Monk by Ivy Black
Chapter Nine
Kasey
The rainbow-colored unicorn stares back at me from the pink t-shirt in my hands, its wide, goofy smile glittering in the sunlight that seeps through the window. Shaking my head, I stuff it into the large trash bag sitting on the floor, wondering why in the hell I have ever worn something so gaudy and gauche.
“What in the hell was I thinking?” I mutter to myself.
I look at the bag stuffed full of clothes on the floor and find myself smiling, a flood of memories washing over me. Those clothes represent a far simpler time in my life. Most of them are from high school, a time when I didn’t have the constant stress and worry that I seem to have these days. A time when I felt free, with my whole future and endless opportunities laid out before me.
Fresh off my morning sensual endorphin rush, I get to work cleaning and reorganizing my room. If I’m going to be here for a while—and I’m pretty sure I will be—I want to make things comfortable. I take down the old pictures and posters, scrubbing away every trace of the teenage girl who once inhabited this room. As I work, I let my mind drift back through time, thinking back to those halcyon days of high school and realize it’s probably the last time I felt genuinely happy.
Although, I can see now just how fragile that happiness was. It was shattered just after my sophomore year, and I don’t know if I’ve ever truly put it all back together. Not really. Oh, I was happy for a time in college, and even early on in my marriage to Spencer. But there was always something missing. Some small piece of the puzzle that has never been put back into place.
For a long while, I was able to ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. But it was always a constant irritant in the back of my mind. Like a splinter that’s stuck just underneath the skin that you can’t dig out. It seems more accurate to say that after my heart was shattered, I was only happy to a point.
I can feel the darkness and melancholia creeping in at the edges of my heart, so I quickly push it away. Over the years, I’ve learned to stuff it all down and lock it away so I can carry on with my day. It’s the only way I’ve been able to get through some rough days over the past few years. I’ve gotten very good at compartmentalizing.
The muffled ringing of my phone draws my attention—thankfully pulling me out of my head and my increasingly morose thoughts. I’ve been expecting a call from David, who promised to keep me updated about having Spencer served with the divorce papers. After rummaging around in my bag for a moment, I find my phone, connect the call, and press it to my ear.
“Hey,” I say.
“I wanted to give you a day to clear your head and come to your senses. But given the fact that I’m holding divorce papers in my hand, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, does it, Kasey? I can’t believe you had me served at my office. Are you trying to humiliate me?”
The sound of Spencer’s voice sends a rush of pure ice flowing through my veins. I’ve been expecting him to call. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to reach me since last night. But even still, just the sound of his voice is enough to send a strong flutter through my heart.
My saving grace and the thing that keeps me from completely panicking is that Spencer doesn’t know where I am. It’s strange, it’s as if somehow I’ve known I might need a safe place to run to, even back then, but I’ve never specifically told him where my hometown is, nor does he ever really ask. He is always too caught up in himself and his own life to worry about mine. And on those rare occasions he did ask, I had always been purposefully vague. He’s never followed up or seemed to even notice my aversion to telling him really.
The few times he’d met my dad, it was when he was coming into the city to visit us. And those trips were few and far between. Spencer has always known there’s a big rift between me and my dad and will have no reason to expect me to return home because of it. But even if he thinks I will, like I said, it’s not like he knows where home is anyway. Thankfully.
“We were over a long time ago, Spencer.”
“We should talk about this,” he says calmly, his voice even, “like the rational and mature adults we are.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Honestly, I should have done this long before now. I think you know that. I mean, you can’t tell me you’ve been happy.”
He sighs heavily on the other end of the line. “Look, I know we’ve had a rough time of things lately. I know we haven’t communicated very well, and I’m sorry for my part in that. But I love you, Kasey. I want to work this out with you.”
This is what I hate most about Spencer—or maybe it’s what he makes me hate about myself the most. He sounds so sincere and so reasonable as he speaks, it’s hard to doubt him. But that’s the trap. I know it, and I fall back into it every goddamn time. He knows exactly what to say and how to say it to weaken my defenses. To make me think that maybe this is the time he actually means what he says.
This is the sort of push and pull I’ve dealt with ever since. He’ll say or do something outrageously shitty or mean, and then come back with sweet words, honeyed kisses, and I find myself getting sucked back in again and again. Every. Single. Time. And nothing’s ever changed. He’s always gone right back to being the same sort of asshole and doing the same shitty things to me all over again.
After pacing my room for a moment, I stop at the window and stare out at the forest beyond the glass. The trees are packed closely together, their trunks wide and soaring to the heavens. Reaching out, I unlatch the window and push it outward as I close my eyes and breathe in the musky, earthy scent of the forest, and the salty aroma of the sea breeze.
This time is going to be different. This is where I break the cycle. It’s time.
“I’m done, Spencer. We’re done. I’m not going to play this game anymore.”
“Where are you, Kasey?” he asks. “I’ll come to you and we can talk. We can—”
“No. Are you even listening to me? I don’t want to be married to you anymore. I’m done. I’m walking away.”
There’s a long pause on the line and I can practically feel him seething. I can tell that the anger I’ve become so familiar with is now building up inside of him. I hold my breath, waiting for him to explode.
“You don’t really think I’m going to let you go that easily, do you?” he spits, his voice tight.
“Spencer—”
“Especially not with the bag of money you stole from me. I want it—and you—back home. Tell me where you are. I’m not fucking around, Kasey.”
“No. I’m getting far, far away from you. That’s all you need to know.”
Falling silent for a moment, I consider my options and see that I don’t have many. Not unless I want to see Spencer again face to face anyway, and I most certainly don’t want that. My gaze falls onto the bag sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor and I shake my head. I know I shouldn’t have taken it when I left, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, not to mention desperate as hell. I’m going to have to put that in my it-sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time” file.
But as I kick the bag with my toe, my stomach feeling weak, it hits me that there’s nothing he can do about it. This isn’t the kind of money he can report stolen. It’s cartel cash. That realization gives me a boost of confidence.
“Well, we all want things we can’t have in life, huh?” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment. My belly churns, and my throat is dry. Despite the distance between us and the fact that he doesn’t know where I am, I’m still nervous. Knowing what he’s into genuinely scares me. And the more I think about it, the more scared I become.
“Kasey, you really don’t want to do this.”
His voice is low and menacing. This is another one of his intimidation tactics, and it usually works well. I am scared, but I also know I’m somewhat safe, so it gives me some small sense of security.
“And what do you think the cops would say if I turned this in and told them where it came from?” I give myself a small pat on the back for keeping the quaver out of my voice. “Cops tend to look funny at large bags of cash like this. If I turn it in to them, it might even cause a lot of problems for you.”
“I’m warning you. You know who that money belongs to. And believe me when I say you really don’t want to piss him off. He doesn’t take well to people who steal from him, Kasey. I genuinely don’t want to see anything bad happen to you.”
“I’m sure you’ve got the money squirreled away to replace this. Just think about this as our divorce settlement. Sign the papers and we’ll never have to see each other again. I won’t ask you for anything else.”
“Kasey—”
“Sign the papers. If you need to speak with me again, do so through my attorney. I believe you have his card.”
Before he can reply, I disconnect the call. My hand is trembling, and I drop the phone onto the bed. It immediately starts to ring again, so I shut it off and make a mental note to get a new phone tomorrow. Aside from David, it’s not like I’ve got many people who are going to be calling me anyway. Spencer did a good job of cutting me off from just about everybody in my life when we were still together. It took me a while to see that he’d totally isolated me, and by then, it was too late.
Looking at the bag of cash sitting there, I feel a sudden roiling in my belly like a snake that’s coiled and ready to strike. For the first time, I start to wonder if maybe I’ve made a mistake by taking it to begin with, then compounded that mistake by refusing to return it. I have to bank on the idea that Spencer will want to keep himself from having his head cut off and will use his own money to pay off his cartel boss. If he doesn’t and he points Miguel Zavala in my direction, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I sit down on the edge of my bed and bury my face in my hands. “What in the fuck am I even doing?”
Needing to take my mind off it all, I carry my clothes to the closet and hang them up as a memory flashes through my mind. A smile creeping across my lips, I squat down and run my fingertips around the wooden floor until I find the small notch in the floorboards. Sliding my fingertip into that notch, I pull the square of wood up, revealing the secret space beneath.
Looking at the darkened square in the floor, I frown. I retreat back into the room and grab my phone and the stupid unicorn t-shirt from the bag, then walk back into the closet. I kneel down and turn on the flashlight on my phone, then I lean over the hole and shine it in. The cobwebs are thick, and there are probably some creepy crawlies I can’t see. My stash hole doesn’t look like it’s been used since I last hid things in here when I was a kid.
Using the t-shirt, I clean out the hole as best as I can. That done, I drag the bag of money over and stuff it down into the hole. After replacing the square of wood, I toss some shoes and a few boxes onto the floor to conceal the trap door. Standing up, I nod to myself, satisfied with my progress for the day.
The conversation with Spencer is still echoing through my head, and it’s making me feel restless. Among other things, anyway. Feeling like I’m going a little stir crazy, I decide to take a shower and get out of here for a little while.
Might as well reacquaint myself with my hometown.
