“Ricky, stop it. Give her back to me.”
“We’ll see. I don’t know, maybe I’ll keep her.”
“Give her back!” I shouted, adding in a long list of obscenities that I’d rarely used in my life.
Ricky laughed as I swore at him. He held you in the air, letting your tiny legs dangle. “She’s cute. That mop of dark hair. Just like you. The eyes, the nose. So small, too. Hard to believe we ever grow up when we start out as these puny little creatures. Any little mistake, any little accident, and that’s the end.”
“Don’t you hurt her,” I hissed. “Don’t you dare hurt her. If you do anything at all to her, I swear to God I—”
“What?” he retorted. “What will you do to me, Bec?”
I closed my eyes for a moment to get hold of myself. I wiped the tears from my face. “Just don’t hurt her, Ricky. She’s innocent. She never did anything to you. I’m the one you hate.”
“I don’t hate you. You’re my wife.”
I’m not, I wanted to scream, but I held my tongue.
“Besides, I would never hurt my daughter,” he went on casually. He caressed your face with false compassion, his fat fingers on your neck, making me twitch with fear. “I mean, she is mine, isn’t she? My baby. My little girl. She couldn’t be anyone else’s. Right, Bec?” Suddenly, he bellowed at me. “Right?”
I refused to answer him. Even if I knew for sure who your father was, I would never, ever say the words: She’s yours. No. Because you were not his. You would never be his. I would never allow it.
“What do you want?” I asked him, laboring to be calm. “Tell me what you want.”
“You already know what I want. I want my wife back. I want my life back.”
I shook my head in despair. “Why? Why do you want what we had? We were both miserable and unhappy.”
“That was because you didn’t know your place,” he said. His voice rumbled out of his throat like the growl of a mean dog. “Do you know your place now, Bec? Have you finally figured it out? Do you understand why you’ve always been mine?”
“Ricky, please. Just let me have my baby.”
His eyes hardened into ice. “Beg.”
“What?”
“Beg me.”
“Ricky, for God’s sake.”
“Did you not hear what I said? Do you still not get it? I’m in charge. From now on, you do whatever I tell you to do. And what I want you to do is beg.”
I swallowed down my hatred. I felt the horrible years of my marriage rising up in my memory like bile in my throat. All the degradation. Every humiliation I’d endured to keep the peace. I couldn’t go back to that. I wouldn’t. And yet my life was no longer my own. It belonged to you, Shelby. Not him — you.
“Let me have her back,” I whispered. Then I choked out the next words. “I’m begging you.”
“Louder.”
“I’m begging you.”
“Get on your knees.” He added with a snicker, “You were always best on your knees.”
“Ricky, please—”
“On your knees. If I say something, you do it! Do you understand me?”
I was crying, furious, desperate, helpless. Rage welled up inside me like an animal consuming my soul, but I did what he wanted. I had no choice. Slowly, I slid to my knees. I put my hands together, as if I were praying. “Give me my little girl. I’ll do whatever you say. Just give her back to me.”
“That’s more like it. That’s the wife I remember.”
He extended his arms, which were robed in fake mink fur, and offered you up like a gift from the king. I scrambled to my feet and swept you away from him. I folded you up in my chest and held you and kissed you and cried with relief. With you back in my arms, all was right with the world again.
Ricky stood up from the rocking chair. He snapped the little door shut in his costume, closing off his face, leaving only his eyes barely visible through dark mesh. What was left was a bizarre caricature of the monster, seven feet tall, with mismatched fur top and bottom, and red eyes and sharp teeth painted onto the papier-mâché head. It was so false, so fake. And yet the whole effect of it was terrifying enough to make me feel as if I were ten years old again.
“Be at the party at the 126 on Saturday,” he said.
“What?”
“I want everyone to see we’re together again.”
“I can’t go. I have Shelby.”
“Find someone to watch her.”
“I’m not going—” I insisted, prepared to shut him down, but then I stopped. I didn’t dare set him off again, not when he was acting like — like a monster. “All right. Fine. If that’s what you want, I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
He towered over me in the corner. His gloved hand reached out like a paw to stroke under your chin. I shrank back, trying to shield you, but I was up against the wall and had nowhere to go. You began to cry again, afraid of his touch. He drew his hand back and curled it into a fist, and for a moment, I thought he might strike me. Or do something worse.
“He bragged about it, you know,” Ricky snarled.
“Who?”
“Ajax.”
My stomach churned with fear. “Ajax? What about him? What are you talking about?”
“I called him. He bragged about you carrying his baby.”
I stared back at Ricky, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Except yes, I really could.
“Ajax? Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? I never slept with Ajax! How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“It’s too late to lie, Bec. Ajax found that out.”
“Oh my God! Oh shit! Ricky, what did you do?”
“I warned him,” he replied. Even though I couldn’t see it behind the mask, I heard the sadistic grin in his voice. “I warned him, but he didn’t believe I was serious. I told him the Ursulina was coming to get him.”
“Jesus Christ, Ricky. You idiot.”
“It’s better this way. We have a clean slate without him. I’m willing to forgive you, despite everything. You broke your vow, but with Ajax gone, we can start over. You, me, and our baby girl.”
“You killed him! You killed him for nothing! It was you!”
Ricky shook his head. His eyes gleamed with a strange, unshakable confidence. “But you’re not going to say anything, are you? Everyone knows who really killed Ajax. It was written on the wall. Just like all the others. It wasn’t me. It was a terrible, vicious, savage beast.”
Nausea made my stomach lurch. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m saying. Believe me.” Ricky raised his arms high over his head and curled his fingers like claws. He bent down, and he shoved that horrible monster face into my own. I heard the noise of his breath. Hufffffff.
“You, see, I have what the whole world has been looking for,” he went on. “Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch. I have what all the monster hunters are dying to see. And the sheriff, too. I have a picture of the Ursulina.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
When dawn came, I bundled you up in a little coat and put the tiniest hat on your head. I wrapped you in a blanket to keep you warm. Then I put you in your car seat, and the two of us drove to the Fair Day resort. The early morning was crisp and cold, the kind of chill you can feel like needles inside your nose. It was below freezing. Out on the lake, a gray film of ice waited to melt with the sun.