That’s what she knew last week. She knew his threats were getting more serious, and she was afraid this would happen.
“I have to protect myself.”
George shook his head. “It wasn’t him. He was in the city at an event, surrounded by hundreds of people. They have a suspect on video. At a convenience store a couple miles from where they found her car. He used her credit card. They’re looking for him, but, so far, they haven’t found him.”
“Say it again. Say again what happened.” Because there was something wrong in this story. Something that I was missing. This hadn’t happened. Not to Ash.
“She was driving to Sanderson’s house in the Hamptons. The gas gauge was empty, so she must have run out. Someone pulled over and robbed her. Hurt her. There was blood in the car. They’re doing a DNA test, but the blood type matches hers. Like I said, her credit card has been used. They’ve got video, but I’m told it’s vague.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who told you this?”
“Landen. He called me after the police called him. He was drunk and I suppose he forgot I no longer worked for him. He needed me to drive him out there so he could search for his baby girl. That’s what he called her,” George said, disgusted. “His baby girl. He told me what the police told him. They’re still looking for her, Marc. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t be so despairing. But that stretch of road she was on is so empty. Where would she go? Why wouldn’t they have found her already?”
“When did this happen?”
“Just two days ago. I was afraid you might see it on the news before I had a chance to tell you. Given Sanderson’s celebrity, it’s all anyone’s covering. The search for his missing bride.”
I didn’t watch television. Purposefully. I didn’t want to see coverage of Ash and Sanderson at some event, holding hands, dancing. Because she once told me not to believe anything anyone told me. Not even my own eyes.
“Ash, what do you think I’m going to believe?”
“The worst. I think you’re going to believe the worst.”
This was the worst. And I did believe it.
“He did it,” I said. “She knew…”
“…if I push him to that point, he’ll soon find me expendable.”
“He hit her,” I said, suddenly feeling numb. Like someone could stab me with a knife and I wouldn’t feel it.
“Who?”
“Sanderson. She came to see me last week. She had a black eye. She told me if she pushed him, which she must have, he would find her expendable. I don’t care if he was on camera at the fucking Super Bowl, he did it! He arranged it. He paid someone to…”
Kill her. That’s what I was going to say. That Evan Sanderson paid someone to kill his wife, because he’d quickly found her to be problematic.
But if I said that. If I believed that. Then I had to believe the first thing George told me.
That Ash was dead.
“I need to go,” I said quietly. Because the numbness was starting to wear off. The anger, the full tonnage of anger I’d been suppressing for so long, was bubbling up inside me. This time I wasn’t going to be able to control it.
Evan Sanderson killed Ash. He killed her. He killed her.
She was dead.
“I’ll keep you updated, Marc,” George promised me. “The police, they’re still searching…”
I didn’t listen. I needed to get away from him, away from people. I was going to blow, and I couldn’t be around anyone when I did. I walked up to the guard I knew from my weeks spent here. He was tall and broad, and, while he didn’t take shit, he also didn’t hand it out for fun just because he had power.
“I need to go to the SHU.”
He jerked back. “Dude, no one volunteers for solitary confinement.”
I clenched my hands into fists, feeling the power in them. Feeling like I could suddenly transform myself into a monster if I willed it hard enough. There was no control left.
“You either put me in there, or I start a fight with someone that lands me there anyway. You feel me? I’m about to lose my shit, and I can’t extend my stay in this place because of that. Put me in the goddamn SHU!”
I obviously convinced him, because I was escorted from the visiting area directly to the Special Housing Unit, which was made up of four cells cut off from the rest of the prison. Each cell was a contained unit, so, once inside, you didn’t see anyone else who might also have been punished.
The door shut behind me. I heard the guard tell me good luck, then I started hitting the walls with enough force to break most of my fingers on each hand. Even then I didn’t stop, because the pain, the physical pain, was the only thing that stopped me from losing my mind. I screamed as loud and as hard as I could, trying to find some release from the anger. The rage. The grief.
Evan Sanderson killed her.
Ash was dead.
And I had only one thing left to live for.
Revenge.