Author: Dale Wiley
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/dale-wiley/page,16,457982-southern_gothic.html
She felt thankful for the long, thick summer evenings, for the mosquitoes, for anything keeping the darkness and silence at bay. Once the sun finally took its nightly bow, she succumbed to Michael’s clutches.
How could she miss his physical presence so strongly and be so terrified of him? She knew Michael was poison. But there were times when she would have given anything for his touch, for the danger lurking below the surface.
When sleep failed her, the real Michael showed up. The dream interrupter. The blood stalker. He hid behind every door and could reappear at any moment. Even if she never saw him again, waiting for him would always be part of her daily ritual, part of the prison she rebuilt every single day.
Perhaps the prison of fear and anxiety she had created was worse than the real thing. Maybe she’d finally be safe in prison.
Suddenly, Meredith heard a chair slide and squeak on the hardwood floor downstairs. She was sure of it. She moved to her bedroom door, inching it open as she listened. She had left the gun Lisa had bought her in a kitchen drawer downstairs. If Michael were down there, he would find it before her.
When no other sounds came, she relaxed, realizing it was another false alarm.
She didn’t sleep for a long time.
Chapter 57
Time inched by. Meredith’s dreams came in funky Technicolor that night, filled with the stuff of nightmares, each barely occupying a sliver of the blackness. The dreams were always so similar. She always dreamed of Michael.
Suddenly, she woke up with a start. Standing over her loomed a dark figure. It smelled like him.
Her thoughts came slow and stuttering as she struggled to break free of her dream. She recalled the scene from Red Ribbon when Leah danced with the knife around the bedroom. Meredith couldn’t make out Michael’s face, but she didn’t need any more information than his smell—a mixture of sharp cologne, sweat, and a hint of cloves, a scent she would always associate with him. It turned her stomach when it came back to her now, but sometimes when she lay in bed alone and horny, all she could think of was the way he smelled.
She rolled onto her side with her eyes shut, feigning sleep. Then a terrifying thought hit her. She had been smelling him. He’d been creeping in at night, watching her, checking up on her, and entering her dreams.
Meredith lay there, acutely awake, doing what she did best: pretending. She pretended she was a famous author. She pretended she wrote Red Ribbon. She pretended she didn’t know anything else to help her case. And she pretended she never met Michael. Within a year, her entire life had become one big lie, and the second she started choosing what to finally tell the truth about, she knew her entire world would crumble like a flimsy house of cards.
Michael sat there for what felt like hours, his unwavering attention focused on her. She could feel his gaze on her skin like a chemical burn.
He reached for her hair and stroked it.
She tried with everything she had not to wretch. Michael had broken her. He would decide her future whether she liked it or not, all because of her unrelenting ego.
Finally, he eased off the foot of her bed and left her in her terror.
Chapter 58
That night, Meredith couldn’t fall back asleep. She stared at the ceiling, worrying he would return—or still watched her, hidden in the shadows. She didn’t think he would kill her, but she feared he would pull her completely away from her moorings, leaving her more adrift and even more alone.
Perhaps more than anything else, the most disquieting thing was the past year and a half hadn’t made her hate him. Instead, she found herself still considering what he would think and how he touched her—that scared her more than anything. She could no longer trust herself.
She needed to reclaim everything she’d lost. She needed to find herself again.
In the morning, Meredith reserved a room at the DeSoto. She wasn’t ever going to spend another night in her house. Then she called Scott shortly thereafter and told him she wanted to meet late that afternoon. She had something to tell him. The truth. But first, she needed to go to Tybee.
Tybee Island was synonymous with Savannah. Just south of the city, many Southeasterners seeking a beach, without having to board a plane, vacationed there.
When Meredith was little, Tybee was the perfect, cozy beach spot and had much less of a party reputation than Savannah. Some of Meredith’s fondest memories were of the tiny, permanent carnival spot, which had tiny rides for the smallest of adventure seekers. The place lit the night up in a neon glow. Miraculously, Tybee managed to hold on to its vintage charm. Although the arcade had disappeared, the streets were still lined with five and dimes, surf shops, and classic southern eateries.
She hadn’t come to Tybee since the news broke, afraid of being noticed. Today, she didn’t care. She would hold her head up high. Screw her reputation.
Hopefully, the sun’s warm beams and the breeze’s gentle caress would ease her mind. She scanned the crowd once more to make sure he hadn’t followed her. She would erase him from her life.
She reached the large public pavilion near all the shops and restaurants, ordered a Corona from the beer stand, and sat in the shade. People swarmed around her. She saw sunburns and leathery skin and warring Alabama and Georgia football gear. She picked up her tote and walked down the pavilion to the long, low tide stretch of sand. She kicked off her flip-flops, and the feel of the sand on her toes brought her home. Home to before Michael, before she became famous and then infamous. She closed her eyes and felt the power begin to swell. Then she felt him. Like an unnamed narrator searching through the past, all of her synapses fired warnings. She snapped her eyes back open.
He had dyed his hair a ridiculous sandy blond color, and he stood there with a black Nike cap and a bare chest. He still had a strange tattoo of a falcon on his left shoulder. Their eyes met. His eye contact was brief but deadly. He wanted her to know he followed here.
Her legs were numb, her palms sweaty. Seeing him brought it all back: the feelings of love and admiration, the pride of having the artist you respect more than any share your bed and your life, the revulsion at the moment of pulling back those boxes and revealing him, dead to the world, choosing a desolate spot over her own bed. The threats, the flowers, the midnight visits. When she turned back, he had disappeared.
Meredith could hear her heart pumping. Since she was surrounded by people, she didn’t worry he would kidnap her. She feared he would try to follow her to her new spot—or he might leave her forever.
She needed a buffer. She surveyed the crowd, and her eyes rested on a good-looking younger man speaking with a woman on the boardwalk. His muscles bulged out of his tank top. Perfect.
She walked across the pavilion and tapped him on the arm. “Excuse me.” Her expectant eyes upon him.
He hesitated for a second and then said, rather too formally, “How can I help you?”
“I think my crazy ex is between here and my car,” she said. “If he’s here, it’s not to enjoy the beach.” She started to say more, but one look at him told her she had already said enough. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you walk me to my car?” She made eye contact with the kid’s female interest to make sure she knew she wasn’t moving in on her man.
The girl nodded her approval.
The chivalrous gentleman assumed his role as protector. He clinched his teeth and asked, “How do you want me to handle this?”
Meredith tried to calm herself. “I don’t think he’ll do anything if you’re here.”
“Is he a problem?”
“Always.”
When they reached the car, she didn’t see Michael anywhere in sight. She edged closer to it, her southern hunk walking right along with her and his lady friend tailing behind. She peered through the front window. Sitting on the center console, a DVD rested in a sleeve.
“Everything okay?” her companion asked.
“Yes, he must have left. Thank you so much for your help.”
Michael knew sh
e wanted to take back some control over her life, but he put her in her place—again. She finally summoned up the courage to open her door, half-afraid he booby-trapped it. She quickly picked up the disc and turned it over.
The label read, CONFESSION OF MICHAEL BLACK.
PART III
Hell
“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.”
—Jorge Luis Borges
Chapter 59
Meredith made a bee-line to the TV upon arriving home. After a scratchy transition, there he sat—Michael in front of a white board.
“I am Michael Black,” he said, as if anyone had a doubt. “I wrote several books, and then, about six years ago, I disappeared.” He held up a newspaper from last week to prove the video was current.
“I first read Meredith Harper’s manuscript, Red Ribbon, several years back. She sent it to me in the hope I would blurb it. That was maybe eighteen months before I met Quinn Yancey.
“It has come to my attention Ms. Harper has been charged with the crime of murder for the death of Miss Yancey. That is impossible. I saw Quinn Yancey take her own life five years ago. She did it in a fit of rage and anxiety, and the physical evidence will bear that out.
“I panicked when I saw her kill herself. It ate me up. I knew I should have reported the death to the police, but everyone already hated me for having a relationship with such a young woman, and I figured they would pin the death on me. I buried the body, and by putting it in Red Ribbon, I made sure I had a way to find it if I ever needed to. I didn’t know her book would ever see the light of day.”
He couldn’t help but put a dig in—even in his confession.
“The gun can be found at the Harbeson National Bank in Charleston. It is the weapon Quinn Yancey used to kill herself.”
Meredith felt tempted to go and check this out, but she thought it best to leave it to the cops; plus, she didn’t want to be anywhere near the evidence.
“I moved the body from Atlanta to The Shoals. The exact location of the actual suicide is also contained in the safety deposit box, noted in GPS coordinates. I am truly sorry for any trouble I have caused the Yancey family or anyone else, but it is completely unfair to charge Meredith Harper with this crime.”
Meredith called Scott and told him she would be stopping by a little sooner than she promised.
On her way to his office, Meredith had a jump in her step as she realized maybe she could work this all out without having to humiliate herself. That sounded oh-so appealing. Then an idea came to her; her heart stopped. What now? Michael wouldn’t confess to any crime just to set her free; he had something new in mind. She froze in the middle of the street and almost turned around. But she had been waiting for this. Whatever he did have in store, it couldn’t be worse than life in prison. She kept moving, the spring in her step gone.
She showed Scott the video. She expected jubilation, but what she got was more nuanced. It would help, he told her, but why could she not have mentioned this before? Meredith, of course, had an answer for this, but she couldn’t say it. She knew she could trust Scott, but now she had an out. And if her publisher liked her new novel, she could reclaim the fame she once had and move on from this hell. She had to keep quiet.
“You know, they’re going to want you to help catch him,” he said, as much to himself as to her.
“I have no idea where he is.”
“They’re not going to believe you.”
Meredith smiled. “All I hope right now is they believe what’s on the tape.”
Scott nodded.
It was not as reassuring as she would have liked.
Chapter 60
When Meredith got back to her house, she knew Michael had been there again. It made perfect sense, but it sickened her. She saw a letter on the table in Michael’s handwriting.
M -
I don’t understand. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, I was angry, and yes, you know you deserved it. But I’m taking care of it. Say you’re mine, and let’s go away forever. I have the plans. I’ll wait for your answer online.
- M
The tone seemed wrong for Michael; college boy romance contrasted greatly with his usual cutting wit and visceral anger. Clearly, the angular handwriting belonged to him, and the breaking and entering was certainly his style, but something felt off. Was this a different tactic, or did he really miss her?
Despite what she still tried to believe, he didn’t love her. He wasn’t capable of love. Obsession maybe, but not love. His toying with her proved that. He could have confessed months ago, but he got off on watching her squirm.
She grabbed her purse and went to her car. She looked around for him, but she couldn’t get herself to check the garage. She glanced under the SUV, sure a hand would reach out, and then climbed in. Meredith wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 61
Broderick had assumed Michael would emerge like this for months; he didn’t go to the authorities because he thought more turmoil would have a greater chance of smoking him out of whatever hole he lived in. Amanda Meadows wouldn’t sit back and let Michael go free. More than anything, he felt vindicated—for always believing Michael was alive and knowing once and for all he was involved in Quinn’s death.
Meredith remained an enigma. Once she was charged with murder, why didn’t she just give him over and end any chance she had of winding up in prison? The lengths people were willing to go to protect their own fiefdom. He despised the woman, but he did not believe she had harmed his daughter. Most likely, the charges against her would be dropped.
That didn’t mean she was innocent. He just wasn’t sure what she was guilty of.
The chatter between Michael and Meredith seemed to have ended. Broderick wondered if that would change now that Meredith was almost free.
Chapter 62
It took Scott two more days—leaving Meredith to believe the trial would still go forward—but he finally struck a deal. Meredith would plead to one count of obstruction of justice. There would be no jail time to serve, and Meredith would have nothing but an ugly, meaningless spot on her record. At first, Meredith told him she would not plead to anything, but as the date of her inquisition drew nearer, Scott’s persistence won her over. She didn’t have children she would disappoint nor a crestfallen husband. Scott told her by amending the charges, they could never bring these issues up again, and that sounded heavenly.
Scott got Amanda to go so far as to open a courtroom early and have the plea done before the media caught wind. He wasn’t perfectly pleased with this plea, but he had seen people convicted on far less in jury trials. His client would plead a murder charge into a no-fine, no-jail time misdemeanor. He would take that outcome any day.
The theory behind the plea agreement was Meredith had known Michael was alive and hadn’t reported it. Since he had never been charged with any crime in connection with Quinn’s disappearance, the conviction she agreed to take was based on very flimsy legal grounds. But it was better than a murder trial, as everyone assured her. She knew it would be front-page news all over the world. However, she could be long gone by the time they arrived.
She decided to get out of town and finish her novel. It had a great plot, very much in the spirit of Red Ribbon. Her agent liked the idea. He had worked to get the manuscript’s delivery date pushed back to give her enough time to complete it. As soon as the plea was entered, Meredith would go to the airport and get on a private plane, which she had rented with the limited resources she had left. She would fly to Key West and spend the next weeks away from her Savannah life.
Nate, who she recently bumped up to a ten percent ownership in Southern Gothic, would run the store. She would dig herself out of this mess. She would bask in her next novel, cultivate it to its provenance, and be proud of the result of seeing her own words on the printed page.
The courtroom was a second-floor room not much bigger than a regular office. Scott told her they normally used it for divorce trials and probate disputes. A par
t of Meredith, as silly as it sounded, felt almost offended her high profile case ended up here and not in the grand courtroom it deserved. She checked herself. Good Lord, she pretended to write one book and had become an absolute diva.
She wore a boring navy suit she would jettison once on the plane. Scott stood with her. Amanda Meadows looked straight ahead at the judge as she read the amended charge. Some of Amanda’s assistants, who watched half a year of their lives go down the drain, gave her death glares.
The judge who took the plea was stern and watchful and kept an eye towards the door in case the media should arrive. He frowned as Meredith droned the few words of her guilty plea to him. With that, she would not be tried for murder, and she could crawl back into respectable society.
She headed to Key West to write. And now, she could afford it again. Her royalty check had to arrive sometime. If not, Scott had handed her a small check of money he hadn’t used the day before. It was just enough to give her the gift of time. These were good things.
Meredith had her freedom. She thought she would be celebrating like it was St. Patty’s Day in Savannah. So why did the feeling of dread not leave her chest?
Chapter 63
(Via email)
M-
Where are you? Where did you go?
-M
* * *
Warm, wild Key West.
She felt she’d aged a decade in the last year. She was free now. No bail, no lawyers, nothing but completing a book—a better one than Red Ribbon—and drinking margaritas. Most of all, she wanted to feel human again.