Page 36

Emma

“A dam?” I say incredulously as my dead husband emerges from the shadows.

I blink, as if I’m somehow imagining things, and when I open my eyes again, he’ll be gone. A figment of my imagination, conjured up by extreme stress. But he doesn’t disappear.

“Surprise,” he says with a smile, his voice so familiar and yet so alien.

He looks different, but I’d know my husband anywhere. It dawns on me, in a slow creeping dread, that Max wasn’t lying.

Adam was the man who came and tried to take him out of school that day.

In the time since I last saw him, Adam has gained weight and put on muscle. His long blond hair has been cut short and dyed and he’s grown a beard. He’s even wearing chunky steel-toed boots, making him a little taller. The man before me fits the description the teacher gave that day perfectly.

Max was so adamant that it was his father because it was. He wasn’t lying or playing make-believe. His father really did come for him. This means there’s every chance that Max was telling the truth all these other times. My husband has been secretly watching us, visiting our son and terrifying him.

“I’m sure this must be quite the shock,” Adam says.

As though he’s just told me a distant relative passed away, rather than literally coming back from the fucking dead! He moves closer and I automatically back away.

“Where’s my son?” I hiss.

“He’s safe. He’s nearby. I just wanted us to have a little chat first, my love.”

I feel as though I’ve stepped into a surreal alternate reality. My head husband is very much alive and here in front of me and he’s acting as if nothing’s happened.

“Don’t call me that,” I snap.

“I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” Adam says.

“Why? Why did you do it?” I snort, somewhere between hysteria and anger.

“You might have to be a bit more specific for me there,” he smiles at me again and part of me starts to think that this version of my husband must be insane.

“Why everything! Why did you fake your death? Why have you been traumatizing your son? Why did you come back?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he says, seeming surprised by the question.

“No. Enlighten me,” I reply sarcastically, hiding the very real intuition that something isn’t right, as the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Obviously, it’s not. My husband just came back from the dead. But more than that, he’s changed. There’s a strangeness to him, a dangerous energy that wasn’t there before, even when he was angry or violent.

“Because I love you. I needed to keep you safe. Both of you.”

“Adam, you’ve been gone four years. We thought you were dead! How is that keeping us safe?”

He shakes his head violently. “No. No. You’re not listening, this isn’t… you have to listen to me!” he says agitatedly, and I realize just how unstable he is.

“Okay, alright, I’ll listen. Let’s go get Max and we can talk,” I say trying to keep my voice calm and soothing.

“No!” he yells so loud that it makes me jump. “See… this is the problem. The second the boy was born you only cared about him!” he whines.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to placate him. “I’m just so confused, I’m just trying to understand…”

“Of course you are, of course,” he says, all of a sudden calm again. “Please, let’s sit and I’ll explain everything,” he adds, pointing to some chairs.

Hesitantly, I move toward them and sit down. I desperately want to ask about Max. But I don’t dare after Adam’s last reaction. Is my son alone? Is he frightened ? Is he even here?

“As you’re aware, we ran into some financial difficulties as a family. As the husband, it was my responsibility to fix that,” he says, acting as if our money troubles weren’t entirely because of him.

I bite my tongue and nod. “Right…”

“The problem was that I owed money to some unsavory characters who would never let me out of their debt unless I was dead.”

“So you faked your death to stop Victor Kane from coming after you.”

He looks surprised that I’m aware of Kane. “Exactly.”

“Why come back now? Why come back at all? Kane thinks you’re dead.”

“Because you’re my family. We belong together. So I came back to get you. We’re going to start a new life in Mexico,” he declares proudly as if I’d be thrilled by the suggestion.

While I don’t doubt he’s deluded himself into believing that Max and I belong to him and that he’s convinced we can ride off into the sunset as if nothing ever happened, I also know there’s more to his reasoning than he’s letting on.

“So it had nothing to do with Max’s inheritance?”

He flinches a little at that. “Of course not, though we will need the money to start our new life, of course.”

So, there it is. Same old Adam. Always after the money. I’m confident it’s no coincidence that Adam only decided to come back from the dead following his mother’s death and Max’s subsequent inheritance.

“So you knew Max was going to inherit your mother’s wealth. That your mother was dead?”

“Yes. Poor mom. I never wanted to hurt her…” he says sadly, losing himself in a memory. “If only she’d given the money to me…”

The wording plucks a chord of discontent. “You asked her for money to pay Kane?”

“Yes. I had to. It was the only way. She kept saying no. It’s why I had to fake my death. I just needed to keep Kane away for a while and buy myself time to raise the funds. But I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to convince her to help. You’d have thought she’d be delighted to see her only son alive and well. But no, she had to ruin everything!” he says, growing agitated.

“Adam… were you…” I can’t form the words as a terrible thought occurs to me.

“If she’d just given me the money… it was mine by rights! But she was selfish and cruel. All it took was just a little nudge… just one push. I had to, don’t you understand? I did it for us. For you and Max, so we can be a family again,” he says pleadingly.

Oh god, he killed his mother.

If he’s capable of killing his own mother, what will he do to Max and me if we don’t do as he says?

“You understand, don’t you, Emma? I did what I had to for the good of our family. With the money, we can live a wonderful life in Mexico. We can start again. You look so beautiful…” he says pleadingly, leaning over to touch my cheek.

I flinch away from his touch as though scalded. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone was planning to take Max to Mexico during all this. Suddenly, the jigsaw pieces start to slip together as I realize that Jessica wasn’t working with Kane at all. No. She was working with her oldest and best friend.

“Jessica was helping you to kidnap Max, wasn’t she?” I ask.

Jessica was always more loyal to Adam than to me. She was in love with him, always had been. She’d have done anything for him.

He nods smugly. “Silly cow, she really believed that it was her who was coming to Mexico with me. That I’d pick her and her two brats over you and my own flesh and blood. That I could ever love her back,” he sneers.

His laugh sends shivers down my spine, I recall the cruelty of it, how it would make me feel so small. His lack of care for the woman who loved him, who was a great friend to him feels unbearably callous. My first thought is that he must not know that she is dead, murdered. But then I realize something with horror. If Adam has Max, that means he was there. That he was the one who took Max while the children were sleeping. If that’s true, then he’s likely the one who killed Jessica.

Max and I are in danger. Kane might be a dangerous man, but he was a businessman, motivated by financial gain and power. We might have been able to talk our way out of it. But there’s nothing more unpredictable than a madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Adam has gone mad and what he wants is us.