CHAPTER14
The walk home was quiet, intense, and she knew they were wondering about her reaction. And then on top of everything, she’d received another letter. If it was the law, they should just come get her.
Yes, she’d killed Frank, but he deserved to die and she would go to her grave knowing he would have harmed her, just like he’d killed Elizabeth.
When they reached the house, they walked in and Andrew lit the lamps. Sinking down on the sofa, her hands were shaking as she tore open the envelope.
The letter said I’m coming for you bitch.
Tears flowed from her eyes and she leaned over and placed her head in her hands. What had she done to deserve this? Frank was dead. Who would be doing this? Who would want to taunt her?
“Mary, what’s going on?” Jesse asked.
“Honey, we can’t help you if you don’t tell us what has made you so upset.”
Lifting her head, she glanced at her husbands and knew they were good men. Men who could be trusted and would never hurt her the way Frank had killed her sister. As much as she had wanted to keep what she’d done a secret, she needed to be honest with them. The law could be riding in here any moment to take her to jail. To hang her. To tell everyone that she was a murderer.
“I killed my brother-in-law,” she said bleakly. Her mind swirled as she remembered the night everything had finally come to a head. The night she watched him kill her sister.
The two men glanced at one another, their eyes wide. She began to sob and both men moved to either side of her, holding her.
For a moment, Elizabeth’s face swam before her eyes and she could see Frank punching her.
“Frank liked to beat my sister. It seemed like every beating got worse.”
The memory of coming down the stairs, his fists raining blows onto her face had her tensing.
“After the last beating, I had taken to sleeping with a knife under my pillow. He frightened me. That night I woke to hear him screaming at her, calling her a selfish cunt who didn’t know how to make a man happy.
“As I walked slowly down the stairs, I could see him, his fists hitting her over and over again. And then it was like her body snapped from the blows and she crumpled to the ground.”
Tears rolled down her face. “Screaming, I ran to her body, but she was dead. He’d broken her neck. My twin sister lay there not moving, her heart slowly stopped beating. I’d lost my parents to cholera the year before and now she was dead.”
Like it was yesterday, she remembered the rage filling her, the horror, the sorrow, the gripping anguish.
“Then the excuses began. Mary, it was an accident, Frank said as he tried to stop me from leaving the room. I wanted to get as far away from him as I could. The knife was still hidden in the folds of my housecoat. But the last words he said to me, sent me over the edge.”
Sobbing, she whispered. “You know she brought this on herself.” That was when the anger, the outrage, consumed her and she’d wanted to kill him. “Stunned, I stared at the man in disbelief. It was always Elizabeth’s fault. Always and I couldn’t take it anymore. He’d killed my twin sister.”
Andrew reached out and grabbed her hand. “What happened?”
“I tried to slip past him and he grabbed my arms. What he didn’t know was the knife I’d been sleeping with was hidden in my housecoat. After the last time he beat Elizabeth near senseless, I decided to protect myself. Thank God, I did.”
Going back in time, she remembered everything that happened that night.
“I told him to release me and he refused.” She laughed. “He said, Mary, don’t make me hurt you. The words were the same ones he said to Elizabeth. That was all the provocation I needed.”
She took a deep breath and released it. “I raised the knife and stabbed him.”
With a shiver, she remembered the feel of the knife hitting the bone. “I swung the knife up from my skirts and stabbed him in the arm. He screamed and called me a bitch. But I didn’t care. I’d seen what he’d done to my sister. I knew I would be next.”
She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “It was like something released inside me and I stabbed him again. And again. And again. Until finally, he dropped to his knees, his arm dangling. Blood was everywhere and he slumped to the ground.”
A shiver rippled through her. “He begged me to help him and I told him when hell freezes over. After he killed Elizabeth, I was not about to help that monster. I didn’t want him to live and do this to some other woman.”
“What did you do after that?” Jesse asked, picking up her hand.
She’d fled. She couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. Out of that house quick enough.
“After his eyes closed, I ran up the stairs, changed clothes, and left before the servants awoke and discovered what had happened.”
Running out into the darkness to face the longest day of her life, filled with fear and worry, she’d run until her side was hurting, her lungs burning. Somehow she’d escaped from that nightmare.
The two men sat there in silence. They were all quiet as they let the horror of what she’d just told them sink in. She realized they would tell her to leave. After all, she was a murderer. She’d killed a man and they didn’t want the wife of their children to be a criminal.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” she said. “I’ll go pack my things.”
“What?” Andrew said. “Why would you do that?”