Page 41 of Stay Away from Him

Melissa left and walked upstairs to get Bradley from the den where she’d put him down in front of the TV.

On the way there, she passed Rhiannon’s room, the door open a crack.

She paused, lingered, heard voices. Kendall was inside, the two sisters whispering to each other.

Melissa was sure they were terrified for their dad, unsure what would happen next, and as she stood there, she wondered if she should walk in, try to say something to comfort them.

But then she heard Rhiannon’s voice, clear on the still air in spite of her whispering.

“She’s not Mom…”

They were talking about her . She backed away from the door, then walked the rest of the way to get Bradley, who’d fallen asleep on the couch, an episode of Bluey playing at low volume on the TV, his face lit up in intermittent flashes of colored light.

Then she stole out the front door of the house with him hot in her arms, put him into the car.

She thought about what she’d heard all the way back home, Rhiannon’s one-sentence rejection of her, finding her wanting, lacking—the cause of everything that had gone wrong.

She’s not Mom.

***

Back home, Melissa laid Bradley in his bed still sleeping, manipulated his limbs to get him out of his dress-up clothes and into pajamas.

Back in the living room, she kicked off her shoes and fell on the couch.

She was exhausted too. She grabbed for her purse with her phone inside—she’d left it at Thomas’s house when they went on their walk, and then didn’t look at it while she and Amelia cleaned up in the kitchen.

Now she found the phone lit up with dozens of notifications, social media tags, and mentions in comments.

She sat up straight, her body suddenly taut with dread. Her fingers quivered badly enough that she had to put in her passcode twice before the phone lit up.

It didn’t take her long to find the source of all the notifications blowing up her phone.

Somehow Carter had gotten the video on Facebook.

Melissa doubted he uploaded it from the hospital—Thomas had knocked him out, and Carter might not even have been conscious yet.

No, he must have been streaming when he took the video, like Melissa suspected, and after the stream was cut short, it uploaded automatically, as live streams on social media always did.

She watched the video through her fingers.

It was somehow worse than experiencing it the first time around, maybe because she knew how it was going to end.

Carter coming upon them with Thomas on one knee and her hands up by her face in shock, about to say yes .

Then Carter’s taunts, accusing her of spreading her legs for a murderer.

It was all completely nauseating. Then, suddenly, the picture jostled, the phone dropped on the dock, and all she could see anymore was the sky.

From there to the end of the video it was only sound: the gasps of the crowd, the wet thudding of Thomas’s fists against Carter’s face, and then Melissa’s scream at the end: “You’re killing him! ”

The video had hundreds of comments on it, and it was a second before Melissa realized Carter had streamed it not to his main feed but to the Justice for Rose Danver group.

A circuit closed in her mind, and fury lit up inside her like an electrical current, practically crackling from the tips of her fingers.

Kelli Walker. She was responsible for this.

Pretending to be on Melissa’s side, acting like she was only concerned for her safety—when all the while she was bringing Carter back into her life, hurting her and Bradley and putting them in more danger than she knew.

Melissa scrolled back in the Facebook group’s timeline, looking for evidence of what she already knew in her gut.

And there it was. A comment on the photo of her and Thomas kissing, the one that started this whole mess.

I know this woman. She’s my ex-wife. But who’s the guy? And who is Rose Danver?

Carter must have found the group when Kelli Walker tagged her in the photo. Melissa saw Kelli’s reply to his comment, explaining who Thomas was, the accusations against him, the reasons the group had for believing him guilty.

Carter had commented in reply.

This is disturbing. Melissa is an adult, and she can make her own choices. But she has my son. I’m worried about his safety with a man like this.

Dozens of women chimed in with their support.

I’d be worried too if it was my son with this psycho!

I’m so sorry Carter. Praying for you.

If she wants to date a killer she should at least give up custody to you!

The prejudice against dads is insane. You’re obviously a fitter parent than she is! Why is she the one who gets to raise your son?

And then, there was Kelli again.

Here to support you, Carter. My DMs are open.

Melissa was so furious, it was all she could do to resist throwing the phone across the room, to hurl it through the glass of the sliding door into the backyard. In that moment, she was certain that Kelli helped Carter find her. Told him exactly where to look.

Melissa tapped out a text to Kelli.

You fucking bitch. Do you know what you did? Carter is a toxic asshole. I moved here to get away from him, to get Bradley away from him. And you sent him right to us. You are evil.

She smiled at the last bit, thinking of how it would wound Kelli. Moral superiority and being a crusader was her whole thing; the notion that she could be bad, that she could be evil, would hurt her feelings, which was exactly what Melissa wanted to do in that moment.

Almost right after she sent the text, she saw the three dots indicating Kelli was composing a text in response. Melissa gritted her teeth, settled in for a nasty text fight. But the message that came only said: We need to talk.

I don’t want to talk to you, Melissa tapped out. I want you to go to hell.

I’m coming to you.

Melissa almost screamed out loud. Are you not listening? Don’t come here. I don’t want to see you.

But now there was no response, and somehow, Melissa knew Kelli was on her way, no matter what she said.

***

Kelli showed up at the back door five minutes later, materializing like an apparition in the darkness, illuminated by the floodlights shining down on the back deck.

She tapped on the glass and waved, timid.

In spite of Kelli’s chastened look, Melissa was as mad as ever at the sight of her.

She rushed over to the sliding door, pulled it wide, and pushed past her, not letting her come in.

“Do you want to talk inside?” Kelli asked, glancing at the pajama bottoms and sweatshirt Melissa had changed into. “It’s a little cold.”

Melissa set her jaw and shook her head. “My son is sleeping in there. I don’t want you anywhere near him right now.”

Kelli bit her lip. “I understand. And I’m sorry.”

“You know Carter’s going to try to get him back, right? He’s going to try to get full custody. Take my son away from me. You can’t see it on the video, but Bradley was terrified to see him. He’s afraid of his dad. Because he’s a bad person. And it’s your fault he’s in our lives.”

“I know,” Kelli said. “I want you to know that I didn’t tell him where to find you. Okay? I swear.”

“You sure? Because I saw you offered to DM with him. You sure you never gave him an address?”

“I didn’t,” Kelli insisted. “In fact, I told him he shouldn’t come here, that that would make things worse.”

Melissa crossed her arms over her chest, trying to suppress a shiver at the sharpness of the night air. “Uh huh.”

“Look, Melissa—there’s something else you should know. I’m sorry about what happened with your ex-husband. But that’s not what I came to talk to you about. There’s been a break in the case.”

Melissa blinked. “The case?”

“Rose’s disappearance. Her death.”

Just then, more footsteps crunched in the darkness beyond the reach of the floodlights. Kelli turned, and Derek Gordon stepped into the light. He was in civilian clothes, not his cop uniform.

“What are you doing here?” Melissa asked.

Derek glanced at Kelli. “Did you tell her yet?”

“I was just about to.”

Melissa looked between the two of them, wishing they’d just come out with it already.

“What?”

Kelli was the one to say it.

“Rose’s body has been found.”

***

“The online group helped find the body,” Kelli said.

“One of our members showed Thomas’s photo around to some friends and family, and one of them recognized him.

Her elderly father. He lives on an acreage up north, and he remembers seeing Thomas late one night.

Parked on the side of the road, poking around some woods, a creek.

Looked like he was looking for a place to dump something. ”

Melissa turned her face away so Kelli couldn’t see her reaction. They’d moved inside, out of the cold, and now Kelli and Derek sat together on Melissa’s couch, explaining what had been found. They’d only just started, but already Melissa found herself wanting to argue with their evidence.

“He remembers this from three years ago?” she asked. “Come on, Kelli. Maybe he saw someone—but how can we be sure it was Thomas? What if he looked at the photo and wrote his face onto a memory of seeing someone else?”

“Fair point,” Kelli said. “And that’s possible.

But Melissa, the place where he thinks he remembers seeing Thomas poking around—the local police dug there, and they found the body.

It’s Rose. DNA evidence proves it. It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?

For him to be sighted in the place where her body is found? ”

“It still could’ve been someone other than Thomas,” Melissa said. “The stalker, for instance.”

Derek spoke next. “I’m sorry, I know you think he’s innocent. And I know he just asked you to marry him.”

Melissa let out a sound of disgust. Neither of these people should have known anything about her and her personal life—the only reason they knew Thomas proposed that night was that they watched Carter’s video.

One of the worst days of her life was public knowledge.

She felt exposed, dissected, her insides spread out for everyone to examine.

“There’s more you should know,” Derek said.

“Rose’s body was wrapped in a tarp. The same kind of tarp Thomas purchased the day Rose went missing.

There’s no way to prove it’s the exact same one, but it’s the right color, the right brand.

And Rose’s body has fibers on it that match the upholstery in the back of Thomas’s car. ”

“I’m sure she drove it too,” Melissa said. “Put things in the back. Groceries. There’s plenty of reasons why she might have those fibers on her body.”

She was saying these things—but more and more, with each passing second, she didn’t believe them. It was hard to keep her faith in Thomas’s innocence in the face of this onslaught of evidence.

By their faces, Kelli and Derek seemed to know that she barely believed what she was saying. Kelli shrugged indulgently, the way you might with a petulant child, and Derek gave a considered nod, the corners of his mouth turned down ponderously.

“Possibly,” Derek said. “I suppose that could introduce some reasonable doubt. I’m sure these are all things that will be considered, when the case goes in front of a jury.”

Melissa drew in a breath. “They’re bringing the charges back?”

Derek nodded. “I’ve been up there where the body was discovered most of the morning—not in any official capacity; I just had a day off and headed up there since I have an interest in the case.

I was able to speak to some of the officers there, and I also called some old friends at the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, to see how the coordination was going.

From what I hear, they think they’ve got what they need to bring the charges back, and actually bring the case to trial this time. ”

Melissa’s first thought at hearing all this was of Thomas, sitting in a cell somewhere for beating Carter to within an inch of his life.

Not knowing what was about to hit him. He’d be charged with assaulting Carter, of course—that seemed like a pretty open-and-shut case.

And by the sound of it, the charges for murdering Rose would drop on him soon too.

By the time he was arraigned on Monday, his bail was likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. If they granted him bail at all.

“What the hell am I going to do?” Melissa said out loud, even though she was half talking to herself.

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “That’s up to you. I know you’re involved with this man. But if I were you, I’d turn my attention to my son.”

Melissa gave him a sharp look—who was he to tell her what to do with her son?

But then she realized he was right. Guilty or not, this was a mess Thomas and Melissa’s relationship wasn’t likely to survive.

He was slipping away from her—if he, the real Thomas, was ever truly hers to begin with. She couldn’t lose Bradley too.

“Melissa,” Kelli said, “think about this. Carter has said he’s going to go after custody of your son.

He has Thomas on video beating him half to death.

And now Thomas is about to go on trial for the murder of his wife.

Don’t you think it would be a good idea to split with him? And to make it public?”

It would make sense—there was no denying the wisdom in what Kelli was saying. She just wasn’t ready to admit it to these two people.

More than that, Melissa wasn’t ready to let go of what she had just a few hours before. The perfect moment on the pier, when Thomas sank to one knee and told her he wanted to love her forever. The moment when she saw her future stretch out perfect and golden all the way to the horizon.

Before everything fell apart.