Breaking Grace Read online

  “Talking back, wearing short skirts, acting in school plays…even James was a way to defy us. You were practically living with him.”

  Don’t forget the porn you found on my phone, I want to say. And my friends with atheist parents. And the romance novels on my Kindle.

  My father’s face is red. “You know I’m trying to raise money for an addition to the church. And how do you help? By quitting your job and showing up drunk at Bram Russell’s office. It’s as if you’re trying to destroy this family’s reputation.”

  Shame pours over me like hot tar. “How do you know I was there?”

  “One of the parishioners saw you. He was meeting someone for lunch. He sat across the lobby and watched you for twenty damn minutes.”

  My insides crumple. I can sense Isaac’s triumph from here.

  “This can’t go on, Grace,” my mother says. She tries to sound gentle but she just sounds weak. As weak and afraid as she’s always been.

  I look from her to my father and back again, watching their mouths move, barely taking in their words. Maybe this shows they care. Maybe they want me home because they love me. Everyone says they’re just worried about me, and this proves it.

  Maybe I’m so twisted around from losing James I can’t recognize love anymore. I’m so desperate for security that I don’t know it when it hits me in the face.

  Moving home might be the best thing for me. I could take time to rest, get closer to my mother, look for another job. It could be exactly what I need.

  Suddenly, the thought of being here, of being what my parents want me to be, is a relief. I don’t have to be alone in my apartment every night, drinking and texting old friends I lost touch with while I was out of my mind over James. I can wake up the way I always did, to breakfast cooking and my father practicing his sermon in the den.

  “Okay,” I say.

  My parents stare at me. “Really?” my mother says.

  My father’s mouth is flat. “You understand what this means. You do what’s asked of you. You fall in line.”

  The words make me bristle, but I put on a smile. “I know I’ve been drinking too much. And I promise I’ll get another job.”

  “If you can,” my father says. “Employers don’t like quitters.”

  “I had good reason,” I say.

  “What – giving your job to a friend? Letting Bram Russell rule your life again?”

  My heart sinks. I will not cry. My father can cut my soul to smithereens but I won’t let Isaac see a single tear.

  “We know how hard James’s death was for you,” my mother says. “But it’s time to move on.”

  Move on? I bite my lip. “If I can borrow the car I’ll go get my things. Just enough for a few days, then I’ll move the rest this weekend.”

  “Your luggage is already packed,” my father says.

  “All of it?”

  “Isaac took care of it. It’s in his car.”

  A cold feeling creeps through my chest. Isaac touched my things. He packed my panties and the t-shirts I wear to bed, and then he changed the locks. And my parents told him to do it.

  But we can argue about it later, after he’s gone. “I’ll just go get everything, then.”

  I stand up. My father frowns. “You think you’re staying here?”

  Confused, I stare at him.

  “You’ll be living with Isaac and his family, Grace.”

  “What?”

  “The dynamic when you’re here, in our house…it’s not good for anyone,” my mother says. “You know that.”

  My heart turns to ashes. I was never what they wanted. I’m old enough now that they don’t have to hide it anymore.

  I clutch my hands together. “Mom, please.”

  “It’s that or an inpatient program for your drinking,” my father says. “Your behavior stops now. Tonight.”

  Isaac clears his throat. I look at him as if I’ve never seen him before. “You’ll love living with Kathy and the kids. She needs a lot of help so you’ll always feel useful, and the farm isn’t that far from town.”

  “The farm,” I say blankly.

  “In fact, Kathy’s holding dinner for us, so we should get going.”

  Broken images race through my head. A country kitchen stuffed with screaming children. My bedroom under slanted eaves with a twin bed and musty quilt. Isaac’s figure in my doorway at night, and no way to escape. When I try to picture being in rehab, all I can see is a dark hallway lined with locked doors.

  “You won’t be at Isaac’s forever,” my mother says. “Six months or so until you get back on your feet.”

  Everyone stares at me. All I can hear is panic screaming through my body. I want to pound the walls with my fists. I’ve told you what he did to me, I want to cry. Why won’t you believe me?

  But nothing I say will matter. It never has.

  I put on the bravest smile I can. “All right.”

  “Really?” my mother says.

  “Yes. I’ll go to Isaac’s.”

  She lets out a sigh. “Oh, Grace, I’m so relieved. I told your father you’d be open to the idea.”

  “And I am,” I say in a blank voice. “Very. I’m going tonight?”

  “Yes,” my father says, nodding. “Right now.”

  “Great. I’ll just…run to the bathroom before we leave, okay?”

  “Sure,” Isaac says. “Take your time.”

  Rounding the corner, I start up the carpeted stairs. I force myself to walk at a normal pace. It gives me time to think, anyway.

  These damn heels. I could probably find flats in my old room but I don’t have time.

  Help me, James. If you’re watching over me, help.

  Stepping into the bathroom, I shut and lock the door. I slip off my shoes and quickly tie the straps together. It’s still raining. Isn’t there a robe around here? One of those hooded terrycloth things? The door hook and hamper are empty. Shit.

  That’s okay. I’ll figure it out.

  I lift the window slowly. It’s been years since I snuck out at night, but it’s all coming back to me. I pinch the fasteners on the screen and pull it in, setting it carefully against the wall. There used to be a bench here, but this time I’ll have to hoist myself up.

  I sling my shoes over my shoulder. Bracing my hands against the windowsill, I jump up. The window’s just big enough that I can sit and swing my feet around. It’s two stories down, but the bushes will break my fall like they did in high school. I hope.

  I hear voices, and then the creak of stairs.

  “Now,” I whisper, and push myself through.

  The fall is long enough that I feel my hair fly above my head before I land. I thud to the ground in a mass of prickly wet branches. The breath jolts out of my lungs. My face and arms sting with scratches.

  I don’t feel my ankle until I start to run.

  I can’t afford to slow down. Limping through the garden, I slip through the back gate and into the neighbor’s yard. Her security light jumps on as I run past her garbage cans. A distant voice bellows, “Grace!”

  It’s my father. I hear the front door slam. Male voices. Shouts. I run faster.

  When I get to the street, I stop. I turn around just long enough to look back at the house where I grew up and wonder if I’ll ever see it again.

  Bram

  “Thanks, Fritz,” I say, climbing out of his classic Corvette into the rain. Cars this small don’t mix with guys my size. My knees ache from riding a few miles in the passenger’s seat.

  I brace my arm against the top of the door and lean down. “Thanks for letting me rant. I’ll be by tomorrow to pick up my car.”

  “The bar looks good with a sports car out front,” he says. “Leave it as long as you like.”

  I shut the door and Fritz roars off. Damn Corvette’s going to wake up my neighbors, not that I have many. A few scattered around, three or four acres away.

  Out here, the trees are big and gnarled and the fields go on forever. You wouldn’t know
the city’s so close. Just ten miles north, but it feels like another world.

  I keep my eyes to the right as I walk up my front steps. By now it’s habit. If I don’t look, I don’t see his body. I don’t see the red-black pool of blood, or hear him sucking in his last breaths. I don’t feel his pulse fading under my fists as I try to jumpstart his heart. I don’t hear the sirens getting closer, or my voice growling, “Fucking breathe, damnit.”

  Even then, I saw the irony. I was trying to save the life of the guy I’d just tried to kill.

  Not that I regret it. I just don’t like thinking about it.

  I press the combination on the door and go inside. I know what my grandfather would say. Get a fucking hold of yourself, boy. You had to do it. Think I lie awake torn up about what I did to some twenty year-old soldiers?

  But it’s not what I did to James that keeps me up. Lucky for my grandfather, he never knew what happened to the girlfriends of all the bastards he killed. I do.

  I drop my leather jacket off on a chair and go downstairs. I haven’t been to this part of the house in months. I should have skipped The Usual and come straight here.

  The hallway is wide and paneled in sleek dark wood. It winds around like a maze, past a wine cellar, a home theater, and a two-story ballroom, and ends in a plain steel door. The red devil’s lair. That how I think of it.

  I press my thumb to the pad on the wall. The door swings open without a sound. Antique iron sconces come on automatically, filling the room with a dark golden glow.

  I let my eyes skim over the illuminated walls. Gleaming racks of guns, glassed-in cabinets of swords and lances, and shelves of melee weapons, my favorite. Hand-to-hand combat stuff like axes and polearms. The real thing.

  When I first started collecting, I actually hoped I’d have a chance to use this stuff. Just let some asshole try to mess with me. I’d had the shit beat out of me as a kid so many times, I figured I was owed.

  And at first, after I shot Winthrop and the prosecutor’s office ruled it justifiable, I was proud of myself. I had a right to self-defense. He wasn’t the first person who’d wanted to fuck with me. There was the drug-crazed stalker in her late forties and some idiot who’d tried to break in while I was at work. I was pissed off and paranoid and had every right to be.

  Knowing what I know about James, I’m still not sorry he’s dead.

  I take a Civil War-era piece from the knife cabinet and slide the pitted blade along my forearm. My cock comes to life as the steel raises an inch-long line of blood. It’s the second time today I’ve had an inappropriate hard-on. There’s a thrill that comes with power, even when it’s directed at my own skin.

  A psychiatrist would probably say that a bad childhood left me in an endless search for control. No shit. Having no father to stand up for me, losing my mother at sixteen, relying on my grizzled old grandfather until the day that he, too, dropped dead – it’s a wonder I don’t walk around armed to the teeth.

  On my way back upstairs, I stop in the doorway of the ballroom and flip on the chandeliers. The lights are still dimmed, like they were for the last gathering Fritz and I had. I can almost hear the laughter of the girls as they drifted around like a roomful of butterflies.

  Without people, the staircase looks even grander. This house never fails to impress me, even three years after finishing it. I’d been coveting the old Bristol Mansion since I was twelve years old. I didn’t care if it was haunted and beat to hell. Someday, it would be mine. And when the old lady who owned it died, I bought it and stripped it down to the bones. Now it’s a fortress made of travertine, dark wood, and slate, more pharaoh’s tomb than family house. It suits me.

  After grabbing water in the kitchen, I go up to the master bedroom. I leave the light off and strip down to boxer briefs. A hard rain pounds the roof. I lie down on top of the comforter, and in ten seconds I’m out.

  The next thing I know, it’s the middle of the night. My cell phone is ringing on the nightstand.

  “Christ.” Rolling over, I reach for it. Who’s trying to piss me off at this hour?

  I glance at the screen. It’s a number I don’t recognize. Some impulse makes me pick up anyway.

  I answer without speaking. For five seconds I hear nothing but the wind. Whoever’s calling is outside, and they’re not saying a word.

  “Yeah,” I bark.

  A hear a sharp inhale. “You get the package?” It’s a male voice, rough, unfamiliar.

  “Who is this?”

  He clears his throat. “There’s a package outside for you.”

  “What?” I’m beat, the whiskey’s worn off, and I’m in no mood. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He sighs impatiently. “You got a delivery.”

  “What the fuck? Now?”

  “You’re welcome, asshole.”

  The line goes dead. I stare at my phone. Of all nights for some random clown to fuck with me.

  I bang my phone back on the nightstand and lie down again. I was crashing hard until that call. Now I’m wired. I stare at the ceiling for ten minutes, hearing the guy’s voice replay in my brain. I can’t shut it off.

  Groaning, I get up. I put on jeans and grab my gun from the drawer.

  Downstairs is dark and quiet. A quick glance through the front windows tells me there’s nothing on the porch. I cross the house and walk through the dining room to the back slider. Turning off the alarm, I open the door and scan the terrace.

  I see nothing but some Italian urns filled with whatever the hell blooms in October. The pool’s been drained and covered, and the outdoor furniture is in storage. I shut the door and lock it.

  Good. Nothing to deal with. Just a wrong number at the end of a very weird fucking day.

  I head back upstairs. The wind is really lashing now. I stop on the landing to look out the window across two acres of garden. There must be a full moon behind the storm clouds. The whole sky glows a dark, turbulent red.

  I glance toward the far side of my property. There’s something out there.

  I step closer to the window and squint. It’s a pile of junk near the fence. Rags? A canvas sheet? Maybe the gardener left it behind, or –

  My guts twist for half a second. A delivery. Outside.

  “Shit,” I mutter, and head back down the stairs.

  I put on boots and a rain jacket and grab the flashlight from the coat closet. The gun goes in the waistband of my jeans. In thirty seconds I’m around the house and clomping through the mud. Out in a storm for a pile of rags. Fucking fool’s errand.

  At first I can’t find it. I have to walk farther back on the property, where the ground is torn up and uneven. Finally, the flashlight glances across the top of it. Ten steps later I crouch down.

  What the fuck. It looks like a body.

  I roll it a little. No movement inside. When I let go, it rolls back into a soggy rut.

  The whole thing is tied with plastic rope. Where does the rope start? Why do I care?

  I’ve learned this lesson before. Call the cops. Leave your life un-fucked with. Walk away.

  But that’s not who I am. Even now.

  I glance around. Nothing, and nobody. Just me and whatever the hell is lying on the ground.

  I stick the end of the flashlight in my mouth. Feeling around with both hands, I find the end of the rope buried in the mud. I pull it. It’s wrapped tight and doesn’t want to give. I stretch it just enough that I can loosen the tarp at the top. Now if I can just find an edge.

  “Shit.”

  A steady deluge of ice pellets starts raining down. I brush water out of my eyes and probe with my fingers. I should have brought scissors. And gloves.

  The edge is right on top, I just couldn’t see it. I tear at it, impatient as I’ve ever been.

  I reach underneath and yank hard. The tarp gives. I move around to get a better look. I can just see inside.

  A shoulder. An ear.

  It is a body.

  Warm and alive.

 
; My adrenaline surges so hard it hurts. I pull the tarp harder and it comes open. Now I see a face. I take the flashlight out of my mouth and aim it straight down.

  Auburn hair.

  Ivory skin.

  Emerald green.

  Fuck.

  Grace

  I’m lost.

  I was running so fast I forgot to notice where I was going. I’m in a neighborhood I’ve never seen before. All the houses are dark and quiet, and the sky is blood red.

  I couldn’t walk in my heels with a sprained ankle so I took them off again. For the first half hour, I heard shouting. My father’s voice, then Isaac’s, then both of them together. I hid behind a backyard playhouse until the voices faded away.

  I look for street signs or landmarks, anything that will tell me where I am. Relief almost doubles me over when I see a headstone through the fence across the road.

  I’m not lost anymore. I’m on the backside of the cemetery where James is buried.

  I limp along the fence until I find a gate. It’s locked, but low enough that I can climb over. It’s almost like James led me here tonight. He kept me safe, just like I asked him to. I have no money, no phone, and no place to go, but with James watching over me, nothing can happen to me now.

  I find his grave in the dark. It’s in the newer section where the headstones look new and the flowers are still fresh. My feet are numb by the time I sit down on the brown grass. In five minutes I’ll get up and keep moving.

  I trace his etched name with my forefinger. James Edward Winthrop. The one person in the world who got me. Who accepted me just the way I was.

  We were nothing alike. He was quiet, geeky, a coder who worked for a data storage startup. He was creative and a little quirky. Not an open book. I liked that. It meant he’d be interesting to me forever.

  He had big dreams. Any small injustice bothered him. Technology was the great equalizer, and he was going to use it for good. A lot of his plans went over my head, but I loved listening to them. I loved his ambition. I knew I’d be proud of him one day.

  He was the only person in my life who wouldn’t disappoint me. He promised me that. He knew what I’d been through, and he swore he’d never let me down.