Dead Woman Crossing J.R. Adler (early reader chapter books txt) 📖

Nicole shook her head. Her eyes swam with tears. “No… no.”

Kimberley knew she understood what she was saying, she just didn’t believe it nor wanted to believe it. She stood up, picking up the box. Her mom kept shaking her head.

“Did you know about any of this?”

“Any of what?” Nicole tried to stand up straight, still in denial, trying to put on a show that none of this could possibly be true.

Kimberley stared into her eyes. She knew her mother knew something. Instinct. It would explain why she didn’t eat. Why she had gotten so thin. Why she had aged ten years in two. Why she wasn’t sleeping well. Why she fawned all over David, vying for his love and attention. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it. All the signs were there. She had been acting like a woman who knew her husband was having an affair. Who had accepted it, even though it was eating away at her, destroying her, she stayed and let it continue, for what, a house to live in, a stable life? But the question was… how much did she know? Did she know he was sleeping with Hannah? Kimberley didn’t think she’d ever forgive her mom if that were the case. She hoped it wasn’t.

She continued to stare her mother in the eyes, waiting for her to break. She knew she could outlast her. Nicole began to crack. Her lip trembled. She looked away first, her bloodshot, sunken eyes bouncing around the room.

“I knew something was going on. He became distant and unaffectionate, leaving in the middle of the night. He used to deny everything. Then he stopped denying it, just shrugging his goddamn shoulders, like it didn’t matter, like I didn’t matter. When the whole moonshine thing with Wyatt came out, I felt the biggest relief. Like that was what he was up to. But now… now. I don’t know.” Tears streamed down her face as she tried to work it out.

“What about the night Hannah Brown was murdered? Was that another night he snuck off?” Kimberley shifted her bodyweight, widening her stance; full-on interrogation mode. She needed the facts. She needed the truth. This man lived in the same house as her and her daughter. This man threatened to hurt her child while he slept one room away from her. This fucking man had played with Jessica, held her… Kimberley shook her head in disgust. How could she not have known? A killer in the same house. Hosting her. Sitting at the same dinner table. Praying to his God as if his God wouldn’t be sickened by him.

Nicole deflated in front of her, dropping her shoulders and hanging her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been taking sleeping pills on and off to help me sleep. I took one that night. I assume he was with me all night.”

“You can’t assume that. If you were passed out, you have no idea what he did or where he went.”

“He wouldn’t…” Nicole shook her head, crying.

“I can’t do this right now.” Kimberley pushed past her mom, carrying the box with the gun and phone.

“Kimberley, wait. Can we talk about this?” Nicole pleaded as Kimberley walked down the hall.

She turned back for a moment. “No. He threatened my daughter, Mom, your granddaughter. He left a note for me at work threatening to hurt Jessica. He’s a monster.”

Nicole cried harder, dropping her face into her hands. “He wouldn’t do that,” she blubbered.

Kimberley’s eyes lingered on her mom. She felt sorry for her. All of her childhood, she had watched her mom stand by her deadbeat dad, and she would have continued to do so, if his liver had held up after the decades of alcohol abuse. She thought when her father died, it was a blessing, that her mother would finally be free, that she’d become whole again. Rebuild and reinvent herself. But all she had done was find another deadbeat man to standby, one worse than her dad. She didn’t think it was possible, but David took the cake. Why was she so weak? Why didn’t she value herself? She was like a pistachio with the nut removed, just a useless shell. She wanted so badly for her mom to be strong and independent, but she was witnessing her childhood all over again.

Kimberley turned back around, startled to see a large shadow cast down in front of her. She followed the blackness with her eyes to a pair of work boots, dirty overalls, the red curtain being raised again up his wide neck, David’s face, and the vein, pulsating in his forehead. She took note of his clenched fists and his feet, shoulder width apart, pressure on the toes, heels slightly lifted as if he were getting ready to charge at her. David’s eyes went from the box Kimberley was holding to Nicole at the end of the hallway, back to Kimberley’s face.

“Mom, lock yourself in the bedroom,” Kimberley said while keeping her eyes on David. She shifted the box ever so slowly to one hand, while her other went to her side, right near her trusty Glock. Three locking points stood between her and her gun. Her NYPD snap holster had two locking mechanisms, thumb snap and rock it forward, to remove the weapon. She had only been in possession of the level-three retention holster for a week and hadn’t had a reason to pull her gun out quickly or at all. She hadn’t even practiced speed of release with it yet, assuming she’d only have to use it to put some wild animal out of its misery after a car hit it. She never imagined she’d be in this scenario in Dead Woman Crossing of all places.

“No. This isn’t what it looks like. He’s a good man. He would never…”

“Shut up, Nicole,” David yelled.

“David, tell her you wouldn’t do this. Tell her. It’s all just a misunderstanding, right?” Nicole pleaded.

“I said shut the fuck up!”

The level-three retention holster had the same first