Live and Let Die (22 page)

“Paula,” he said as he slipped a thin gold band on her ring finger. “We’re married now. And that means you will do everything I say.”

“But what if I can’t do it?”

“Paula, I don’t understand. You were so happy earlier when I told you about our new home. What’s wrong?”

Paula rubbed her forehead and looked around. “I don’t know if I can do it. What if I can’t be a good wife to you, like Tracy—?”

Phillip walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Shhh, shhh. You will, Paula. You will. I know in time you’ll prove that you’re worthy of my love. That everything we
both
did was worth it.”

She chewed the bottom of her lip and looked around at the sparsely furnished house. “I just don’t want to disappoint you.
Especially
because of everything you’ve done for me.”

Phillip rubbed both her shoulders now. “Just do what we talked about, and you’ll be fine. It is very important, Paula, that you do everything I’ve told you. You take care of me and our home, and you don’t tell anyone about your past. We don’t want to tip anyone off about you. Then I’ll never be able to help you.”

Paula nodded. “Okay,” she whispered.

He cocked his head to the side. “Paula… ”

She smoothed back her hair with one hand, fiddling for a moment with the severe bun at the nape of her neck. “What I meant to say was, yes, dear.”

Phillip smiled. “There. That’s better. Now. I’m very tired after the long drive. It’s time for you to make dinner. I took the liberty of having the realtor pick up groceries. The recipe cards are in the kitchen.” He took off his jacket and settled into the beige recliner in the living room. “You’d better get started.”

She swallowed and clasped her hands together. “Yes, dear,” she said before she scurried to the kitchen.

W
hen Sondra finally turned her phone back on, Kevin had left her three frantic messages, two begging her to tell him where she was going and a third saying he was contacting the police. Sondra briefly considered calling him, but decided to take her chances and wing it to St. Louis. She called Cicely in the cab on her way to the airport to tell her what was going on. Cicely tried to talk her out of it, telling her to let the police handle it. Sondra pretended like the call was dropped and hung up. She wouldn’t let it go. She couldn’t.

Her flight was delayed while they waited for a vicious summer storm to pass. Sondra’s colossal lust for a cigarette almost drove her to light up in the bathroom. It wasn’t worth it, of course, so instead, she chewed on the ice from the countless cups of ginger ale she’d sucked down while they waited. Drumming her fingers against the armrest, Sondra hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer before they could leave. The shivers were back and Sondra knew if she didn’t get to Phillip now, she might not ever find out what happened to Tracy.

T
he nausea passed and Paula felt well enough to begin washing the windows inside and out. Except her head was pounding and she had to stop several times. Everything felt wobbly, slippery. But she would fix that. She just had to get through today and she would start taking her vitamins again tomorrow.

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered to herself as she soaped up one window, the creamy white streaks soothing her. “Phillip knows best. I’ll never go against him again.”

Paula ventured a smile to herself before a stab of pain seared across her temples and she dropped her jumbo yellow sponge on the floor.

“Oh my God,” she said as she doubled over, clutching the corner of the counter. It came again and this time she fell to the floor, the sting too great.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. She looked up and her kitchen became a blob of white. She held her hand to her head. Another wave of nausea rose up and she barely had time to stand up before the vomit came flying out of her mouth and sprayed the side of the sink.

She stood over the sink, heaving and crying. This was too much for her to handle on her own. She needed Phillip. It was early afternoon. He wouldn’t be home for hours.

She couldn’t wait that long. She’d have to call him, beg him for help.

Except she didn’t know how to use a phone. Phillip had never taught her how. And besides, he kept it locked up in his office. She didn’t even know where he worked. She grunted and tried to drag herself to the bathroom when there was another jab to the inside of her head. She keeled over and rolled onto her back, trembling. She stayed there, staring at the ceiling and fighting to catch her breath.

She stayed there a few more moments, coming back to her senses. She couldn’t let Phillip know what was going on.

I
t had been bliss.

Coming home to her every day. To a hot meal. To her grateful love and devotion. He often had to pinch himself over how lucky he was.

And smart.

He was so happy. She was so obedient, doing everything he told her without question, without rebellion. He was finally in total control. It was empowering. Energizing.

The only black mark was when he’d have to pull her back in line. Sometimes she forgot. He’d wonder if he should adjust her dosage, but always decided against it. Give her too little, she’d start to remember, give her too much, she’d be catatonic. He’d just have to supplement the chemistry with his words and actions. What was it they’d called it in the handful of psychology classes he’d taken? Positive reinforcement. It usually worked and everything would settle back down to normal.

He would do whatever it took to keep his perfect world perfect.

D
on Keegan shook his head as he watched the Channel Four news and the exposé of the Tracy Ellis/Carol Henderson debacle. He knew Phillip Pearson was a sick fuck, but he had no idea just how deep it ran.

Don would forever rue the day he got mixed up with that guy.

Years ago, he’d been a high-flying psychologist with a thriving private practice, a Lincoln Park mansion, a Porsche in the garage and a bevy of hot blondes on his arm.

He also had a raging drug addiction, courtesy of a back injury from slipping on pool tiles during a vacation in the Caymans. Physical therapy wasn’t cutting it and surgery made him skittish—hence why he wasn’t a surgeon. He started with Vicodin, moved on to Percocet, before falling prey to Fentanyl. He became desperate in his attempts to secure drugs, going so far as to falsify prescriptions using aliases, multiple addresses and skipping around to different pharmacies in the suburbs and city. He stuck to large pharmacies, where no one was likely to remember his face.

Except he’d tripped up and gone to Phillip’s pharmacy twice in one week.

Phillip threatened to turn him in and a terrified Keegan had begged him to keep quiet, swore that he’d get help if Phillip kept his secret. Phillip agreed, but promised he’d be calling on him for a favor one day. A desperate Keegan had agreed to the terms before he checked himself into rehab the next day.

Rehab had been a grueling exercise that alternated between humiliation and torture. By the time he was done, his life was in a shambles. He’d been away from his practice too long, resulting in lost patients, lost income, and lost reputation. Patients who’d caught a whiff of his troubles started to sue, claiming a hopped-up shrink was unfit to provide competent medical care. The lawsuits had grown to impressive levels and time he could have spent rebuilding his practice was lost to long sessions with his attorneys trying to settle the damn things. The Lincoln Park mansion fell into foreclosure and the Porsche was repossessed. He’d barely escaped homelessness by convincing one of his old bedmates to let him bunk on her couch for a few months.

Once he’d made the last settlement, a med school buddy was able to get him a position on staff at a mental hospital in Berwyn of all places. He hated the suburbs. And the work was everything he vowed he’d never get into. It made him long for the days of listening to Gold Coast socialites drone on about their prick lawyer husbands putting them on a shopping allowance and their lover’s demands for more spending money.

He knew he wouldn’t do it forever. Still, it had gotten him back into treating patients and allowed him to begin rebuilding. He’d even managed to get back into Lincoln Park, even if it was a one bedroom apartment. It was a start.

The jungle drums had told Phillip where Don had landed and on that cold January night three years ago, he’d made good on his promise to cash in his favor.

It wasn’t until Don saw the photographs of Tracy Ellis and Carol Henderson splashed across the front page of the newspaper that he’d put two and two together.

Sick fuck, indeed.

Don picked up his cell phone from the small glass coffee table in front of him. He twirled it in his hand, his eyes still trained on the TV, which had now moved onto weather. It would be sunny, a high of eighty-five.

Maybe he could make it rain on Phillip tomorrow.

Don punched up the Channel Four website on his phone in search of the station’s phone number.

I
t was late afternoon before Paula’s nausea subsided. Fortunately, dinner that evening was easy—spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic bread and salad. She’d forced herself to be as upbeat as ever for Phillip that evening, even though she felt like dropping to the kitchen floor and staying there all night. She held her breath as her hands squished into the raw beef she would use for the sauce, struggling not to let the smells or cold, wormy texture dislodge her stomach. She managed to stumble through the torture with a smile on her face, not daring to show Phillip her pain.

It worked, since Phillip had commented how she seemed to be improving in her duties. He’d even kissed her on the forehead and congratulated her on a job well done. Paula had breathed a sigh of relief that she’d passed inspection. She couldn’t take a night in the closet. She was just too worn out. That night, she clutched her pillow against her stomach, feeling comforted as she drifted off to sleep.

“Y
ou seem rather chipper this morning.”

Paula smiled as she placed a cup of coffee in front of Phillip.

“Oh, I am. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day outside.”

Phillip looked over Paula’s shoulder to the kitchen window behind her. “Yes, I guess it is going to be a nice day today.”

“I think I might shampoo the carpets today. It will be good to do while the roast for tonight’s dinner is cooking.”

“Well, you know what I always say. Efficiency is the hallmark of a well-run home.”

Paula placed a stack of steaming pancakes on the table. “Oh, thank you dear. I’m so glad you’re happy.”

Phillip nodded as he waited for Paula to butter the pancakes before drenching them in maple syrup. She ducked back into the kitchen for a plate of turkey sausage links and patted Phillip on the shoulder. “Eat well, dear.”

Phillip smiled and bit into a link. “I intend to.”

Paula busied herself finishing Phillip’s lunch of ham and cheese on wheat, a chocolate chip cookie, and a baggie of six carrot sticks. The trauma of yesterday had passed and she couldn’t remember when she’d felt so good.

If ever.

Phillip cleared his throat and Paula whirled around as if she was floating on air, the brown paper bag with Phillip’s lunch in hand. She handed him the bag and picked up the dishes in one fell swoop. She ran over to the closet to extract Phillip’s blue blazer. She turned around to find him holding a glass of water and her vitamins.

“Open wide, Paula.”

She stopped and hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to tell him she no longer needed the vitamins. She thought better of it. He wouldn’t like it. Better to let him go on thinking they were still necessary. For now at least. She plastered on a smile.

“Thank you, dear,” she said as she opened her mouth and took a hearty gulp of water.

Phillip nodded and set the glass down on the coffee table before he let Paula slip his jacket on for him.

“Have a good day, dear,” Paula said.

“You, too,” Phillip said as he gave her a peck on the cheek. “I look forward to seeing what you do with the carpets.”

Paula chuckled and gave him a wave. She waited until he was out of the driveway before she spit the pills into her palm. She rinsed them down into the garbage disposal and washed her hands before filling a glass with water and gargling to wash the bitterness away.

She glanced up at the clock on the stove. She should take the meat out to defrost for dinner. She didn’t want to get behind schedule.

I
t was almost 11 P.M before the flight finally left JFK. The flights Sondra had taken across the globe while doing her documentaries couldn’t compare with this two hour, nine minute flight, which was turning into the longest of her life. The flight attendants got tired of giving her cups of ice; they finally plunked a plastic bag of it on her tray table. Her fingers were so demolished, at one point she sat on them. But then she couldn’t help herself and was gnawing on them again as they began their final descent. She found the last rental car available in St. Louis and when she finally dropped into the hotel bed, she didn’t know whether to sleep or stay awake.

She compromised and settled on a few hours of sleep. She was up at seven and was now sitting in her rental car in front of the clinic where Phillip worked. If things had gone how she originally planned, she would have been able to go to his house last night. So it goes. She checked her watch again. It was eight-thirty and the hours on the door said they opened at nine. She took another sip of coffee and sighed. A burgundy Mazda pulled into the parking lot and she sat up, peering closely to see if it might be him. A few minutes passed before the door swung open and a petite black woman dressed in a multicolored pharmacy smock and green scrub pants got out. Sondra blinked several times.

“Oh, my God. That’s his wife. That’s Paula.” She remembered what Phillip’s letter had said. “I thought he said she was a housewife,” Sondra muttered. Shaking her head, Sondra flung the car door open and ran over to the woman who was getting something out of the trunk.