Page 11 of Last Seen

Tammy lets the news sink in that she’s ours for the next few weeks, then she starts moving through the cabin in concentric circles. We have to crane our necks to follow her movements.

“Our goal at BWR is to hone your skills as a writer, as an artist, as a creative. I want you to stretch yourselves. I want you to let it all hang out. There’s no reason in the world to hold back now.

You’ve all been selected because you are very talented, and you are ready to level up your craft.

Our goal is to help you achieve your dreams. Unlock that path to publication, to a career .

Help you go from curious writer to successful author.

“I’d like to go over some rules for workshop. Be on time, or the door is locked, and you miss out on a whole morning of lessons. My time is valuable, I don’t like it when people are late. Do you understand?”

Six heads nod in unison.

“Show respect for your fellow workshop attendees. And try to keep the funny business out of it. Intimate relationships are frowned upon. They’re a distraction.” She looks at each of us, letting the implication sink in. We nod. No screwing around. Got it.

“Good.” She plops into the center chair facing the fire, big as a throne, and I laugh to myself. Like there will be any dog more important than the leader herself.

“Now, I understand you drew lots last night, and our first reader is Catriona Armstrong. Catriona? Take it away.”

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

I start to stand, and Tammy gives a conspiratorial chuckle. “Oh, no, dear, you can stay right where you are. Just speak up so everyone can hear you.”

Fabulous. I sit back down. Swallow. Lick my lips. And begin.

Eleanor Glynn was in a rush the moment her life was altered forever.

I look up to the expectant faces of my fellow authors and our powerhouse teacher, who gives me a smile and nod. God, why did I have to be picked to go first? I do so much better seeing how the rest of the room works rather than setting the tone. I start again.

She was always in a rush, always buzzing from one place to the next, one moment to another. She wasn’t good about taking her time, being thorough, unless she was in front of a judge, and a client needed her focus.

She had things to do. Places to be. People to see. She’d been like this since birth, in a hurry: a hurry to grow up, to get through school, to live her life.

Now, the life she hurried into was about to fall apart.

It was a good life. She was happy, or at least, until today, she thought she was.

She had a good job, one that meant she could afford to live in one of the tonier suburbs of Nashville in a spacious home with a three-car garage and a weekly housekeeper to handle the heavy stuff.

She had a handsome husband whom she adored.

A solid education, three weeks of vacation, usually spent trekking across the world, and an adorable Muppet-faced dog.

No kids, not for lack of trying, but they would come.

She was still young. Thirty was the new twenty.

Her hands were full—briefcase, groceries, keys, a bottle of wine.

She juggled everything from the car and scrambled up the stairs to the front door.

Three garages, and they still parked the cars in the driveway.

All the neighbors did, too, their Porsches and BMWs and Suburbans all on envious display.

Greg’s Jag wasn’t in the drive, though, which was a relief.

She’d left early so she could beat him home.

They were celebrating their anniversary tonight, seven years together, five married.

They’d met in law school and had been inseparable from the moment their eyes locked in.

Eleanor was sure they’d be together forever.

She managed to get the key in the lock and the door open without dropping anything. She used her hip to knock it closed behind her, then stumbled into the kitchen, dropping first the briefcase, then the bag of steak, potatoes, and asparagus, then the wine onto the counter.

“Whew,” she said, grinning at the feat. Clumsiness came with the constant hurrying; she was relieved to have it all settled in one piece.

She turned on the oven, washed the potatoes and put them on the rack, then went to the bedroom.

She’d already been to the gym for a quick workout and needed a shower, needed to shave, get her hair dried and tamed into submission.

She had an hour to make herself presentable and have the meal ready.

Plenty of time, and that was saying something for a woman who never had enough of it.

In the bedroom, tossing off her shoes and wrenching herself out of her jacket, she realized water was running in the shower.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, blew out a heavy, rueful breath.

She’d been gone since seven, and in her rush, must have forgotten to turn it off.

Great. She added “Call the water company” to her mental to-do list; they would be kind enough to treat this as a running toilet and comp the bill.

At least, the last time she’d left the water on, they had.

Then she heard a small moan and froze.

She placed a hand on the knob, listening. Another, slightly louder moan, which sounded for all the world like a woman saying, “Oh, Greg!”

Eleanor slammed open the bathroom door. It took her a moment to register fully what she was seeing: Her naked husband’s eyes jammed shut, his body thrusting frantically at a female shape bent forward at the waist, a hand braced against the glass.

“What the actual fuck?” she yelled, yanking open the shower door.

The look on Greg’s face almost—almost—made her laugh. Shock and horror and recognition and shame, all rolled into one.

“Ellie? Ellie, what are you—”

She was out of there before the remainder of the sentence escaped his lips. “What are you doing home?” he was saying.

She didn’t let the heartbreak start then. She was too fired up, fury taking root in her soul. She thought briefly about getting the gun from its locked safe in the garage, but it was too far away.

She marched back into the kitchen and went to the knife block.

Note: Ellie has a small issue with anger. Overwhelming anger. Anger that drives people to do horrific things, like murdering people.

The knife shone in her hand, the ten-inch French-honed blade singing a siren song. It felt right in her hand. Trusted. Good.

Greg came running out of the bedroom as she turned to go back in. He saw the knife and started backing up.

“Ellie, no. No!”

The knife slashed. It caught his forearm, and bright blood spewed across the bedroom door. She slashed again, and again, and he went down hard, her name on his lips, a whispered groan. “Ellie. No. Ellie. Don’t.”

She was tired of being told “Don’t.”

The girl was in the bathroom, cowering. Ellie had no remorse or hesitation, her knife an extension of her arm.

The tip entered the flesh of the girl’s throat, and she ripped it to the left.

The girl fell, the meaty scent of her blood a noted juxtaposition to the floral bodywash she’d always coveted.

Back in the kitchen, Ellie found herself standing over the sink, rinsing her hands. The knife shone clean on the counter beside her. The smell of bleach was at odds with the drink of death. She could hear Greg dying in the hall. Tiny gurgles—

“Oh my God, are you kidding me?”

I look up, shocked at being interrupted.

It’s the blonde who took an immediate dislike to me at dinner last night, the one who made sure everyone in the group knew she had a short story published in an obscure regional literary magazine three years earlier.

Whatever her name is ... Oh, lovely. I realize the entire group is staring at me with distaste etched on their faces.

Tammy’s face is twisted in distaste, too, but I don’t think it’s about my work. She’s already on her feet, furious. “We do not interrupt our fellow creatives when they are reading. If that happens again, you will be asked to leave the retreat. Am I clear?”

Abashed nods from the group. The blonde tosses her hair. “I thought this was a literary retreat. Not some slasher-film class.”

“Literature takes all forms, across all genres. As do we. Catriona, I apologize. Please, continue.”

“If there’s more blood, I must excuse myself,” the blonde says.

“There’s not,” I reply. I don’t really care what she thinks, but she interrupted me at a crucial point in the story. I put my head down and continue reading.

The fantasy ended. The fugue lifted. The knife’s blade was clean. Greg was not dead, but calling for her to stop, to listen.

She would not.

And she would not ruin her life over Greg Phillips and some idiotic bimbo. They weren’t worth her freedom, only worthy of her disdain .

I put some emphasis on the last word and look up, giving Blondie a small smirk, then continue.

She put the knife back in the block unused and hurried out of the house, out of her perfect life, and drove back to the office. It was only then, ensconced in the plush leather of her office couch, that she allowed herself to grieve.

Greg showed up an hour later, calm, collected, with comb tracks in his thinning hair. How had she never noticed that before? He’d be bald by forty, and she hadn’t even realized he was receding.

He looked tired. Exhausted, really. And hangdog sad. How had she ever found him attractive? He wasn’t cute, not anymore. He would never be again.

“Get out,” she said, and she meant it.

“Babe, we need to talk.”

“How dare you call me babe ? I just caught you balls deep in another woman, in my shower, on our anniversary, and you want to call me babe ?”

“Ellie. Eleanor, I’m sorry. I never wanted this to happen.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me it was a onetime thing, that you’ll never see her again.”

His chest puffed a bit. “Actually, no. It isn’t. We’re in love. I was going to tell you tomorrow. I didn’t want to ruin our anniversary.”

Ellie’s jaw hit the floor, then she gathered herself. “That is the stupidest logic I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It was never my intention to disrespect you.”

“Really? Screwing another woman in my house is a show of respect? God, Greg. How long has this been going on?”

“A year.”

“Who the fuck is she?”

“She works for the Randalls.”

The face clicked then. “You’re fucking the Randalls’ nanny? What is she, all of nineteen? Oh, Greg. How tacky can you be?”

“She loves me! She treats me like a king. She isn’t too busy for me. You schedule our life, Ellie. From dinner to conversations to sex, it’s all on your calendar. We aren’t spontaneous anymore. You’ve suffocated me with—”

“Oh, shut up and leave. I don’t care about your speech. I want a divorce. And be prepared. I am going to ruin you.” Ellie pointed to the door, and Greg stared at her a moment, as if he were cooking up some really great insult, but changed his mind and left.

She thought about crying but decided that was going to get her exactly nowhere. Instead, she sent a note to one of her colleagues to ask for a good divorce lawyer. Her firm handled compliance litigation, nothing family related, and she wanted the best.

And then she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a bottle of scotch.

She poured a hefty glass, shot it down, choking and sputtering a bit—she wasn’t a hard-liquor drinker, kept this for when the partners showed up after hours.

She poured another and sipped at it. It tasted like gasoline, but she didn’t care.

It was going to bring oblivion, and that was all she craved at the moment.

A heartbeat. That’s all it took to go from the happiest woman in the world to the unhappiest.

She couldn’t believe it.