The Ghostwriter

  I move aside five manuscripts before I find The Terrace. I rapidly flip through the pages, the first eighty percent of the book detailing the girl’s failed attempts. Skimming over the scenes, I realize exactly how screwed up my sixteen-year-old self was. Had I really hated my mother this much? Had I felt this detached? How many of these emotions had been fiction, and how much reality? I’d blamed my stiffness with my mother on her disapproval of my parenting, on her attempts to separate me from my child. But now, reading through my teenage thoughts, I am reminded of how different we have always been. In my upbringing, there had been no cuddly moments, no friendly lunches or the sharing of feelings. Any discussions had been examined through her psychiatrist magnifying glass, my emotions and motivations picked apart and analyzed to death. I learned, early on, to hide everything from her.

  The plot progresses and I slow my reading, bending the page over at the section where Helen (such an original name) did her research. The detail, as in all of my early novels, borders on excessive—an insecure need to show my thorough research. And I remember the research well. The Internet hadn’t been as all-encompassing back then. I’d had to hunt down a local plumber and get my information from him. He’d found me strange, and had asked a lot of his own questions. What I planned to do with the information. If my parents were aware of my interest in killing someone via carbon monoxide. All of those suspicions had been overcome with a crisp hundred-dollar bill and a promise to mention him in the book’s acknowledgements. I hold my place with my finger and flip to the back, using a precious moment to verify that I had, in fact, acknowledged him. And sure enough, on the second to last page, on the book never published, there was his name. Spencer Wilton. I let out a sigh of relief, that debt paid. I return to the meat of the document, skimming over the content quickly, then a second time, my eyes darting occasionally to the tall metal tanks, as I verify the facts.

  The good news is, water heaters haven’t changed in the last fifteen years.

  The bad news is, I’m about to kill Simon.

  I can do it. I can follow these instructions and pump our home full of deadly gas. In this airtight room, I will be protected. I could kill him and wait for rescue.

  I scoot forward on my butt, toward the toolbox, and pick up the wrench.

  I can do this.

  I will do this.

  I set down the manuscript and lean forward, toward the first hot water heater.

  CHARLOTTE

  Charlotte opens the manila folder, pulling out the printout and sliding it gently across the polished wood table. It is a front-page piece, four years old. In the photo, Janice Ross stares directly into the camera, despair radiating from the image. Above her picture, the title in big thick font: “IT WAS MY FAULT.”

  The woman’s eyes are the only thing that moves. They dart to the page, to the photo, to Charlotte’s face, then back to the page. A bit of tongue peeks from her lips, then disappears. “That’s an old article.”

  “Not that old,” Charlotte replies. “Do you still remember the day it happened?”

  Her stare returns to Charlotte and she shakes her head minutely, a scornful sigh wheezing through her clenched mouth. “Of course I do. But like I told you before, I can’t—”

  “I’m not asking about Helena or Simon.” Charlotte digs a fingernail into the eraser of her pencil and wills her voice to soften. “I’m just asking about you. About what happened that day.”

  “Why? You want to make me feel guilty?” Her arms cross over her thin chest, and there is a sharpening of the features, a straightening of the back. Suddenly, she looks more like the woman of three weeks ago, the one who had stood in her office’s doorway and politely refused every one of Charlotte’s questions. Of course, those questions had all been about Simon and his behavior with Bethany. She had been barking up the wrong tree with a woman who had all but thrown the Psychiatrist’s Code of Ethics at her.

  “I just want to understand the facts.” She carefully sets the pencil down, next to her notepad. “Can you walk me through the day?”

  “There isn’t much to tell.” Janice Ross’s eyes drop to the article and she picks it up, her fingers tracing over the edges of the page. “I haven’t thought about that day in a long time. I mean—” she corrects herself. “I haven’t relived it in a long time.” She glances up at Charlotte. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “Yes.” She nods, and her fingers itch for the pencil, for the recorder that sits in her bag. But reaching for either, right now, might scare the woman away, might stop the story she seems so reluctant to tell. “Please.” Maybe this will be the break that she needs. Maybe something in Janice’s story will give her some closure.

  A long sigh tumbles out, the sort that carries more than just breath. Janice Ross wets her lips and then, her eyes returning to the photo, she speaks.

  “Sometimes, as a parent, you just know when you are needed. That’s how it was that day. I was driving home and something just told me to stop by Helena’s. It was as clear as if God had pulled my steering wheel to the right.” She lifts her shoulders in a small shrug. “So I did. I swung by and came in. I made some excuse up about borrowing something—I can’t remember what—but I was really just checking on things. And Helena—” she stops herself and there is a moment of inner conflict, some secret that she wars over. “Helena was there,” she finally continues. “With Bethany.”

  “Was everything alright?” Charlotte thinks of the police photos, the autopsy report, the diagram of the home and the path that the gas had taken.

  “Everything was fine.” She gives a helpless laugh, her shoulders lifting. “I felt crazy, leaving the house. Bethany was fine, Helena was relatively fine…” Relatively fine. An odd choice of words. Charlotte mentally bookmarks the phrase.

  “But you took Bethany with you.” She risks a look at her notepad, where the timeline of events was summarized. “What time was that?”

  “Yes. I took Bethany with me.” She blinks, and her eyes glisten. “It—ah.” She wipes at her eyes and a line of moisture smears across her cheek. “I guess it was a little before four.”

  Charlotte waits for more.

  “Bethany was such a happy child. She was in the back, in her car seat. I remember her talking about her day, about a frog that they had found in the backyard. She wanted to keep him, but Helena had told her no.” She reaches out, to the edge of the round table, and pulls a napkin free from its holder. She swallows, and her voice is stronger when she continues. “The traffic was terrible and it took me twenty minutes just to get back to my part of town. We were passing the north plaza when Bethany asked for ice cream. There was a fudge shop there, in the shopping center, and it had a few flavors. I had taken Bethany there before. I guess she looked out the window and saw the sign.” She looks to the side, out the large dining room window, the light highlighting the tight lines of her throat. “I shouldn’t have stopped. But I did. I stopped, and I went around to her side of the car. I opened the door…” her face crumples, her hand trembling around the napkin. “That was when I noticed her shoes.”

  “Her shoes?” Charlotte leans forward.

  “She had been barefoot when I picked her up. Still in her pajamas, despite the time of day.” Janice straightens, and carefully spreads the napkin, folding it in half and then dabbing at the wet underside of each eye. “Helena had passed me her shoes before we left, but I hadn’t looked at them. I hadn’t realized,” she pauses, her lips pressed together for a moment. “I hadn’t realized that they were mis-matched. Both Converses—Bethany loved pink Converses—but they were both for the left foot.” She spreads her hands. “So I went back.” She looks up at Charlotte with a hopeless expression of defeat.

  “I went ....” She almost chokes on the words. “Back.”

  I feel a misguided sense of accomplishment when finished, the hiss of gas rerouted from its safe route and into our home’s air ven
ts. It was almost alarming how simple it was, how innocent I could engineer the look of the damage. I sit back on my heels and sniff the air, unable to smell anything new. It is a futile act, given the odorless nature of carbon monoxide. Simon will never know the cause of his death. He won’t even know he’s dying. He will lie down and drift off to sleep. The end.

  It’s too kind for him.

  Still, it’s hard for me. My hands tremble when I tighten the final nut. At one point in the process, I cried. Even now, I can feel the swell of emotions pushing at the back of my throat. For all that is broken in him, he gave me my daughter. Even if he did threaten to take her away. He is still half of her whole. She has his eyes, his smirk. By doing this, I am killing her father. When she finds out, will she hate me for it? Will she forgive me for it?

  I slide back on the floor until my back hits the metal face of a file cabinet. Has the gas already reached the upstairs? How long will it take to fill the house? How long will it take to kill him? In my novel, it took fifteen minutes to fill the three-bedroom apartment. Our house is bigger, but so are these water heaters, both set on the maximum output. Fifteen minutes seems a reasonable estimate.

  I reach back and rub my head, my scalp still sore from Simon’s grip. My gaze travels over the floor before me, the concrete dotted with my instruments. I carefully move to my feet, dipping down to grab the screwdriver, box cutters, and wrench. Evidence. I open the lid to the washing machine and uncap the bleach, pouring the solution over the items, snagging a paper towel from the shelf above the appliances and wiping down each item. I return them to the toolbox, and shut the lid, pushing the paper towel down into the trash. It seems silly to destroy the evidence, yet feels cleansing, as if I am clearing the sin off my heart.

  I always thought I’d make a great criminal. I’m very clean, very organized, and—apparently—able to take decisive action. My fingers tremble when I pick up the manuscript, and I almost drop it. Maybe I’m not so stone cold. I carefully align the pages and re-clip the gem clip onto the top, my hand resting on the cover page for a moment of reverence. It was one of my firsts, created on a cheap Dell desktop in the corner of my bedroom, illegal music downloading in the background, the Napster logo blinking from my status bar. Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails had dominated that year of my life. When I’d finally finished it, I’d felt invincible.

  Now, I feel anything but. I feel weak and foolish. I feel terrified. A reality where I kill my husband—what does that look like? A reality where my husband is a monster—how long had I ignored the signs? How many clues had I missed?

  I put The Terrace back where I found it, deep in the stack. I turn and pick up the last piece of the puzzle, the manual for the hot water heater. I move to the far file cabinet, and open the top drawer, flipping back through the files to find the right one. They are all perfectly labeled, white stickers with the title printed on them, organized by category. Ten minutes ago, I’d skipped right to the file, my seamless organization proving its effectiveness. Now, with hours of waiting ahead, I take my time, calmed by the perfectly spaced words, the order in which this section of my life still is. This entire file cabinet is dedicated to household items. Appliances, warranties, manuals, and replacement parts. I still have the wiring diagram from when our thermostat was installed. I have filter sizes and EPA reports and inspection records on our fire extinguishers. I open the file on smoke detectors, a moment of worry flaring. Had we purchased carbon monoxide detectors? Did our smoke alarms perform double duty? It only takes a few seconds, and the manuals are out, spread over the open drawer. Whew. No carbon monoxide detection. If I’d been the one to purchase them, our butts would have been covered nine ways to Sunday. Thank God I wasn’t. I return everything to the folder and continue. I flip through four more labels, and then my heart stops, a sudden freeze of action, every muscle stiffening as my gaze darts over the label again and again, again and again.

  SPARE KEYS

  I reach forward, and am almost afraid to breathe.

  In the file is a complete duplicate of our key center—a plastic organizer of hooks that hangs on the inside of the coat closet. I’ve forgotten this version, any need for a missing key satisfied by the handy version we see every other day. There are two white pages, each mounted on half of a manila folder to give the paper strength. Five years ago, I found adhesive pockets online and put one beneath each label, the gold and silver keys shining out like rare coins.

  I run my hand across the grid, nine keys on the page. There is one for our safe deposit box, another for Mother’s house, for her office, Simon’s school, and the exterior shed. I turned to the second page, forcing myself to read carefully, in case I miss it. There is a key to my desk drawer, the storage unit padlock and… my finger stops on the two most beautiful words in the world. UTILITY ROOM. I carefully slide the key out, my palms damp, my fingers delicately holding the simple metal piece as if it might break. I can be free. I can run. I turn to the door and take a step forward, holding the key out like a dagger. Another step, and the metal kisses against the knob. I pinch my eyelids closed and say a quick, furtive prayer, one that begs for forgiveness from my sins and asks for one moment of grace. I open my eyes and push the key. It slides in easily. I turn the key to the right and almost cry when the lock clicks open.

  I stop. I haven’t even considered the possibility of escape. Now, with this giant new possibility before me, I need to think. I need to be intelligent. I need a plan.

  Once out of the room, I will be in the garage. Opening the garage door will be too loud, and I need Simon to stay inside the house, oblivious to my escape. I close my eyes and try to remember the interior of the garage. There is a window, one above his workstation. I could crawl out of it, and run to the closest house. Someone might be home, or there will be a car, someone I can flag down. I can use their phone and call the police. I can—

  I stop that line of thinking. My home is a ticking death trap, one that… if I am not home, I could be innocent of. I look at the hot water heaters, at the simple malfunction that I have caused. No one ever has to know that I engineered it. I could get out of the garage, get to Bethany, and come home in a few hours. “Discover” Simon’s body then. I could hide the tapes and Bethany would never need to know of her father’s crimes. I could avoid a trial and jail time. I could keep my daughter and move on with our lives.

  Hope surges through me, and I look around the room for anything I might need. I open the dryer and dig through the clothes. I pull out a pair of stretchy pants and a t-shirt, stripping out of my pajamas and stuffing the dirty items into the washer. My socks also come off, a clean pair snagged and put on. I work through the first step of the plan—getting to Bethany. It’s over two miles to my Mother’s house, which is certainly in walking distance. I need shoes. Just outside of the utility room is a basket, a place to put muddy items before coming into the house. It will have something, anything better than bare feet.

  Before I open the door, I return the folder to its file and shut the cabinet. I run a disinfecting wipe over everything and survey the space, satisfied that any hint of my presence is gone.

  I glance back at the hot water heaters and give myself one last opportunity to stop everything, to go back and repair the heater. I could save Simon’s life and then run. Maybe I’ll get to Mom’s before he does? But maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll step out of this utility room and he’ll be waiting. Maybe, once I get free and to the cops, all of the evidence will be gone and I’ll be charged with attempted murder.

  The hot water quiets, the run of water stopping. Simon’s shower is done. I leave my conscience behind and reach for the knob.

  The garage is dark and I reach out, flipping off the utility room switch and halting its spill of light into the space. The dark settles, and I pause halfway through the doorway, and listen. Nothing moves. I step out of the room and slide the door shut. I carefully work my way through the dark and find the mud basket, p
ushing aside a windbreaker jacket before finding the only other item—a pair of Simon’s running shoes.

  The garage’s window is obscured by a giant political sign, something that Simon agreed to put in our yard and never did. I carefully set it on the ground and push it beneath my car, the slide of cardboard against concrete too loud for my sensitive ears. I work the tennis shoe on my left foot, then pick up the right, not bothering with laces, my feet easily slipping into the size eleven Adidas. Gripping the edge of the counter, I heft myself up, my butt working its way onto the wooden surface. I swing my feet up and kneel, fumbling at the window’s lock. I get it undone and grip the sill, struggling to get the window up, the open rectangle barely enough to fit through.

  It is enough. I push my feet through, then work my hips out, my body awkwardly bending back as I slide out of the window, my back scraping painfully against the metal sill. I land awkwardly, one tennis shoe stumbling over a rolled up hose, and I hold out my hands in an ungraceful attempt to find my footing. There. I straighten and step toward the brick, hugging the side of the garage, and staying out of sight. Looking up at the open window, I realize it’s too high for me to close. It doesn’t matter. I move forward, my back brushing against the brick, and round the side of the house. I consider the road, then discard it, my alibi dependent on no one seeing my guilty dash from the house.

  I turn and run, as quickly and as quietly as I can, into the woods behind our home.

  I am not an athlete, never have been. Now, I stagger through backyards and side roads, my arms as exhausted as my legs, the mere act of swinging them somehow tiring. When the first cramp comes, it feels like a knife and I stop, pressing a hand into the spot, my chest heaving, legs shaky with fatigue. I start again and, at some point, realize I’ve gone the wrong way, my shortcut leading me into a gated community I can’t get out of, and I attempt to scale a fence before I realize that I will have to backtrack, just to get around the brick fence.