Twelve Days - The Beginning (33 page)

This present was also poorly wrapped and was fairly small and soft, completely different to the first. She had no idea what this could be; Dale would be unlikely to buy her clothes so maybe it was a new scarf and gloves? Although he
had
seemed very excited about her presents this morning, and she didn’t think her usual perfume and a scarf and gloves set would warrant such a level of excitement.

She glanced across at Dale as she began to open the package and she could see his eyes shining in anticipation. Whatever was in this present, it had him really fired up and for an awful moment she had visions of some kinky underwear or outfit that he would require her to wear later, such was his excitement.

In the same fashion as the first one she slipped open both of the ends and then slowly unwrapped the middle section, pulling the paper away to reveal a beautiful garment nestled in its folds. Clothing? From Dale? Definitely out of the ordinary and from what she could see of the item, it was absolutely stunning.

Uncertainly she looked at Dale again to find that he was by now almost bouncing up and down on the sofa in his excitement and Elise’s feeling of unease increased tenfold.

Running her fingers across the fabric, she had a momentary feeling of déjà vu as she thought that she recognised the texture, however she dismissed that thought immediately. How could she possibly have felt this fabric before? Dale had only just given it to her.

Slowly she looped her hands underneath the fabric, one on each side, and began to draw the garment upwards and out of the packaging. The paper fell to the floor and as it did so it released the rest of the dress from where it had been folded and Elise sucked in a shocked breath as a huge wave of sickness washed over her from head to toe. Recognition hit and she dropped the dress onto the floor as if it was on fire, only just making it to the downstairs toilet before she silently retched, losing the entire contents of her stomach in the process. It was as if a fog had cleared and everything suddenly began to make sense - Dale’s behaviour over the last few days, the walk, the movie, the food, the conversation, the Christmas tree. It was all calculated. More calculated than she could have ever imagined and more sinister than she would ever have given him credit for.

He had built her up. He had set her up and now he was going to take great pleasure in bringing her back down again, bit by humiliating bit by humiliating bit. This was Dale at his absolute best and she couldn’t believe that she had been such a fool as to not see through it.

She had known that something wasn’t right but she had decided not to question it – to go with the flow – too wrapped up had she been in her life and the situation with Vaughn. She had completely ignored all of the warning signals and now she knew that she was going to have to pay. There was no escaping this.

The last few minutes played out in her head in slow motion and the excitement that Dale had been showing over the final present abruptly came into perspective. He knew what that present meant and he knew how she would react. He also knew what the end result would be and for the first time ever she realised what a sadistic bastard her husband was.

All of the times in the past she had convinced herself that he was hurting her because he was out of control, too drunk to know what he was doing. But the calculating way in which he had set up this scene finally made her realise what he was truly like. The drink was a factor without doubt, but at long last she realised that he ultimately got off on hurting her - and that was why he was always so aroused. Somewhere over the last five years, the pain that he had inflicted on her had morphed him into who he was now and she rapidly realised that she was in the greatest danger of her life and had absolutely no escape plan. None whatsoever.

The second that she had opened that final present she had sealed her fate - her reaction had just been the icing on the cake and now the game needed to be played out according to Dale’s rules. Rules that she had no way of understanding or comprehending and therefore she had no possible way of winning.

The second present had contained a dress.

A dress that with chilling certainty she had recognised.

Her dress.

Her ‘killer’ dress.

Which meant only two things.

One – that Dale knew she had been out without him wearing that dress.

And, two – much more damning than the first - Elise knew that both hers and Vaughn’s scent still lingered on the dress.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Elise sat cowering on the carpet by the side of the toilet, shivering and shaking and listening to the monotonous sound of Dale’s footsteps pacing the nearby kitchen. He hadn’t spoken to her since she had bolted for the cloakroom but she had heard him approach and begin to pace, almost as if testing his nerve against hers. Who would break first?

She needed to get out of here - that much she knew - but in order to do that she was going to have to get past Dale and she didn’t see any way of that happening. If only she had her phone with her then at least she could have called Cole or someone for help. But both of her phones were upstairs in her handbag and she wasn’t even convinced that her usual phone was charged up anyway.

She glanced around the small room, eyes resting momentarily on the window but that was a non-starter. It only had a small opener at the top and anything bigger than a newborn baby would struggle to get through the gap. She was going to have to go out through the door and take her chances; that was her only option.

Mentally, she began to calculate how much alcohol Dale had consumed, trying to decide if he was anywhere near to passing out or not. He had drunk most of a bottle of wine plus a good two-thirds of the whisky but she didn’t know if that would be enough or not. The trouble with Dale was that when he got like this, he ran on adrenalin and it didn’t really matter how much alcohol he had drunk. If he was going to pass out, it was more than likely going to be after he had dealt with her in whatever way he deemed appropriate.

A sudden banging on the door made her jump and she inadvertently bumped the top of her head on the underside of the sink – so jangled were her nerves.

“I suggest you get out here now, Elise.” Dale said in a low and menacing voice. “You are pushing my patience to its absolute limit.”

Silently, Elise groaned and grabbed at her head where she had made brief contact with the sink. She could already feel some tenderness there and a lump forming and she knew that the minor-self-inflicted injury was only the beginning.

Having considered all of her options and realising that she had none, Elise slowly unlocked the door and walked out into the hallway where she was immediately grabbed from behind, her arms locked against her sides and she was rendered immobile.

“So, bitch...” he said, venom dripping from his every word. “Good to see you liked my Christmas present. I thought you would.” Using his free hand, he yanked on her hair to pull her head back so that he could look into her eyes. She noticed that his were slightly unfocused but there was anger and, more sickeningly, desire emanating from their very core.

“Couldn’t believe my luck when I found that dress.” He went on. “Only went into your wardrobe to get the wrapping paper and then I got distracted by the smell of your perfume. Finally traced it to this dress that I knew I had never seen before – I definitely would have remembered it if I had. Seemed there wasn’t much to the dress and then when I got closer, I realised that there was something else there, someone else’s scent. An aftershave maybe. So I reckoned that not only did you go out without me dressed like a whore, you must have also cosied up to someone else. A man.” He pulled her hair harder and tighter, pressing his face right up close to hers.

“Didn’t make much sense to start with but I kept thinking that the other scent was familiar. I was going to ask you about it but it was when you were away at that conference so I thought I would just confront you when you got back. Thing was, I called your office to see when you were going to get back and I spoke to a very helpful young lady - Olivia. Seemed you were coming back early, something to do with a fight that a Mr Vaughn Granger had got into whilst defending your honour. And that’s when it hit me. That’s how I knew the scent – that bastard was wearing it when he came to visit me in the hospital – and that’s how I knew that it was him you had been with wearing that dress. The only time I knew that you were with him was at the conference and, as your dress was still here, that must have meant you had been with him another time – when I was in hospital perhaps?” He paused and took a deep breath, exhaling a disgusting smell of alcohol back into her face.

“That’s when I knew that my beautiful Elise had been playing around behind my back.” He jerked her hair back further, pulling it even tighter, continuing to stare, slightly unfocused, into her eyes.

“I knew that you needed to pay. No one plays around on me. Did you really think that I had changed so much that we could just go back to how we were?” She didn’t know if he wanted an answer or not but she chose to remain silent. Her head where he held her hair was really beginning to throb now, not helped by the bump that she had already sustained.

“I admit, I did enjoy the last few days – almost felt like the old times – but that’s not me anymore. It can’t be me. I can’t exist like nice old Dale used to, things have changed too much for me now. This is me now, this is who I am and now you, my beautiful
darling
wife, are going to pay.”

Abruptly, he released her and she stumbled forwards before he caught her and spun her around pinning her against the hallway wall. The first blow came as no surprise – he had hit her before – but the second one did; he usually only ever hit her once. Registering that he was way beyond any sort of control Elise tried to relax her breathing a bit, allowing herself to calm so that she could begin to escape to the safe space in her head. The place where she went when reality was just too ugly to bear.

She breathed in as deeply as she could, transporting herself to a calm and peaceful lake where the sun was shining, reflecting dappled light across the ripples on the surface. The birds were singing happily and in the distance she could hear children shouting, playing, laughing. The warmth on her face was a tonic and in her mind she turned her head to the light, allowing its soothing rays to soak through her tired brain.

Elise was rousled momentarily as Dale pushed her roughly towards the stairs, a hand on her back guiding her, ensuring that she complied with his wishes. She did. There was little point in doing anything else. In her dreamlike state she was aware of the physical pain but she had become an expert at blotting it out. It was jostling with the tranquillity of the lake for her attention but she didn’t want to grant it access yet – she knew that there was still more to come.

They reached the top of the stairs and Dale’s ugly voice penetrated, his anger far from concealed, his language foul.
“You fucking bitch! After everything I have done for you – who the hell do you think you are to mess around behind my back? You deserve everything that you have got coming to you and don’t think that I won’t enjoy every last fucking second.”

He pushed her towards the bed and she landed on the soft downy covers, snuggling subconsciously into their warmth. She heard his words but she paid them no heed. There was nothing to say and even if she did, he was beyond the point of listening.

Dale covered her body with his as he joined her on the bed and she felt his anger radiate as he continued to teach her his lesson, using the only tools that he had. She retreated to the lake again, this time watching the ducks flapping and playing, eating scraps that the little boy was feeding them. There was a sailboat on the lake – a remote controlled one – and she scanned the surroundings, trying to see who was operating it. It was a beautiful sight, the little boat, bobbing peacefully on the water, rolling to one side and then the other as the wind caught its sails. One of the ducks briefly gave chase, clearly thinking that it was an imposter and then hastily returning to his friends when he realised his mistake, his metaphorical tail between his legs.

Jolted back to the present, she was vaguely aware of Dale removing his clothing and then roughly dispensing with hers. He was speaking again, breaking into her reverie. He was removing her jeans. He had found her stockings.

“Bitch!” he ground out. “You’re even dressing for him! You must think I’m a total idiot, stupid even, thinking I wouldn’t see these and realise. I know you are not wearing them for me!”

Almost gently he fingered the delicate lace at the top and then yanked on them, ripping and tearing them in the process. His fingernails grazed back up her legs once the stockings had been removed and this time she pictured the leaves on the trees, watched them blowing in the gentle breeze, momentarily blocking out the sun as they swayed this way and that. There was a beautiful bird sitting on one of the top branches and she squinted as she tried to focus, tried to identify the tiny being who had the freedom of the world at its wing-tips.

The birdsong was loud, louder than she thought it would be considering how far away the bird was. She tried to focus on it, drawing on her limited knowledge to see if she could work out what the bird was by the nature of its call.

A sudden movement caused her to return to the present and Elise realised that it wasn’t the bird that was singing, it was her phone ringing, buried in the depths of her handbag. Dale had heard it also and he jumped off the bed, grabbing her bag and upending it, searching through her belongings until he found her phone.

“Some bitch called Celeste calling. How the fuck does she have your number?” Dale asked as he pushed the remaining contents of her bag off the bed and onto the floor, tossing the unanswered phone down beside them. The conference – Elise had eventually given Celeste her number at that bloody conference.

Pushing her bag to one side, Dale began to climb back onto the bed but just as he was about to settle himself down he stopped, hesitated and then retraced his steps, picking up her bag again, turning it over and examining it. Elise knew a moment of sheer terror as she realised that he must have seen her new phone, nestled as it was in the secret compartment. She mustn’t have zipped it up properly this morning when she checked on it.

Slowly he reached inside and Elise watched, her heart in her mouth, as he began to draw back the zipper on the secret compartment and then ever so carefully remove the lime green diamante case.

“You stupid bitch.” His voice was low and menacing, each word carefully drawn out.

“Did lover-boy give you this? Eh? Is it so that you can have secret calls, secret messages? You really are unbelievable. Did you seriously think you could hide all of this from me you stupid bitch? I can’t believe that I am married to such a slut!”

Before Elise could respond Dale launched the phone against the wall with a force so great that the phone shattered, leaving a hefty dent in the wall. Elise watched mute as the remnants of her beautiful present scattered all over the carpet. Her contact with Vaughn was now gone – just like that. Gone.

The bed dipped as Dale joined her again and Elise retreated back to her safe place, back to the lake and the sun and the sailboat and the ducks and the children and the little boy. She followed the path around the lake with her eyes, it wasn’t a big lake; each side could easily be seen from where she sat on the old wooden bench at the top of the hill. This was her favourite place to sit. It was the best place to take in the view and to fully appreciate the beauty of what lay below and the vista of the water’s edge.

A family were walking around the lake, a Mum, a Dad and a baby in a pushchair. The Dad had stopped by the ducks and was crouching down beside the buggy, taking the baby’s chubby little hand in his and using it to point to the ducks. From where she sat Elise could hear the work “Ducks” being repeated over and over. A father teaching his child. Dale teaching his wife. She watched as the family retreated, heading back to their life, their family, their happiness.

It was nearly over she could tell. The spite and vitriol coming out of Dale’s mouth was crude beyond comprehension but in her world, in her wonderful safe place she heard none of it. She was completely numb, completely lost, sitting on the bench at the top of the hill beside the lake, enjoying the view.

A group of children were running around in the field next to the lake. They had a cheerful red kite, which they were trying to coax to fly, its tail long and adorned with brightly coloured paper. They ran one way then the other, each having a turn, running faster and jumping higher, building up the pace until eventually it launched into the sky and as Elise watched, it sailed high and free, soaring peacefully above the land, dancing on the breeze, quiet and beautiful as calm reigned once again.

She was weightless too as she watched the kite and listened to the chatter. The sound began to retreat getting quieter and quieter until eventually there was no sound at all. The birds had stopped singing, the leaves were no longer rustling in the wind, the ducks were quiet, swimming away. The people had all gone home and stillness had returned.

In the quiet aftermath the only sound she could hear was that of her breathing as it began to resume its calm pace, bringing her back slowly back from her safe place, allowing her to register reality as and when she was able.

And, as she listened very carefully in the almost surreal silence, she thought she could hear the sound of her soul as it was finally and brutally, broken into tiny little pieces.