38. At the Abyss
Laila woke up in bed by herself with only a throbbing headache for company. She placed a hand on her banged up face, felt the hot swelling near her eye.
“Ohhh ...”
She rolled over and looked at the clock. She should have been up much earlier.
“Damn!”
She tried to get out of bed, but her knees failed, and she plopped back down on the mattress. Her injured leg began to ache; she stroked it cautiously. At last, she managed to get up and hobble to her room across the hall. She heard Frank in his office banging away on his computer keyboard. Good, she was afraid that he might take off somewhere this morning and spoil all the plans.
She approached her vanity and sat down hard. Her black eye stared back at her from the mirror, next to the little scar she gotten eleven years ago after her first divorce. It was pretty nasty, the sort of disfigurement she could never have imaged enduring herself. Black eyes were for other people, weren’t they?
She picked up her brush and tried to neaten her hair, but no amount of prettying up could disguise her battered face. She moved to the window so as to view the accident scene out in the yard. She saw Bert’s truck and the damage to the flower garden. She instinctively moved to the side so as not to be observed. A bolt of clammy fear ran through her.
So, this was it. No turning back now.
She moved away from the window in a state of high agitation and lurched back to her vanity where she opened a drawer and withdrew a bottle of aspirin. For a frantic moment, she considered downing the whole bottle.
Then she thought better of it as the steel returned to her back bone. She gulped three tablets and tossed the bottle back into the drawer. She picked up her cell phone, noting that there were two voice messages from Sharese. An odd mixture of gratitude and resentment rose in her heart.
“Still trying to look out for me, huh?”
Laila tossed the phone aside. This morning promised to be an absolute nightmare. She was resigned to it, but come what may, she was going to be free!
Before Frank could leave for his office, or wherever it was he planned to go, she would point out the damage to the flower garden. He’d fly into a rage and stomp out there to confront Bert. Then ... it would happen.
She couldn’t stop this dreadful process. It would sear its way across her life however much she abhorred it. Today, her existence would break into two sharp halves – before and after the murder. She had to be brave and cold as ice.
Yet ...
A single thought kept nagging at her mind: Check the emails one more time, Laila.
She moved to her desk and fired up her computer. With a furtive glance toward the door, she pulled up Frank’s email account.
Again, the terrible message from Henry glared at her from the Inbox. With a trembling hand on her computer mouse, she opened the Sent folder ...
Frank’s answer reposed there like a coiled snake ready to sink its fangs into Laila’s heart. She stiffened and her breath caught short; her hand felt like a lead weight on the mouse. She clicked open the message:
Henry,
I’ve given your proposal thorough consideration and have a final answer for you: NO, I will not go along with any of it. If you ever mention such plans again, I’ll cut you off without a cent. Believe that.
Just so you take this seriously – until further notice, I’m dropping your firm from handling any of my corporate legal work. Maybe now you’ll have enough time to attend a few soccer games.
Dad
And another thing – quit screwing around with those girls before Debbie finds out!
Laila sagged back in her chair. Relief washed over her smiling face; tears rolled down her cheeks. Her headache abruptly vanished.
“Thank God!” she murmured.
But there was more – a message to Patricia in the Sent box. It had been mailed only minutes earlier:
Dearest Patricia,
I must say that I would have expected more from you than those stupid photographs of my wife and her ex. Tell “Mike” to publish them anywhere he damn well pleases. He’s easy to find, just look in the mirror.
What were you hoping to accomplish with this scam? Please spare me any lies or excuses, you may as well fess up and admit your role.
On second thought, don’t contact me. I need a vacation from you – a nice long one.
Your Loving Father
Laila felt reborn, as if she’d stepped back from a terrible abyss of damnation. She canceled out of Frank’s email and shut down her computer. The world, which had taken such a demonic tilt the past few days, suddenly righted itself. The future glowed with holy illumination.
Then realization dawned on her; she jerked upright.
Where’s my phone?
She glanced desperately around the room, couldn’t find it. Where had she tossed the thing?
Then she saw her phone reposing in the carpet beside her vanity. She lunged across the room, heedless of the pain in her leg, and retrieved the device. She plopped down in her vanity chair, punched in frantic numbers.
$$$
All was ready in the back yard. Bert had braced a ladder against the dead tree and set up the wood chipper nearby; he held a large chainsaw in his hands. The only thing necessary was for Frank Armstrong to come on the scene.
Frank would be looking out here soon enough; he could never pass up an opportunity to ‘supervise’ the help. And if he didn’t notice the flower garden damage himself, then, by prearrangement, Mrs. Armstrong would point it out to him. Bert had still not decided on the final scenario. He ran through the possible choices again.
“Please, Mr. Armstrong, right this way – if you don’t mind,” Bert said with a deferential gesture.
The imaginary Frank Armstrong approached; Bert slashed the air with the chainsaw.
“Gotcha!”
Bert shook his head with disapproval.
“That’ll never work. He’d get suspicious.”
Bert prepared another scenario, wielding the chainsaw in a very macho fashion, like an old Wild West gunslinger.
“It’s just you and me, Armstrong. Nobody out here cares how rich you are.”
He leaned forward pugnaciously. “Not such a tough guy now, are you?”
Bert slashed the air with the chainsaw.
“Take that!”
He shook his head again. Mrs. Armstrong had warned him that Frank just might be packing his ‘Sweet Thing’ 9mm pistol. There was no telling with that guy. Bert couldn’t risk getting drilled like a Swiss cheese before he could land the decisive blow.
He moved to the ladder and looked up. Perhaps Frank could be lured into climbing up; then a convenient tumble – right onto the whirring chainsaw.
Nah. He won’t fall for that one again.
Bert held the chainsaw in a low position, looking innocently up at the branches.
“I’m going to have to take some of those higher branches off first.”
He turned abruptly with the chainsaw. Looked startled.
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Armstrong!” He looked at the ground. “You should be careful around power tools, sir.”
Bert nodded his head with approval.
That’s it! The sneak approach.
He’d always known that this was the best way. Let Armstrong come out yelling and raging about the flower garden, feign innocence, cut him down by “accident.”
He heard himself speaking with the police: “I didn’t even hear him coming, officer. I had the chain saw running ... he just sort of appeared. He snuck up behind me.”
Mrs. Armstrong would back up everything he said. Of course she would; he knew too much to be cut loose by her. And Frank’s temper outbursts were well known, the way he liked to mess with the hired help.
Bert’s cell phone rang, pulling him away from his lethal scenarios. The caller ID showed Mrs. Armstrong.
He picked up.
“Hello ...”
The call abruptly terminated. Bert looked qu
izzically at the phone display.
“What the hell was that about?”