The Devil_s Garden

TWENTY-THREE

Sitting at the dining-room table, Abby felt as if she were going to throw up. The words Aleks had spoken still seemed to be ringing in her ears.

They are my daughters.

When Zoe Meisner had come over, Abby met her at the edge of the property. Abby explained away the man named Kolya as a man who was there to give them a price on some landscaping. Zoe had given Abby a sly smile – Eden Falls was nothing if not discreet about its various trysts and daytime assignations – and it was probably due to her salacious suspicions that Zoe had scurried away rather quickly, only to observe Abby and Kolya from the alleged cover of the small greenhouse at the rear of the Meisner property.

They are my daughters.

As much as Abby wanted to believe it was all a bad dream, as much as she wanted to believe this man was lying to her, that it was some sort of ploy to extort money out of them, one look at Aleks’s face told her it was none of the above. There was no mistaking the resemblance. He looked like the girls.

But why, after all this time, had he shown up now? What did he want?

Abby watched the girls playing tag, each taking turns being ‘it’. They never seemed to let each other take the role of seeker or sought too long. Abby wondered what it would be like to be that selfless. She loved Michael with all her heart, but she had to admit to a certain dark glee at besting him at backgammon or chess or even gin rummy. Not so for the twins.

Abby looked at the corner of the lot. She noticed a small shiny object. When she focused she realized it was a bow, a shiny pink bow. A breeze soon gathered it up and tumbled it across the yard.

It’s from the party, Abby thought. The party that now seemed to be a hundred years ago, a time when her family was intact, and there were no monsters in a place called Eden Falls, New York.

While Kolya watched her from the backyard, Abby turned her head to the sounds of the house. She heard footsteps above her – barely, Aleks seemed to be extremely light on his feet. She heard a closet door open and close. She tried to think of what he might find. There wasn’t much. Most of their important papers – the deed to the house, insurance, passports – were in the file cabinet in the office on the first floor. There was a jewelry box on the nightstand, but nothing in it of value. She and Michael used to joke that if the jewelry box cost more than the jewelry, you don’t need a jewelry box.

Then there was the gun. The gun was usually kept in a foam-lined aluminum case on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, beneath a box of old greeting cards. Had she locked it? Of course she had. She always locked it.

Then it hit her. The alarm system. The panic button. It was across the living room, three steps to the right, next to the front door. If she could just get there without Aleks or Kolya noticing, she could have the police on the way in minutes.

Was this the right thing to do? Would these men hurt her or the girls if the police just showed up at the door? What would Michael do? What would Michael want her to do?

She tried to put all these questions out of her mind as she slowly rose to her feet and, before she could think of a reason to stop herself, ran to the foyer.