The Secret Wife. Carrie Weaver
sweating bottle of blue sports drink.
But no Eric.
Strange.
He was a creature of habit. And supremely superstitious. He had an unchanging ritual before a race. First, a Bible reading, then prayer. But his Bible wasn’t lying open on the table.
She rummaged through what had always been the junk drawer in the other motor home. Her fingers folded around a slim volume of the New Testament, the corners accordion pleated from jamming the drawer so many times.
Weird.
Had he changed that much in the six months since she’d seen him? Two since she’d heard from him?
The bathroom door was closed. Maybe a last-minute bout of nerves?
She tiptoed to the door and tapped.
“Eric?”
No answer.
Opening the door, she leaned in to peer around. Light trickled in through the bathroom window, casting everything in varying shades of gray. The shadows were barely discernible from the objects that created them.
David snuggled close, resting his cheek against her chest. His breathing slowed. Poor baby. They were both exhausted.
The white of the sink glowed pale against the gloomy backdrop. The faucet dripped.
Terrible waste of water. Maggie turned it off.
Black splotches decorated the otherwise pale sink rim, kind of like a Rorschach test, dribbling down the side, to leave tiny specks on the floor.
It was something dark, something liquid.
Oil maybe? It had splattered too much to be grease.
Maggie ran her fingers through it. Thick, crusty and drying around the edges. Definitely not oil. It almost looked like…no, her brain rebelled at the very thought. Not blood.
She searched the gloom for a roll of toilet paper, but came up empty. Typical. Eric could never remember to put out a new roll.
Sighing, she adjusted the sleepy baby a bit higher on her hip and wiped her hand across the leg of her shorts. They’d need washing later in the hotel sink.
The silence surrounded her, intensified by the muffled clanking, banging and hammering outside.
Maggie backed out of the bathroom.
She would come back after the race. If she waited any longer than that she might lose her nerve.
David squirmed in his sleep and made one of his puppylike snuffling noises. He deserved a good night’s sleep. In a real bed. And so did she.
Maggie stifled a yawn and headed for the door.
As she grasped the knob, she turned to take one more look at her past. What had once appeared dangerous and exciting, now simply looked sad.
She shook her head. Something white on the lower bunk caught her eye.
There was a lumpy sleeping bag, as usual, tossed over Eric’s belongings, as if no one would be smart enough to look there for his valuable stuff. His guitar, his pistol…
The light-colored thing took on eerie dimensions as she stepped closer to check it out. Almost like a—
Hand.
She jostled what she figured had to be his arm under the sleeping bag.
“Eric,” she whispered. She didn’t want to wake the baby.
She shoved a little harder.
No response.
“Come on, Eric, this isn’t funny.”
David whimpered in his sleep.
Losing patience with Eric’s games, she grabbed the sleeping bag and flung it back.
Time froze, Maggie froze.
She scrambled for the hand she’d seen, grasped the wrist. It was warm.
The wild thumping of her heart eased.
Until she looked at his face.
And knew, without a doubt, her searching fingers wouldn’t find a pulse. She’d been around enough corpses in her embalming class to recognize death.
Her eyes widened at David’s shrill screech of baby rage. It rang in her ears, bounced off the fake wood-grain walls, slashed through her to the very core. Only when she slapped a hand to her open mouth did she realize the screams came from her. Then, and only then, did the baby join in.
MAGGIE SHIFTED in the cold, metal chair, David’s cries echoing in her head and in her heart.
She could almost feel his terror as he’d been taken from her arms. His little hands had clutched at her shirt, his eyes wide with panic.
And she’d been forced to let him go. Hand him over to strangers. It was her worst nightmare come true. Nameless, faceless authorities taking her son away because she wasn’t a fit mother.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she brushed them away. This was all a big mistake. They would figure out she wasn’t capable of hurting Eric, wouldn’t they?
She eyed the two deputies as one set down a foam cup of coffee for her. Both wore bland expressions.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
A half truth. Used to drink the stuff by the bucketful. Back before David, when she’d been a college student with ample scholarship money. These days, generic cola was much cheaper and did a decent job of keeping her eyes open.
But now her nerves jangled and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to close her eyes again. When she did, all she saw was Eric. And blood. So much blood.
She should be used to it by now, or she had no business pursuing a profession where it was such an integral part of the process.
“How about a pop?” The scrawny deputy did most of the talking. He wasn’t a bad guy, all in all. It was Deputy Wells, the big, beefy, quiet one who made her nervous.
“No, thank you. I just want to get back to my baby.”
“He’s fine. A caseworker’s watching him while we talk.”
“There’s no need for a caseworker. We’ll clear this up, then I’ll take care of David.”
“Hmm. We’ll need your story, from the top.”
“I’ve already told you.”
“That was an initial interview at the scene. We need your complete story. Details.”
Maggie didn’t like the way Wells kept calling it her story. As if her version were obviously fictitious.
She drew in a deep, calming breath. This guy held her future, as well as her son’s future, in his big, square hands.
“Your relationship with the victim was…”
“You know darn well—”
Warning flashed in the deputy’s eyes.
“I mean, uh, Eric and I were…”
What were they? Estranged husband and wife, or so she’d thought, until she’d found out about Nancy.
“Lovers,” she ended lamely. That at least wasn’t in dispute. David was living proof of their intimacy. At least it had been intimacy for her. What it had meant to Eric, she could only guess. And none of the guesses were very flattering.
Anger bubbled up inside and made her face feel hot and swollen, as if her skin might split right open.
“Eric is…was…the father of my child.”
“And?”
“I came to talk to him about setting up some sort of agreement about David’s care. Child support.”