Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

idiot,” I say, thinking of all the times I fell prey to his misogyny and narcissism. Then, a twinge of self-pity creeps in. “He just went over to your house for sex, after he saw the blood and the hair?” She can’t see me shaking my head, but I’m doing it. “I could be dead, and he doesn’t care. He’s glad I’m gone.”

When I met Drew, I was a waitress at a dumpy little breakfast place near his office. One that, according to him, had the best sausage, egg, and cheese on a toasted croissant in the county. He flirted, I flirted back. It went on for weeks, until he asked me out. Mr. Hedge-Fund Man wanted to rescue the stupid little sandwich slinger.

No, he didn’t want to rescue me. He wanted to control me. He needed someone to take out his machinations on, and I fit the bill. Really, where was I going to go, once he started beating me? I’d been upgraded from a studio apartment—with a Craigslist roommate who dealt coke—to suburban utopia. He figured that, after a taste of champagne, I wouldn’t go back to tap water.

He was right. For a little while, anyway.

“So, you planted the gun?” I asked.

“I did. I had to fuck the ever-living shit out of him Friday night. Made me sick. But he did pass out and I put his prints all over it. Yesterday, he told me you were visiting family for the weekend and he invited me over, so I went over there and planted it, in the back of his closet, behind those ratty shoes he never wears but refuses to throw out. The ones from college.”

It pains me for a second that she knows intimate details about those shoes, and why he won’t get rid of them.

She continues, “I left a bunch of my hair everywhere too. And my grandmother’s ring behind the bed.” She pauses. I know how much that ring means to her, but that tidbit was my idea, and a good one. She’ll get it back when this is over. “He’ll never know it’s there, but once I tell the police about the affair, he’ll deny it, of course. I’ll tell them my ring is missing and to look for it. Plus, my hair is in your bed now. My underwear is wedged between the mattress and the box spring.”

“Okay. Good.” This must be so hard for her. The man she fell for is a monster, and that discovery hurts her as much as it hurt me. “Hey, are you okay? How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she says quickly. “We all make mistakes. Mine was the worst, but I’ll make sure he pays for what he did to you. And what he’d probably do to me if I continued to see him. I’m still so sorry.”

“Stop. I don’t blame you.”

“Where did you end up?” she asks.

I pause. “It’s better if you don’t know. Plausible deniability.”

Maribel doesn’t need to know I’m over a hundred miles north, in New Jersey. Especially because I told her I was headed south somewhere. I want this as far away from her as possible.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll do the other part this week. Probably Monday, if it all works out.”

“Great. I won’t bother looking online for news yet. Let me know when my disappearance is official.”

“I will. Take care of yourself, Tessa. Start over. Meet someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated.” She sighs. “I’ll try to do the same.”

We say goodbye and I hang up.

Find someone who treats me the way I deserve to be treated. I don’t even know what I deserve anymore.

On the dresser, his business card calls to me. Jace Montgomery. It says he’s the assistant manager at the bank in town, and I want to thank him again for last night, but I don’t. Not yet.

But I will. Even if I have to hide who I am.

18

JACE

Jace felt like a rat in a cage at home. He didn’t want to leave again, so it was just him and Candy, flitting around from one room to the next. Flipping between watching television and reading the paper. And staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring, waiting for Detective Solomon to call and say that they found her.

Or worse, that they found her body. Jace pushed it away. He didn’t like to spend time with negative thoughts like that—Tessa was a survivor, if anything. He wished he could do something. He would not be planning his wife’s funeral. What also gave him anxiety was the constant threat that Solomon would show up with a warrant. Even though they wouldn’t find anything, he didn’t need to be that person in the neighborhood. The one with the missing wife, the suspected murderer with cops showing up to ransack his residence.

And yes, he also spent time looking at the now three hundred–plus comments on the article. He tried not to, but it was futile.

Some were downright vicious. And the girl who was going nuts on the page earlier in the day didn’t relent.

shellyDGTS214: don’t know why they haven’t dragged that ape out of his house in cuffs yet! People don’t go missing like that, this isn’t the city! He totally killed her.

HelenCarrera: I know right!

TheBoo800: I’ve seen him in the bank. Always had that creepy look to him

shellyDGTS214: @TheBoo800 A murderer had a creepy look? I’m shocked!

JohnKlein6969: You people need to get a grip. I thought in this country it was innocent until proven guilty?

shellyDGTS214: Then why was he at the police station again @JohnKlein6969? I heard they brought him in for questioning again! Yeah sounds totally innocent. Fucking murderer!

JohnKlein6969: YOU HEARD @shellyDGTS214? Stalk much? Jesus maybe you did it

shellyDGTS214: Fuck you and your patriarchy @JohnKlein6969. Wouldn’t surprise me if the murderer is your friend!

SweetVictoriaXO: I don’t know him but I’m not necessarily convicting him yet either

shellyDGTS214: I’m sure dead Tessa would love to know that even women turned on