The Sister-in-Law: An absolutely gripping summer thriller for 2021, Pamela Crane [reading eggs books .txt] 📗

control. I didn’t want another Noah, who mirrored my darkest fears, then reflected an illusion of love back at me. That’s how he got me in the first place – all tricks and smoke and mirrors.

As the window heart evaporated, my cell phone buzzed from deep in the bag. After wrestling with some garments to free the phone, I pulled it out and swiped to read the text:

Where are you? And where’s my fucking money, bitch?

If only Noah knew I wasn’t coming back. I’d need to get a new phone and new number along with my new life if there was any chance of escaping my past. Everything I had was tied to Noah. My phone, my life, my baby. The only way to cut the chains was to get as far away as possible, become someone new, someone better.

I opened my web browser and searched ‘Best places to raise a family’ and clicked on the first article that popped up. I scrolled through the list, weeding out anything west of the Mississippi. I only had $500 to get me to where I was going, so it had to be affordable to get there and live there and survive there. Then I saw it:

Durham, North Carolina: Affordable living, growing community, job opportunities, decent schools. The perfect destination for young families and settling retirees. Idyllic. It sounded perfect. I now had a destination. All I needed was a plan.

***

It was the time of night when the moon sleepwalked across the sky, slowly intensifying, creeping up on the sun. I woke to a stiff neck and moonbeams crisscrossing through the tree branches, landing on my face. Lane still hadn’t come home, and I had an unsettling feeling that when he did, it would be the end of us.

I headed upstairs to bed, careful to avoid the creaky steps. I reached the top of the landing and turned the corner toward my room. The hallway was windowless and dark, lined with closed doors. I paused at the sound of scraping floorboards, and searched a moving shadow at the end of the hall. A tiny silhouette stood by my doorway.

I jumped back. ‘What the heck?’ I yelped.

I flicked on the hall light switch, pouring white light on Jackson’s ghostly form. No squinting. No blinking, just a bored, disconnected gaze.

‘Jackson?’ I was afraid to say his name, and I didn’t know why. I was certain I was stuck in a horror film.

He didn’t answer, didn’t flinch.

I reached for the doorknob to Harper’s room, cracked the door open, and peered inside. ‘Harper,’ I whispered harshly. She didn’t move. I took a step past the threshold. ‘Harper!’ I called louder. Still nothing. A deep sleeper like Lane, apparently.

I glanced over my shoulder to look for Jackson, but he was gone. Disappeared. I imagined him slinking back into his hollow. Way too creepy. I shut Harper’s door, turned off the hall light, and ran into my bedroom, my back pressed against the closed door while my nerves settled.

I was disappointed to find the bed still empty, in the same rumpled mess I had left it in from the night before. This was bad, maybe even unreconcilable. Lane was angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him. It was in that solitary moment when I realized what I stood to lose. My home. My medical benefits. My future I had so carefully planned out. Damn Harper and her big mouth! Everything was unraveling, and the thought of birthing the baby on my own, becoming a single mom, finding a place to live, securing a job … it was all just too much. Worst of all, I didn’t know how to win Lane back, if it was even possible.

I stood in front of my dresser mirror, hands propped on the edge, staring at a sad reflection. Who was I? What purpose did I have? Empty blue eyes looked back at me, examining me and finding nothing but a picture of disheveled hair and deepening frown lines. I didn’t deserve Lane, and I didn’t deserve a happily ever after. Love, family, hope – they were flimsy dreams that scattered on the wind like scraps of paper.

My scars told my past and my future. A jagged line ran up my forearm where Noah had cut me during a fight. The first fight. I hadn’t learned how to fight back until after I left. Although the score in my flesh had faded into a pale slash, it served as a permanent reminder of where I had been and where I would never go again. The blemish was my journey from death to life, from pain to promise. But then I went and screwed up my second chance, my third chance … When would I learn? Maybe my father was right all along. I didn’t deserve happiness, or love, or anything good. I was born of misery and would die in misery. Suffering was my birthright.

A pair of scissors rested on the corner of the dresser, and I picked them up. Held the cold metal in my palms. Slipping my fingers through the handle holes, I opened and closed the blades, the slice of the edges cutting through the air in a soft whoosh. Grabbing a handful of hair, I held the blade up to it and cut through, watching the black tendrils fall to the floor. Another handful, another slice, and again, a blue-black puddle of hair and tears collecting at my feet.

With each whoosh I self-destructed, cutting my hair with Noah’s words: Bitch. Whore. Useless. Worthless. I would wallow in my sadness, sink in nice and deep until it swallowed me whole. Glancing at the tragedy I had made of my hair, I saw my running mascara as my war paint, as a figure approached behind me in the mirror.

‘What are you doing?’ I jumped at the sound of Lane’s voice as he rushed toward me, hugging me while pulling the scissors from my grip. ‘Don’t do this