The Sunday Wife: A Lockdown Thriller Read online

  I cut another tie with that life when I switched my phone number, but when special interest groups and activists that opposed her ideals began calling and leaving nasty messages about her burning in Hell, I’d had no choice.

  Tav bought me a new phone in his name the very next morning.

  I’d been forced into a brutal form of survival mode that didn’t allow for mourning and grief. I was tagged in posts online by anonymous posters that claimed my mother was drunk driving and having affairs with well-connected men and a fraud in every way they could think of. They were all lies, my mother’s only goal in life was to help women overcome the demons they carried as they healed and became independent. Her life was as exactly as she wanted it, until she ceased to exist.

  Tav was my hero every step of the way, making arrangements so we could have a small ceremony in my hometown before sending her ashes into the wind and then driving me to my therapy appointment so I could sob for two hours about losing the only person that ever really loved me. It felt pathetic, I was embarrassed even now that I’d shown him that raw side of me, but I had no one else. I was truly alone.

  Within weeks of my mother’s passing, Tav began to talk more about when we would get married. Where we might live, the kids we’d have and the vacations we’d take. I think he did it to cheer me up, but it left me drowning in more depression. She wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle like I’d planned, she’d never meet her grandkids.

  I loved him more than ever and I wanted to marry him less and less every day.

  I was sinking.

  Nine

  “I chopped ten bundles worth of wood and it’s probably not even enough to cook us a dinner.” Tav came into the house, swiping at the snow accumulated in his hair.

  He looked angelic if not for the way he grunted his words.

  He was agitated. I felt horrible that I hadn’t done anything more than clean the house and organize the pantry.

  “Do you need help? Can I draw you a bath?”

  “Drawing a bath.”

  “You turned her back on?” I referred to the voice assistant.

  Tav nodded. “Weather station is reporting mass outages for the next week or ten days for most of the Northeast. Turned on the broadcast radio too and heard a few old guys talking about the bridge shutdown this morning. I tried to radio them back but no answer.”

  A shiver went through me at the thought of other people trapped on this mountain with us. “How close do you think they are to us?”

  Tav shrugged. “Within a few miles. Depending on their vantage point they might be able to see us even though we can’t see them. Though I saw a plume of smoke coming out of the valley when I was walking to the car earlier, maybe it was one of them.”

  “People live year-‘round up here by choice?”

  Tav went back to work on his laptop. “I’m still trying to hack into the home system. As long as I’m still getting weather station updates, there’s a way. Every system is hackable, I just have to reverse engineer the setup in my mind and look for the loophole. There’s always a loophole, intentional or not.”

  “You’re determined,” I commented, hanging his damp jacket on a hook above the fireplace. “Just one of the things I love about you.”

  I moved behind him, encircling his waist with my arms and hugging him.

  He stiffened awkwardly, turning and tossing an arm around my neck and placing a kiss at the crown of my head. I hid my cringe, wondering if love should feel so much like pretending. I wondered if that meant we were at the beginning of the end.

  “Sorry I’ve been distracted. I’m at the end of my rope with this foundation and regular workload. It’d be too much if I knew it wasn’t ending soon.”

  “You haven’t told me much about it, are you any closer to accepting grant submissions?”

  He shook his head, eyes averted to his screen again. I tried to chance a glance, but he kept the screen lit at such a low setting with a black color scheme and grey text, I couldn’t make anything out.

  “The most important thing is that I can hand it off to a manager and get back to my real life, my old life. You and me and our future.” He planted another kiss at my head and then unhooked me from his embrace. “Maybe then we can take a real vacation. Tahiti or Fiji, whatever you want.”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t think he’d meant me to.

  “Maybe we can even set a date,” he uttered.

  I ahmed as I walked away, already climbing the stairs to the solitude of the loft. We’d only been locked up together for four days, was it normal that it felt like four lifetimes already? Suddenly, hiking to the nearest trapper’s cabin in the woods sounded half-inviting. I smirked to myself, imagining throwing my middle finger in the air and walking off into the sunset just for the adventure.

  I’d survive about three and a half minutes before falling to my death in a crevice before wolves descended on my remains. You’d have to pay me to leave this house, I realized. I’d need to be driven out before I willingly walked off down the driveway like he’d done this morning. I thought back on the trek here. The chalet to where we’d left the SUV was a mile, maybe more as it meandered through the brush and switchbacks.

  I reached the master bedroom, turning off the hot water in the master bath that the house had turned on automatically a few minutes ago. Then, I settled into an overstuffed leather chair that perched in the corner and overlooked the glacier-tipped mountains beyond. The jagged granite peaks so unforgiving, they left me feeling on edge. This place was a weird reminder that it was every man or woman for himself and herself when it came down to all of this savage nature. It’d thrilled me on the way in, but now that it was our prison, every crag and peak was ominous.

  I plucked my phone off of the nightstand and swiped through the messages. Empty. If I was home there would be no less than a dozen messages from Bradley by now. He was probably worried about me already.

  I’d have to work to explain this one, and then listen to him tell me about the dangers of leaving the state without telling anyone.

  My app finally crashed after it couldn’t connect to the internet. “If only the pamphlet would have mentioned Arctic Hellhole.”

  I would wither and die up here if the only person I had left to talk to was Tav from behind his computer screen.

  I remembered how charming he was the first night we’d met. And then our first date a few nights later when we’d gone for a barbecue and danced to cheesy pop music from the 1980s. Tav sang Billy Joel in my ear when his fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and his fingertips caressed my skin for the first time.

  He’d had me from that moment. That tiny gesture had cemented his hold on my heart.

  I remembered the last time I’d seen Steph. I’d driven into the city for her latest art gallery opening. We’d caught up after months of only phone conversations, she’d asked how I was handling my mother’s passing, and I’d beamed with manufactured pride that accidents happened—Tav and I were talking about getting married. She’d frowned, then shook her head.

  “Don’t do it,” she said.

  “Don’t what? Marry Tav?”

  “He gives me the creeps, Frey. I don’t know why, but trust me when I say there’s something off about him.”

  “Tav and I are great. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

  She watched me calmly before looking away. “He just gives me a sense, Frey. I’m never wrong about men like that.”

  Men like that.

  I still rolled her words around in my mind all these months later. I’d never worked up the bravery to ask her, but now when we talked it always sat on the tip of my tongue. That same night she’d told me to watch out for men like Tav at her opening, I’d driven all the way home and was shocked to find Tav sitting in the dark of our bungalow after midnight.

  He’d seemed on edge, worried about where I was and with who.

  When I’d told him Steph’s opening, it’d seemed to make matters worse, not bet
ter.

  “You should have told me you were going into the city, I would have taken the night off and met you there.”

  “I needed girl time.”

  “What does that mean, exactly? She was working, wasn’t she?”

  “Sure, but we talk and catch up. It’s not the same seeing her face only over a screen.”

  “Well, what’s to catch up on? Who she’s dating and hating?”

  “No.” Sort of.

  “Steph doesn’t like me.” Tav grouched.

  Also true.

  “Sure she does,” I lied.

  “She shoots daggers at me every time we’re in the same room together.”

  “She doesn’t even pay attention to you,” I replied. Also not true, she thought Bradley was more my type.

  Tav didn’t answer, only assessed me shrewdly. “Did she tell you I saw her out at dinner a few weeks ago?”

  She had.

  “No,” I lied again.

  Let him hang himself, I thought. If he has a reason to, I’ll know it.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I didn’t reply, but I held his gaze like we were in a sharp shooter standoff in the middle of our kitchen. Say it. Say it. Confess now and I can stop living in this constant state of is he or isn’t he? Steph had me questioning Tav’s fidelity from the moment she found out Tav was working all week in the city.

  I hadn’t been able to shake it since.

  “Girls like Steph have issues with men. I wouldn’t take her advice if you paid me.” He uttered, then turned and walked out of the kitchen. I watched the broad stretch of his muscular back beneath his workout tank. I loved him. I think. But how could I know for sure?

  Was Tav really the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

  Ten

  Tav was on edge all day.

  Monday. We should have been back at home. Back at work. Back to our regularly scheduled lives.

  It made me laugh to myself now, the thought of Tav walking out of the door this morning as if he was heading out to work, leaving me here as his happy little housewife. As much as I was a homebody, a homemaker I was not. Did I want kids with Tav? Maybe someday, but not as long as he worked in the city all week with only weekend visits. Tav was obsessed with moving up the career ladder, he often said he worked hard now so he could work less later. I didn’t complain, because he took care of me. But if I was suddenly left to raise a baby alone like my mother, I’d suffocate under the pressure.

  My mother earned a degree in psychology and worked full-time, sometimes two jobs if that’s what it took to keep a roof over my head. She rarely dated and talked about her relationships with men even less. She kept her life private then, and it grew more so when a thousand miles separated us.

  The idea of raising a baby without her made my chest ache. I placed a palm over my heart as I watched Tav shoveling in the evening light that split through the mountains.

  He’d been working outside most of the day, I didn’t ask at what. I sensed he was working out his worry with tasks, while I just worried. I spent part of the afternoon stewing the last of the fresh tomatoes into pasta sauce that could be kept in jars for at least a few weeks.

  Not that we would be here that long.

  A soft bang made me jump. My eyes averted to the front steps, Tav was banging a snow shovel against the porch step as he chipped thick pieces of ice away. I frowned, wondering why he was working so hard when I was sure I’d seen a bag of salt in the basement specifically for melting ice on the pathways.

  I was about to tell him this when the door swung open and a burst of cold air swept through the chalet.

  “There’s a bag of ice melt downstairs we can use for the steps.”

  “Why didn’t you bring it up then?” The bite in his words stung.

  “I-I’m sorry, I will.” Before he could say anything else, I retreated down the hallway and descended the stairs that led to the basement. Right at the base of the steps was a small utility closet. I opened the door, eyes on the brightly colored bag. I bent and yanked, realizing now it was a lot heavier than I thought. I yanked again. Finally it slid across the cement floor, a tower of boxes with filters and other junk falling on the floor at my feet. I bent, sweeping everything back into the box with my hands and then wiping the dust off on my pant legs. I felt grimy already. Whoever had been in this closet last was probably long dead based on the thick caking of dirt and grime. I yanked the bag again, realizing there was no way I could carry it up the stairs. I’d have to march back up there and tell Tav he’d need to get it himself. A smile twitched my lips as I thought of the small satisfaction that would give me. But the dark look that would inevitably cross his eyes wasn’t worth it.

  I stood, kicking the bag of salt with my shoe when something hiding in the darkness of the closet clattered and then fell forward.

  I gasped, bending to lift the business end of a very powerful assault rifle. I’d never been in the presence of a gun in my life, my mom was too make-love-not-war for that, but even my meager firearm knowledge told me this was a semi-automatic rifle with a long barrel and large scope. It looked exactly like the guns I’d seen used in sniper movies. And it looked clean, if not freshly polished and gleaming with oil. This gun looked like it’d never been shot. What was it doing here among all this dust and grime?

  I crammed my eyelids closed as I tried to recall if Tav had ever mentioned firing a gun. Maybe he’d had to go to the gun range for his job with the department? But then, why wouldn’t he have mentioned that? Steph had me so obsessed with proving Tav’s infidelity that maybe I’d overlooked something more?

  From the beginning Tav had refused to tell me much about his current contract, and I’d never cared enough to ask questions. All of his work was behind a computer screen when he was with me, but did his daily life at the office look vastly different all week long?

  I scoffed at myself, shaking my head as I realized the simple explanation was probably more like the owner of the house left the gun here for emergencies.

  Like what?

  “Hey!” I called up the stairs, the barrel of the gun wrapped in my hand as I climbed. “Did you know there was a gun in the house?”

  Tav surprised me, standing right out of sight at the doorway. He narrowed his eyes to the gun in my hand before responding. “We’re in the wilderness, it would be weird if there wasn’t a gun.”

  He took it from my hand, not looking the least bit surprised that I’d found it, before propping it in the corner of the hallway and kitchen.

  “Do you think it’s loaded?”

  Tav was already stalking away, shoulders bunched and tense.

  I should give him a massage like I used to when we first started dating.

  Instead, I followed him, dwarfed in his shadow as he stepped into the bright kitchen light.

  “Have you ever shot a gun like that?”

  He only grunted.

  Evasive bastard.

  Steph had been right about men like him, how hadn’t I seen it before? Secrets simmered behind the twinkle in his denim blue eyes.

  “Have you?” I pressed.

  “No.”

  “You seem comfortable with it,” I commented casually.

  Tav took an unopened bottle of vodka down from the cupboard and twisted it open. “Compared to you.”

  “Have you taken classes?”

  “Classes?” His tone was demeaning, I could hear it from across the granite island.

  “You know—at a gun range—with targets.”

  “Sure I’ve been to a gun range with the guys a few times.”

  “The guys?” This was the first time he’d mentioned hanging out with any guys. It was always work meetings, work dinners, work acquaintances.

  “From work.”

  “Right,” I said. “Work.”

  “What are we really talking about here?” Suddenly he was in my face, his breath hot on my neck. What once turned me on now struck a chord of fear in my heart.


  “Work. Guns. Lies,” I said in a jumble.

  His fingers tightened around my wrist. In that moment I realized he was more powerful than me, so powerful he could snap the bones in my wrist and leave me abandoned for dead on this godforsaken mountain. “Whose lies?”

  I felt every beat of his heart like it was connected to mine. My vision turned dark, my breaths shallow. I suddenly felt faint, overwhelmed with not knowing if he was my knight in shining armor or my deranged captor.

  “Freya,” his thick voice grounded me in reality. “Freya, have you been taking your meds?”

  I hated when he asked that.

  I shook my head, heart still beating against my eardrums as Tav cradled me to his chest, more tender than he was only a moment ago. His eyes turned from chilly to warm, handling me like I was a delicate bird as he guided me across the kitchen and laid me down on the leather sectional.

  “I’ll get some water.” His words were calm and measured. He knew how to handle me when paranoia stole my reality.

  I gulped the water he handed to me. He watched me intently before he shook his head. “When’s the last time you took your pills?”

  “Not since we’ve been here.”

  “Freya!” I shrank from the power in his voice.

  “I keep forgetting.”

  “Forgetting? This is why I can’t leave you alone.” What was he talking about? He leaves me alone all the time. “Where are they?” he hissed.

  “Upstairs in my makeup bag in the bathroom. I haven’t been wearing makeup since we got here so I just never thought about it.”

  He grunted his displeasure as he jogged up the stairs to the loft. He was back down a moment later, my makeup bag in one hand, his other holding my small bottle of prescription antipsychotics.

  I didn’t need them.

  I knew I didn’t need them.

  But I was too afraid of the darkness that would descend if I stopped taking them. I’d tried a few times before, but the level of despair that seeped out of my bones was unbearable.

  “Why are you doing this again?” He held one small white pill out to me.