Unreliable Witness Read online

  “You don’t have to pretend that you fell down the stairs,” he told me. “I know what happened. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

  He was giving me a way out. Telling me he’d call the police for me if I was too scared to do it myself. Promising me they’d help me find a safer life, a better life for me and my daughter.

  He didn’t know who I was. Didn’t know who I was married to. Didn’t realize that no matter where on God’s green earth I took you, your father would hunt us both down. Dennis didn’t want a child, but now that you were here, he wasn’t about to let you go. Not without the fight of our lives.

  And so I told that nice doctor I really had fallen down the steps. Thanked him for saving your life. Told him there was nothing at all he had to worry about.

  He was older, probably in his sixties when he delivered you. Most likely, he’s dead by now. I think about him, wonder what might have happened if I’d listened to him. Allowed myself to believe he could actually help the two of us, desperate as we were.

  You were in the hospital for several weeks. You had to put on weight and learn how to nurse before we could bring you home. Overnight, Dennis turned into the father of the year. He even got permission to bring in a camera crew to the hospital and introduce you on TV to the greater Detroit area.

  “My little miracle baby,” he called you. And it was true. Back then, they didn’t have as fancy care for babies born too soon. The doctors told us you had a fifty-fifty chance to survive.

  And survive you did.

  Your father was a monster, but nobody knew it. People sent in gifts from all over the state. That’s how much they loved your father. The newspaper wrote you up as the most famous baby in all of Michigan.

  Nobody knew your father was the reason you were premature.

  Nobody knew it was your father’s fault you and I both nearly died the day you were born.

  Nobody knew it was going to get even worse before I could find a way to deliver you permanently to safety.

  CHAPTER 12

  “How old are you, young man?” Grandma Lucy asked West. The old woman hadn’t left their side since Justine headed to the gate with her son.

  “I’m four,” he answered, beaming proudly.

  “Four? Wow. You’re awful big for your age.”

  West grinned at the apparent compliment. Justine wondered how it was that adults could make comments like that about children’s body size and shape without it coming across as aggressive or rude. She also didn’t appreciate how Grandma Lucy was addressing West and not herself, but to be fair, Justine hadn’t done much more than answer the old woman’s questions with monosyllables.

  “And are you a Christian, West?” Grandma Lucy asked, leaning in toward him. “Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”

  Good grief. Was this eccentric stranger really about to start preaching to a preschooler?

  “We go to church,” Justine inserted sharply. She picked up her purse, trying to decide if there was time to get West one more snack from McDonald’s before they had to board.

  “Not every week,” West started to protest, but Grandma Lucy didn’t seem to hear him. She was addressing Justine directly.

  “Oh, there’s so much more to having a personal relationship with Christ than just showing up to church on Sundays.”

  Justine was finished. It was bad enough Steve had changed so much over the past year, droning on and on about Jesus this and God that. Last summer, his pastor’s wife had given Steve a kids’ Bible to read with West at bedtime. Justine was certain Steve would let the habit die after the first few nights, but here they were, months later, and Steve was still going at it strong.

  Justine didn’t mind that West was learning Bible stories and going to church. And she couldn’t deny that her husband was infinitely easier to live with now that he had “come to God.” But even though he never stepped right up and said so, Justine got the feeling she was a constant disappointment to her husband, that he’d be more in love with her, happier with her if she got into this whole Jesus thing as much as he did.

  Maybe he’d prayed this annoying old woman into their lives. Maybe Steve asked God to send them someone persistent who’d pester Justine until she finally got as serious about her faith as Steve wanted her to be.

  Justine was spared the need to end the awkward conversation when the flight attendant invited passengers traveling with small children to board. West wasn’t a toddler anymore. Justine didn’t have a stroller or booster seat or any clunky baggage to take on the plane with them, but she wasn’t going to sit here and listen to some stranger proselytize her son anymore, either.

  “Come on, West.” She took her son’s hand and let out her breath. “It’s time to get on the plane.”

  CHAPTER 13

  You were a beautiful child. I don’t know what happened to them, but I had boxes and boxes of pictures of you when you were a baby. You weren’t even six pounds by the time we brought you home, but you were strong. You were a fighter.

  I was so proud of you.

  You gave me a reason to live, Justine. If it weren’t for you, I … well, you don’t need to hear that side of it.

  For the first little bit after you came home from the hospital, your father and I got along. He seemed to have changed his mind about not wanting to be a dad. I think part of him just liked the attention he got because of you. But I think there was a part of him, however small, that loved you in his own way.

  Your father had demons, Justine. I’m not sure I mean that in the literal sense of the word, but he didn’t necessarily want to be a monster. I don’t know what went wrong with him, and it’s too late now to try to figure out anyway.

  You had just started crawling when the beatings started again. Dennis was taking me to different doctors, telling them that I was unstable. Post-partum psychosis, they called it. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

  I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t crazy.

  I was a prisoner.

  Dennis found a doctor who prescribed me something horrible, something meant for people with severe mental illnesses. It knocked me out. Made me gain fifteen pounds the first two months, and that’s on top of all the weight I gained during the pregnancy. I couldn’t nurse you anymore. Could hardly function.

  He took me to more doctors. Complained about my behavior. Hinted I might not be safe around our child. Hired a cute, perky au pair to move in with us and “help out with the baby,” as he put it. Really, he just wanted someone to take to bed since I was so drugged up and overweight by then he’d lost his interest in me.

  I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was relieved when he found another focal point for his attentions.

  The drugs kept coming. You kept growing. Dennis told the au pair all kinds of terrible things about me, made it sound like I couldn’t be trusted alone with my own child. She took you out and about every day, leaving me home alone. Nothing to do but cry and beg God to end my life.

  I could have done it, but I held onto the hope that if I managed to get myself healthy, Dennis would let me be your mother again. I did everything he told me to do. Ate nothing but cabbage soup for weeks on end because Dennis told me I was fat. Took my meds, not having a clue that my problem wasn’t a mental illness but that my husband was drugging me up to keep me compliant.

  I don’t know what happened to the au pair, but she disappeared. Dennis told me her mom was sick and she flew back home, but she’d told me she was an orphan. Truth be told, I bet he killed her. They’d gotten into a terrible fight the night before. I heard him yelling at her.

  The next day she was gone.

  Of course, I can’t prove anything. When I mentioned it at the trial, the judge told me to shut up. Said it had nothing to do with the case. I think it had everything to do with the case. I was scared for my life. If Dennis could make an au pair simply disappear, a woman nobody came looking for, a woman with no connections or legal representation, what coul
d he do to me? He’d already gotten multiple doctors in his pocket, men who testified that I was unstable, unfit to be a mother.

  Dennis controlled every single aspect of my life. And the nightmare was far from over.

  CHAPTER 14

  Justine and West were seated in the same row as a sharply dressed businesswoman in her forties or fifties. The passenger introduced herself as Meredith then went back to the journal she was writing in. Justine was glad when she saw Grandma Lucy board and find her seat in the very back of the plane. Something about the old lady’s pointed questions and intense gaze left Justine feeling terribly uncomfortable.

  At least they were on the flight. The more she thought about it, the more Justine couldn’t shake the feeling she was meant to be here. Did that mean she was meant to visit Alice as well?

  Justine might not be as into church as her husband was, and she certainly wasn’t the type of person to go evangelizing in an airport like Grandma Lucy, but she believed in God and wondered if it was his voice telling her to go to Detroit after all. But why? Did she need some kind of closure with her bio mom? What had the woman done for Justine other than give her birth? It was because of Alice’s murderous rage that Justine had spent years in the foster system before getting adopted. It was because of Alice’s notorious mental illness that Justine had spent years in therapy, paralyzed with fear that the monster that had taken over her biological mother might be lying dormant in her as well.

  Why did her husband, God, and the entire universe seem to be conspiring to get Justine to visit this woman?

  Alice was unhealthy. Steve had let it slip. Justine had no idea her husband was in communication with that felon. Why in the world hadn’t he told her sooner? But Alice was sick. Maybe even dying. She wanted to see Justine.

  The trip had made sense when Steve first arranged it. A family trip to Detroit. See some of the area Justine remembered before her adoptive family moved to the East coast. Take West to the Children’s Museum and the zoo.

  But now with Steve working, there was nothing about this trip that felt like a vacation.

  And yet here she was.

  You chose this, Justine reminded herself. She and West could have walked out of the airport. They’d been close to doing so when Grandma Lucy grabbed a hold of them. Justine wasn’t some prisoner being held hostage on a flight she hadn’t agreed to take. She was here because at some point, she and Steve agreed it would be a good idea, and at some point in the past hour, a fluke encounter with a stranger in the airport made Justine change her mind about going back home with West.

  She was meant to be on this flight. She knew it.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried. What would Alice say to her? What if Justine met her mother, saw her infamous insanity up close, and that woke up the dormant demons she’d inherited from that monster?

  She wouldn’t let West come anywhere near his grandmother, but what if this trip had some kind of negative impact on him anyway? Alice’s negative energy seeping into her son.

  She was overthinking things. She had to stop. The flight attendant began her safety speech about seat backs and tray tables. Justine checked West’s seatbelt to make sure it was buckled snugly, then she shut her eyes, let out a deep breath, and tried to force her anxious body to relax.

  CHAPTER 15

  He died on a Tuesday.

  I remember it was Tuesday because that was the only morning he went into work a little later, not hours before the sun rose.

  He couldn’t find the cufflinks he wanted. Thought I’d left home and sold them. Accused me of pilfering money away so I could leave him. Even suggested I’d given them as a present to a secret lover.

  He was raving around the house, shouting like a lunatic, throwing drawers open, telling me he’d find my stash of cash and kill me.

  You were asleep in your room. You poor, sweet angel, you’d learned to sleep through anything.

  As hard as life was for us, you were a happy little girl. You were chubby once you started growing as a baby, but as soon as you learned to walk your muscles turned lean. I think you spent one day toddling and after that you took off running. Running through the house, laughing, yelling, giggling.

  You had no idea your father was a monster.

  You had no idea your mother was insane.

  You were blissfully unaware of the danger we were in.

  But I wasn’t.

  The truth was I hadn’t sold your father’s cufflinks, but I had been making plans. You’d gotten an ear infection right after your birthday. I took you to the doctor. Your father came too. Didn’t trust me out of the house with you. He was afraid I’d run off.

  But he couldn’t follow me into the bathroom at the children’s clinic. That’s where I saw the poster. A toll-free number to call if you were in an abusive relationship.

  I didn’t have a pen or paper. Your father didn’t let me travel with those. He was too scared I’d write someone a note begging for help, and then the picture-perfect prison he’d created for me and you would collapse and crumble around his feet.

  I didn’t have a pen, but I had my mind. And I stared at that poster, burned the numbers into my head.

  I couldn’t use the home phone to call for help, but I knew if I kept that number memorized, I’d make sure that once I got the chance I’d use a pay phone. One day, I was certain, your father would slip up. He’d stop for gas when I was in the car and run in to use the bathroom, and I could jump out and race to a pay phone. Or he’d forget to lock us in the house like he always did when he left for work, and I’d walk nonchalantly over to the neighbor’s and ask to borrow their phone.

  I knew my fantasies were stupid. Knew your father would never be so careless. But memorizing the number made me feel strong. Made me feel brave.

  At night, I’d lie awake holding imaginary phone conversations in my head. Telling the compassionate woman who answered the toll-free number that my husband kept my daughter and me locked in our house. That a year ago he’d killed our au pair and had managed to do so without raising a shred of suspicion. That he kept me placid and compliant by threatening to kill our daughter, this perfect little angel who was the only reason I had to live.

  I’d tell her about the drugs. “He says I’m crazy,” I whispered in my mind, “but I never had any problems like this before we got together.”

  And she’d explain to me what deep in my soul I already knew. I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t psychotic. The drugs were part of my prison. With them, Dennis knew I couldn’t think clearly. Couldn’t fight back.

  “You should stop taking those pills,” the imaginary woman would tell me.

  And so I did.

  Dennis didn’t find my stash of cash that morning. He didn’t find any love letters linking me to this imaginary lover. He didn’t find the cufflinks he was sure I’d stolen.

  What he found was much, much worse.

  CHAPTER 16

  Justine was thankful that West was on good behavior. He ate a few snacks then settled down to watch an in-flight movie. The relative calm gave Justine the chance to relax.

  Unfortunately, it also gave her the chance to be alone with her thoughts.

  As each minute brought their plane closer and closer to Detroit, Justine felt the stone in the base of her gut churning, growing sour. She had to consciously focus on her breaths to keep from hyperventilating.

  “Just because you share her genes doesn’t mean you’re going to become anything like her,” Steve had told her years ago. Justine was pregnant, terrified that she would turn into the same kind of monster as her mom.

  And thankfully, for then at least, Steve had been right. Justine’s transition into motherhood was one of the most blissful, delightful surprises that had ever happened to her, as natural and as powerful as falling in love.

  As it turned out, she wasn’t defined by her genes.

  When West was an infant, she held her breath, wondering if her descent into ins
anity would take her by storm the second her son started crawling or walking or speaking.

  And then West turned one and next two. Still no depression, no hint of psychosis. The anxiety was always there, but not to the point where Justine couldn’t control it.

  By West’s third birthday, Justine felt like she could finally let out her breath. She’d made it. Hadn’t attacked her child or her husband. Hadn’t slipped into a murderous, psychotic rage and tried to destroy the ones she loved most. At that point, she gave herself permission to stop worrying so much. Permission to forget about the woman who brought her into the world.

  And then a few months ago, Steve told her Alice had contacted him.

  “She’s changed,” he told her, his eyes and tone begging her to believe him. She couldn’t understand. Why in the world did he want her to give this woman any chance to get close to her or her family? Even the fact that Alice had contacted Steve should show she was just as manipulative and conniving as she’d always been. Why hadn’t she contacted Justine directly if she really wanted to talk?

  In the end, Justine attributed her husband’s actions to his newfound faith. Didn’t Christians believe in grace and forgiveness at all costs?

  It wasn’t until she’d had that dream that she even considered making the trip to Detroit like Steve was pushing her.

  It was just before Halloween. Justine had volunteered all day for the costume party at West’s preschool. She was tired. A little grumpy. The next day was Sunday, and she knew her husband would try to wake them up early to go to church. Couldn’t she sleep in just one day of the week?

  That night, she dreamed that she saw Alice trapped in some kind of haunted carnival ride. Her mother was screaming for help, begging for Justine to find her. To save her.