Chapter 38

Not knowing the layout of the house made David vulnerable to me, by allowing me to hear him as he stumbled around the house, searching for me. My eyes began to adjust to the darkness. I could make out recognizable shapes of furniture. There was a little shelf on the other side of the rocker that had a bunch of figurines and polished shells. I crawled around the chair, stopping once to listen for David’s stumbling walk. I didn’t move until I located him. The sound of a chair moving on tile told me that he was by the kitchen table. I grabbed as many missiles as I could carry and tiptoed to the door way of the den. I tried to listen for any sound from Gene, but hear none. David was breathing heavily, masking any sound that may have been coming from Gene.
He was looking in the pocket of his raincoat that I had draped over one of the chairs. I checked to see if the pathway to the stairs was clear. My plan was to barricade myself in the master bedroom again. Then try to shimmy down the deck and get some help for Gene.

I once told David that he would rue the day that he taught me how to pitch a baseball. I took careful aim with my first object, a golf ball sized glass figurine—appropriately a sailboat. I sent it sailing. My aim was true and I made a bull’s eye on David’s neck. In any other setting, he would have been beaming with pride, but not in this case. With machine gun speed, I tossed the rest of my missiles at him. Some hit their mark and some didn’t. I shattered the sliding glass door with a paper weight made of some heavy metal, probably brass. The gaping hole let in the din of the ferocious storm outside.

With the speed of Mercury, I ran up the stairs, slamming and locking the door to the master bedroom. The room was very dark and I didn’t know my way around it like I did with the downstairs level. So I lit a candle and placed it on the dresser, so that its flame would reflect light in the mirror. I grabbed a raincoat out of the closet. I searched for a pair of sneakers that had a lot of tread on them. I didn’t want to try and climb down the side of the house in a pair of slippery worn shoes. I thought of changing into a pair of jeans, but figured that the rain would soak them quickly, causing the fabric to be heavy and impede my movements. It was vital that I get help as fast as I could. Gene could be dying or…and I shuddered to think it, dead. He needed medical attention pronto.

As I sat on the bed tying my sneakers, David viciously attacked the door in a full body assault, causing it to shake in its frame. With my heart racing, I fumbled with my shoelaces. My wrist ached and I had a hard time moving it. When David twisted the candle holder from my hand, the wrist was injured. I searched the dresser for an effective weapon. I knew that when he broke through the door that I would have to be quick, if I wanted to escape. I opened my jewelry case, searching for a brooch. If I secreted it in my hand, I could do some damage with the pin part of it. As I shuffled through jewelry, I stopped short. Forgotten for a moment was the pressing problem of David’s desire to break into the room and kill me. There in my jewelry case was the ring that I thought Melinda had in her hand when she died. The ring David gave me last year—the one with the single pearl and two small rubies. I knew that the Chief still had it, because it was evidence. Then why was it in my jewelry case? I put it on my finger, so I could show it to the Chief, if by chance I lived through the night.

I was struggling to unlock the sliding glass door when he broke through. A security bar secured in the bottom track of the door, kept it from moving. In the candlelit room, I saw a madman, and not the man I once loved deeply. He stood in the center of the room, watching as I desperately fought with the door. In hopelessness, I banged upon the glass with my fist, screaming for someone to help me. Storm banshees wailed loudly, drowning out my pleas.

I turned to face him, bracing myself for an attack. But he didn’t move, as he spoke calmly, “Kerrie, like I said earlier…we need to talk.”

I repeated, “We need to talk?” Then I shouted hysterically, “We need to talk!” I stared at his face in disbelief. “My God David, you just attacked Gene. He could be dead for all I know. And you’ve hunted me down, breaking through a door and now want to talk?”

“We don’t have much time, Kerrie. Listen Gene struck me first. I knocked him out. He’ll wake up with a headache tomorrow.” His reassurance was hollow. We both knew he wounded Gene severely. I studied him, looking for any sign of weakness. The bridge of his nose had a cut across it, probably due to my missile assault. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. There was blood dripping down his arm. I had cut him badly with the candle holder. But the injuries didn’t affect his strength. I readied the brooch for attack, putting the pin part through my closed fingers, like a mock claw. But I knew in my heart it wouldn’t faze him. The effect would be nothing harsher than a mosquito bite.

“Tonight we’re going back to Charlotte. Tomorrow morning, you are going to liquidate as much of your personal assets into cash as you can. I’ve got a debt to pay off and I’ve got to pay by tomorrow night. They’ll kill you, too. I can’t let them. I love you too much.”

“David, I can’t do that. I refuse to do it. Go ahead and kill me, you killed my heart. You killed our baby!” I screamed at him. He killed our baby. I said what was in my heart, what I had been running from. He stood looking at me, as I ranted over and over that he had killed our baby. I snapped, becoming the femme side of insanity, completing the transformation to lunacy that threatened our relationship from its beginnings. Charging him, I began to pummel his chest, weeping uncontrollable.

“Kerrie, you falling down those stairs was an accident. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. No one did. If you had listened to me and waited in the car, it wouldn’t have happened. But no, you had to be meddlesome. I know you couldn’t help it. You love me and wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to get hurt.” He tried to pull me into an embrace, “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Anger rose from the soles of my feet, firing my veins with liquid ire. David was months late with his consoling. I jerked away and wildly tried to claw his eyes with the pointed pin end of the brooch. He caught my hands and we had a showdown of strength. The pain in my wrist was excruciating and I couldn’t hold the brooch. David twisted me around until he was behind me. I continued struggling, but it was useless. My strength waned. I stopped fighting in a pitiful attempt to reserve my energy. If I kept alert, I might be able to find a way to escape.

He held me by my wrists with one hand. I noticed that during our struggle, we had moved closer to the sliding glass door. I willed myself to get my emotions under control and calm down, so he would relax his death grip on my wrists. Covertly, my eyes sought something to break the glass. If I could escape his clutches, I planned to try an escape by jumping from the deck. The door leading to the stairs was fruitless, because David blocked the path to the door.

“What the hell!” He said in my ear, as he jerked my hands up so he could look at them. “Where did you get this ring? How in the hell did you get it, Kerrie?” He twirled me around, so that I was face to face with him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about? I took your engagement ring off months ago.”

He began to shake me, “I’m not talking about that ring.” Pulling my hand up to my face, he said, “I’m talking about this ring.” I stared at the birthday ring that he had given me, a duplicate of the one that Melinda held when she died. I had forgotten that I had slipped it on my finger earlier.

“Melinda Jones. She had it in her hand when she died.” I lied and then ran with a suspicion that suddenly came to me. “David, you gave me this ring over a year ago. It was a birthday gift.” I watched his facial features change as he realized his mistake; his slip of the tongue. “You gave her one, too.” I accused him without proof, but I knew in my heart that he did. “Were you having an affair? Why was she searching this house, when she died?”

“Kerrie, you’re jumping to conclusions. I don’t know her that well. She helped me get a book deal with Banning House. I gave her a ring as a thank you gift.”

“Book deal with Banning House?” I was reeling in shock, as he revealed more and more of the deception that he hid so well.

“We can talk about this later, okay? Right now, we need to get going. I don’t know how far inland this storm has gone. It will take longer to drive in bad weather.” He let me go. I don’t think he meant to do it. Having to suddenly be on the defense, made his careless. I took the moment thought, by trying to slam my body through the glass door. But it was a failure as I bumped off the glass, knocking the wind out of myself. I fell backwards, landing painfully on my bottom.

David found humor in my pitiful escape attempt. His laugher almost drowned out the clamor of the storm. “Oh Kerrie, you are such a little ball of spit fire! You need at least a hundred more pounds before you’ll be able to break through that glass. Thanks, I really needed the laugh.”

“Go suck an egg,” I gasped, as I tried to catch my breath. The left side of my whole body ached. I looked at the glass with disbelief. I hadn’t even cracked it.

“Would you quit wasting time?” David held out his hand, offering to help me up. I shook my head and tried to stand alone. “You are one stupid stubborn bitch.” He said nastily. An alarm went off inside me, driving home the fact that I was in lethal danger. He had never slurred me in conversation. Never! If he managed to get me to Charlotte to finance his debt, I would in no way see nightfall alive.

From the darkness of the doorway, a shadow moved quickly, covering David in an omen of fists. Wounded severely, Gene had somehow managed to make it up the stairs. He locked his arm around David’s neck in a choke hold. His head was sticky with blood; the wetness gave a shine to his head. His voice was raspy as he said, “Go, Kerrie. Get out of here.”