Bullet Holes, Lethal Injections, and Hiccups

By Susan St John

A hilarious romantic comedy, this magical story follows Leah Hollander, a woman on the run from her abusive husband Jake. When Jake foils his wife’s escape plan, what ensues is a madcap, screwball chase with a cast of loveably unforgettable characters. Whitaker, the police officer who has a tragic history of falling in love with women he’s failed to protect, enamored by Leah’s photographs, is determined to uncover the truth behind Leah Hollander’s disappearance. Where is she? Her car is still in the driveway, her suitcases are still in the hallway, and her grand champion cat is dead. That’s all the evidence Whitaker needs to lay down his badge and chase after the fleeing husband. George, neighbor and husband of Leah’s best friend, has just returned from burying his wife and unborn child; he’s a little bit drunk and a lot determined to stay that way. With nothing more to lose, he’s got a shotgun, and he’s out to get justice for the lovely Leah Hollander. In the chaotic chase that follows, completely oblivious to George and Whitaker’s pursuit, Jake hunts his errant wife with karma riding shotgun. And karma is no fan of Jake Hollander. Just ask the cursed dragon watching from the wall.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Louise St John
• Release date: Jun 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781618800534

Book preview

Casting Spells on Men and Minions

Prologue

Thirteen years earlier…

Pointed Hat with solid fill

Outside the Kansas prison, a public protest was waxing in the wake of a heinous one-man crime spree and his attorney’s monstrous defense strategy. Outraged as much by the defense as by the crimes, the riled Kansans brandished signs calling for the castration and lifelong incarceration of the man who had so offended them, the serial rapist Leonard Funk.

Blame it on a witch, would he?

The very idea insulted.

Young, pretty women—their daughters and their wives—had been raped and mutilated, which was why the sign-wielding public now rumbled its blood thirst. Fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of the victims demanded Leonard Funk’s nether parts be severed and put on public display; they would accept no less. They were more than thirsty; they were hungry. Vengeance is ours, howled the aggrieved Kansans.

There’s Maxi! a woman in the crowd shouted. There’s the witch now!

Reporters, hot for even juicier sound bites than those propounding castration, broke from the organ-thirsting crowd and rushed toward Maxine Harris, the infamous artist (alleged witch) who had been seen exiting the prison.

The rumor was true; Maxi had gone to see the rapist.

Seeing Maxine up close, scoffers, even hardened misogynists, doubted themselves. Seen up close, the redhead was just too bewitchingly lovely to be anything but the witch she was purported to be.

Beside Maxine, her daughter Leah, an eleven-year-old witch-in-training (if the rumor was to be believed), cringed as the reporters surrounded them like a pack of starved cats. The child imagined she couldn’t move without stepping on one of their swishing tails. She inched closer to her mother.

Maxine, without a trace of her daughter’s panicky shyness, beamed a welcome for the cameras and microphones. She radiated beneath the spotlight like a woman born to golden backdrops and gilded stages.

First to reach the infamous Maxine, a young male reporter with pink-tinted dreads thrust his microphone at his quarry.

Maxi, is it true you were here to see Leonard Funk, the serial rapist whose attorney is alleging your curse is to blame for his brutally raping seventeen women?

Seventeen? Is it that many? Maxine asked, her liltingly lovely voice smiting the young man speechless. "My, he was a bad bad boy, wasn’t he?" Despite her levity, a soul-deep sadness briefly dimmed Maxine’s sea-green eyes, but she refused to put her grief on display. She’d been shamed by the press too many times to give them an inch.

While the young reporter stared at the witch in mute admiration, another reporter, a woman somewhat less spellbound by Maxine’s uncommon beauty, stepped forward. She was alpine tall, this reporter--nearly six feet. Overshadowed, overlooked, Leah pressed tightly against her mother’s body. Her breathing sped down a freeway of panic.

Maxi, the tall reporter said, do you believe Leonard Funk is evil or has your curse struck again?

Maxine laughed gaily, a laugh known to bring men (Presidential hopefuls included) to their knees.

Curse? What curse? I don’t know anything about a curse. All I did was paint my youngest daughter a dragon. I’m an artist. I paint. That’s what I do.

To the delight of the reporters, she whipped a small sketch pad and pen from her black Gucci fringed tote and began creating a caricature of the reporter. While her hand flew over the paper, in a more serious tone, she added, As for whether or not Leonard Funk is evil, I’ll leave that for a jury to decide.

The woman reporter persisted. Maxine, did Leonard Funk confess to you? Did he tell you how your dragon made him rape all those women?

I have no comment to make on what Leonard Funk did or did not say to me, Maxine said, finishing the sketch with a flourish.

She tore off the simple caricature and handed it to the reporter. She’d given the reporter’s huge head a teeny dragon’s body. Careful, she teased, that might be cursed. Of course, it might also be worth thousands. Maxine grinned.

Taking her daughter’s hand, Maxine pushed her way through the reporters and blood-hungry demonstrators. Miraculously, the crowd parted. Not a group to waste miracles, the reporters tailed the witch.

Invisible to reporters and witches alike, a woman fresh from the screen of the Wizard of Oz movie, complete with pigtails, checkered blue and white dress, and glittery red shoes, tugged the leash of a Terrier dog appropriately named Toto, and waded through the throng of demonstrators toward Maxine. Dorothy was there to melt the iniquitous witch responsible for the suffering of Kansas’ women and, who knew, maybe women everywhere. Dorothy was there because Maxine Harris bewitched and enthralled their men. Dorothy was there because, two days earlier, her husband had said he’d had enough of crazy and he’d walked out on her.

Just look at her, Toto, Dorothy said to the Terrier, working her spells upon anything wearing pants.

It was clear to Dorothy, Maxine Harris had to be destroyed.

Aglow with righteousness, Dorothy lugged a pail of water made holy by the Wizard’s commandment. In her haste, some of the water sloshed over the rim onto the dog. Toto yelped in surprise and stopped to shake the water from his coat. The Terrier felt a sudden need to relieve himself, but Dorothy paid no attention to his lifted leg and dragged on his leash.

Hurry, Toto, she said. We have to break the witch’s spells before it’s too late.

One of the bewitched male reporters Dorothy was there to save shook off the shackles and chains of Maxine’s charms long enough to speak. Maxi, he said, are you denying your painting is cursed?

With a mischievous twinkle of viridescent eyes, Maxine said, "I am denying that I put a curse on that painting."

Maxine, your dragon painting has changed hands sixteen times in the last three years, and all of its earlier owners have either died mysterious deaths, gone mad, or disappeared. If your painting isn’t cursed, how do you explain this?

Maxine bit her lip and considered the question.

Toto, in misery, stopped to lift his leg.

Dorothy jerked his leash, and the tiny dog was airborne.

"Mysterious deaths? Hmm... Perhaps greedy heirs did them in? Gone mad? Well, maybe obnoxious, maddening bill collectors drove them insane with their incessant phone calls. What do you think?"

Those infamous green eyes probed the reporter’s, smiting him anew with shackles and chains.

Now, the disappearances, they’re easier to speculate on. If memory serves me right, the two who disappeared were family men. God forbid my militant feminism show any hatred of men—God knows I’ve been married enough times to demonstrate my love for a six-pack—but if I’m honest, I’d be willing to bet at least one, if not both, owed child support they didn’t want to pay.

The laughter of the reporters spurred Dorothy to greater heights of righteousness. It was her husband the witch was talking smack about. She broke into a run, dragging and choking the weak-bladdered Toto.

Nearing Maxine and her daughter, Dorothy pitched the water at the pair.

There was a stunned silence while the reporters stared at the wet artist and her horror-struck child. As if offended on Maxine and Leah’s behalf, the cloudless sky overhead darkened. There was a blinding flash of lightning, an ominous grumble of thunder. The crowd stirred nervously, as one wondering: could it be? Was Maxine Harris truly a witch? Were they about to witness first-hand the witch’s powers? Suddenly the preposterous claim of Leonard Funk’s attorney seemed imminently promising.

Of course, the chagrined Dorothy noted, the water had merely served to accentuate the husband-thieving witch’s soft curves and full breasts. Why, any man could reach out and pinch those water-bared nipples, Dorothy thought.

Instead of melting on cue, however, Maxine sparkled with even more radiance and mischief than she had before, though the child looked as if she wished she could melt into the ground and forever disappear. One or two in the crowd spared a moment to pity the girl, thrust as she was beneath the brutal camera light by her mother’s infamy.

In the silence, Toto lifted his leg and relieved himself on Dorothy’s famous red shoes. The sight of the Terrier urinating on the water-slinging Dorothy broke the paparazzi’s paralysis.

Maxine laughed first, her lilting voice dancing enchantment upon the crowd. Damn, am I melting?

For the cameras, she checked to see if she was indeed melting, touching herself in ways that would make seasoned censors blanch. Do you suppose Dorothy there mistook me for the wicked witch of the Midwest?

Maxine’s laughter was contagious, spreading through the reporters the way a standing ovation spreads through a theater.

Dorothy, whose real name was Charlene Blaine, who now realized it was she who was being ridiculed and not Maxine, flushed with anger and shame (her husband had left her, she was a joke, a crazy person who imagined herself a fiction character), broke into a run and dashed through the amused crowd, heedlessly dragging poor Toto, the dog desperately trying to squat and take a shit.

When the laughter tapered off, the alpine tall woman reporter turned her attention back to Maxine and asked, Maxi, is it true you own a black cat, a witch’s familiar named Pyewacket?

Maxine gave the reporter a you’ve got to be kidding stare. "Pyewacket? A witch’s familiar? Now I’m supposed to be supernaturally communing with a spell-weaving cat?  She rolled her disdain-filled green eyes, eliciting appreciative laughter from those close enough to see the exaggerated gesture. How do these ridiculous rumors get started? You know, I’ve never actually owned a cat, as I’ve never particularly liked the smell of litter boxes. But if I ever do get myself a cat, I’ll be sure to name it Pyewacket, just for you."

She looked at the other reporters, gave them a fellow-conspirator smile. I swear, these supernatural fantasy movies and TV shows are pickling people’s brains. Locking her arm at the elbow with her daughter’s, she imitates Judy Garland’s Dorothy, "Witches and vampires and werewolves, oh my! Only in Kansas, though, right?"

Holding her hands splayed in front of her wet breasts in hopes of forestalling further puerile questions, Maxine waded through the crush of appreciative reporters, her daughter trailing close at her heels.

Unwilling to let the infamous witch get away from them just yet, the paparazzi gave chase.

So why did you come to see Leonard Funk, Maxine? Are you going to lend support to his ‘the dragon made me do it’ defense? Are you here to get him off?

It was too much for Maxine, that opening. And here I thought Leonard Funk had to rape a woman to get off.

Leah, who only somewhat understood her mother’s quip, flushed the apple-hue of a true red-head and, in shamed desperation, tugged at her mother, who had, of course, stopped again to speak with the reporters.

Despite her daughter’s despairing tug, Maxine stilled and waited for the laughter to die. Rather ashamed of her off-color quip, she said, I apologize for saying that.  I do not mean to make light of what Leonard Funk did to our women. Women had been raped, tortured, mutilated, which was nothing to jest about.

Her mercurial eyes now had a hard green-apple bite to them.  She drew herself up, giving the illusion of extra height.  Pay attention, she snapped. "I was here to buy back my daughter’s painting, which I hope will put an end to this silly curse business my ex started when he sold the painting—which I might add, he never had my permission to do. How about a little responsible reporting, folks?  I’m all for helping you out with that.  But, with all these silly rumors of me and voodoo hexes and black magic devilry, who knows what Dorothy will throw at me next, now she’s discovered water does not make me melt? This witch business is no longer amusing."

Isn’t it true your dragon drove one of your ex-husbands insane?

Maxine’s notorious eyes narrowed as she glanced at the alpine tall reporter, who was clearly not a woman fond of other women. The reporter, in turn, gazed at Maxine with distaste, a reaction Maxine often, regrettably, aroused in other women.

The dragon was hanging above my daughter’s bed, Maxine said, her voice quiet and deadly.

Leah’s head jerked up. Horror, humiliation, terror burned her face. She stared at her mother, daggers in flight, and with both hands, she tugged on her mother’s arm. Unfortunately, Maxine was oblivious to her daughter’s distress, immovable.

I ask you, Maxine continued, "what was he doing in my daughter’s room? And what was my daughter doing hiding in the closet? She was eight years old, a baby, too young to be anyone’s idea of Lolita. I suspect—and I should think you’d have to agree—it was his own sick thoughts that drove my ex-husband crazy.  His insanity apparently fixated on the dragon, for which I’m grateful, as that fixation saved my child."

With a smothered cry, Leah unhanded her mother’s arm, and she mad dashed toward the parking lot.

Watching her daughter’s clumsy flight, Maxine was suddenly stricken with a bad parent’s guilt. "Damn, she murmured. Me and my mouth."

Oblivious to the fleeing child’s distress, a reporter pounced. Maxi, what do you think Leonard Funk’s chances are using ‘the dragon made me do it’ defense?

Maxine’s focus slid back to the reporters. She was, after all, a woman accustomed to notoriety.

Deadpan, green eyes wide, she said, "Seriously, guys, what can his lawyer be thinking?"

Maybe he’s thinking of putting the dragon on the stand and having it testify, another reporter joked.

Maxine turned and began to back away, knowing she at last had the perfect exit line, the sound bite of sound bites. Well, I own the dragon now. And I’m issuing it a gag order.

Once she’d delivered the sound bite that would be aired and re-aired every time Leonard Funk’s case hit the airways, the sound bite that would be dusted off and hauled out for every appeal, Maxine hurried after her distraught daughter; she was a mother in search of amends.

The paparazzi, being paparazzi, continued the chase, dunning Maxine with questions.

How many familiars do you have, Maxi? Do you have dogs? What about rabbits?

Did Leonard Funk’s attorney ask you to testify?

Do you belong to a witch’s coven?

Is it true Leonard Funk is writing an exposé on you and the dragon?

Maxine Harris, artist extraordinaire, reputed witch, wisely ignored them. She knew her silence would only serve to heighten her mystique, a bankable asset in the art world.

***

Escape accomplished, Maxine discovered her daughter hunched beside their red Mercedes.  Maxine popped the door locks, slid inside the vehicle, and drummed her fingers on the wheel. Waiting for Leah, she did not start the engine.

She sighed, knowing it was she who was in the wrong and so it was she who must grovel.  She lowered the opposing window a few inches and spoke gently, Get in the car, Leah.  Please.

Leah, sliding in opposite, huddled miserably on the front passenger seat. Lest her acquiescence be mistaken for forgiveness, she turned a machine gun look on her mother and fired bullets of hate.

Maxine pretended to be shot several times and faked death throes. When the death scene didn’t work, she sat up and apologized.

Sorry, kitten. My mouth does run away from my brain, doesn’t it? You have my permission to stop speaking to me. I don’t deserve your forgiveness. Not now, not ever. The truth is, I’m the worst mother to ever take breath, and I don’t deserve you. I should be burned at the stake, like the witch they say I am.

Leah looked only slightly mollified.

Maybe you’d like to strike the match? What do you think, kitten? Do you think a good stake-burning would make me melt? Or are my broom and I just completely indestructible?

Despite herself, Leah broke the protocol of punishing silence. Actually, in the United States, witches were hung, not burned. It’s a myth that witches were burned in Salem.

Been doing your research, have you? The implication of Leah’s knowledge struck Maxine with the blunt end of an axe. "I love you, baby girl. No one’s going to burn or hang us as witches.  I promise. She ruffled Leah’s fiery hair as emphasis. This is all legal strategy hype, and the reporters are doing just what Leonard Funk’s attorney wants them to do. I wouldn’t put it past him that he was the one who leaked my intent to visit here. I’m sure he could have arranged my purchase of your dragon without my ever coming here."

Leah, recalling silence protocol, lifted her chin and said nothing.

"I really am sorry, baby girl. I had to get your dragon back. I painted it for you. No one but you is good enough to own that dragon."

Her daughter’s smile, though begrudgingly elicited, was entrancing, a glimpse of the enchantress she’d soon become. Like mother, like daughter. Leah, her youngest, while not the most beautiful of her three girls, was beginning to show real promise.

It was a pleasing thought, the mark she and her three daughters would make, casting spells on the world of men and minions.

Outside the car, the sky darkened, clouds rolled in, billowed, and changed shapes. Just as suddenly as the clouds materialized, they evaporated in a swirl of wind. Then the cloudless sky opened, and it began to hail. Stoned by hail the size of marbles, reporters and demonstrators scrambled for cover.

Maxine laughed, noting the hail did not reach the Mercedes. Call her a witch, would they?

Chapter 1

The Queen

Cat outline

On the cobbled streets of an elite community of new homes, an ostentation of wealth christened Tranquility Islet (superstitiously, the architect who had married the witch’s daughter claimed, to ward off both tornadoes and his mother-in-law), there prowled an unnamed homeless cat, a queen who had just spent the last three days getting herself bred.

Now that nature’s urge to procreate had passed, the impregnated queen had begun to feel the pinch of starvation. She hadn’t eaten during estrus but going hungry was nothing new. Even before her scent beckoned the neighborhood toms to seize her neck fur in their pointed teeth, meals had been, at best, intermittent, and often wholly dependent upon her hunting abilities. Regrettably, her hunter’s instincts had somewhat dulled since the influx of people.

The queen had wandered this moneyed community, which was situated on the northwest side of Wichita, Kansas, ever since the first dwelling’s foundation was laid two years prior. In the ongoing debate over which side of Wichita was superior, east or west, the west side appeared to be winning, but the cat knew nothing of the west side’s crusade to be the best. What she did know was where food was most likely to be found in Tranquility Islet. Still, finding food here, especially untainted food, was a risky business for the queen. Justifiably, she did not place much faith in people.

Long before the houses came, the queen had been abandoned here in the wild, people leaving her to die, ensuring her death by tossing her, in a grocery sack sealed with duct tape and staples, out of a moving car’s window. Perhaps fortune was smiling, for she had been able to claw and chew her way through the sack with the help of her litter mates. And even though she was still too young to be weaned, and even though she had duct tape clinging to her neck fur and wrapped tightly around one leg, she had thrived. Unlike her litter mates, she had fast learned to be a good hunter.

Then, one fine hunting day, the people came with their huge machines that made the most harrowing noise. Dash and streak as she might, there seemed no safe place. Though she sped this way, then that, those machines threatened to steam roll their way through what remained of the cat’s nine lives. The people-manned machines cleared the field which was the cat’s home, and then those people built streets and houses smack dab in the middle of her hunting ground. For a time, until hunger made her bold, the cat hid from the people who came, sometimes in the warm engine of one of the quiet machines, sometimes in the dark basement of one of the houses under construction. The queen did not know that these homes were designed by a young, up-and-coming architect, but the queen did know she had at last found an advantage to them. She had adopted one of those advantages, a nice lady who lived in one of those homes, a lady the queen took as somehow different from people, a lady who spooned cans of tuna into a clean dish. Sometimes, instead of tuna, there was shredded chicken, a personal favorite. There was always a dish of fresh water, too, which for some reason never froze during the winter months. Best of all, the food did not make the queen sick.

Once, when poisoned food convinced the cat she was dying, the lady forced something down her throat that made her feel better. That time, the queen let her lady near enough to touch. She liked the feel of this lady’s hand, so unlike the crazy lady’s hand, the lady who lived across the cobbled street, the one who had come after her with slaps and kicks, the one who’d grabbed her by the neck fur and who’d flung her though the window so hard she’d body-slammed a tree and then landed wrong. That lady, too, had been nice—in the beginning.

Weeks of limping made the queen more wary—this lady, too, could unexpectedly go berserk and turn the cat into an air missile. So far, there hadn’t been any signs of an attitude change; moreover, the canned tuna lady seemed to like cats, even seemed to want the queen to come closer. She didn’t seem as if she would mind if the queen came inside and curled up somewhere warm, though the queen would not take that chance again. To be fair, the slap-kicking, missile-throwing lady had never been a steady source of nutrition like the queen’s adopted lady had proven to be. Almost without fail, once the sun went down, the adopted lady made a clanging noise with the tuna cans to call the queen for dinner. Strangely, tonight there had been no clanging noise; still, the queen could nearly always count on a handout with a few piteous meows aimed at the glass door.

It was for that door the queen headed now.

Her attention focused on her destination, the cat’s renowned instinct for sensing the approach of danger failed to give forewarning; she had no premonition of the drunken widower ensconced behind the wheel of a silver Land Rover who was even now headed her way.

Unaware of her impending collision with death, the lone cat traversed trim flower-bordered lawns, streaked across quaint cobblestone streets, leaped purling streams and gamboling waterfalls, padded over illuminated footbridges, and headed for her adoptive home.

The queen veered at the bronze seahorse statue, giving a wide berth to the house with the crazy, slap-kicking lady and poisoned food, and picked up her pace.

She was nearly there.

Chapter 2

The Dragon’s Eyes

A picture containing text, invertebrate Description automatically generated

It took hate to confront the dragon. And Jake Hollander hated. Usually, the strength of his emotion combatted the effect the dragon had on him. Not this time. This time, fear had a foothold.

By the time his wife came sneaking in, the dragon was deep in Jake’s head, its demonic eyes stare-watch-judging him from its post above the fireplace mantle, its poisonous message slithering wormlike through Jake’s brain the way his witch mother-in-law had no doubt planned it, the day she’d first put brush to canvas.

She’s leaving, the dragon taunted, its surreal eyes gloating. Leaving you.

Where have you been?

His wife’s eerie green eyes (so like her mother’s) widened from the shock of being caught returning from the funeral he’d expressly forbidden her to attend.

Leaving you.

He muzzled the witch’s spell by tearing his eyes from those of the dragon and considered his wayward wife. Where have you been? he asked again.

The dry ice in Jake’s voice gave Leah Hollander the shivers. Nowhere important, she said, clutching her tote, which had been a gift from her mother who favored a handbag large enough to hold a getaway, and which now had a loaded Berretta Pico .380 pistol tucked inside it.

Nowhere important. And yet you went.

Jake, she was my—. Leah swallowed her words and gulped air to control her terror.

Yes? His steel grey eyes stayed locked on hers, flat and fixed.  Her legs trembled.

Leah knew Jake was waiting for her to absolve herself, but she also knew it would make no difference to her husband what she said. She had almost said Konni was her friend, but that wouldn’t have been the truth. Jake did not allow her friends. Konni had been a neighbor who could have been a friend, had Leah possessed the courage.

She’s dead, Jake, she said, deeply saddened by the loss of what might have been.

At the funeral, that’s what Konni’s brother told George. She’s dead, George.

She’s going to come back to me, George insisted. She is. She’s coming back. She doesn’t like me to suffer. She loves me.

Dead, George.

No, she isn’t. She can’t be. He turned to Leah then, for solace. She’s coming back to me, Leah, he said, his eyes bloated red gashes behind thick tear-splotched glasses.

I’m sure she would if she could, George, Leah said, touching him lightly on the cheek with the backs of her fingers, as if she were checking him for fever. I never saw anyone love someone as much as Konni loved you.

Undone by the finality in Leah’s touch, George sobbed, looked from Leah to the grave. Cuddle Bug! he howled. With that anguished cry, he backed away from the sight, turned and broke into a run. As if chased by demons, he headed across the cemetery grounds, serpentining around headstones that seemed to leap at him, body-slamming the police officer who was crying over a grave festooned with candy bar wrappers, but not stopping, his short fat legs comically pumping as fast as they’d go.

That was the way George had loved Konni.

For the way Jake loved her, Leah needed the Berretta Pico .380.

You’re home early, Jake.

Trying to act as she normally would, she put down the pistol-heavy tote. Her eyes slid to the hall closet, and she tried to guess whether it had been opened, whether he’d seen the suitcases, whether he’d been upstairs and seen the half-empty closet, the stripped dresser drawers. She’d been careless, leaving evidence. Then again, maybe the disarray was a subconscious rejection to his obsessive, imprisoning demands. Maybe she’d been thumbing her nose at him, leaving him a message: See this empty drawer? This empty closet? Look at the emptiness and see I’m gone. I’ve left you. I’ve left your prison. I’ve escaped. Maybe she’d been letting him see she was leaving him because of who he was beneath his handsome, charismatic public face. Maybe she was letting him know that after she left him, she’d be able to breathe freedom. And he’d see she’d already set about erasing even the memory of his existence.

Perhaps that had been the idea behind her carelessness: thumb to nose, fingers waggling.

Then again, perhaps she was not that brave and was just that stupid.  Her legs wobbled, but she stood tall and squared her shoulders.  Any sign of weakness, she’d lose all. 

With ill-concealed belligerence, she stood imprisoned beneath Jake’s battle-grey eyes, suspecting that her marital mistake was one for which she’d never be forgiven, that there would be no forgetting, no freedom.

She knew she had no choice but to carry through with her plans, despite Jake’s presence. If he had not yet been upstairs, he soon would.

She began to feel dizzy at the thought of what he would do to her when he understood she was leaving, and that this time she’d ensured he’d be unable to stop her.

Unplanned versus planned. That was the difference. He’d taught her to act with premeditation.

Yet she’d made mistakes. Perhaps fatal ones. She should not have gone to Konni’s funeral. But how could she not?

What if she told Jake she’d changed her mind? That she was coming home rather than leaving? What would he do if she told him she had realized she’d rather die than leave him? Would he accept the lie?  Would he still discipline her?

As part of the punishment for the last time she’d tried to leave him, he’d removed all her clothes from the house for a week. He’d left her only a bra and a pair of sheer panties, which she’d washed out every night before bed and donned in the morning though they were sometimes still damp. Too petite to even consider raiding her husband’s closet, (and admittedly too fearful), she grew pensive, for once permitting herself an honest review of her life. She’d drawn all the draperies in the house, and she’d ignored the ringing doorbell when neighbors came to visit, which they sometimes did in an attempt to be neighborly with their architect’s wife—this with increasing infrequency, though, as they found her somewhat stiff and unwelcoming. When the neighbor desisted, she’d part the heavy drapes with the tips of her fingers, just an inch, to observe the retreat of whoever had rung the bell. Sometimes, but not always, her visitor would look back, as if sensing her watching. Alone, she’d force herself to stand in front of her wardrobe mirror and acknowledge the bruises which marked her Jake’s. Much to her relief, the doorbell had stopped ringing altogether, at last delivering her from the scourge of her own reflection. Since then, however, her reflection had disappeared. Vanished like a coward.

Jake could feel the dragon’s eyes stare-watch-judging, burning into his brain. She’s leaving you. I don’t ask much, he said, pacing in front of the fireplace beneath the dragon. Despite the warmth of the evening, a fire blazed inside the oversized hearth. Jake suffered from the cold. Curiously, he also suffered from the dark. His was not a simple child’s fear of the cold and dark, however—his was a complex physical reaction, evinced by nausea, vomiting, eye-stabbing pain and debilitating migraines. I don’t ask much, he repeated.

"You don’t?" The dangerous words were out before Leah could stop herself. As Jake headed her way, she sidled around the overstuffed burgundy chair and put the dining table between them. Only then did she realize her mistake. The Berretta Pico .380 was useless to her now.

Jake looked at her and shook his head. Sometimes I think you deliberately do this. It’s like you force my hand.

Before she knew she was going to do it, she ducked under the cherry wood table. Sitting cross-legged on the floor beneath it, wishing it were a closet like the one she’d used as a child to hide from her mother’s husbands, she ran through her options and came up empty. She wasn’t a powerless child, and she couldn’t sit there all night. Soon, he’d come after her. Or worse, he’d go after Scheherazade and her kittens. Last time she’d tried to leave him, an impulsive error, he’d killed Ping Pong, the kittens’ sire, her first grand champion. The smell of his death—in her nightmares, it always came down to the smell. And to the silence that followed the cat’s dying screams.

This time, she’d planned everything down to the smallest detail, leaving nothing, she’d thought, to chance.

Except, it was now apparent, Jake’s coming home early, something he never did. He must have known she’d go to the funeral.

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, she called. As her one show grand champion came running, Leah reviewed her plan: the money, the car, the Berretta, the cat, and her kittens. Cowering beneath the dining table wasn’t part of the plan. Cradling the cat, she elbowed a crawl beneath the table, clambered to her feet on the other side, and rubbed her face against Scheherazade’s soft white fur, seeking comfort, a little love, a touch of courage.

That is so disgusting, the way you nuzzle that cat.

Distressed, knowing Jake’s attention would narrow in on Scheherazade, Leah set the cat on the floor and gave her a nudge.

Scheherazade’s antenna for trouble up, she ran for cover, hiding herself behind the heavy claw-studded draperies.

No more, Jake, Leah screamed, once the cat was safely curtained, to draw Jake’s attention back to her.

"What?"

With the speed of a cheetah, he’d grabbed her wrist in a bruising grip, crushing the bones, hurting her, squeezing until she cried out