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Chapter Seven
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2021-10-20 23:02:07BUMBLING TO MY FEET, I stumbled into the house, groped the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen, swallowed three capsules, and downed a full glass of water. Weaving my way to the den, I flopped onto the couch and passed out again. My sleep interfused with images of Ashleigh. Ashleigh straddling me laughing and flirting, her beads pressing against my neck. Ashleigh in white thigh-high stockings with snakes crawling all over her naked body. Ashleigh’s lips against mine. Ashleigh biting a hole in my cheek.
At 6:30 a.m., I awoke trembling. My clothes were still wet and every inch of my body ached. The last thing I could remember was passing out on Ashleigh’s bed. God, what must she think of me?
I tripped up the stairs, toppled into the shower, and stripped away my clothes. There were scratches on the back of my right hand. I wondered how I’d gotten them, how I’d gotten home, and if I’d made a fool of myself doing it. I turned the water on a
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I LED SAM AND THE POLICEMEN into the kitchen as Sam introduced the two with him—a skinny white man named Melrose with the wide lip-less mouth of a lizard, and Crabby Staten, an older black man with gray sideburns and a thick scar across his nose. The heavy-set one, Staten, stood next to me with his arms folded like a nightclub bouncer. Lizard Lips set a black satchel on the breakfast table and stepped closer. Jones fished a small writing pad and mechanical pencil from his shirt pocket. “What’s going on, Sam?” I asked. “Something happen to Ashleigh?” “When did you see her last?” he asked, flipping through the pages of the notepad. I felt as if all three of them were watching me a little too intensely. The muscles in my neck knotted as I considered the reaction I’d get from my answer. “Last night.” That struck a chord and all three of them shifted in unison—like dancers in a Broadway production. Jones widened his stance as he made a note on his pad. Staten adju
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THE NEXT MORNING I was dressed and downtown by 7:30. Like my mood, the weather had turned cold and blustery—not the best for Azalea Festival Week. I pulled my collar up against my neck for the short walk to Tripp’s Ham and Eggs still stunned by the events of the night before. Inside, I tracked to the same table with the same five other guys I join for breakfast most every morning.Sappy Talton was doing his customarily splendid job of getting our waitress Sheila flustered and confused. Sappy and I had been best friends since eighth grade when we stole a pack of Lucky Strikes and a can of Miller’s Beer from Smith’s IGA, which started a summer of wildness that cemented our friendship forever.A burst of laughter spread through the group as I took a seat. That’s what I like about these guys. They’re relaxed and fun to be around. No heavy burdens allowed.Besides Sappy, there was Fred Gorman, a salt and pepper-haired fish
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ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT for the rest of the morning was Joe’s admonitions and how he’d acted. My creativity was gone and I couldn’t concentrate. I made it through my first appointment on pure instinct. My eleven o’clock was an on-site conference with the younger sister of a girl I dated back in high school. Pulling into the parking lot of the Deagan Dance Center a few minutes early, I parked next to a black Mazda van lettered with the school’s logo. I’d driven by this place thousands of times, but had never paid much attention to it. The grounds were well-kept and framed with gigantic oak trees budding with new life and dripping with long strands of Spanish moss.I entered a spacious lobby plastered with dance-related posters, informational signs, photographs, and three large TV monitors high on one wall each showing a different empty classroom. Long wooden benches lined three sides of the lobby, and there was a receptionist center
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WHEN I OPENED THE DOOR, Sam slapped a search warrant into my hand and walked in without invitation. As a photographer followed, a knot tightened in my gut. There are times when you draw the line and dare someone to cross it, and times when you open wide and take the drill. This was a root canal without Novocain. Staten went immediately to dusting the den for fingerprints. Lizard Lips headed for the kitchen and the photographer stuck out his hand to shake.“I’ve always wanted to meet you, Mr. Baimbridge. Danny Butler.” He carried a fairly inexpensive digital camera with a Metz strobe. I forced the warrant into the pocket with the panties and shook his hand. “I really hope to have my own studio someday,” he said, “and do the kind of work you do.”“Don’t wait too long to get started,” I said, my voice flat. “Dreams have a way of slipping away.”“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.&
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I STARED AT THAT FLASHLIGHT and the red smear feeling as if I was standing before my father once again being accused of something I didn’t do. Don’t lie to me! The skin on my back felt as if it was crawling around under my shirt. “Is this your flashlight?” Sam asked. “It…looks like it.” “What’s it doing here?” “I don’t know. I didn’t put it there.” “You think Ashleigh did?” The photographer nudged in next to me focusing his camera on the flashlight. I stepped back. “I swear to you I have no idea how it got there.” The strobe went off and the camera beeped. “Could Ashleigh have done it?” Lizard Lips asked. My mouth felt hot. “Of course she could have. I was passed out on the deck. Anybody could have done it.” The man’s tongue danced back and forth across his lower lip. “But, did she?” My stomach soared and I burped. “As far as I know there were only two of us and I was passed out in the rain.” An
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PEARL BAIMBRIDGE SAT on the edge of her daughter’s bed as the Channel 3 News began: “A local photographer was taken into custody for questioning earlier tonight in the case of missing twenty-three-year-old Ashleigh Matthews.”Pearl clutched Martha’s hand. “This is going to devastate your father.”“Teresa Hedge has more in this live report.”The picture changed to a female reporter standing in front of Ashleigh’s house holding a microphone.“Police arrested Wilmington photographer Richard Baimbridge earlier this evening on suspicion of murder in connection with the case of missing twenty-three-year-old Ashleigh Matthews.”Martha had taken a Percocet tablet that left her groggy and thick-tongued. “Oh, Richie,” she moaned as they played video of Richard being paraded through a crowd of reporters and pushed into the back of a police car. Tears strea
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My Sister's Keeper Epilogue
OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, we would come to know ourselves, Charlie, and Mother in ways we never imagined. I looked behind the disfigurement of my father and discovered myself within him. His love of the arts, his passion for the theatre, and his gentle manner mirrored mine, and made me as proud of him as he was of me. The tension in my life disappeared. Whatever I’d been running from no longer chased me. I’d been set free.Charlie and Mom married the following spring and she became Mrs. Winston Gaylord. She sold her house and moved to the farm. I’ve never seen her happier.Dane Bonner was eventually found guilty of the murders of Scott McGillikin and Ashleigh Matthews as well as two of the missing Wilmington girls. He was sentenced to death.Dane’s associate, Greg, left the gas station after the explosion and thumbed rides the rest of the way to Bonner's cabin in Boone. He still had the $2,000 in his pocket and the keys to the cabin. He a
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Nine
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My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Six
THE FIRE NOW CONSUMED the barn and licked high into the air. The cold water slowly filling the barrel helped to cool our brains, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it would eventually drown us. Ten minutes tops. Our only hope was a gun that wouldn’t fire even if I could get to it. And what would I shoot to get us out? More holes and we’d drown quicker.My right arm was pinned, but I could move my left…slightly. Sydney’s legs were wedged back against her chest and I was squashed against them upside down. Our heads rested near one another, mine bent under with my abdomen pressed against the back of her calves. I worked my hand down my left side and tried to find a way to get around her legs to her waist. The water was now midway up my thighs. Sydney had gone quiet—passed out from pain, heat, loss of blood, or a lack of oxygen. But she was still alive. I could feel her expand…occasionally…to take a breath of the r
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THE TEMPERATURE INSIDE THE DRUM instantly began to rise and my claustrophobia drove me into a panic. Without air, we would suffocate in minutes. There was light coming through the opaque sides and I could see shadows moving around it as the drum tipped and fell on its side slamming us against the hard shell. My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it. A drum within a drum. Fear gripped me, its sharp spears ripping my senses. I pressed my knees against the lid and pushed. My muscles cramped, but nothing gave way.Scott’s shadow fell over the barrel and I could hear his clothes rubbing against it as we began to roll—the heavy container crunching the ground like shoes on soft rocks. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Baimbridge?” he grunted. “You and Sydney together forever? Is that what you wanted, Baimbridge?”The tank turned another revolution. My right arm was locked behind my back, and I could barely move my left. The temper
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Four
IN MY MIND, I SAW MYSELF LEAP from the shadows and lock my hands around his neck. I saw the shock in his blood-streaked eyes as I choked the life out of him with my bare hands. I felt panic ripple through his body as he realized that he was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In one glorious flicker of thought, I watched him die in my hands. But death would be too good for Scott—or Dane Bonner—or whoever the hell he was. I wanted him to suffer as my sister had, to know her pain, to curse my name every time his cell door closed for the rest of his tortured life.As his shadow followed him into the barn, I grasped a chunk of firewood, flattened myself against the rear of the building, and trod on quaking legs to the edge of the doorway. Drunk on hate, I didn’t care about the law. I didn’t care about the other lives he’d torn apart. He had destroyed my sister and I wanted to punish him for it. I wanted to be the one t
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MARTHA HELD ME TOGETHER all through high school when my relationship with Dad had totally come apart. What a blessing that was. No person should have to live without a sibling. If I ever have children, there’ll be at least two. But even with Martha there supporting me emotionally, I’d not been complete.Until Sydney.With Sydney, I felt I’d come full circle. As if she’d taken hold of my spine and given me some sort of adjustment. A spiritual realignment. My breathing slowed. My muscles relaxed. I felt a presence within me that had long been missing—a thousand voices singing.Looking at her leaning against the carved headboard of her bed holding a sheet to her breasts, I felt I was looking more into her than at her. I wanted her heart more than I wanted air to breathe.“Come home with me,” I said. “Have dinner with me. Have breakfast with me. Bring a plant if you like. I don’t
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Two
TIFFANY FOUND THE NOTE and the key, and immediately ripped the tags off a new string bikini her mother would never have allowed her to wear. Strutting about under the watchful eyes of every man on the dock, she cranked the engine, brought in the lines, shoved the magnificent sailboat off, and motored Steal Away out to the channel where she found a strong southerly breeze—perfect for a reach down the river.Bringing the vessel about, she headed directly into the wind, set the brake on the wheel, and raised the mizzen to steady the boat. Electing to keep the mainsail furled, she climbed barefooted onto the roof of the cabin, sidled toward the bow, and—bending her knees as the vessel rose to meet each wave—reached to the low side and tugged the line to release the jib. As the massive sail unrolled like a window shade, its bitter end flapped loosely in the wind, snapping and popping against the mainmast, sending her heart to racing as she jumped back to
