Beneath Blackwater River Leslie Wolfe (me reader txt) 📖

for Mount Chester, California, where most deputies were barely high school graduates. Whereas this woman had gumption, and could keenly read people, as if she could flip through their thoughts like one turns the pages of a book. And she was homing in on their family secrets, carefully guarded for decades, getting much too close for Carole’s liking.

Dr. Kay Sharp was dangerous.

If push came to shove, she’d be ready to do what’s necessary.

Most people could be bought off, although when it came to money, the cop’s smarts seemed to be nonexistent, replaced by utter, blatant stupidity. She could’ve been a successful psychologist with a booming practice in San Francisco, making a killing at whatever number of hundreds of dollars per hour shrinks these days could charge for therapy, with the anxious business executives and spoiled housewives of Silicon Valley as clients. Instead, she’d chosen to work for the FBI and catch killers for a living. Meh, but still, somewhat dignified. But even that she’d left behind for the measly paycheck she made as a detective in the local police force of a town with a population under four thousand.

Not very smart at all. Or maybe she just couldn’t be bought.

Well, she thought, caressing Blanche’s cheek one more time before leaving the library, people have random, freak accidents all the time. And that’s something that can be bought.

29Disobedience

Since he’d left, she’d barely got out of bed, her body aching all over, her mind raging and screaming inside. It was late in the afternoon, the sun descending already, soon to reach the barren forest canopy visible through the living room window.

It was cold, and Kirsten dreaded getting out of bed, even if that’s what she needed to do to find another blanket or borrow a sweater from a nameless girl who once lay in her place.

Soon it would be dark.

A tear burned her frozen temple as it slid toward the pillow. She remembered the night before in vivid, heart-stopping imagery she couldn’t get out of her mind. How she’d waited for him for hours after the cloak of night had fallen, heating the house with the stove and using a table lamp from the bedroom for light, plugged into the empty outlet behind the fridge. How she heard his car pulling onto the driveway and had bolted to cut the light and turn off the stove. How he’d stopped in the doorway, sniffing the air, sensing it was too warm.

Then he’d unleashed his rage on her for her disobedience.

“I told you how I like things done,” he’d shouted, so close to her she could feel the air vibrating with his rage. “I warned you, don’t make me do things I don’t want to do.”

She sobbed and pleaded for his mercy, while he stared at her, slowly burning through his anger until it was down to a simmer. Then he unlocked the door with the same remote he never let out of his hand and opened it wide, allowing the cold, humid air to fill the house. Soon, her teeth were clattering again, and she was shivering under three layers of clothing she’d put on.

He wasn’t pleased with that either. He’d stripped her naked and sent her to take a shower, reminding her in a voice that left no room for arguments to not blow-dry her hair, just wrap herself in a towel and come out.

She knew why, and she knew what awaited her when she did.

Under the shower, still shivering despite the hot water that scalded her skin, she remembered how loving and yearning he’d seemed the night before. She also remembered how, when she was back at her stepfather’s house fighting Potbelly and his cohorts, her trying to wriggle free of their hands holding her down only made the lusting men more aroused, fueling their hunger.

What if the way out required her to be smart and cunning instead? Sheer strength had done exactly nada against the windowpanes, and would do zilch against that huge knife of his.

When she’d come out of the bathroom that night, she knew what to expect. The house, cold and shrouded in darkness. Him, still a little angry but predictable for the most part, going through the same motions as the night before, and every night before that, as if rehearsing a part in a play with no audience and no limelight.

She’d played her part well, pretending to want him, to enjoy cuddling against his body, caressing him with frozen, trembling fingers while she wished him gone more than she’d wished for anything in her life.

Then she pretended to doze off, trying to catch him asleep long enough to grab that knife and end his miserable existence. But he kept vigil, as if guarding her from unseen perils.

When the first light of dawn started defeating the night, he rose and got dressed, for a moment the charismatic man she’d once hoped would like her still there, his eyes warm and tender, his smile genuine.

Then that strange, loving gaze shifted, and a frown ridged his brow. “Never fucking disobey me again,” he said coldly, then left without another word.

She watched his car pull away from the driveway and breathed with ease when he turned onto the main road, vanishing from sight. She rushed to the stove and turned it on, but the elements stayed cold and dark. Her heart pounding in her chest, she opened the fridge to find it just as dark and almost empty, the air inside already stale smelling.

There was no power anymore. No heat. No light. Nothing.

Panicked, she roamed the closets looking for something to wear, but no matter what she touched, the same question made her shy away, repulsed and fearful. What girl had worn that sweater before, and where was she now? Had she escaped and returned to her family? Or was she buried somewhere in a shallow grave, in the woods behind the house, not that far from there?

Eventually, her street sense won, and she put on some heavy clothing.