The Narcissist

By Mary Lee Tiernan

“You did what?”
Jack’s announcement that he’d spent their savings to buy himself a new truck pushed Emma to the breaking point. Explaining her frustration to Jack was useless. He never understood anything except his own point of view. Her only option to extricate herself from their deteriorating relationship was to leave and relegate Jack to her past. Unfortunately, the past doesn’t always stay in the past.

For three days after Emma’s disappearance, Jack’s reaction vacillates. After the news reported a serial killer on the loose, Jack fears that she might be another of the killer’s victims and rushes to the police to report her missing.

As detectives investigate the case, Jack’s erratic behavior leads them to suspect that Jack, not a serial killer, is guilty of foul play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Lee Tiernan
• Release date: Sep 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463363270

Mary Lee Tiernan

I was born in New York, but the lure of open spaces brought me west, and I now call Arizona home. Throughout my professional life as an educator and newspaper editor, my passion has always been writing. My other passion is exploring all the West has to offer, and I am often RVing down the road with my cat Charlie.

Book preview

Chapter 1

You did what?

Emma’s hand shook, causing the water in her glass to splash over the rim. She thumped the glass down on the small kitchen table and stared at Jack.

He favored her with his boyish grin. Ah, come on, babe. Don’t be like that.

Don’t be like what? You come home from a mysterious early morning ‘errand’ and announce that you’ve spent our savings without talking to me first.

I was afraid you’d get all bent out of shape, just like you are now. I work hard. I deserve something for it.

And I don’t? That was my money, too. For a deposit on a house, remember? We were going to get married and buy a decent place to live. We’re a couple. Couples make decisions together. Right?

Jack slid into the seat across the table from Emma and reached over to cover her hand with his.

She withdrew her hand before he touched her and sat back in her chair to distance herself from him. While waiting for an answer to her question, she focused on the table and ran her finger back and forth across a deep gouge on the edge.

Emma, look at me.

She did not want to look at him: at his handsome face or the way his brown hair fell roguishly over one side of his forehead or those alluring chocolate brown eyes. She concentrated instead on the feelings nagging her: the ones she been ignoring for months now, the ones that kept getting stronger and stronger.

Em, you don’t understand. It was too good a deal to turn down. The truck has a few years on it, but the mileage is low and it’s in pristine condition. The guy who owned it died, and the family needed to sell it quickly so they asked an unbelievably low price. I’ll never run into a bargain like that again. We can build the savings account up again.

Until you find something else you want for yourself?

For myself? She heard his chair scrape on the floor. You didn’t like that old rattletrap of a truck any more than I did.

Finally, she looked up. But it worked. You kept it running.

And caught all kinds of crap from the guys at work. They won’t give me a hard time anymore.

How nice for you. And what about me? Emma swept her arm in a semicircle. You want me to continue living in this dump so you can impress the guys with a new truck?

You’re not being fair. At least you have a ‘dump,’ as you call it, to live in. You didn’t have any place to live before I asked you to move in with me.

Not that she’d had much choice in the matter about moving in with him. It was him or the streets. At 17, she’d been madly in love and thought of him as her Prince Charming, whisking her away to a castle in his kingdom where they’d live happily ever after. Living with him had become more like landing in the meanest hovel in the village.

I thought you asked me to move in because you loved me.

Of course, I love you. You’re missing the point. If I’d stayed at my parents’ place in Grandville and saved all the money I’m spending on rent and food and stuff, I’d have the money to buy another truck without getting any guff for it.

Emma chose not to remind him that her salary contributed to the bills and that it was his decision to leave Grandville and apply for the mechanic’s position here in Lost Pine. A step up, he’d said, and more money. Except it hadn’t been. He’d padded his resume, gotten the job, and the money had been good until his boss figured out he wasn’t a competent mechanic at all. He was downgraded to ‘apprentice’ with a drastic cut in pay. They were forced to give up their nice furnished apartment and move into a 500 square foot shack filled with Salvation Army leftovers.

Jack reached once more across the scarred table with an open hand, hoping she’d put her hand in his. Come on, Em, give me a break.

Did you spend all the money?

Jack retracted his hand and shifted in his chair. Not all of it.

So how much is left?

Well, I did spend most of it. His face brightened and he grinned. But look. He stood up, took his wallet out of his back pocket, and opened it. See, I still have some left. I bargained with the guy and got the price down even more ‘cause I pointed out some parts that I said needed replacing. He tilted the wallet to show her the bills and started to close it.

How about you leave that here, and I’ll take it back to the bank.

But I’ll need some for tonight. It’s Friday. I always go out with the guys after work for a few beers.

Are you going to buy the bar or a few beers?

I was going to buy a round for the guys. You know, to celebrate.

Jack, enough is enough. That’s my money, too.

He fingered the money, sighed, and pulled the bills out of the wallet, placing them on the table. As soon as he put them down, however, he reclaimed a few bills from the top.

I need some for tonight, he said decisively, then shoved the bills back into his wallet.

Emma didn’t see how much he had taken, but she didn’t argue. At least he’d left most of it.

I gotta put my work shirt on. My shift starts soon.

When will you be home?

Jack stood up. Who knows? By the time we close the garage, have a few beers. Not before 10 at the earliest.

Who knows? is right, Emma thought. The hour got later and later every week. When they’d first arrived in Lost Pine, he had come home straight from work on Fridays. They’d catch a movie or go have a hamburger or a pizza together. Somewhere along the line that had changed, and he’d started going with the guys from the garage to Mick’s Hideaway, usually shortened to Mick’s. But they’d go out on Saturday night. Then that, too, had changed.

It began when her boss at the diner, Mr. Whittle, asked her to fill in for a Saturday night shift. She’d accepted the offer because they needed the money. After her working several such shifts, Jack no longer seemed inclined to go out even when she wasn’t working. He preferred gluing himself to the TV. When she’d complained, he drummed up the excuse that they couldn’t afford it. Better to save the money for the house, he’d said. Too bad he’d never applied that thrifty thought to his Friday nights out.

While she was lost in thought, Jack had left the kitchen to change for work. She heard the old wood floorboards squeak as he walked back toward her and peeked around the door jamb.

See you later, babe.

He hadn’t tried to hug her or kiss her goodbye. She was relieved. Relieved? Where had the romance gone?

Chapter 2

When Emma heard the truck start, she realized she’d never asked about the truck nor gone outside to see it. She didn’t care about his new toy since it meant she’d be stuck in this hellhole.

Her eyes swept across the tiny kitchen with its warped kitchen cabinet doors and its mismatched wall colors: one yellow, one green, one grey—or had the grey once been white and become dingy with age?

Her gaze fell to the table in front of her and the stack of bills Jack had left. She reached for the money. How much was left? She counted it twice: $817. A lot on one hand, but not so much when you considered that was all which remained from depositing a substantial portion of their paychecks for more than a year. Now if she’d had that much money when her mother had died …

She’d been penniless. What would she have done then with $817? Okay, no real need to answer that, but she liked to think she would have spent it wisely even at the young age of 17. Emma picked up a dollar bill and rolled her thumb across the surface. So she didn’t have it then, but she had it now. Jack hadn’t lived up to his billing as her Prince Charming. Not being married, however, meant she wasn’t tied to him except for their joint bank account, but he’d spent that, hadn’t he?

Emma picked up all the bills and held them in front of her. $817. Wait; there was more. In her haste to stand up, her knee bumped against the table, rattling the water glass. She grabbed it before the water spilled on the money and dropped the glass into the sink on her way to the pantry cabinet. Pushing aside the flour, sugar, cooking oils, and other sundry items on the third shelf, she reached to the back for the tin of baking powder. Well, not really baking powder: her secret stash. Her fingers closed around the tin.

Emma wondered why she’d ever started a secret stash. Of course, housewives had been squirreling away a few dollars here and there for generations. Did it come naturally or had she been worried about how Jack handled financial matters? He’d order a pizza and rent some movies for them to watch and leave an unpaid water bill on the table. On their one year anniversary in Lost Pine, he’d taken her to dinner at a fancy restaurant. She loved it until the next morning when she discovered a notice from the electric company threatening to turn off service. The bill was less than the cost of their fancy dinner.

Since Jack never baked—he probably didn’t know what baking powder was—she’d felt safe using the tin for her stash. She’d begun saving when she started working those extra shifts. The boss paid a few dollars more for working Saturday nights, and the tips were better. She simply didn’t tell Jack. Add in a few dollars here and there from her regular shifts. Just how much had she accumulated?

Emma spilled the contents of the tin on the table and counted. Those few dollars here and there had added up. Combined with the $817, she had over a thousand dollars.

She walked over to the window and glanced out at the unkempt backyard where a few scraggly bushes bravely sprouted new leaves. Where was she headed in this relationship with Jack? Not keeping track of bills was one thing; spending their savings on himself was quite another. The idea of prioritizing and making joint decisions eluded him. He hadn’t apologized for spending their savings, had he? No. He’d said that she was the one who didn’t understand. Could she trust him again not to put his own wants in front of their mutual needs? No, of course not.

A vague image of her mother superimposed itself over her reflection in the window. Was that where she was headed by staying with Jack? To become like her mother, not only in appearance, but stuck in menial jobs like working at the diner because she had no skills to get a better job? To live in a run-down excuse for a house—a house much worse than anything she and her mother had ever lived in—while Jack was out drinking with his buddies and buying himself new toys? Her mother’s image nodded. Emma backed up in surprise until she realized she was seeing her own reflection nodding in agreement with her assessment.

Emma’s head whipped around to stare at the stacks of bills on the table—her opportunity to get out. She may not have another opportunity like this: a chance to get out of their deteriorating relationship with some money in her pocket to start a new life. Was it fair to take that $817 for herself? Well, why the heck not? Hadn’t Jack taken much more than that for himself?

Could she get into trouble by taking the money, she asked herself as she jogged down the hallway to their bedroom? What if Jack reported to the police that she’d stolen it? She stretched her arm to grab hold of her backpack on the top shelf of the closet. So what if he did? The money was from a joint account. She had as much right to it as he did. He’d look rather silly after explaining how much he had spent on that stupid truck.

Emma put the backpack on the bed and opened it. Not a lot of room. She shrugged. Less was better anyway since she had to carry whatever she took with her. No sense burdening herself with too much weight. She rummaged through her clothes, sorting out the best of the bad, rolling her choices carefully to save room and to minimize the wrinkling, and stowed them in the backpack.

Next came essential documents: her birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license, and high school diploma. That diploma was a key to a better future and a source of pride because circumstances had almost prevented her from finishing high school. Score one for her and her determination.

The money! Running back to the kitchen, she grabbed the bills off the table. Where should she hide the money? The idea of storing it in the backpack didn’t appeal to her—too easy for someone to steal, backpack and all. She wanted something more secure. As she considered the possibilities, she turned on the hot water for a shower.

After the shower, she stared into the mirror as she combed her wet hair and swept it up into a ponytail, her usual hairdo. A mistake? Customers from the diner recognized her because of the ponytail. If Jack asked around town about her, he’d describe her with a ponytail. Why not eliminate the ponytail and make her trail a little more difficult for Jack to follow? That’s assuming, of course, that Jack would want to find her. She doubted he cared too much about her, except to see her desertion as a blow to his ego, but she bet he’d like to get the $817 back. He wasn’t very ambitious; she doubted he’d look for long. If she eluded him for a couple of days, he’d stop looking.

She pulled the band off that held the ponytail in place and let her light brown? blonde? hair fall to her shoulders. Dirty blonde was a better description of the color, but she hated describing her hair as dirty.

Emma gathered together the few toiletries she’d take with her—her favorite comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of soap, razor, deodorant, trial-sized bottles of shampoo and body lotion—and stuck them into a baggie. On second thought, she ran back to the kitchen for a smaller baggie for the soap. Wet soap left a residue on whatever it touched and made a mess. She shuddered at the image of combing her hair with sticky soap clinging to the comb. Lastly, she added a clean washcloth and hand towel in case she had to clean up in a public restroom. As she stuffed these remaining items into her backpack, she paused with the washcloth in her hand. What if the washcloth and towel were wet? They’d get her clothes wet, too. Another run to the kitchen for more baggies.

After dressing in the clothes she’d set aside, she tackled the money problem, or more specifically, where to put the money. She stuffed some into the pocket of her jeans where it would be handy for immediate use. For the rest, she needed some kind of pouch that she could wear around her neck and conceal under her clothing. Hmm.

She unearthed an old necklace that Jack had given her a long time ago. A medallion of the sun, made from some cheap metal, hung on a long piece of rawhide which slipped over her head. He’d said it was to remind her that she was his ray of sunshine. Right. Not anymore. She’d been replaced by a truck.

Emma broke the thin ring which fastened the medallion to the rawhide by twisting it with a pair of scissors and threw the medallion into the garbage. Now she