Chapter 5 - The Scream
Jason took a frantic step backward, his boots sliding against the polished hardwood floor. He slammed his back against the closed front door, his eyes darting around the room as if he had stepped into a nightmare realm where the laws of physics no longer applied.
"You're... you're dead..." Jason whimpered, his lungs gasping for air. "You're dead! You were supposed to be... I turned off the—"
"You turned off the power?" I interrupted, standing up from my chair with smooth, liquid grace. "You cut the water? You locked the deadbolts from the outside? You stole my steroids and my heart medication and burned them in a steel drum in the desert?"
Every word I spoke landed on him like a physical blow. He shrank against the door, his eyes wide with an absolute, unadulterated terror that bordered on madness.
"How..." he choked out, his chest heaving violently. "How are you standing there?! WHAT ARE YOU?!"
He screamed—a high-pitched, curdling shriek of pure horror that tore through his throat, echoing off the high ceilings of the house he had built as my tomb.
He truly believed he was looking at a ghost. He believed the vengeance of the woman he had murdered had manifested from the dark to claim his soul.
"I am the wife you tried to murder, Jason," I said, taking three slow, deliberate steps toward him. "I am the woman who spent seven years giving you my trust, while you spent seven months calculating the price of my life."
"Get away from me!" Jason shrieked, scrambling frantically for the door handle behind him, his gloved fingers slipping uselessly against the brass knob. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
"You thought seventy-four days was enough time to erase me," I said, coming to a halt ten feet from him. "You thought you could sail across the world, drink champagne with your mother, and return home to collect three point five million dollars for my corpse."
"It wasn't my idea!" Jason suddenly blubbered, falling to his knees on the hardwood floor, tears of pure, pathetic desperation streaming down his face. "It was Beatrice! It was Trevor! They forced me, Evelyn! Trevor owed money to dangerous people! They told me if I didn't do it, they would kill us both! Please... baby, please! You have to believe me! I love you! I've always loved you!"
I looked down at him as he groveled on the floor, weeping and clawing at my gown, offering up his own mother and brother without a second thought the moment his own skin was on the line.
"You really are a coward, Jason," I said quietly.
I raised my right hand and snapped my fingers.
BANG!
The hidden doors of the study and dining room were thrown open simultaneously.
Eight SWAT officers, dressed in full black tactical gear with laser sights gleaming on their rifles, poured into the foyer. High-intensity tactical lights blinded Jason from every direction.
"POLICE! DON'T MOVE! GET ON THE GROUND NOW!"
"HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD! DOWN ON THE FLOOR!"
Jason let out another hysterical scream, throwing his arms over his head, pressing his face flat against the cold hardwood floor, sobbing uncontrollably as three heavy tactical boots pinned his shoulders and back.
Detective Laura Bennett stepped out from the shadows, holding a pair of steel handcuffs. Beside her walked Assistant DA Hayes, holding a tablet displaying the live, real-time feed of the local precinct.
"Jason Vance," Detective Bennett announced, her voice booming through the room. "You are under arrest for Attempted First-Degree Murder, Aggravated Kidnapping, Financial Extortion, and Destruction of Evidence."
She bent down, snapping the steel cuffs shut around his wrists with a heavy, final CLICK.
"And in case you were wondering about your co-conspirators," DA Hayes added, turning his tablet screen toward Jason’s weeping face, "Federal agents in Honolulu and Miami executed simultaneous arrest warrants thirty minutes ago. Your mother and brother are currently in federal custody facing life sentences without parole."
Jason looked at the screen. He saw his mother, Beatrice, being led out of a luxury hotel in handcuffs, screaming at the news cameras, her hair wild and disheveled.
The realization of total, absolute, unmitigated ruin slammed into Jason’s mind. His house, his fortune, his family, his freedom—everything he had sought to gain by killing me—had vanished in a single evening.
As the officers dragged him to his feet and pulled him toward the open front door where police cruisers were flashing red and blue lights across the cul-de-sac, Jason turned his head, looking back at me one last time.
"Evelyn..." he sobbed, his voice cracking into a broken whisper. "Please..."
I stood in the center of the brightly lit foyer, my chin raised high, my eyes calm and clear.
May you like
I didn't say a word.
I simply watched him go, as the heavy oak door closed behind him for the very last time.
