Verity

I only arrived here five days ago, but it seems like longer. The days here drag, whereas in New York, well, New York minute.

I heard Myrna tell Jeremy this morning that Verity had a fever, which is why she didn’t bring Verity down at all today before she left for the evening. I wasn’t sad about that. It meant I didn’t have to be in her presence, or look at her from my office window during their outdoor breaks.

I’m looking at Jeremy, though. He’s sitting alone on the back porch, staring out at the lake, leaning back in a rocking chair that he hasn’t rocked in over ten minutes. He’s sitting completely still. Every now and then, he remembers to blink. He’s been out there for a while now.

I wish I knew what thoughts were going through his head right now. Is he thinking of the girls? Of Verity? Is he thinking about how much his life has changed in the past year? He hasn’t shaved in a few days, so his stubble is getting thicker. It looks good on him, but I’m not sure much could look bad on him.

I lean forward on Verity’s desk and drop my chin in my hand. I immediately regret moving, because Jeremy notices. He turns his head and looks at me through the window. I want to look away, force myself to appear busy, but it’s obvious I’ve been staring at him, now that I’m leaned forward on the desk with my head propped on my hand. It would look worse if I tried to hide it at this point, so I just smile gently at him.

He doesn’t return the smile, but he doesn’t look away. We hold eye contact for several seconds, and I feel his stare stirring things up inside me. It makes me wonder if it does anything to him when I look at him.

He inhales a slow breath and then lifts up from his chair and walks away, toward the dock. When he reaches it, he picks up his hammer and begins ripping at the remaining few slabs of wood.

He was probably craving a moment of peace, without Crew or Verity or a nurse or myself invading his privacy.

I need a Xanax. I haven’t taken one in over a week. It makes me groggy, which makes it difficult for me to focus on writing or research. But I’m tired of the moments in this house that send my pulse racing like it is right now. Once the adrenaline kicks in, I can’t seem to reel it in. Whether it’s Jeremy, Verity, or Verity’s books, there’s always something wreaking havoc on my anxiety levels. My reaction to this house and the people in it are more distracting than a little grogginess would be.

I walk to the bedroom to sift through my bag for the Xanax. As soon as I get the bottle open, I hear a scream come from upstairs.

Crew.

I drop my unopened bottle of pills on the bed and rush out of the room and up the stairs. I can hear him crying. It sounds like it’s coming from Verity’s room.

As much as I want to turn around and run in the other direction, I also realize he’s a little boy who might be in trouble, so I keep walking.

When I reach the door, I push it open without knocking. Crew is on the floor, holding his chin. There’s blood on his hands and fingers. A knife next to him on the floor. “Crew?” I reach down and pick him up, then rush him to the bathroom down the hall. I set him on the counter.

“Let me see.” I pull his shaky fingers from his chin to assess the injury. It’s seeping blood, but it doesn’t look to be very deep. It’s a cut right underneath his chin. He must have been holding the knife when he fell. “Did you cut yourself with the knife?”

Crew is wide-eyed, looking up at me. He shakes his head, probably trying to hide that he had a knife. I’m sure Jeremy wouldn’t approve of that. “Mommy said I’m not supposed to touch her knife.”

I freeze. “Your mommy says that?”

Crew doesn’t respond.

“Crew,” I say, grabbing a washcloth. It feels like my heart is stuck in my throat as I speak to him, but I try to hide my fear as I wet the washcloth. “Does your mommy talk to you?”

Crew’s body is rigid, and the only thing that moves is his head when he shakes it. I press the washcloth to his chin right before I hear Jeremy’s footsteps bounding up the stairs. He must have heard Crew scream.

“Crew!” he yells.

“We’re in here.”

Jeremy’s eyes are full of worry when he reaches the door. I step out of his way while still holding the washcloth to Crew’s chin.

“You okay, buddy?”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Crew nods, and Jeremy takes the washcloth from me. He bends down and looks at the injury on Crew’s chin and then at me. “What happened?”

“I think he cut himself,” I say. “He was in Verity’s bedroom. There was a knife on the floor.”

Jeremy looks at Crew, his eyes full of more disappointment than fear now. “What were you doing with a knife?”

Crew shakes his head, sniffling as he tries to stop crying. “I didn’t have a knife. I just fell off the bed.”

Part of me feels bad, like I tattled on the poor kid. I try to cover for him. “He wasn’t holding it. I saw it on the floor and assumed that’s what happened.”

I’m still shaken from what Crew said about Verity and the knife, but I remind myself that everyone talks about Verity in present tense. The nurse, Jeremy, Crew. I’m sure Verity told him not to play with knives in the past, and now my imagination is turning it into more than it is.

Jeremy opens the medicine cabinet behind Crew and grabs a first-aid kit. When he closes the mirror, he’s staring at my reflection. “Go check,” he mouths, motioning toward the door with his head.

I leave the bathroom, but pause in the hallway. I don’t like going in that room, no matter how helpless Verity is. But I also know Crew doesn’t need to have access to a knife, so I trudge forward.

Verity’s door is still wide open, so I tiptoe in, not wanting to wake her. Not that I could. I round the bed, to where Crew was on the floor.

There’s no knife.

I turn around, wondering if maybe I kicked it somewhere when I picked him up. When I still don’t see it, I lower myself to the floor to check under the bed. It’s completely empty beneath the frame, other than a thin layer of dust. I slide my hand beneath the nightstand next to the hospital bed, but find nothing.

I know I saw a knife. I’m not going crazy.

Am I?

I put my hand on the mattress to lift myself up off the floor, but immediately shift backward onto my palms when I catch Verity watching me. Her head is in a different position, turned to the right, her eyes on mine.

Holy shit! I choke on my fear as I scoot myself backward, away from her bed. I end up several feet away from her, and even though her head is the only thing different about her from when I walked into the room, my fear is telling me to run for my life. I pull myself up, using the dresser for support, and keep my eyes fixated on her as I move back toward the door, facing her the whole time. I’m trying to suppress my terror, but I’m not convinced she isn’t about to lunge at me with the knife she picked up from the floor.

I close her door behind me and stand there, gripping the doorknob, until I can control my panic. I breathe in and out, steadily, five times, hoping Jeremy doesn’t see the terror in my eyes when I walk back to tell him there was no knife.

But there was a knife.

My hands are shaking. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust this house. As much as I know I need to stay in order to do the best job, I’d much rather sleep in my rental car on the streets of Brooklyn for the next week than sleep in this house another night.

I squeeze the tension from my neck as I return to the bathroom. Jeremy is bandaging up Crew’s chin.

“You’re lucky you don’t need stitches,” Jeremy says to Crew. He’s helping Crew wash the blood from his hands, and then tells him to go play. Crew brushes past me and returns to Verity’s room.

I find it odd that sitting on her bed while he plays his iPad is fun for him. But then again, I’m sure he just wants to be near his mother. Have at it, buddy. I don’t want to be near her at all.

“Did you grab the knife?” Jeremy asks, drying his hands on a towel.

I try to refrain from sounding as scared as I still feel. “I couldn’t find it.”

Jeremy eyes me for a second and then says, “But you saw one?”

“I thought I did. Maybe I didn’t. It wasn’t there.”

Jeremy brushes past me. “I’ll look around.” He walks toward Verity’s room, but turns around and pauses as he reaches her door. “Thanks for helping him.” He smiles, but it’s a playful grin. “I know how busy you’ve been today.” He winks at me before walking into Verity’s room.

I close my eyes and allow the embarrassment to sink in. I deserved that. He probably thinks all I do is stare out that office window.

I should probably take two Xanax at this point.

When I get back to Verity’s office, the sun is beginning to set, which means Crew will shower and go to bed soon. Verity will remain in her room for the night. And I’ll feel somewhat safe, because for whatever reason, I’m only scared of Verity in this house. And I don’t have to be around her at nighttime. In fact, nighttime has become my favorite time around here because it’s when I see the least of Verity and the most of Jeremy.

I’m not sure how much longer I can try to convince myself that I don’t have a serious crush on that man. I’m also not sure how much longer I can try to convince myself that Verity is a better person than she really is. I think, after reading every book in her series, I’m beginning to understand the reason her suspense novels do so well is because of how she writes them from the villain’s point of view.

Critics love that about her. When I listened to her first audiobook on the drive over, I loved that her narrator seemed a little psychotic. I wondered how Verity got in the mind of her antagonists like she did. But that was before I knew her.

I still don’t technically know her, but I know the Verity who wrote the autobiography. It’s apparent that the way she wrote the rest of her novels wasn’t a unique approach for her. After all, they say write what you know. I’m beginning to think Verity writes from a villainous point of view because she’s a villain. Being evil is all she knows.

I feel a little evil myself as I open the drawer and do exactly what I swore to myself I wouldn’t do again: read another chapter.