Alex
January 15, 2018
“Well, what do you think?”
There’s a long silence over the phone. It’s just after nine at night.
“I’m not sure how to say this, but it’s sad, Alex. It’s heartbreaking. I mean, it’s a great book, but it’s really sad.”
I’m not sure what to say to this information.
“How many books are in the series?”
“Three.”
“Will they all be this tragic?”
I sigh, resting my hand on the counter. Larry weaves in and out of my legs. “I don’t know. Is sad a good thing? Come on, Bryce, you need to give me more. I’m the writer. I don’t see what you see. I view my books differently.”
“Alex, you’re a brilliant writer. Of course the book is great. But it’s just so sad.” Her voice trails off.
“Can we not sell a sad book?”
“Your readers expect a certain level of sex, wit, love, some sadness, but you always mend their hearts in the end.”
“So, I didn’t mend hearts?”
“No, you didn’t. You owe me five dollars and ninety-nine cents, by the way, too. I went through a box of tissues in one sitting.”
I bite my lip, nervous about where to go from here.
After she blows her nose in the phone—thanks, Bryce—she says, “Let’s make some tweaks and changes before we send it on. Here’s where we can do that.”
After Bryce and I hang up, Larry hops up on the counter and meows, sitting down right in front of me.
“You’re really needy, mister. I know; I know. The next time I go anywhere, I’m taking you with me.” I give him a good rub.
It’s been three months—eighty-five days—since I left Granite Harbor.
I click off the lamp next to the couch and lock the front door. With Larry at my heels, I turn on the light above the staircase and walk up the stairs to bed. I wash my face, but I think I hear a knock at the door. I turn off the water to listen. I turn the water back on, finish washing my face, brush my teeth, and then I pile into bed.
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t read it tonight. Just one night.
Don’t read it. Give your heart time.
I turn off my bedside lamp, take my phone out, and read Eli’s article on winning Game Warden of the Year in December. My heart explodes when I see the grooves around his smile. His lips. His hands.
Don’t do it, Alex. You’re just asking for the bandage to be put back on and pulled off all over again.
I reach in my nightstand and grab the letter Eli wrote me. I read every last word, my eyes trying to gain traction as they sputter through the words that reach my heart every time.
The doorbell rings, and an electric shock shoots through my body. My heart begins to pound out of my chest as I spring from bed. Larry is on his feet as if someone threw water on him.
“Stay put.”
But he won’t.
I throw a robe on as I quickly make my way downstairs. I look through the peephole. My eyes have a hard time registering what they’re seeing.
“Oh my God.” I open the door. “Clay? What … what are you doing here? What happened?”
He’s disheveled. His once-clean-shaven face is now overgrown with patches of hair, his clothes soiled. Not even close to how I remember him.
Instantly, my cell phone starts to ring upstairs.
My home phone begins to ring.
What is going on?
“I need to come in, Alex. We need to talk.” He doesn’t ask. He pushes past me.
Instantly, the hairs on my neck stand at attention as he takes a seat in the living room, and I see the gun in his hand.
Fear starts in as my entire body goes numb.
Two choices. I have two choices:
1. Run, praying he doesn’t shoot me in the back.
2. Sit down, play his game, and either convince him this isn’t the right way to handle whatever he’s dealing with or kill him before he kills me.
I hear my cell phone upstairs again. The house phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
I sit down on the far sofa. He’s sitting in the leather chair with the tall back.
“Why’d you leave?” He sets the gun on the ottoman next to him, putting his hands against his thighs, and rocks.
“I had to.”
“You didn’t tell me. Or Randall. Or anyone. You just left.”
“Where’s Randall?”
The house phone rings again. Then, my cell phone rings again.
“Goddamn it! Can you make the ringing stop?” He pushes his hands to his head for mercy.
“Why are they ringing, Clay?”
He stands and begins to pace the living room, the gun still on the ottoman. Clay’s hands are at his waist. He stares at my bare walls. “You should really think of painting in here.” Clay is a completely different person than he was five seconds ago.
The phones go off again.
His aggravation returns again, his face growing increasingly angry. Frustrated.
“Clay, why are my phones ringing?”
He stops and drops his hands, and he goes to a childlike state. “Alex, I did something really bad.”
Chills move throughout my entire body. Fear can be paralyzing.
“Actually, I did two really bad things.” He picks up his gun.
The phones ignite again. And so does his gun. Clay takes one shot and fires it through the roof.
I jump internally at the fire. The noise never finishes settling in my bones before I speak, “C-clay, I can make the ringing stop.”
He stops pacing now, clearly agitated. “You can?” It’s as if he doesn’t know that the noise that won’t stop is coming from the phones.
I nod.
“Please. Please do. Then, come back because we need to have a long talk. I need to tell you what I did.”
“Sure, sure. We’ll do that.” My legs are barely moving beneath me as I try to walk quietly to the stairs without freaking out.
Am I breathing? Am I holding my breath? I’m not sure. I can’t seem to take two steps at a time like I normally do even though I wish I could get upstairs faster.
There’s an eerie silence that falls in the house. Like something really bad is about to happen, but I don’t stop. I grab my phone on my nightstand where I left it, and with shaking hands, I grab the gun in my nightstand.
Quickly, I throw on a pair of jeans and strain to listen, but it’s just my breathing that fills the silence. Leaving my top on, I throw on a sweatshirt and shove the gun in the back of my pants, making sure it’s loaded before I do. Larry is out of sight, which means he’s probably found a new spot, a safer one, to sleep.
I want to call 911, but when I look at my phone screen, I can’t believe what I’m looking at. Kyle’s phone number obliterates my call log.
Kyle.
Kyle.
Kyle.
My heart drops and pounces across the floor. I can’t think about this now. I can’t. I dial 911 but don’t hit the Call button. If something happens to me, nobody will know that Clay did it. He could get away with it. What if he hid bodies? What if he killed someone? Is Clay capable of that?
I know he’s in some sort of state right now and that he might not notice I’m not back yet, but it won’t be long.
Maybe I can get him to calm down.
I make my way back downstairs, and Clay’s sitting in the same chair, staring at the coffee table.
The phones have stopped ringing.
“Thank you,” he says. He’s in a much calmer state.
I try to act calm as I take my seat. “So, you said you did some bad things, Clay?” The tone in my voice scares me.
“Yeah.” He nods.
“What did you do?” I feel the steel of the gun in my back.
“It started with your novels.”
“Which one?”
“Kill the fucking ego act, bitch. I’m not one of your groupies, all right?” The gun is casually in his hand now.
“Clay, I didn’t mean—”
“Shut the fuck up and let me talk.” After a moment, a slow smile begins to form on his lips. “Did you think it was fate?”
I’m confused. “What?”
He smiles bigger now. “The postcards. Did you think it was fate?”
Oh my God. Chills break over my entire body. The postcards.
“It was a good trick, right? Getting you to Granite Harbor? Eli. The whole bit.” Clay beams proudly.
My mind flashes to the postcards. They were postmarked in Brooklyn. Our flight, I asked Clay and Randall where they were headed from.
Brooklyn.
Clay’s face contorts to anger. “He never told you about me because I’m gay. He left my mom when I was eight years old. That fucking asshole!” he screams and begins pacing again.
“Who? Who are you talking about, Clay?”
“Philip Fisher, bitch! Don’t you get it?” He takes the barrel of the gun and taps his head. “My dad left us—left us—left his own child to take up relations with a whore. Blamed it on his sick father.”
Anger fires through me. I stand, knowing the steel is at quick reach if I need to take drastic measures. “My mother is not a whore.”
“I’m sorry,” he says in a childlike state again. “I’m sorry.”
“What did you do, Clay?” I ask firmly. I swallow the bile building in my throat, my mind spinning to catch up.
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you.” He points the gun at the chair I was sitting in. “In order to ruin your life like my dad did mine, I needed to get to know you. I needed to know your quirks, what you did on a daily basis. How you handled yourself. I needed to know these things.” He pauses, as if caught up in a memory, and he begins to rock. “My mother tried to wash the gay out of me. She did rituals. Took me to some shady places at a young age, Alex, just so she could prove I was straight. Made me do unsavory things with people I didn’t know.” Clay slowly laughs, as if trying to push away his hidden traumas, bury them beneath the evil. “She was fucking crazy.” He rubs the back of his neck.
My heart breaks.
“But you … you had this great life in California with my dad. My dad, not yours.” Tears start to stream from his eyes.
I repeat, “What did you do, Clay? What bad things did you do?”
His eyes grow dark, heavy, scary even. “I’ve read your books, Alex. They’re shitty, just so you know. Your heroines are always getting what they want in the end. Bitches. Always these happy fucking endings. Not this time.” He pauses. “I took Lila. She reminded me of you. So, I practiced on her. Took things from her, from her body. I wanted to make sure that, when I got to you, I would be an expert with a carving knife.”
I can’t breathe.
“I took animals and practiced on them. But then, Eli started investigating these unusual animal deaths—oh, wait. I mean, murders. Funny how that works. I thought he fit the bill. The sickening men that you write about in your books with muscles and shit. Disgusting, by the way. Not all tough men have muscles. Anyway, you don’t want to know how long I’ve been stalking you. And poor Kyle. Such a sad thing.”
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You don’t get to say that!”
Please, God, don’t let him say what I think he’s going to say.
“Look, I had to get Kyle out of the picture, Alex.” He pauses and smiles. “Plot twist.”
My heart is no longer beating, or I can’t feel it. My fingers are numb, my body weak. I want nothing fucking more than to pull the gun out of my back and shoot this asshole. But I can’t. I can’t. I need to know.
I go to speak, but nothing comes out.
“After I started the fire at Brenda’s house that killed Kyle, knowing it would obliterate your heart, it just wasn’t enough. I still felt this itch that needed scratching. So, I came to Belle’s Hollow and began making friends at California Fire Tech. Was able to pull reports, Kyle’s signature, so I could learn to perfect his writing.”
“You fucking asshole,” I whisper under my breath.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“How fucking dare you.”
“Can I finish?” Clay stops talking and stares. “I knew, in order to get you to Granite Harbor, I had to lure you in somehow, and voilà! Kyle’s handwriting on the postcards. And you should have seen the look on your face when Eli walked in that morning.” He winks. “I texted him to ask him to come try the cinnamon rolls. I knew you’d make the connection.” His face changes, looking sullen.
I’m silent for a long time. Helplessness penetrates my organs, and I feel it overcome me.
He knew Kyle would run in the house to save Brenda and her daughter. Knew what kind of man he was. My heart falls into a million little pieces. With this act, I know for certain that Lila is no longer alive. Knowing Kyle’s body is at rest gives the strife in my heart some freedom, but the Richardsons need closure, too.
“Where’s Lila’s body?”
Clay rolls his eyes and crosses his legs, leaning back in the chair, casual.
“Where-where’s her body?” I build strength.
Clay laughs a gut laugh and then stops. “Off the Appalachian Trail, about two hundred yards. You won’t find her.” He pauses. “Do you think you’re getting out of here alive, Alex? I fucking think not. Now, the plan is, I’m going to send your body parts to your parents in the mail because I think my dad deserves for his heart to be broken, don’t you?”
No.
Fucking. No.
“Clay, he has Alzheimer’s. He won’t know what’s going on.” And I say this to protect them, not me.
Please, God, keep them safe.
I have to fight for my life because I won’t allow him to do this to my parents. No fucking way. My stomach tightens and my mouth grows watery.
“What about Randall?” I whisper.
“Yeah, about him. Sad face.” He changes to a sullen look again in a childlike state. “I had to kill him, too. He caught me. That little booger. He followed me one night to visit Lila. When you left Granite Harbor, my plan failed. Really, I was going to kidnap you because you’re the one responsible for all this. If you had not taken my dad, if my dad hadn’t met your mom, he would have come back.”
I stare at him, terrified to move. I swallow sandpaper and hear my heartbeat pulsate in my ears and I move slightly to adjust myself on the couch.
“Nine-one-one operator. What is your emergency?”
My phone must have called when I moved.
Fight or flight.
I pull my phone from my back pocket.
I look at Clay, whose eyes have changed from anger to something more sinister, eviler, more awful.
Betrayal.
Hatred.
Scarier than I’ve ever seen. But I have to fight to save my life.
“My name is Alexandra Fisher. I live at 27834 Redwood Trail in Belle’s Hollow. Come quick. And, if anything happens to me, Clay did it.”
“Fucking bitch!” he screams and lunges at me.
I meet him midair.
A gun fires.
I land against him as we fall to the floor. I’m not sure if I’m shot, but I still have strength. Not knowing where his gun is, I knee him in the balls. He grunts, and his face contorts, but his hands slide around my neck and squeeze.
Clay pushes off the floor and throws my body under him, like I’m a rag doll.
He’s too strong.
My vision is starting to turn to black as his hands tighten around my neck. My hands go numb, but they still move on the floor, searching for my gun.
Steel. It’s warm from being in my pants. My hands shaking, my fingers stretch and contort to get my hand around the butt.
Things are fading quickly. Too quickly. I can’t breathe.
Please, someone help me.
Kyle is overhead.
Am I seeing things? Has Kyle come to bring me home? Oh, my Kyle.
Kyle is yelling over the top of Randall, whose face is red, sweaty, angry.
Kyle, what are you saying to me?
I can’t read your lips.
Starts with an F.
I hear the word loud and clear.
FIGHT!
I feel the steel again, grab the gun, and open my eyes and see Clay, still squeezing. Still red. Still angry.
I pull the hammer back with my right hand and fire the gun.