Prologue
July 21, 2009
The first thing I loved about him
were his hands.
Bryce Clayton had talented
hands—strong fingers, perfect knuckles—beautiful in every way. That man had anorgasmic touch. That’s what I’d like to
remember forever, first and foremost. My husband had glorious hands, but they
were also weapons. They were destructive beasts that destroyed everything they
touched. Including me.
When they reveal the crime scene
photos of his body, the only thing I can focus on are those infamous hands.
Long broken fingers drenched in blood, tattered fingernails and gnarled
knuckles. I can hardly stomach looking at them. I slump forward in the metal
chair, clutching my stomach to quell the nausea.
Soft light spills from the florescent
beams overhead, drawing beads of sweat from my scalp. Moisture drips like
melting paint across my forehead, making me feel like I’ve been embedded in the
sun. This is a side-effect of guilt.
“Mrs. Clayton?” the cop utters. “If
you’ll work with me, we can get this over with and you can go home.”
Though my eyes lay fixed on the
gruesome photos of my husband’s pale corpse, I nod. He proceeds, “Good. Now,
we’ll be recording this interrogation for legal purposes, so I’ll need you to
state your full name before we begin.”
He reaches across the table toward
his recorder and presses a single button: play. We settle in the silence for a
moment and I feel his eyes on me, watching then judging. He has already made up
his mind about me. Cops are designed to think the worst of everyone. I’d be
offended if I didn’t agree with his assessment of me.
When he looks at me, I’m sure he’s
sees the same thing every outsider sees. Stupid,
homely, little suburban bitch. I’m
a walking advertisement for everything that’s wrong with the twentysomethings of
today. Spoiled brats with their heads lodged up their asses. Stupid bitch. I see it in his eyes. This man
resents me.
“Go ahead, state your full name,” he
orders.
I clear my throat, fidgeting with my
fingers to distract my rampant thoughts. As I forge the courage to face him, my
eyes are swollen with tears, but I’ve not cried a single tear yet and it scares
me. What kind of woman doesn’t react to the death of her own husband? A woman
like me? I didn’t think I could be so cold…until now.
“My name is Judith Lillian Clayton.”
“And why are you here today, Mrs.
Clayton?”
“Your men arrested me. They say I've
been a very bad girl,” I say and for some reason I expect him to laugh at my
distasteful quip. Instead, I hear a light sigh as if he’s suddenly growing impatient
with me. Guess I picked the wrong time to crack a joke.
“For better clarification, give me
specifics. Why are you here?”
My heart, it chugs, coagulating blood
in my chest cavity. It hurts. Everything hurts, even the strands of my hair.
I’m a pulp of walking pain. Hollowed out like someone has eviscerated my
insides with an ice cream scooper.
“I killed my husband,” I say.
“When did this incident occur?”
“July 20, 2009. The final day of our
honeymoon.”
“I need you to tell me every single
thing that happened on your honeymoon,” he says. “Starting with day one.”
“To understand, you’ll have to hear
everything,” I say.
“Meaning what exactly?” he asks.
“My husband was a very complicated
man, detective. He was absolutely brilliant, but he was also his own worst
enemy. He was a bastard, a jackass and an unapologetic asshole, but against my
better judgment…I loved him. To understand why he’s dead, you need to know our
secrets.”
He pauses, but eventually replies,
“Then give me the whole story.”
“You might not like me very much
after I tell you this story. Sometimes I don’t even like myself when I think
about it,” I say. “So I want you to listen because I won’t be repeating a
thing.”
“Are you intentionally being vague,
Mrs. Clayton?”
“Not intentionally, no, but I can
only tell you what I remember. And that in itself might not be very credible,”
I say. “Youwill have to fill in the rest of the pieces from
there.”
“Just try your best. We have all day.
Take your time.”
With a lump in my throat, I nod and
say, “Yes sir.”
1
WALKING CHAOS
July 7, 2009
We were supposed to begin the day
packing for the trip. Bryce insisted.
I, on the other hand, begin the day
tending to my bruises. The restroom is where it often happens, behind closed
doors so Bryce can’t see, but I know he can hear. I imagine him with his ear
pressed against the door and his hand on the knob, debating whether or not to
interrupt. He rarely does. So it remains, as always, my dirty little secret.
I sit in foamy bathwater scrubbing my
skin raw. I never truly feel clean so I don’t stop scrubbing until I see
bruises. Or blood. Each bruise of nasty purple blotches
the inside of my thighs like splashes of paint. I pinch the discolored skin
until it hurts and wince each time the euphoric burn returns. I pinch harder
and harder until I’m numb. It feels too good to stop.
“Jude?” Bryce calls from outside the
bathroom door. I dive beneath the bathwater to muffle his voice, in hopes that
he’ll leave. But Bryce knows better than to leave me alone for too long. He
isn’t going away.
“You’ve been in there for an hour,”
he says. “I’m sure you’re clean enough by now.” He jingles the doorknob several
times, realizing immediately that it’s locked. When I don’t answer, he knocks.
“Jude? Judith!”
A couple more knocks and the door
bursts open with Bryce on the other side drenched in a nervous sweat. I’d seenthat face before. His bloodshot eyes fill
with quiet panic. A perfect man doesn’t deserve an imperfect wife. In those
eyes, I see the words: What
did I do to deserve this? He
wants to say it. For my sake, he doesn’t.
“Jude, didn’t you hear me knocking?”
Upon inching closer to the tub, he notices with a relief two earphones crammed
inside my ears. “Thank god,” he sighs.
With a manufactured smile that I’ve
rehearsed hundreds of times before, I greet him like a wife should.
“Hey baby,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
Bryce remains where he is for three
beats of prolonged silence as if he has no real answer to my question. By that
fractured smile on his face, I know what he’s thinking. Poor Bryce just might
have his hands full with me.
“Bryce, are you okay?” I ask after
rising from a fetal position in the tub. Before anything else is said, his arms
are around me, hugging me in a “thank-god-she’s-not-dead” kind of way. And I
know from this alone that he’s thinking about…before.
“Bryce?”
“You didn’t answer me,” he says while
unraveling himself from me.
Those eyes lock with mine, bringing
the world to a standstill the same way they had convinced me to marry him. This
man has talent in those eyes.
“I was listening to some music,” I
say. “I didn't hear you."
“I thought that…I don’t know…just
don’t listen to those things in the bathtub. You know how dangerous that is?”
He plucks the earphones from my ears
and tucks them inside his pants pocket as if for safekeeping. As if some small
part of him fears the worst of what someone like me could do with an earphone
cord. I’ll bet he imagines me fashioning a makeshift noose.
“Bryce, you’re much too
overprotective,” I say. “It’s music, not cyanide.”
Bryce doesn’t smile at my joke,
though I admit it’s mean-spirited. For someone like me, it’s downright cruel. I
step out of the bathtub, neglecting to grab a towel as Bryce turns away to face
the medicine cabinet mirror.
“It isn’t funny, Judith,” he mutters.
“And you know it.”
I slink behind him, draping my arms
around his neck while resting my chin atop his left shoulder. He kisses my
forearm and clasps hold of it with his quivering hand. Through the mirror
before us, I spot the wedding band reflection, hugging his ring finger. I allow
myself to smile.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bryce Clayton,” he
announces. “Can you believe it?”
“My parents sure didn’t,” I say.
“You told them?”
“Finally.”
He sighs, realizing what the tone of
my voice suggests. “Lydia didn’t approve?”
“Not because of you,” I assure him.
“I promise.”
Bryce turns from the mirror, facing
me. His hands clamp like talons around my bare hips, bony fingers pressed into
my wet skin. I drip inside his arms, remembering now that I never bothered to
dry or dress myself from the bath.
Old Judith would surely blush at the
thought, cringe at the mere mention of intimacy. She’d fall repressed and rush
for a bathrobe to shield her nakedness from the presence of any man. Bryce has
triggered something that Old Judith wouldn’t allow new me to do. Old Judith was
a skittish kitten. New Judith will be something different.
“How did Lydia take the news?” he
asks in a voice of worrywart Bryce. This Bryce is much too anxious.
“Naturally, she’s upset that we
eloped without telling her,” I say. “You know my mother. She wanted some
massive monstrosity of a wedding for both of her kids. After what happened with
Cadence’s wedding, I knew to avoid Lydia Kirby’s maternal wrath.”
“Anything else?” he asks in a leading
voice as if he knows I’ve left something out. I know what he’s implying. I also
know where it’ll lead if I let myself entertain it. Bryce knows the one button
not to press with me. Yet, he often insists on pressing it as hard as he can at
all the wrong times.
“I don’t want to talk about my
mother,” I say.
“This isn’t just about your
mother,” he replies. “Now what else did she say?”
He puts on a face that only my father
can mimic. These parental eyes belong to my mother’s husband. I lean forward,
standing on my tiptoes to silence him with a smothering kiss. It works…for a
moment.
My lips are his candy. He sucks and
breathes them in like cherry bubblegum. His grasp tightens around my waist. My
hold lures him in and I’m sure I’ve gotten his mind off the subject of my
mother.
“Jude, stop it,” Bryce moans while
attempting to nudge me away, but his mouth says one thing as his body says
another. “Judith, you aren’t going to get out of this conversation by
distracting me.”
“Are you sure about that?” I whisper
after cupping the bulge between his trembling thighs. “Then you should consult
with the rest of your anatomy if you’d really like to get your point across.”
“Judith, I mean it!” At once he pulls
back, gripping my wrists to restrain my perverse hands. I stand startled before
him, wincing at the feel of his rough grip. We, like two opposing boxers,
acknowledge the impasse in silence until Bryce releases my arms.
“Don’t do that,” he warns. “Don't try
to seduce your way out of talking to me.”
I swallow the hostile words that
linger in the back of my throat because I don’t like upsetting my Bryce.
“I’m sorry,” I say in my most
apologetic voice. “You forgive me?”
He takes one look at me and sighs. He
knows I’ve won. My lips aren’t the only things he can’t resist.
“It’s getting late,” he says. “We’ll
miss our plane.”
He releases my wrists and turns
toward the door. I grip his hand, entwining our fingers to force him to face
me.
“Bryce, you’re not mad at me, are
you?”
“Not mad. Just worried.”
“You’re always worried,” I tease.
“You never give me a reason not to,”
he says before leaving the bathroom. I know he’s right. I have never disputed
his insight on most things concerning me or how my mind works. I am walking chaos. A mental bundle of
misshapen nerves.
