The Divorce by Freida McFadden - 46

46

Ezra goes down hard.

He wasn’t holding on to the railing, and I caught him off guard. Not that anyone expects to be pushed down a flight of stairs, but his feet aren’t planted as firmly on the ground as they could have been. Plus, he shouldn’t have skipped so many meals while working. If he weighed fifty pounds more, I’m not sure he would have gone down like that.

His tumble down the set of steep stairs seems to last an eternity. I can’t even bear to watch. On the way, I hear a loud crack, like a bone breaking—or possibly several bones—and then when he finally gets to the bottom, there is a sickening thud. It’s only then that I dare to look.

Ezra is lying face down at the bottom of the stairs. His limbs are splayed around him, and his right leg is twisted at an unnatural angle. And he is very, very still.

Veronica stopped screaming during the tumble down the stairs. But as soon as Ezra hits the ground, she starts to cry, as if she gives a shit about him. This is your fault! I want to shout at her. If she had just kept her mouth shut, he would’ve left, and none of this would have happened.

I creep down the stairs slowly, almost afraid to get to the bottom. As I continue my descent, I notice a pool of dark red blood spreading around Ezra’s head. And he’s not moving at all.

Even his chest looks still.

He’s dead. He’s definitely dead. As a doctor, I should know.

I whip my head around to look at Veronica. She somehow managed to get the duct tape off her lips, although the piece is hanging off the corner of her mouth. She is crying so hard that she is having trouble catching her breath.

“Stop crying!” I snap at her. “This is all your fault!”

She lifts her tear-streaked face to stare up at me. Before, all I saw in her eyes was fear, but now I see something different.

Hatred. Seething hatred.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look at me that way. I don’t understand. Why would she hate me ? She’s the one who stole everything that I care about! All I did was give her a haircut. Of course, I’m planning to do a lot more than that, but that’s a reason for her to fear me, not hate me. She can hate me in a few months, when she’s looking in the mirror at her ruined face.

And now she’s trying to talk, but she’s having a hard time because she can barely catch her breath around her sobs. “You…stole…him…” she manages.

What is she talking about? I stole Jeremy from her ? She must still be high on heroin or something. “I didn’t steal Jeremy,” I retort. “ You stole him from me!”

She shoots me another look that is so filled with anger, I flinch. “Not…Jeremy,” she says.

I shake my head in confusion. “Then who are you talking about?”

“My…my son!”

Now it’s my turn to stare at her. Our eyes lock, and she refuses to look away.

Oh no. This is even worse than I imagined.

Now I really do have to kill her.