The Righteous and The Wicked

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Notes

  The Righteous and The Wicked

  By

  April Emerson

  First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2014

  Copyright © April Emerson, 2013

  The right of April Emerson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters and events in this book—even those sharing the same name as (or based upon) real people—are entirely fictional. No person, brand or corporation mentioned in this book should be taken to have endorsed this book nor should the events surrounding them be considered in any way factual.

  This book is a work of fiction and should be read as such.

  The Writer’s Coffee Shop

  (Australia) PO Box 447 Cherrybrook NSW 2126

  (USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168

  Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-220-4

  E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-220-4

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.

  Cover images by: © depositphotos / Kamil Macniak,

  © depositphotos / Danny Kosmayer

  Cover design by: Jada D’Lee

  www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/aemerson

  “The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order which may or may not be divinely inspired.”

  ~Steven Hawking

  Chapter One

  The forest is invaded by an unwelcome guest. It uproots ancient trees and moves the earth. The dense vegetation, so accustomed to being undisturbed, resists the intruder. Tree trunks crack in protest, and stubborn boulders push back against the machine. The bulldozer leaves a path of destruction and wakes Emma up—on a Saturday.

  She rubs her eyes, wondering who has purchased the neighboring plot of land, then looks out the window in an effort to identify the source of the noise that woke her. Through the dew-covered glass, her tired eyes catch a glimpse of the yellow beast wreaking havoc in the woods beside her home.

  “This can’t be happening,” she says, but no one is there to hear her. Emma is unwilling to accept this disturbance in her precious routine. Her house has stood alone and isolated on this street for as long as she can remember, and there’s never any noise. A sigh escapes her lips as she stretches her thin body and succumbs to the fact that her only day to sleep in is ruined. But Emma Santori is no stranger to disappointment. She rises from her squeaky bed, dresses, and goes downstairs to make breakfast for one.

  The constant exhaustion Emma feels never lets her go, but she has duties to fulfill, the most important being her job. On Monday morning, the bell rings and her students take their seats. Ms. Santori begins her class the way she has for the past six months. “Good morning, ladies. Let us start our day as the Lord would want us to: with a prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son . . .”

  She forces herself to smile at coworkers and feigns enthusiasm regarding the details of their personal lives, but her affection for the children is genuine. She cares for them more than anyone knows or could understand. She guides them in their education, tending to their young spiritual needs the way her teachers tried to do for her in these same halls. The children are sent off to Mass and Emma knows she should attend, but she doesn’t. Instead, she sits alone in her empty classroom, and stares out the window until her students return.

  At the end of the day, she waits outside with her class for the children’s parents to pick them up. One of the mothers is very late, and a little girl is becoming anxious. She begins to cry as the last of her classmates depart and she and Emma are left alone by the gate. Emma searches through her purse for something to ease the child’s mind, and discovers a lollipop buried at the bottom. She hands it to the girl without a word and the child smiles with gratitude. Emma puts her arm around the little girl and doesn’t remove it until the mother arrives.

  After work, Emma stands in her bedroom looking in the mirror, wondering who it is that’s staring back at her. She remembers the person she once saw there. A full heart and a hand to hold. A future and a room to paint. Her memories torment her, and she turns away from them.

  The phone rings. It’s Emma’s father calling to check on her. She wants to tell him she’s struggling. That she’s lonely and she needs him. If she were honest, her father would be at her side. When Emma’s parents divorced during her childhood, she became a master of pretending she was fine, and that’s what she continues to do each time her father calls.

  She takes inventory of her fridge as she contemplates what to make for dinner. Fried chicken . . . or meatballs. She chooses the latter and begins to cook. It’s the routine she needs, not the food. She never feels hungry anymore. Her fingers work independently from her brain as she gazes out the window at the empty lot next door. She eats alone in silence.

  After dinner, she grabs the box from under the bed and brushes her fingers across the etched wood. She knows she shouldn’t look, but Emma opens the lid . . . like she does every night.

  Sleep still has its arms around Emma when an uninvited, but not unwelcome, guest arrives the next morning. Emma sits, wrapped in a warm sweater, reading the paper. Her closest friend, Danielle, never knocks. After letting herself in, she drops her gym bag on the floor and joins Emma at the kitchen table.

  “We’re going out Friday. You should come.”

  “Danni, I don’t want to. I just don’t have the energy,” Emma says. She doesn’t look up from her newspaper.

  Danielle pulls her light blond hair up into a sloppy bun and rolls her eyes. “You’re thirty, Emma, not eighty. You can’t stay locked in this house forever. It’s not normal.”

  Exasperated, Emma puts down the paper. “Normal? Nothing about me is normal.” She returns to reading, rubbing her thumb against her empty ring finger.

  “You know what I mean. You need to get out of here and meet people. This house is crumbling around you.”

  “In this town? I think I’ve met everyone there is to meet in Pine Lake.”

  “I don’t know about that. A lot changed while you were away.”

  “Tell me about it.” Emma pushes her chair from the table with frustration and tosses the paper in the trash.

  When Emma leaves for work, she spots her enemy—the bulldozer that woke her up on Saturday. It now rests at the side of the road. She narrows her eyes at it, revs the engine, and shifts her old car into dri
ve. It rumbles into the town gas station as it has every morning for the past six months, and a single thought repeats through Emma’s brain. Coffee, coffee, coffee. She walks toward the glass doors and strikes her palm against her forehead when she realizes she has forgotten her wallet. She turns to fetch her purse but stumbles into the person behind her. She steps back, rubbing the tip of her nose. It burns from banging into this man’s chest.

  “I’m sorry. Excuse me,” she says.

  The man says nothing. Emma looks up at him and becomes entranced. He has short, dark hair, and thick, unshaven stubble covers his haunting, handsome face. His full lips twitch into an almost smile, and his eyes . . . Emma’s frozen in the storm of this man’s eyes. They’re a deep, cloudy blue, like a sky that’s waiting for rain to fall. They drill into her, and she can’t look away. He touches her arm, and the unexpected contact causes her to take a sharp breath. She opens her mouth to speak, but isn’t given a chance. The dreamlike quality of this moment persists as he takes her elbow in his firm grip. Still silent, he guides her out of his path and continues past her into the gas station.

  Dazed, she watches him walk away, but he doesn’t look back. He takes an orange juice from the cooler and begins to drink it before he’s paid, moving like the world belongs to him and he couldn’t be less impressed by it.

  Emma’s embarrassed and retreats to her car. She turns the key, and her coffee is forgotten as she speeds down the country road. At work, she stands at the chalkboard all day. She speaks as if from a script and goes through the motions, but all she can see are that beautiful man’s stormy eyes.

  Eric Wilder steps off a plane and is greeted by familiar things. Things that are constant and never change: fresh air, big sky, and thick trees. They should comfort him, but they don’t. Dressed in flannel and denim, his modest clothes don’t match his wealth. A striking face in a sea of faceless strangers, he’s out of place but trying to act the part, to remember what his life was like in the northeast before he left. He wonders if the choice to return is the right one, but won’t allow himself to feel regret. He gets into a black Jeep and stares out the windshield at the endless, blurry green. A mantra repeats in his head: I’m not running. I’m moving on. He lies to himself, and he believes the lie.

  Sean’s living room is adorned with a massive television, shelves of video games, and several game systems. These items are irrelevant to Eric, who sits on his friend’s couch, drinking orange juice and dragging his hand across his unshaven face.

  “You’re getting married? Seriously?” Eric asks.

  “I know. It’s hard to believe,” Sean says. “I never thought I could be tied to just one girl, but wait till you meet her. Danielle is amazing.”

  Sean and Eric haven’t seen each other in years and haven’t spoken much in that time, not because they didn’t miss each other, but because Eric is a failure at correspondence, and had no real desire to connect with friends from his old life.

  Sean was the one person Eric knew he could contact after his life went awry. Eric’s bad habits almost led to his demise, but he’s here now, in Pine Lake, ready to start fresh. He needs a place to stay while the house is being built, but he won’t impose on Sean. Solitude is preferable, anyway. Eric’s darkness demands it.

  At the used car lot, a wad of cash is pulled from Eric’s pocket as he pays the salesman and hooks a small, silver trailer onto the hitch of his black Jeep. It reminds him of a bullet, a pill, a prison. But it’s not a prison. It’s freedom. Passing through the thick woods, he drives to the new property. The one-lane road feels lonely, and it is. There’s a solitary old white house at the end of the street. He turns onto the makeshift driveway that has been cleared by the bulldozer and keeps busy, trampling through mud to unhook the trailer, his temporary home.

  Examining his blueprints, he places several calls, checking on shipments of lumber and steel. He consults with the contractor who will lay the foundation. The mundane tedium permeates through him, but deep inside, he feels the familiar pang. Nothing can distract him from his hunger. It’s only been a day, and he can’t stop. He doesn’t want to stop. An old car roars up the street and he looks toward the sound for a moment, then his attention returns to his work.

  The backhoe clears the lot and the foundation is laid in the clearing. His authority is unmistakable as he barks orders at his workers and beats a path in the dirt. The smell of the earth fills his mind and leaves no room for other things—no other thoughts, no nagging needs. It’s been three days, and it’s been too long. Eric bargains with himself, promising that this is the last time. Just one more time and he will stop.

  He’s trying to fight what plagues him, but he’s failing. He has to give in. After he’s done working for the day, he gets in his Jeep. He doesn’t have to think about where to go to find what he needs. It’s easy for him, and that doesn’t help. He goes shopping for clothes he doesn’t need. The thin salesgirl carries Eric’s items to the fitting room and hangs them on the hook. He follows behind her, watching.

  “Let me know if there’s something I can do for you,” she says.

  He licks his lips. “There is.”

  Night in the forest holds a special type of darkness. At times, it can be terrifying. Sounds that no human ears should hear seep through the seams of Eric’s trailer to his ears. He can’t sleep. Crickets chirp in the night. A coyote howls. The wind rustles and moans. Eric rolls over and feels his need rising up. He turns over in his bed again, but he can’t turn away from it. On his back, he stares at the ceiling.

  A new sound finds its way to his ears. He can’t decide if it’s a bell or a chime. The sound is shrill; it stops, and then starts again. He closes his eyes and begins to forget what he’s trying not to think of. The usual sounds of the forest lull him away and pull him down into sleep, but the wind gusts and that ringing sound starts again. He throws off the covers in exasperation, opens the door, and sets out on a quest to obliterate the source of that damned noise.

  Chapter Two

  It’s Friday and Emma’s happy, as happy as she ever feels these days. It’s not a true happiness, just a feeling of relief. Tomorrow is Saturday, and finally, she can sleep. She walks out onto the porch and the morning sunlight shimmers in her cinnamon hair. The floorboards are warped and sticking up. An untrained eye might not be able to maneuver around them without injury the way Emma’s feet do. Her steps beat an automatic path, but today, the path is disrupted. Something’s different. Her mother’s wind chime rests on the steps instead of on its hook. She picks it up and puts it back, nodding at it when she’s done so, silently encouraging the wind chime to go about its business as she does the same.

  After work, Emma walks through the parking lot of St. Simon’s and finds her friend and coworker, Abby, smoking a cigarette and waiting for her. She taps her foot and points at her watch, urging Emma to walk faster.

  “My girls have been little shits lately. I swear I wish I went your route and taught the younger ones. First graders are a hell of a lot easier to handle than these tweens. I can’t take the cattiness anymore. Note-passing, gossiping, pariahs . . . girls are such bitches.”

  “You shouldn’t talk that way, Abby. They’re just kids. And you should watch your mouth. We’re right in front of the church, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, Ms. Santori . . . for God’s sake.” Abby shakes her head. Her dark curly hair bounces as she stamps out her cigarette. “That’s it. We’ve been at this too long now. You’re coming tonight. We’re having a girls’ night. Danielle and I can only talk about so many things, Emma. We need you there to liven up the conversation, or at least keep us in check.”

  “If I go, all I’ll hear about is your amazing husband, and Danielle never stops with the wedding talk. No offense, but it’s just not for me . . . not right now.”

  “Then when? When are you going to wake up?”

  Emma drives home, faster than she should. Her old car rattles down the street and she gets out and slams the door. With her face bu
ried in her hands, she sinks to the ground and holds her breath as tears escape her eyes. She’s angry at Abby—not for what she said, or for how she said it, but because she knows Abby’s right. It’s odd, to be feeling something. Emma has lived with nothing but numbness and exhaustion for months. Against her better judgment and her desire to get into her bed and never get out, she picks up the phone and dials Danielle.

  The club is crowded and Emma isn’t ready for this. She shouldn’t have come. Her hair is down in soft, feminine waves and her dress is conservative, but it can’t hide her legs, their length exaggerated by stiletto heels. She doesn’t notice that several men check her out while she searches for her friends. Finally, she sees a familiar face.

  “All right, this is what I like to see! Damn girl, you look hot!” Danielle appears and takes her hand. She and Emma walk to a private table where Abby waits. Three martinis sit untouched.

  “You guys, I don’t drink. You know I’m not drinking,” Emma says.

  “Cut the goody two shoes routine for one night, will you please?” Abby takes her glass in her hand.

  Although she holds herself to a rigid moral code, a part of her wants to indulge. Emma sits as the thumping music rattles her body and the vibration sinks into her skin. She picks up her martini as Abby and Danni shout at each other and laugh. The topics of conversation are just as expected and Emma has nothing to say. She sips the liquid. It’s chilled, yet it feels as if it singes her insides. Her eyes wander around the club. They stop when she sees a man dressed in black resting his elbow on the bar.

  His back is to her but she’s drawn to him. She can only see his profile as she watches him watching the crowd. He does a shot and then another. A feeling of recognition slides through her as he begins to move, his eyes focused on something or someone. He maneuvers through the crowd, approaching the dance floor like a shark surveying its prey. A raven-haired girl in a gold top is dancing with her friend. The man moves toward the girl and his face is clear now. Emma has seen him before. She remembers the face, and the eyes—Stormy Eyes. It’s the man she saw at the gas station. She sips, she watches him, and she burns.