Pen Pal
: Part 1 – Chapter 17

It’s three o’clock in the morning when I finish the letter. I’ve been up since one, pacing around my office, unable to sleep. My mind spins with a dizzying merry-go-round of questions.

Who was the man on the water’s edge?

What does it mean that I found Michael’s buffalo nickel in the exact spot he was standing?

When did I decide it was reasonable to have a pen pal in prison?

Where can I locate my brain?

And finally, why did Aidan leave without saying goodbye?

Because that’s exactly what happened. After walking out in the middle of our conversation, he climbed a ladder up to my roof, draped a blue waterproof tarp over one section of it, pulled out some wet insulation from the attic, then roared off into the darkness in his big macho truck as if the woman he fucked to within an inch of her life the night before wasn’t inside waiting for him.

I really don’t understand men.

Dealing with men is like dealing with a hostile alien species who crash-landed on the planet and decided our language and customs are too silly to be bothered with, and henceforth we should be treated with mild disdain and/or as objects of occasional sexual release before being ignored as inferior beings again.

I do feel better having the alarm, however, so that’s one positive thing.

The little green light on the hub glows cheerfully at me from the wall by the door, reminding me that if nothing else, I can have the cops here in under ten minutes if I forget to disable the alarm.

Or if someone breaks in to try to murder me, but I’m not thinking about that.

I fold the letter to Dante into thirds and slip it in an envelope. I place it in the top drawer of my desk, thinking I’ll decide if I want to mail it or not in the morning. Then I drop heavily into the desk chair and absent-mindedly rub the buffalo nickel between two fingers as I stare at the closed drapes, deep in thought.

Until directly above my head in the master bedroom, a floorboard creaks.

I freeze, staring up at the ceiling. When nothing else happens after several excruciating seconds, I glance nervously at the security hub on the wall.

The green light glows reassuringly back at me.

I relax for two seconds until another floorboard creaks overhead, then another, and I break out in a cold sweat.

“It’s the wind,” I whisper, gripping the arms of my chair and hyperventilating. “It’s only the wind.”

My brain decides to wake up from its recent coma to remind me that my ears can’t hear a breath of wind stirring outside the windows.

I counter with the indisputable fact that no one could possibly be in the house as I locked all the doors and armed the security system before I went to bed.

My brain—the asshole—suggests with no regard to my emotional well-being that perhaps whomever is making that noise upstairs was already in the house before then.

Fuck.

“Keep it together, Kayla,” I whisper as my hands begin to shake. “Nobody is in the house except you.”

When the silence above my head continues for the next five minutes, I decide I’m not scared anymore. I’m mad.

At myself.

Because if I’d heard another creak, I have no doubt I’d have leapt from the chair and run screaming out the front door, only to make another surprise appearance at Aidan’s apartment, making a complete fool of myself once again.

Armed with my new anger, I take a breath and go to the door.

I’m fine when I step outside the office and look around. I’m fine as I creep up the stairs and peer into the master bedroom, which is exactly as I left it, no floorboard-creaking intruders in sight. I’m also fine as I check all the upstairs rooms, flipping lights on and feeling more and more ridiculous with every passing second when I replace nothing out of place.

It isn’t until I go back downstairs, step into the kitchen, and turn on the overhead lights that I go from fine to freaking the fuck out.

Every drawer is pulled all the way out. Every cupboard door stands wide open.

I clap my hands over my mouth to stifle my terrified scream.

I stand frozen, listening to my pulse roar in my ears. Adrenaline burns through my veins, urging me to run, but I’m rooted to the floor in fright. I can’t move a muscle.

The eerie sense that I’m being watched slowly creeps over me.

I almost sob in terror. But I manage to hold it together and turn to see if someone is behind me.

But there’s no one there. I’m alone.

Just me, my paranoia, and the drawers and cupboards, which all apparently have over-greased rails and hinges.

Because there’s no other explanation for this. Because the kitchen just doesn’t decide to fling things open on its own.

Except maybe it does, because out of nowhere, a jar of honey flies off a shelf and smashes to pieces in the middle of the kitchen floor.

My nerves are no match for it.

I jump, scream, and spin around, bolting toward my office. I plow through the door, slam it behind me, lock it, then dive behind the sofa, wedging myself between it and the wall.

I lie there curled in a terrified, shaking ball until the sun rises four hours later.

In the morning, I feel like a gigantic idiot.

Funny how daylight can chase away even the scariest of monsters.

Once the sun came up, I finally remembered to view the camera feed on my phone. I must have hit Play and Rewind a hundred times, but there was zero evidence of anyone coming anywhere near the house except when Jake drove off in the afternoon and when Aidan arrived and left later.

And according to my trusty security hub, the perimeter of the house was never breached.

Nobody climbed through a window.

Nobody kicked in a door.

I was here alone all night.

As for the open cabinets and drawers, I remind myself there’s the distinct possibility I did that and don’t remember. If I added up all the small lapses in my memory of late, I could make a convincing case for early-onset dementia.

Why on earth I might have felt the need to leave my own kitchen in such a state is a mystery, but there also could have been a small earthquake I missed that would account for it.

Right? That’s plausible.

More plausible than the other things I’m not allowing myself to consider.

Regarding the flying jar of honey, well… I was overstimulated. It probably toppled off the shelf, not flew, and in my agitated state, I conflated it with my fright over the creaking and the stupid open cupboards to be more than it was.

I know full well I’m rationalizing, but that’s what one does when one is faced with the possibility that their grip on reality is in question.

I consider going back to the grief group, but toss that idea as quickly as it comes. If I want to be depressed, I’m doing just fine with that on my own.

Then I consider calling Eddie the handyman to get the number of his shrink. But after careful deliberation, I decide that if Eddie is the end product of psychoanalysis, I might be better off steering clear of it.

If I’m going to spend hundreds a week unloading my various neuroses on a therapist, I’d like to come out the other side without the need to smoke what smelled like an entire crop of marijuana in order to get through my day.

I psych myself up to leave the office and face the kitchen, but when I get there, I feel curiously let down. In daylight, the open drawers and cabinets seem utterly benign. I expected to feel nervous at least, but the only thing I feel is slight irritation.

It’s totally anticlimactic.

I shut the cupboards and close the drawers, then clean the sticky mess of honey and broken glass off the floor. Then I dump the plastic buckets of rainwater down the sink.

Thanks to Aidan’s tarp, the ceiling has stopped leaking. The water stains look eerily like two big eyes staring down at me accusingly.

Gazing up at them, I mutter, “Don’t give me that look. You would’ve been scared, too.”

I debate whether or not I should call Aidan, but decide against it. I don’t know what his strange performance was all about yesterday, but I do know that I’m not going to reward him for running off after insisting I show him all my cards.

Isn’t that just typical, though? The minute you start talking about feelings, men suddenly go deaf and mute. It’s like their superpower.

Thinking about it leaves me depressed.

I shower and dress, then work until it’s late enough in the afternoon that I won’t feel like a complete degenerate for opening a bottle of wine. After two glasses, I decide to go back to work. I’m able to finish the boy-feeding-the-talking-rabbit piece I’ve been working on for far too long and move to the next one in the story. I need to complete twenty-seven illustrations for this book, and I’ve only got six weeks left to do it, so I need to hustle if I’m going to make the publisher’s deadline.

Except my fingers decide they’d rather draw something else.

The tree takes shape first. It’s a tall evergreen with a crooked tip and scraggly lower branches. Then the rocky strip of shore emerges. A dark sky filled with ominous clouds is next, followed by soaring seabirds and windswept water.

The figure appears last.

Tall and gaunt, the man peers out from behind the trunk of the tree, his eyes hidden by the brim of his hat, his teeth bared in an ugly grimace.

A hostile grimace.

A truly frightening one.

My heart beating faster, I set down the pen, sit back in the chair, and stare at the drawing.

Something about this man is familiar.

I can’t decide what it is, but I feel as if I’ve seen him before. But where?

When the doorbell rings, I jump. I’m on my feet before I remember to look at the video in the app. When I grab my cell phone off the desk and navigate to the live feed, however, the front porch is empty.

Aggravated, I say loudly, “Cut it out, house!”

As if in response, the desk lamp flickers.

I freeze and stare at it in trepidation. My pulse and blood pressure rise along with my anxiety. The moment stretches out until I feel as if my nerves might snap from the strain.

I don’t know what exactly I’m waiting for, but whatever it is, I’m already scared.

Then a text arrives with its cheery jingle, and I jerk so hard, I drop the phone.

I stand with my fingers pressed to my temples for a moment, trying to catch my breath, before I bend to retrieve the phone from the carpet. My hands shake so badly, I’m embarrassed for myself. But when I see the message, I exhale in relief.

You didn’t call me. Now would be a good time to fix that.

“Oh, Aidan.” I sigh, shaking my head. “You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?”

I dial his number and try to pretend I don’t already have it memorized.

He picks up after one ring. “Hello, beautiful bunny,” he says in a throaty voice.

“Hello yourself.”

My tone must have been less than enthusiastic because after a beat, he says, “You’re mad at me.”

“Mad is too strong a word. It’s more like annoyed.”

“What did I do to earn the ire of such a sweet little rabbit?”

Irked at the humor in his tone, I say tartly, “Maybe you need a time-out to think about it.”

“And maybe you need a spanking to remind you who you’re talking to.”

“That threat would hold a lot more weight if you weren’t laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing. I’ve been obsessing about your perfect little ass all day. How pink it got when I spanked it. How you moaned.” He pauses. “I wonder how loud you’ll moan when I fuck it?”

Ah, yes. Here comes that flush of heat spreading upward from my neck to settle in my cheeks as it does every time the man opens his mouth and says something to me.

I clear my throat of the frog stuck in it. “Are you asking in a professional capacity as my roofer? Because if so, I think I might need to lodge a complaint.”

“With who? I own the company.” His voice drops. “And there’s no professional capacity here, baby. Don’t get it wrong. This is all personal.”

I’m sweating. Why am I sweating? Christ, I’m roasting alive.

Pulling at the collar of my shirt, I say, “If it’s so personal, why did you leave without saying goodbye yesterday?”

“Come over here, and I’ll tell you.”

Stalling for time, I ask, “Where’s here?”

He says softly, “You know where. And don’t bother wearing panties. They’ll only get torn to shreds.”

He disconnects, leaving me even more disoriented and shaky than I was before he called.

I hesitate, undecided if I should go to his apartment.

I know it’s not wise. I’ve had two glasses of wine, I have work that needs to get done, and he’s a slippery slope I’m sliding down at lightning speed. A beautiful distraction from the wreckage of my life.

The dangerous thing about distractions, though, is how quickly they can grow addicting.

“And haven’t you been through enough already?” I whisper, staring at the framed picture on the wall of Michael and me on our wedding day.

It was a glorious afternoon in May. The sky was cloudless for once, and the scent of honeysuckle perfumed the air. Standing beside me in a tux on the steps of the church, Michael gazes down at me. He’s smiling widely, handsome even in profile, one arm wrapped around my waist.

Wearing a frothy sleeveless gown of silk and lace and holding a bouquet of pure white calla lilies, I stand next to him, looking directly into the camera.

Unlike Michael, I’m not smiling.

I recall how nervous I was that day. How my stomach was twisted into knots. How hard Michael squeezed my hands as we recited our vows. Later, he said I was so pale and trembling, he thought I might pass out right there at the altar.

I never told him that I threw up before I walked down the aisle. That’s not something you want your spouse to remember. It’s not something you want to remember yourself, either. There’s no place for such things on what’s supposed to be the best day of your life.

And so I locked it away, so effectively that particular memory hasn’t surfaced since.

Until now.

I notice something in the photo I’ve never noticed before. A few inches below my right shoulder, there’s a smudge on my biceps. Moving closer to the picture, I squint to make it out. Lifting my hand, I trace a finger over the glass where the smudge is.

But it doesn’t rub off because it’s not a smudge.

It’s a bruise.

A small, dark bruise in the shape of a thumb.

I fall still. Something dark gathers into storm inside me. A noise like a thousand wingbeats echoes in my ears. Beneath it, there’s a faint muffled sound that could be screaming, but it sounds as if it’s coming from very far away.

Or underwater.

All the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I feel as if an important understanding hovers just out of my reach, a key to a lock on a door I didn’t know until this moment even existed.

What is it? What am I missing?

Then the desk lamp flickers again, breaking the spell.

Shaking my head to clear it, I send Aidan a text with trembling hands.

Be right over.