The Inmate

by Freida McFadden

“And you have a kid,” he adds. Now I’m really going to be sick. I’m such an idiot. What am I supposed to say when a patient asks me if I have a child? None of your damn business? Well, that probably is the right answer, but it’s hard not to talk about my son when I’m away from him the whole day. I’m learning this lesson the hard way. “Anyway, congratulations,” Shane says. There’s no bitterness or anger in his voice, which is a relief. “How old is he?” I cringe at this question. Like Tim, he’s not stupid. If I tell him I have a ten-year-old son, he will figure it out. But unlike Tim, he has no way of finding out the truth on his own. “He’s five.” He flinches slightly as the needle passes through his skin again. “I always wanted kids. Guess that’s never going to happen.”

“Anyway,” I say, “I’ll get Officer Hunt to—” “Wait!” Shane’s voice is hushed but urgent. “Wait, Brooke. Listen, I need to say something.” My eyes fly in the direction of the door. Hunt is waiting on the other side, in case I need him. “Shane, I can’t—” “No. No. Please just listen to me, okay?” I shake my head. “I can’t. This isn’t a good idea.” “I just need you to know…”—his voice suddenly sounds hoarse—“I wasn’t the one who tried to kill you, Brooke. I swear to you. I swear on my life.”

I never saw the face of the man who tried to kill me. The power was out that night and everything was pitch black. But I knew Shane very well. I knew the feel of his body. The smell of him. I knew it was him. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t him, I have made a terrible mistake.

“It’s not a date,” I say through my teeth. “He’s a friend. An old friend.” “Whatever you say.” I don’t like the knowing look on Margie’s round face. “It’s not a date.” “Well, why not?” She blinks at me. “Is he ugly? Ugly men are good in bed, you know.” Oh God. “Margie…” “I’m just saying,” she says, “there’s nothing wrong with going on a date. You don’t have to feel bad about it.”

And it occurs to me that we’re the only two people in this room. There’s a guard, and if there were a problem, he would be here in an instant, but he wouldn’t hear something quiet. Like if Shane leaned in and kissed me.

Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you. But he said it anyway. At that moment, I know I chose the right guy to lose my virginity to. “I love you,” I blurt out. He runs his fingers along my cheek. “I love you too.”

Despite the thunder outside and my racing thoughts, I fall asleep in Shane’s arms. And I don’t wake up again until I hear the screams.

And guess what? All the knives are gone.” I stare at him. “What?” “Right? Pretty weird. There’s a knife block on the counter, but it’s empty.” I shiver and hug myself. “So what does that mean?” “I’d say it means that whoever did this planned it in advance and got rid of all the other weapons in the house.”

Then he grabs me and kisses me. I let him do it. Okay, I more than let him. More like, I grab him by the collar and pull him closer to me like I haven’t kissed a guy in the last decade, which is scarily close to accurate. For a good sixty seconds, we stand in the kitchen, making out like the world is about to end. That’s how long it takes me to remember that my son is right upstairs and then push Tim gently away.

With every passing day, I’m more and more certain that Tim is The One. And he’s made it no secret that he feels the same way about me.

He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I just… I’m crazy about you, Brooke. I always have been. And I know we haven’t been together that long, but I hate being away from you for even one night. So I was thinking… maybe…” Is he asking me if we should move in together? If that’s the question, I don’t know what to say. I’m crazy about him too. But I have Josh to think about. I can’t uproot his life by having another person move in with us, just to have it all fall apart. I can’t give my son a father and then take it away from him. And there’s another reason why I’m not sure I’m ready to take things to the next level with Tim. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something from me. Why has he been so evasive every time I have tried to ask him about Kelli? He already told me he went out with her. Why won’t he admit it? And who does this scarf really belong to?

Just as I’m about to go back upstairs, I notice a gray tarp rolled up on the floor of the basement, in the corner of the room. I hadn’t noticed that tarp the last time I was down here looking at the wine collection. What is Tim doing with a giant tarp?

can tell something is sticking out of the end. I bend down and realize what it is—it’s a shoe. No, not just a shoe, it’s a high-heeled red pump. And it’s still on a woman’s foot.

I stare at the foot sticking out of the tarp, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing. I look closer and can make out another shoe peeking out of the tarp as well. Does Tim have a mannequin wrapped in a tarp in his basement? Don’t kid yourself, Brooke. You know exactly what you’re looking at. Her scarf is lying on the coffee table upstairs. I’ve got to get out of this basement.

I run for the stairway, taking the steps two at a time, not bothering to be careful this time. I place my hand on the knob and… It doesn’t turn. Oh God. It’s locked.

“Actually, I’m not feeling so great. I… I think I’ll head out.” “Seriously?” His jaw tightens. “I just spent the last hour cooking dinner. You’re really going to leave?” “I…” I press my fingertips against my temple. “I have a migraine.” “You get migraines? You never mentioned that to me.” “Well, I do.” “Because this is the first time you have had a migraine the entire time we’ve been together.”

I don’t wait for an answer. I push past him to the front door, snatching my purse off the sofa. My phone is in there and so is my pepper spray—I’ll use it if I have to, although I hope I don’t. Tim races to catch up with me. His legs are much longer than mine, and he grabs my arm before I even make it to the living room. His fingers encircle my forearm, digging into my skin. “Brooke,” he says. There’s a look in his eyes that I barely recognize. This is not the Tim that I know—it’s another side of him I’ve never seen before. “Let me go,” I hiss at him. “Brooke, what—”

“This is ridiculous,” Tim says. “I didn’t even know Kelli Underwood.” “How can you say that?” I cry. “You went out with her! You kissed her!” The color drains out of Tim’s face. He flashes the officers a helpless look. “Okay, I went out with her once. Months ago. I haven’t even seen her in at least two months.” “He’s lying!” Tears gather in my eyes. “She’s down in the basement, wrapped in a tarp. I saw her!” “This is insane!” Tim cries. “I promise you, Officer, there is no dead body in my basement. All I’ve got there is a wine cellar—I swear.”

“What?” Josh juts out his lower lip. “But he said that we could play Nintendo together if I got a hundred on my test, and I did!” “Something came up…” “But that’s not fair! I got a perfect score! He said he would play with me. He promised…” “I know, but…” I slide into a seat next to Josh. “He wanted to come, but something happened. He did something bad, and the police found out and had to take him away.” Josh stares at me. “What did he do?” It’s the most obvious question he possibly could have asked, and I am utterly unprepared for it. “He committed a crime.” “Did he steal something?” “No…” “Then what did he do?” “He… he hurt somebody.” Josh scrunches his face up. “Tim wouldn’t hurt anybody on purpose.” He has no idea… “He did, honey,” I say. “And… he’s probably going to go to jail. For a long time.” “You mean he’s not coming back here?”

recanted my testimony about the night at the farmhouse. Even though I knew I could get in a lot of trouble for it, I had to do it. I had to tell the police that I realized I got it wrong. Shane hadn’t been the one who tried to strangle me that night. It was Tim. He was the one twisted enough to try to kill me with the very necklace he bought me. And then he saved it for an entire decade. Waiting for the right moment to use it against me.

Today, after eleven years, Shane Nelson is being released from prison. And I am picking him up.

I rush over and unlock the door, and there is Josh, standing at the entrance with his backpack slung over one shoulder like this is any ordinary day, and not the day he’s about to meet his father for the first time.

After ten years, Josh is finally spending time with his father. I can’t wait to tell him the truth.

“Mrs. Reese,” I begin, “I can’t—” “Please don’t hang up, Brooke.” Her voice breaks on the words. As hard as the last couple of months have been on me, I’m sure they were even worse for her. “Please. I need to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I… I saw a dead body in his basement. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to hear that. I never would’ve thought Tim would do that either.” “He wouldn’t!” Mrs. Reese has lost her composure. “Brooke, you knew him better than anyone. Do you really believe he would kill that girl?” “The body was in his basement.” “So someone else must have put it there!”

She didn’t see the panic on Tim’s face when he realized the police were going down to the basement. It would have taken a lot to convince me that my former best friend was a serial killer, but that night made me a believer.

He starts to fill it up, but when he notices I’m on the phone and catches the expression on my face, he raises an eyebrow at me. He mouths the words, Who is it?

“Please talk to Tim,” Mrs. Reese whimpers. “If you talk to him and you still believe that he did those horrible things—” “I’m not going to visit Tim in jail.” That is absolutely out of the question. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Reese.” Shane’s other eyebrow shoots up at the name Mrs. Reese. He stands there, clutching his water glass in one hand, listening to my end of the conversation.

He looks down at my hand on his, and then his eyes rake over me. The longing on his face is unmistakable. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The man has been in prison for a decade. He hasn’t even touched a woman in all that time. And Shane is still very attractive. I used to swoon when I watched him running across the football field, and he’s even sexier now that he’s older. He’s more muscular than he was in high school—he must have worked out a lot in prison. He’s hard to resist.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable at all,” he says. “I’m not going to lie—when I look at you, I want to… but anyway, that’s my problem. Not yours. I promise you, I’m going to be a perfect gentleman while I’m staying here.” “Thank you.” I smile at him. “And you shouldn’t have any problems in the romance department. You’re pretty hot.” He laughs. “Am I? That’s good to know.”

“Hey, I don’t want some random woman at a bar that I don’t care about.” He chews on his lower lip. “I mean, yeah, it’s been a long time. But I still want it to be with someone I care about. Someone important to me.” “Shane…” “Like the mother of my son…”

other man I chose to marry. “Brooke?” he says. His eyes are filled with unmistakable lust. “You should get to have that,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t settle. You should have that special connection.” When he leans forward and kisses me, I don’t stop him.

I wake up covered in a cold sweat. Shane and I ended up having sex last night. I didn’t quite mean for it to go all the way, but I could tell it was what he wanted very badly, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no. After all, he had been deprived of this for ten years.

It was over quickly, and afterward, I felt strangely empty.

And that’s when I woke up at three in the morning, my nightshirt drenched. I lie in bed shaking. It wasn’t so much a nightmare as it was reliving what happened that night. Tim choking me with that necklace. And then the bolt of thunder. And then… Something else.

I realize that a sound had woken me up from sleep. Something from outside. There’s still a snowstorm outside, so it was hard to make out, but it almost sounds like… A car engine. Right outside my window. And something else: The garage door opening.

I’m being paranoid. Nobody was using my car. Nobody is out there. The garage door is closed. Of course, there’s one way to verify this for sure. I could go down to the garage and see if there’s snow on my Toyota. If there is, somebody has been driving it very recently. Except the more I think about it, the crazier it all seems. I don’t think I heard a car engine. It must’ve been part of my dream. I need to calm down and go back to sleep.

“I slept great.” When he turns to look at me, the dark circles under his eyes are almost gone. I feel stupid for thinking he was wandering around town in my Toyota in the middle of the night—he was clearly getting the night of sleep I wish I had. “That bed is so comfortable.” It’s really not. But I know how awful the mattresses are at the prison.

“And after,” he adds, “I thought we could drive out to the farmhouse. See how bad it looks and maybe clean up a little.” I had a mouthful of coffee in my mouth, and I almost spit it out. “Drive out to the farmhouse? Today?”

But even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know I will live to regret them.

He rests a hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. I squirm, since Josh is still at the table. Yes, we slept together last night, but doesn’t he understand that we have to be careful what information gets fed to our ten-year-old son?

“You know how to get there?” he asks. “Yes,” I snap. He’s quiet for a moment. “Are you okay?” No, I’m not okay. We are driving out to the house where I was almost murdered eleven years ago. There’s nothing about this that is okay. But I can’t exactly say all that in front of my son. “I’m fine.” “I appreciate you doing this.” “Yep.”

“That’s where I used to live, Josh,” Shane tells him. “It’s like a haunted house,” Josh comments. Shane winks at me. “It might be.”

There was another killer in the house that night. Out of the three survivors, there was only one other person it could have been. Oh my God. Tim and Shane did it together.

“Still. I think it’s better if you head back pretty soon. You know?” There’s a long pause on the other line. “No, I don’t know. I’m just trying to spend a little time with my son, Brooke. You know, the one I haven’t seen in ten years and I didn’t even know existed.” “Shane,” I breathe. “Listen—” “No, you listen, Brooke.” His tone is clipped—I have destroyed any advantage I had. “I missed ten years. Ten years. You didn’t even tell me.” “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “A little late for that, isn’t it?” He snorts. “But don’t worry. Now that I’m here, we’re going to be making up for some lost time. And maybe you’ll see what it’s like to miss out.” “Shane…” I stand up from the chair, my heart pounding. I hurry in the direction of the door to the farmhouse. “What are you talking about?” “I think you know, Brooke.”

“Could we please talk about this at home?” I beg him. “I understand how you’re feeling, but we can work this out. I just want to be a family again.” I reach into my coat pocket for the keys to my Toyota. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come pick you guys up.” I’m going to drive along the road until I see them. I’m going to find them if it’s the last thing I do. Except where are my keys? “I think it will be hard for you to pick us up,” Shane says, “since I have the keys to the Toyota.”

“Shane,” I gasp. “Please… let’s talk about this.” “Oh, don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll be back eventually.” Before I have a second to feel relieved, he adds, “After all, I need to make sure you suffer for what you did.” “Shane…” “I wonder,” he says, “if you’ll scream louder than Tracy Gifford did.” My mouth drops open. I try to speak but no words come out. “Goodbye, Brooke.” I can almost hear him smiling on the other line. “Or should I say, see you later.” Through the phone, I can hear my son’s voice. His laughter. I might never hear him laugh again. “Shane!” I cry. “Please—” But it’s too late. The line is dead.

I type 911 into my phone with shaking fingers. He won’t get away with taking Josh. There will be an amber alert, they will find him, and Shane will go back to prison. He doesn’t even have a car—he may have taken my keys, but the Toyota is still right here. The police will find them. I’m sure of it. Except when I try to connect the call, it won’t go through. I squint down at the screen of my phone. No service.

“Margie?” I say. Her lips curl slightly. “That’s not actually my name. We have met before, and you do know me by my real name, but I doubt you would remember it. Of course you wouldn’t.” She titters. “In fact, I’ll tell you what, Brooke. If you can tell me my real first name, I’ll take you right to Shane and Josh.” I stare at her wrinkled face, trying desperately to place her. While I’m trying to figure it out, she sifts around in her purse again. But this time, instead of her phone, she pulls out a gun. And she points it right at me.

Eleven years ago, Shane Nelson tried to kill me. Five minutes ago, his mother tried to kill me. Even if he is temporarily incapacitated, there’s no telling what he might do to me out here, with no witnesses aside from a scared little boy. What if this is a trick? What if he is lying in wait, and the second I get over there, he’s going to jump up and wrap his fingers around my neck?