Chapter 13
Abigail
SHIT. SHIT. DOUBLE SHIT. CRAP!
I have to go. I have to get out of here. If Tanner knows I killed my husband, he will have to turn me in. He’ll have to. He’s a Texas Ranger, after all.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
It was so stupid of me to get involved with a Ranger. I didn’t escape my life with Brandon only to go to jail! And that is exactly where I will go if Tanner finds out. Or the electric chair. They still use Old Smokey in Texas, right? Oh God, I’m fucked. A whimper escapes my mouth and I clamp it closed, gritting my teeth hard. Now is not the time to fall apart.
“Hey, kid,” Russell says snapping me out of my trance. I look around and Ellie and Ari are sitting at the counter their untouched lunches in front of them, staring at me with concerned faces.
“What just happened, Abby?” Ari asks me.
“I killed my husband, that’s what.” My eyes go wide mirroring theirs. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I wish I could draw them back in.
“Wait, what?” Ellie asks quietly.
I turn to run but Russell grabs me by my arms. “Please,” I beg. “Let me go. You have to let me go.”
“No, girl,” he says firmly. “You have to get it all out now. It’s a poison, you have to purge to poison to heal.”
“I can’t!” I cry out.
“Yes!” he grumbles back. “You can. Get the poison out.”
“Maybe we should start at the beginning,” Ellie says kindly.
“Everyone out! Restaurant’s closed for the afternoon,” Russell shouts. “The toilets are all overflowing in the back! It’s shit everywhere. Run while you can!” he covers for the reason everyone has to leave.
“Well, that cleared the place pretty quickly,” Ari muses.
“Lock the door for me, would you doll?” Russell asks her as he tosses her his set of keys from his pocket.
“Coffee!” Ellie shouts jumping up. “I’ll just pour everyone a cup of coffee!”
“I’ll help,” I say. I owe my new friends—the people who took me in and were so kind to me no matter what—an explanation before I run again. Maybe this time I’ll head to California.
I help Ellie pour four mugs of hot coffee and then carry them over to a small four top table in the back where Russell and Ari meet us. We all sit down, and they seem to stare at me, waiting.
“Well?” Russell booms and the ridiculousness of the situation makes me laugh nervously. Is this what happens when you have a mental break? I hope not. Although the padded cell my be better than death row.
I sigh. “It’s like I said,” I tell them. “I killed my husband.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Ari says softly. I let out a sigh.
“I was eighteen, barely, when I met him,” I start. “I was dancing in a club to pay the bills because we were so very poor after my dad left us. It was just me and my mom for as long as I can remember, and we were a team. We did what we had to do to get by,” I smile at the memory.
“Go on,” Russell says.
I swallow before I pick the story back up. “She wanted better for me. She wanted me out of our trailer in our small town. She wanted me to have the life she had always dreamed of. And I was stripping to pay the bills while she waited tables at a dive of a diner. She hated it, I hated it. Every night was worse than the night before. There are clubs that treat the girls right and make sure they’re protected and paid well, this was not one of those clubs.
“I saw him when I was on stage and I was just drawn to him. He was dressed nice and had an in-control air about him. Later, I would find out he was in control of everything because he ran all of the shadier businesses in the area on top of his family owning the big coal mines.” I have to stop and take a breath before continuing. “He promised me everything I had never had before,” I whisper. “Not just the money and security, but a family. Someone who loved me . . . wanted me. Mama loved Brandon and all he had to offer. She told me one night, I either left as his wife and didn’t come back or I just left, but either way, I wouldn’t be coming back to her home. We were married a week later, and I was young and dumb enough to think that it was all a fairytale . . . but it wasn’t.”
“Oh honey,” Ellie whispers.
“A week later I burned an expensive roast. He had invited some business associates over for dinner and I was so nervous that I burned the roast. He laughed it off with them and joked about my being a new bride. He took them all out to dinner leaving me at home to fret about all that I had done wrong to disgrace him which he had laid out for me in painstaking detail. When he came home, drunk as a skunk, he hit me. It surprised me. It’s shocking to be hit.
“The next morning, Brandon swore it would never happen again and I promised him I would do better, try harder to make him happy. But the thing is, Brandon was never happy. I see that now. Over the years, it only got worse.”
“Did you ever try to leave him?” Ari asks, and I laugh without humor.
“Only once,” I explain. “I had gotten as far as a few towns over when he found me and the lesson he taught me was that he would never let me go alive.”
“So, what did you do?” Ellie asks.
“I knew that I couldn’t live like that. I knew that it was only a matter of time before he killed me, and he would get away with it too. He told me all the time about how important his friends were in town. So, one day I decided, if it was going to come down to him or me, it was going to be me. That very next day I started putting a little bit of rat poison in his morning coffee. Not a lot at first, just enough to weaken him. Make him feel sick.
“I think he started to suspect something. He started preparing his cup of coffee himself in the mornings. But I was watching, I was ready. Brandon would only drink this one type of coffee. He made me go all over town to find where I could buy the little cups that go in those single serving brewers. And I wasn’t allowed to drink them. They were his only. So, while he was at work, I started making a solution out of the rat poison and water and injecting it into the cup under the label.
“On that last morning, he was feeling miserable, although that didn’t stop him from hitting me two nights before, he collapsed right there at the breakfast table. I never looked back. I just walked to the hall closet and grabbed a bag I had hidden under all of the winter coats and Christmas decorations with a few changes of clothes and all the cash I could pilfer from my grocery allowance.”
“And then what?” Ari asks.
“And then I got in my car and drove to Kentucky. I sold my car for a junker with no paper trail and—”
“And you drove here,” Russell interrupts.
“No,” I smile at him. “I landed in Tall Pines for a few months before coming here.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Ellie says placing her hand on top of mine on the table.
“Me too,” Ari joins in.
“But you see, I’m a cold-blooded killer. I have to go before Tanner has to lock me up and throw away the key,” I explain.
“Girl, that was more ‘Earl Had to Die’ and some straight up Dixie Chick shit, not ‘Making a Murderer.’” He shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me.
“I’ll admit it was a little more ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ instead of ’48 hours,’” Ellie says and Ari laughs.
“Have you all lost your damn minds?” I shout. “This shit is serious.”
“Good Lord,” Russell groans. “Do you even know if the bastard is dead?”
“What?” I whisper.
“Well, you didn’t stick around to watch him die, how do you know he’s really dead? You might not be a murderer after all.” The thought had never occurred to me. I always assumed Brandon was dead. But if he’s not . . .
“Oh no,” I whisper. “I have to go!” I shout before getting to my feet and running out the back door. I don’t stop until I’m in my old clunker of a car and heading down the road towards Tanner’s house.
I have to go.
I can’t let Tanner arrest me for murder. I won’t go to jail. And if Brandon isn’t dead . . . If Brandon hurt any of these people who I have grown to . . . love—especially Tanner who is so kind and sweet and generous—I would die.