Tragic Renewal (18 page)

Harper dipped her head and pulled the heavy towel off, scrubbing the towel over sopping hair. With a smile she tugged sagging pants up higher, noticing the waist was distinctly looser than the last time wearing the same pair. Hard work and better eating was paying off in the weight loss department.

Ziggie followed Harper from the room head planted under her hand as they walked through the house together. Suddenly he whined and raced for the front door. Harper wondered who would be coming to visit so late in the evening. Heart-rate whirling in the hope Noah was returning to finish what they started earlier. Ziggie was on full alert to a stranger coming down the drive, dashing any hopes of a late evening tryst.

She sidled next to Ziggie and peaked through the long curtain covering the sidelight next to the door. The charcoal colored sedan drove steadily with tires popping rocks to the side on its trek down the long drive. The porch light shined on a lone shadowy occupant. Ziggie looked up, gauging Harper’s reaction to the stranger.

A bolt of sheer terror overcame her senses as recognition clarified doubt into confirmation of the car’s driver. “No, no, no it can’t be.”

Ziggie whined and a vicious growl ripped from his rumbling throat at tension leaking from overloaded senses. Ziggie let out a series of growling barks straight from the hounds of hell as Harper’s hand met his head, communicating a cesspool of darkness.

Harper tried to calm the frantic dog even as panic threatened to overwhelm any rational thought. She knew Scott’s arrival spoke of nefarious plans.

She held her hand on Ziggie’s trembling head as he calmed from barking to a keening whine coming from deep within his chest. Against better judgement she tugged his collar and led him to the bedroom. Afraid of what Ziggie might do to the man exiting a car many miles from home.

Ziggie watched with soulful eyes as she pulled the door closed, locking him away from whatever was to come. Ziggie’s heavy body smacked against the door as she walked down the hallway toward an uncertain confrontation.

Harper arrived back at the front door as a car door thumped closed. With trembling fingers she pushed the curtain aside to spy on the embodiment of a past life. Her concern changed to a puzzled frown when she looked at the car. Scott leaned in the backseat. Something tickled the back of her mind, reminding her of possibilities. Her stomach dropped as the truth screamed into awareness.

Suspicions were confirmed in short order. Scott straightened holding a baby carrier swinging from his hand. Harper’s hand reached to cover the gasp leaking from her lips unable to comprehend why Scott would have driven cross country without his wife but with his newborn infant.

He strode to the door, stride confident, and a smile plastered across a deceiving handsome face. Harper pulled back from the curtain as his foot hit the bottom step. Her heart sprinted and breath hitched in and out in a staccato rhythm. She waited for the doorbell, standing back from the door as possible decisions warred for space in a confused rush. When the chime reached her ears, she covered her heart and steeled her mind.

With trepiditious thoughts she considered what to do. Her hands trembled and a nervous sweat coated twitchy palms. The door knob refused to budge when she gripped, sweat coating the already slick surface. She wiped her hands on her pants and tried again, the knob turned to expose the man she had never wanted to see again in life.

Scott’s disarming smiled remained on his face when she got the nerve to look up. “Harper, I’m home. And I’ve brought our new son to meet his mommy.”

A million questions vied for purchase in her confused mind. Nothing settled in the nooks and crannies of possible answers which made sense. Instead of speaking she pulled the receiving blanket back from the baby’s face. She stared in puzzled shock. The baby looked to have dark skin and matching hair. The child could have been a replica of her. Harper glanced at Scott with narrowed eyes unable to fit the pieces together.

He laughed at her expression. “Oh, sweet Harper I have so much to tell you. Mind if we come in?”

“Wh-where’s Isabella, and whose child is this?” The words stuttered from her mouth. Her shaking increased when the possibilities grew exponentially for practical reasons.

“This is our son, Boyd. Let us come inside so you can meet him.”

Harper realized Scott must have taken a break from reality. Her mind screamed to slam the door in Scott’s face, while her heart warred against such drastic action. The baby cooed catching her attention and jerking her from indecision. She pulled the door open and invited them inside.

When Harper saw Scott in bright light she could identify the haggard lines and shamed tilt of his mouth. She settled on the couch and invited him to do the same. “Would you like a drink or anything?” Her voice trembled with anxiety and she chose to keep busy to distract herself from Scott being in her home. He was so out of place it was like a clown showing up to a serious board meeting.

Scott stared for a moment before responding. He sucked on his dry flaking lips. “How about water. We’ve been traveling all day and I don’t think I’ve had a single thing to drink.”

Harper jumped from the couch relieved to have something to keep her busy while her mind continued to process Scott’s unexpected presence.

From the kitchen she called out. “Does the baby need anything?”

His voice leaked a tinge of frustration when he answered. “The baby is Boyd, and he’s fine for now.”

The frustration set off new alarm bells as she filled a plastic tumbler with ice and poured water from a pitcher inside the fridge. She vised the feelings into a comfortable ball of ignorance and brought the water to Scott. The slight shake in her hand as she handed him the cup went unnoticed.

She settled back on the couch, her butt gripping the edge as though ready to spring into action. The awkward seating position sent fire through the muscles already tired and sore after a day of hard labor.

“So, you’re looking well. Looks like living in the country is finally getting rid of that weight you’ve been carrying around.”

Harper cringed at the backhanded compliment, but chose to ignore the palpable crazy emanating from Scott. She refused to respond to the weight comment, but instead focused on the smiling baby. “Tell me about Boyd.” She reached to touch Boyd’s cheek and his hand reached to clasp her thumb, holding her with the tight grip of new fingers. Her heart leaped into her throat as she caught his infant smell and warm skin melded with her hand.

“Well, turns out Isabella messed around on me and Boyd here is the result.”

A moment of glee, followed by the realization of dark fantasies of revenge. Scott had experienced Harper’s retribution without her presence. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the situation and a pit of knowledge forced its way into her gut. “Where’s Isabella now?”

He shrugged. “I left her on the couch at home. She was, uh, sleeping when we left.”

His slight hesitation threw up flares of warning. “I’m sure she’s looking for her son, why don’t you take him home and leave me alone. I won’t accept you back in my life.” She surprised herself with the force of her words and didn’t flinch when a familiar streak of rage washed over Scott’s face.

“I brought you a son, and now you’re trying to throw me out before we have a chance to start our life together.” His head trembled on his shoulders and his eyes twitched in a spasm of movements.

She stood from the couch to put distance between them. With reluctance she removed her thumb from Boyd’s clinging fingers. He grunted in dissatisfaction when his new toy disappeared above his head. His small fists waved as he tried to re-capture her hand.

Emboldened by her perceived power while standing over Scott, she asked again. “What happened to Isabella?”

“Oh, nothing you need to worry your little brain with. You couldn’t process it even if I told you. Now honey, why don’t you sit back down and I’ll tell you a few secrets.”

Her need to wrest Boyd from the crazy man overrode any sense of self-preservation. She wished she hadn’t locked Ziggie in the bedroom. Harper settled on a seat across from the couch, refusing to conform to Scott’s will. A small act of defiance to be sure, but the best she could do given the current situation.

He shot her a look of pure evil then spread a fake grin on his face. “Let me tell you a story ex-wifey. Isabella and her boyfriend were plotting to kill me so they could get my insurance money. They set me up and planned to make my death look like an accident.”

She nodded, masking revulsion and glee at hearing his evilness turned in his direction. “Tell me more.”

“Well, she lied to me about Boyd’s father, told me it was a one night stand with a loser at the bar. Stupid ol’ me believed it, for a while. I smartened up though and did research on her claims of him dying in a random boating accident. Turns out that was a lie too.” He paused and sucked in a shuddering breath.

“Go on.” Harper encouraged, buying time while she sorted out a solution to the current predicament.

“Well, a couple of days ago we went to a toy store and a kid who looked exactly like an older version of Boyd was hugging on her when she thought I couldn’t see them. I was proud of myself for controlling rage and not confronting her in the store. When we got home I challenged her, and she told me the whole truth… with a bit of manual persuasion.”

Harper’s heart rate picked up as she imagined what the manual persuasion meant, his lack of previous violent history clouded reality.

A tear dripped down his face, its track making a crooked wet streak before it dripped from his chin. A tiny wet splotch appeared on an unfamiliar green golf shirt. “I couldn’t stop myself once I knew the full truth. I watched her turn purple, and I smelled the pee as it leaked from her body.”

A fierce fire encircled Harper’s head as the truth of what he was saying threatened to fell her where she sat. Fainting was not an option in the presence of a madman. She scraped breaths into oxygen starved lungs as she thought of an escape plan that included saving Boyd. Her routes of escape were limited to the nearby front door or the back exit facing the barn. She wished with all her might for Ziggie to be by her side.

Scott interrupted her desperate planning with his next words, spoken in a calm manner in direct opposition to the evil lurking beneath. “Have you heard of Misprostol?”

Her frown must have answered his odd question. “Why don’t you grab that laptop and look it up?” Scott lifted his chin indicating the laptop lying open on the table. “I’ll spell it when you’re ready.”

Her mind screamed no, even as her body moved into action. She conjured any scenario where the word would be familiar, but came up blank. “Ok, I’m ready,” she said, fingers poised over the keys.

“M-i-s-p-r-o-s-t-o-l”

His calm recitation of the memorized word raised the hair on her arms even as her fingers tapped the keys. The world tilted as the first results popped onto the search page. “Why are you having me research an abortion pill?” Even as she spoke somewhere deep down her brain analyzed and came up with an unreal elusive answer.

She read the answer on Scott’s face with honed clarity. Her only thought before giving into dizziness and fled truth by fainting, was three lost babies. Her hand reached to grip the memory locket as she passed out and slumped into the chair.

A stinging sensation trounced across her cheek in response to Scott’s demands to snap out of it. Upon opening reluctant eyes and spying her ex-husband a keening scream ripped from the depths of a spent soul screeched past dry lips to fill the room with the vile nature of Scott’s actions. The scream bounced from the walls and leaked through glass, fleeing its owner and seeking refuge in wide open spaces.

Her entire body trembled with the heartache and loss she’d lived with for half a life. Losing each boy burned into the retinas of eyes, stamped upon a beating heart, and etched into the memories of a sorrow filled soul. Scott had murdered her babies, and she’d never suspected the true evil of his black shriveled heart.

A wave of missed memories pounded the shorelines of her bruised core. Their boys never even had a chance to live. A single question formed and bubbled in her mind. She let the question slip past lips, refusing to the look at the murderous monster.

“Why?”

She heard a smile form, the snapping bubbles that indicated lips formed into a smile. Her stomach roiled in burning acid as she waited for an answer. Instead, she heard a vague scratching noise coming from the master bedroom, but ignored the obvious. Her eyes drilled holes in the couch cushions next to Scott, never lifting to seek a demon’s face.

“Harper, look at me.” Scott’s tone demanding, but soft and gentle.

Harper could not connect the gentle voice with the philandering murderer of unborn children. Another cry escaped her throat as the battle with internal demon’s continued. The need for answers outweighed her eyes’ will, as they lifted to meet laser points of evil.

Her eyes shook as though having seizures, blurring full contact, but appearing to meet the correct line of sight. Scott cleared his throat to boast ill-conceived wisdom.

“I suspected children you mothered would have a weak character, be just like mom. My DNA couldn’t overcome such detestable traits.” He waved a disdainful hand as though shooing away a pesky fly. “So I tested my theory. They proved me right when they let go and couldn’t survive the real world.”

Harper’s stomach gurgled louder, threatening to purge half-digested contents. She gulped acidic bile and forced obedience of masticated food.

Scott continued after a weighted pause. “That first one put up quite a fight.”

“His name was Sammy.” She mumbled, as white-hot rage stroked her sanity.

“What?” The snarling tone undisguised.

“I said his name was Sammy, you son of a bitch. He had a name.” Tears coursed burning cheeks, and a broken heart beat a mournful rhythm inside her chest.

He waved away her words, dusting hands together ridding palms of imaginary dirt. “Whatever, he was weak just like you. But the good news is I brought you a strong baby. He survived the pills and popped out full of piss and vinegar… just like the old saying.” A smile crinkled the corners of Scott’s eyes, veiling the demonic mind behind false cheer.

She tried to reconcile Scott’s words with reality as her mind struggled to break away and find a comforting place away from the horror of truth. This man, whom she used to love, had killed her children. What she believed to be her fault as a body expelled their fetal remains, was the work of a deranged husband. She clenched her chest attempting to slow a racing heart.

“How’d you do it?”

An evil Joker sneer took over handsome features. “I was so smooth. Like hot fudge on a sundae. In fact, my little piggy, that’s how I did it.”

Her mind whirled with vague comprehension.

“Remember cravings for hot fudge sundaes when you were pregnant?” He continued without waiting for the obvious answer. “Well, I ground the pills up with a mortar and pestle until finer than baby powder.” He snickered, a complete break from reality looming closer. “Then I mixed the powder with piping hot fudge right off the stove. Oh, I remember how you moaned and groaned as you slurped down a ready-made abortion covered in ooey-gooey chocolate.”

Harper remembered the day with newfound clarity. Like a telescope bringing the stars into focus she watched the past unfold with a new truth.

“Scott, honey, can you please, please make me a hot fudge sundae? You are the master of sundaes, you know.” She wheedled and teased knowing he would agree. He would do anything to keep a pregnant wife happy.

He smiled, but the quirk of lips held new meaning when viewed through a clear lens. “Oh, sure honey just give me a few minutes to heat the sauce.”

Her memory scraped and bumped over the sounds she’d heard. Sounds unrelated to heating sauce in a pan dribbled from the kitchen. A grinding swishing scrape familiar, yet out of place.

Her taste buds sang as the hot fudge and cold melting ice cream covered her tongue and slipped down a demanding throat. She remembered a vague metallic taste, but attributed the flavor to pregnancy hormones. Her naiveté had contributed to Scott’s deadly plan.

For several days following the sundae she felt terrible. Shaky and lightheaded one minute, unable to keeps eyes open the next. Dizziness ruled a tilting world and culminated when Scott found her passed out on the bathroom floor.

She’d noticed pink droplets of blood in her underwear, but after talking to her doctor had been reassured that unless the blood was dark red she and the baby were safe.

The spotting worsened until it was dark red, copious amounts of blood seeped through. Soaking underwear and stealing awareness from her mind as she sank to the bathroom floor. She woke later in the hospital to a falsely concerned husband and a baby that couldn’t survive. She remembered a tiny body, a translucent red with paper thin skin and limbs too small to belong to a human. The hat upon his head no bigger than a cracked eggshell, the clothes upon his body barely bigger than Barbie clothes. She never understood why the nurse insisted on dressing his tiny body.

Her mind drifted and floated on the memory of her first baby. How his life was ended by a monster of a father.

She jumped when something soft rubbed her hand. A deep rumbling vibrated her hand, moments passed as she tried to come back from memories to face realities.

Ziggie stood under her loose hand and stared at Scott. A growl, better suited to a grizzly than a dog, roared from his salivating mouth. Clarity dawned as the scratching from earlier made sense. Ziggie had figured out how to pull the long door handle down.

Scott’s reaction was surprisingly slow as he stood from the couch, his mind likely boggled by the appearance of a massive pissed off dog. Scott’s arm snaked behind his back. With slow deliberation he tugged something from the waistband of his pants. When his arm finished its slow trajectory a small silver gun rested in the palm of his hand.

A side-to-side wobble gave away nervousness with handling the tiny-but-deadly weapon. “I’ll shoot that mutt right now, if you don’t call him off.”

Ziggie’s posture changed from one of threat to one of deliberate action. A single step forward causing Scott to scrabble to the left. Scott’s leg bumped Boyd’s carrier, disturbing the sleeping baby. Boyd let out a squawk at being rudely woken from a nap.

Ziggie’s head tilted as he listened to the baby, assessing the next move.

Scott looked at Harper. “Call him off, now!”

Harper stifled the crazy urge to giggle hysterically at Scott’s trembling visage of maleness. Power weakened in the face of a mentally battered woman and a semi-depressed dog with a huge set of flesh rending teeth. The gun vibrated faster than Tickle Me Elmo and lost any threat in light of the foolish stand-off between man, dog, and woman.

Boyd squealed in delight unaware of the tension resonating through the room. That momentary distraction set greased wheels spinning over frozen highway.

Scott’s trembling disappeared long enough to squeeze the trigger. The term faster than a speeding bullet held true meaning when Ziggie yelped and jerked before the distinctive pop of a small caliber bullet meeting flesh registered. Harper stood in dazed unawareness, trying to grasp what happened. Time slowed to the consistency of frozen honey.

A scream wrenched from her throat when she realized Ziggie was lying on the floor, blood pumping from a bullet skimmed head and pooling under his body. Fur soaked and repelled the expanding puddle. She fell to her knees as her mind struggled to stay sane when faced with too much tragedy.

Scott’s shadow falling over and combining with Harper’s kneeling form made her glance up at the embodiment of evil. Her hands clasped the wound on Ziggie’s head while her mind conjured assassination.

The breaking point came when Scott let out a loud guffaw in response to her desperate attempts to save Ziggie. The heinous intonation drove her to her feet before she realized she’d moved. With one swift kick she knocked the gun from Scott’s hand followed by an invigorating satisfaction at his squeal of pain.

She scrambled across the floor and swiped the gun before he ever moved from his stupidly stunned stance. The gun’s heft and small weight perfect in her hand. She turned to Scott and raised the weapon, grateful for the shooting lessons Grandpa had given her as a child.

He held trembling hands up in a pointless defense of a handsome mask. Seconds dragged into minutes in a mute war of abused facing abuser. Scott’s lips thinned into a cruel line of compressed flesh. “Harper, you wimp, I know you won’t shoot me. Me, on the other hand will wrap my hands around your pathetic neck and choke the life from your worthless body.” His sinister smile deepened into evil serpent. “Just like Isabella. You will lie dead on your couch, with a twist. Your stupid loyal dog will die next to you.”

With unexpected speed he jerked forward, his hands raised to swipe the gun from Harper’s steady hands.

Without thought she pulled the trigger three times. Two shots went wide, but the third connected, ripping a deceivingly small hole in his throat. Any doubt as to the damage squelched as he flew backward and landed on the couch. Blood poured from the back of his neck as if from an open faucet.

His dying eyes met hers and his weakening hands gestured her over. Reluctantly she clamped down on revulsion and went to his side.

Whispers dribbled from his mouth as light faded from his eyes. “Take Boyd… Isa dead… dad didn’t want. Please.”

She stood transfixed as his head settled into its mire of blood and eyes stared into his private hell. Reality crashed down like a rockslide. She dropped to her knees next to the still bleeding Ziggie, ignoring the dead man on the couch.