for the car accident that took him out of commission. It pains me to think of the simmering resentment he’d felt for years.
she stopped Dennis from killing me and my baby. I hate her for what she did to me, but I also realize that if it weren’t for her and Hank, I would be dead right now. They have saved me twice over. I am only here right now because of her. I owe her.
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. A year after her death, I finally see the wisdom in my mother’s words. I’ve got Hank and he’s got me, and our family is complete.
Looks like your neighbor was drunk and took a bad fall down his front steps and got knocked unconscious. Then he suffocated with his face down in the snow.” Mitch is dead?
Did Sadie push him to protect herself or something...?
It’s ironic that I’m pretending not to remember something that I’ll carry around with me for the rest of my life.
He claims that he never believed the faulty brakes would kill me. He just thought an injury from a car accident would put things in perspective and that the hospital bills might persuade me to reconsider Simon’s offer. That’s why he had me bring his flask, knowing its presence would make it look like I’d been driving drunk.
