Last To Leave, page 1
Last To Leave
R.L. Kennedy
Copyright © 2024 R.L. Kennedy
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Chapter One
My husband was murdered.
Of course, the cops disagree. They concluded it was an accident, but that’s wrong. I don’t believe for one second that his death was accidental.
Someone wanted him to die. Someone killed him. On purpose. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I feel it in my skin. If it was merely an accident, I wouldn’t be having a panic attack right now, certain I just heard footsteps outside my bedroom window. Someone was watching Paul before he died. Now, someone is watching me.
I try the breathing techniques my therapist taught me. They feel useless, and I wonder if it’s less about the breathing and more about the distraction. Within a minute I’m thinking about how much I pay my therapist to teach me things like breathing - a natural, practically involuntary thing - and viola, the panic attack dissipates. However, I’m sure there will be more.
There are so many things that unnerve me about my husband’s murder. We were only married for six years, despite my expectations it would be more like sixty. I cry at night over the fact we weren’t able to conceive a child before our time was cut short. I hate the way I feel uncomfortable in my own house. Our home, the one we picked out together just a month before our wedding. It was robbed and vandalized the morning Paul was killed, and things haven’t felt right since that fateful day.
But these aren’t the things that bother me the most. Very few people make it sixty years. There are probably worse travesties in life than my inability to bear children. And I was fortunate not to have to clean up the aftermath of Paul’s gruesome death on my own. A team of close family and friends helped with that.
Those things don’t hold a candle to what truly disturbs me the most about his murder.
The thing that keeps me up at night? Or worse, when I do finally fall into a much-needed slumber, the thing that wakes me up shaking in a cold sweat?
The fact that since the murderer is still out there, running free - I’m now receiving anonymous letters threatening my own life.
That’s how I know I’m not being paranoid. I have real, tangible proof that someone wants me to die too. I’m holding one of their letters in my hands now, and can’t help the chill creeping up my spine, knowing someone out there intends to hurt me.
Don’t you ever get the feeling that there are eyes on you at all times? Someone always there, waiting for you in the darkness?
I’m in the middle of pulling my long, dark hair into a messy bun when I suddenly pause. I catch my breath. I lower my arms, straining to listen. There it is again. I’m certain I hear something outside my living room window.
I slow my breathing, trying to discern the sound. Snap. Scrape. Creak. While there are endless possibilities - a small branch, falling from a tree - the breeze rustling through my dead daylilies - a loose fence board - that means there is also the possibility of it being a person, outside my home right now, watching me. The ground moves under the weight of their body. The wind shifts as they block its flow.
Suddenly an arm bangs on my front door, causing me to jump. I don’t move to open it. Instead, the person on the other side speaks loud enough for me to hear them through the wood. “I brought up your recycling bin. It’s been out two days past pickup! You must get better about that, Trish.”
Okay, so it’s just an annoying neighbor. Or rather, I am the annoying neighbor I suppose, always forgetting to bring in my recycling and trash bins. Those were things Paul used to handle. There are so many things I still feel out of routine on, even though it’s been months. Once I’m inside with the doors locked at night, I rarely leave. Especially after dark.
It’s not just the footsteps I hear late at night in my backyard, or the fact that I feel eyes on me through the trees as I walk out of work after the sun has set. I’ve always had a heightened sense of paranoia when I’m walking somewhere alone at night, I can admit that. I’ve always been that way.
But now, ever since Paul died? It’s different. It’s not just merely feeling eyes on me through the darkness. Someone is actually threatening me. I feel not just stalked, but hunted.
These notes I’m receiving, slipped under my door mat from time to time - why is some psychopath doing this to me? They are increasing my paranoia. Deepening my wounds. Haven’t I suffered enough?
I’ve been receiving these hand-delivered notes for months since Paul’s passing. They warn me that I’ll be next. They suggest that I will die the same way, in my own home. Our home. The one I expected to live inside with Paul for years until we needed something bigger for our growing family, despite that never coming to fruition.
Who would send these letters to a widow who has already lost everything? One life, already gone - and now they are targeting me as the next victim? Who is sick enough to do that to a person?
Sadly, I suspect it’s someone I know. Someone close. Someone who helped comfort me in the aftermath of Paul’s death. I just need to figure out who that person is.
Yes, I know - I should call the cops. I’ve mulled it over a thousand times. But the cops did nothing to solve Paul’s murder. It didn’t take long for them to dismiss the entire thing as an unfortunate accident, despite obvious signs of a forced entry and the fact that jewelry and cash were missing. They said Paul ‘slipped’ and fell, striking his head on the slab of marble footing beneath the fireplace mantle.
To slip and fall is one thing. Surely it happens. But for his watch to be missing - a family heirloom, no less - and our emergency fund, gone? Tables flipped, drawers overturned? There were too many unanswered questions. It didn’t look like an ‘accident’ to me. Not at all.
But no one seems to care anymore about the details surrounding his death. The rest of the world moved on quickly, without me. The cops said it was an accident, everyone believed it, and that was it. Case closed. The world kept spinning.
But my world hasn’t been the same since that traumatic day, and I am absolutely positive his death wasn’t merely an accident. I’m sure he was murdered, but no one wants to talk about it. Calling it an ‘accident’ seems easier for everyone to swallow. They can move on with their lives, completely unafraid and oblivious to the truth that someone most certainly came into our home that day and killed him.
How can our friends and loved ones dismiss the truth so easily? Because it helps them sleep at night? Good for them. But I can tell you, I most certainly do not sleep well at night, all alone in our home, wondering who is now after me.
Don’t get me wrong, people cared in the beginning, right after the ordeal. I received sympathy cards for a few weeks. Casserole dishes were dropped off for a month, despite now being the only person in this God-forsaken house who needs to eat. But Paul passed in April, and it’s now September. There are no more sympathy cards. No more casseroles. No more check-ins, making sure I’m still all right. No one left questioning if, perhaps, Paul’s death wasn’t an accident after all.
That is, until these letters started arriving on my doorstep.
Now I know I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who knows Paul’s death wasn’t an accident. The person sending me these letters? They know it too. I wish more people were aware of that fact. I want to shout it from the rooftops, but I would be labeled and ridiculed for my outpour of emotion. But this person sending me these letters? They must know everything. But instead of helping me, it seems they are waiting in the wings to cause more damage.
I have so many questions. I want to know what they know. I want them to tell me how it all really went down that dreadful day. Not the improbable accident story everyone wants me to believe. I want the person threatening me to recount an actual play-by-play of what happened that frightful morning Paul was found dead inside our home.
The problem is, I have no clue as to who is sending me these letters. All I know is that they want me to die too. Is it because they want me to be with Paul in death? Our love, reunited? Or for some other reason? I can’t for the life of me figure out why someone would want to cause me more suffering than what I’ve already endured.
I take a seat on the couch, smoothing out th
I’ve read the letter at least five times since it arrived yesterday, tucked under the frayed coir doormat resting outside my front door. I keep telling myself I’ll get one of those video doorbells, but I know as soon as I do that, they’ll just put the notes elsewhere. Maybe on the dash of my car. Inside my mailbox.
In addition to a video camera, I also keep telling myself I’m going to move as soon as I can afford it so I no longer have to live in this house.
But of course, that won’t be happening any time soon.
Turns out people aren’t too interested in buying a home someone has just died inside.
Plus, to add to my pain, the miserable housing market means my mortgage is currently under water, so a move isn’t realistically in the cards anytime soon. Paul had no life insurance policy. Apparently he thought we were going to live together for another sixty years as well, and planned - or didn’t - as such. It’s as beautiful as it is melancholy. I’m not mad about it. His money was my money, which meant I knew we didn’t have much of it. That never bothered me. But realizing I couldn’t leave this house after he was brutally murdered in it? That’s been hard. There are too many memories here. It’s only increased my sadness, and it surely isn’t helping my panic attacks.
I stare back at the letter I’m holding, neatly typed on plain white paper. Nothing to give the author away. No postmark on the outside. No signature line or margin notes so I can agonize over the handwriting to figure out whether or not it looks familiar.
I read it out loud, wondering if that will help me better interpret it.
“If you aren’t careful, Paul’s death won’t be the only one.”
Although what is there to interpret? It seems rather straightforward. However, the part that gets me is the word careful. What does that mean? If I go to the cops, I’m next? If I tell someone about the letters, I’m next? If I tear the tag off my mattress - the one that says it’s a crime if I do so - is that not being careful enough? What exactly does this person expect me to do or not do?
I stare back at the piece of paper in my hands. How many more notes will there be before this person acts on these threats? I know I’m running out of time. These threatening notes aren’t going to last forever. I expect this person to act on them eventually. Paul’s death won’t be the only one.
Right.
Because I will die next. That’s what this note means. That’s the message they are trying to send me, loud and clear. But why?
I think back to the other letters I’d received. The first note confused me when I first read it. I thought it was still a sympathy card, mixed in with the barrage of others I’d received. It was basically a sorry for your loss message, just like the rest. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. Sure, I was curious as to why it wasn’t signed, but was that so crazy? I once sent a check to the utility company that I’d forgotten to sign, and our water was shut off several weeks later for lack of payment. Paul wasn’t thrilled about that mistake. But surely I’m not the only person to make such an error.
Forgetting a signature wasn’t a crime, and it certainly wasn’t always intentional. It happened. I could attest that my own brain sure wasn’t in the right place after Paul’s death. I thought perhaps the sender of that card loved him dearly and was also in a disheveled state of mind.
It was after I received the second unsigned letter, however, that I was no longer in denial as to the type of message I was being sent. Who knew such a beautiful home could also be a dangerous place? We only see what we want to see, Patricia, and I see you. Eyes open. There was nothing sympathetic about it. Someone was out to get me too.
That’s when I started trying to hone in on who would send me letters like these.
I made a short list of potential senders right after I’d received that second note. I wrote down the names of all of the people I thought were capable of doing something like this.
I open up my notebook to scour the names I’ve written down. A couple people have been added over the last several months, but none have been removed since I first created the list.
It’s a solid collection. I’m sure about that. And quite frankly, it’s the only semblance of a hunch I’ve been able to muster up since the letters started arriving on my stoop. There are nine total names scribbled here. Some of them I know well, while a couple I do not know well at all.
But what I do know? One of these names I’ve written down in this book belongs to the person who wants me dead - and I am going to gather them all face to face and get to the bottom of it.
Chapter Two
The first few suspects I wrote down came to me easily.
There were a few developments after Paul’s death. The discovery that he was having an affair, for example. That was certainly a shock. I suspected it at one time, sure. Doesn’t every wife at one time or another? Their husband seems a little distant. He works a little too late. It’s always there in the back of our minds, isn’t it? The mere possibility of it? But I didn’t know it was actually true. Not until a full month after his death.
I wrote Mistress Megan down as a suspect on my list immediately. A murder and an affair? Those two things are often intertwined, aren’t they? I’ve listened to enough podcasts and watched enough Datelines to believe it. Just because I knew nothing about the affair at the time of his death, that doesn’t mean the affair wasn’t related somehow. Surely Mistress Megan would have a long list of valid reasons to not only kill Paul, but then to threaten me thereafter. She seemed like the most obvious suspect - though certainly not the only one.
After her name, I wrote down Realtor Nancy - the woman who ultimately told me about the affair after the fact. She was a mutual acquaintance of ours. Nancy never bothered to mention the scandalous relationship to me until after Paul’s passing. Did she have a duty to tell me while it was happening? Was she any more my friend than Paul’s? Maybe, maybe not. But she sold us this house, for Pete’s sake. She knew we were happy. She saw it herself when we signed the mortgage papers. We were so giddy that day, beaming from ear to ear. I remember my cheeks hurt that night from smiling too much as we laid on an air mattress in our new-but-completely-bare living room. Didn’t Nancy know how happy and in love Paul and I were? Didn’t she see it all over our faces?
Every time we saw Realtor Nancy out and about around town she promised to find us an upgraded home once our family started to grow. The thought of her knowing about Paul’s affair without saying a word? It grated on me. She knew all about it and said nothing.
She probably knows who Paul’s murderer is too, but can’t be bothered to tell anyone if she doesn’t get a house sale out of it. What a wench.
Would Nancy send me letters like this? I’m not sure. But is it possible that she knows who is sending them, and it’s just one more secret she’s keeping from me? Maybe. She’s not trustworthy, I know that much. If she’s not a murderer, she’s at least a stone cold liar. She’s one of those people who always seems to know more than they let on. That’s enough to keep her on my list of suspects.
The other names are odds and ends. Family. Friends. Neighbors. Anyone I could think of who might feel they have a stake in Paul’s death, and subsequently, mine.
But what would anyone gain from my death? It’s not like Realtor Nancy would have one more house to sell. No one wants to buy it as it is. A second murder inside these walls wasn’t going to help that.
And Mistress Megan, well, she’s the one who stole from me. Why would she want me to suffer any more than I already have? What would she get from it? Paul was already dead. There was no contest anymore between us. Though it’s not like I even knew I was losing before he passed. How could I be so naive to not even know he was sharing his life with someone else? Maybe I’m the ultimate loser in that regard. I guess I didn’t know Paul as well as I thought. As time passes, I’m starting to wonder how well I knew him at all. Can you ever really, truly know somebody? Every flaw? Every single secret they have?
