Mommy Dearest Read online

  They stay on the island for the entire week, honeymooning, enjoying each other to the fullest. Crystal can’t stop telling him just how happy she is.

  When they come home, life gets back to normal. Rob works a load of overtime to make up for the entire week he was gone, while Crystal returns to her everyday chores. Everything is good and neither of them can complain.

  Rob talks to his brother regularly and is relieved to know that his mother is settled in at the retirement home about an hour’s drive outside of Bucharest, even though she constantly fights his brothers on the decision and has run away three times the first week. He is certain it is the right decision, even though it fills him with a great deal of guilt.

  It’s only natural.

  About two weeks after returning from their honeymoon, Rob and Crystal make love before bedtime as usual, and he gets up to go to the bathroom. Crystal stays in bed, reading her book.

  “Honey?” he says from the bathroom.

  “Hm?”

  He walks out and stands next to the bed. Crystal is in the middle of a very interesting passage in her book and doesn’t look up. She doesn’t really listen either.

  “I have a rash,” he says. “I need some of that lotion of yours, you know the good stuff.”

  “Hm? Yeah, yeah. It’s in the drawer.”

  Rob goes to the dresser and pulls out the top drawer, finds the lotion and starts to put it on. When he puts the lotion back, he sees something and pulls it out.

  “Honey?”

  “Hm?”

  “What’s this?”

  Frantically, Rob picks up one small round picture after another, all with Crystal’s face on them.

  “What’s that, honey?” she asks.

  “These…these clip-outs, are they from…they’re the ones from the pictures, aren’t they? From the pictures in the living room, the ones you said my mother…and why is my life insurance policy in your drawer?”

  Rob hears the sound of a gun being cocked and turns to look straight into the barrel of the gun he usually keeps in the nightstand.

  He drops the cut-out pictures to the floor.

  “Crystal…? Honey…what’s…?”

  20

  “Crystal? What are you doing?”

  Rob speaks with a shivering voice.

  “I wanted to wait a couple more weeks,” Crystal says. “Give us time to fully enjoy being married for a little longer. But why not do this now?”

  “I-I-I don’t understand. You cut out your own face from those pictures?” he says. “Why? To turn me against my own mother? Why would you want me to turn against my mother?”

  “I had to get her out of here. I had to stop her from moving here. She was in my way. Besides, I was afraid she might tell you not to marry me. I couldn’t very well have that happen, now could I?”

  “So…so, you made it look like my mother…what about the blood on the skirt?”

  She shrugs. “Wasn’t really blood. Smelled more like paint, if you ask me. Who knows where she could have gotten it on her clothes? Maybe she leaned against a newly painted wall. Does it matter?”

  “What about the dog? What about Fifi? Was that your work too?” Rob gasps. “You killed Fifi?”

  “Well… I hit her with my car. It wasn’t exactly on purpose. The dog had run away and was in the street and I…well, I didn’t slow down when I saw it. Let’s keep it at that. I used one of your mother’s scarves to bury it in the yard.”

  “But…but…the rattling of the door at night, the person trying to get into our bedroom, to Steve and Marcia’s?”

  “I don’t know who tried to enter the Coopers’ house at night, but it gave me the idea,” Crystal says. “If I made it look like your mother was senile and wandering off at night, then maybe you’d send her back to a retirement home. I can’t have her moving here. Plus, I needed you to call the police and tell them someone was trying to break in. There never was anyone. I just told you there was and you believed me every time.”

  “W-w-why? Crystal why?”

  “You really haven’t figured that part out yet, have you? I gotta tell you, you really shouldn’t trust people as easily as you do.”

  “The life insurance,” he says. “You can’t be serious…”

  “Oh, but I am,” she says and presses the gun against the skin of his forehead. He is sweating.

  “You won’t get away with it.”

  “I beg to differ,” she says. “See, you reported it to the police, remember? It’s in their files that someone tried to get into our house several times recently. Even into the neighbor’s house. So, what they’ll learn once they arrive is that tonight, he actually did. The intruder came in and when you jumped out of bed to protect your wife, he shot you, then ran out and disappeared. The police will look for him all night, searching the beach, finding nothing, not even the gun that I disposed of. And you’ll be named a hero, while I’ll be the poor grieving widow, with ten million dollars in my bank account and this lovely beach house to mourn in…oh, and yeah, let’s not forget the bracelet. The gorgeous diamond bracelet.”

  Rob stares at her in disbelief. “But…so…you…it was all just a lie? You made me blame my own mother? And…and you killed Fifi?”

  “Guess so.”

  “You’re a murderer!”

  “Now, Rob, I wouldn’t say that since I do believe you are supposed to kill a human being in order to be called an actual murderer.” Crystal smiles, then pulls the trigger. Rob’s body falls to the ground with a thud. Strike the cat hisses and runs away. Crystal bends over and looks at her husband.

  “But I guess now I am.”

  THE END

  Afterword

  Dear reader,

  Thanks for purchasing Mommy Dearest. I got the idea for this short story after one terrifying night. My husband and I were safe in bed, sleeping, when we suddenly woke up and there was someone outside the door to our bedroom, trying to get in, pulling the door (it was locked luckily). We had my husband’s mother visiting from Denmark and we were both certain it was her, because the person we spotted outside was slumped forward, walking like her. Thinking she might be lost or confused and not being able to find her way back, we stormed outside, yelling her name, but when we got out there, no one was there. It was like she vanished into thin air. We ran into the neighbor’s yard and called her name. Then we ran to check on her in the guestroom, and found her still in her bed, all the lights still on. It was the strangest and scariest thing. So that’s when I knew I had to write the story.

  We never found out who it was.

  Don’t forget to leave a review if you can. It means so much to me.

  Thank you for all your support,

  Willow

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  Copyright Willow Rose 2016

  Published by BUOY MEDIA

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Cover design by Juan Villar Padron,

  https://juanjjpadron.wixsite.com/juanpadron

  Special thanks to my editor Janell Parque

  http://janellparque.blogspot.com/

  Connect with Willow Rose:

  willow-rose.net

  [email protected]

  About the Author

  The Queen of Scream, Willow Rose, is an international best-selling author. She writes Mystery/Suspense/Horror, Paranormal Romance and Fantasy. She is inspired by authors like James Patterson, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Isabel Allende. She lives on Florida's Space Coast with her husband and two daughters. When she is not writing or reading, you'll find her surfing and watching the dolphins play in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. She has sold more than two million books.

  Connect with Willow online:

  willow-rose.net

  [email protected]

  What hurts the most - excerpt

  For a special sneak peak of Willow Rose's Bestselling Mystery Novel What hurts the most(7th Street Crew), turn to the next page.

  Prologue

  Cocoa Beach 1995

  They’re not going to let her go. She knows they won’t. Holly is terrified as she runs through the park. The sound of the waves is behind her. A once so calming sound now brings utter terror to her. She is wet. Her shirt is dripping, her shoes making a slobbering sound as she runs across the parking lot towards the playground.

  Run, run! Don’t look back. Don’t stop or they’ll get you!

  She can hear their voices behind her. It’s hard to run when your feet are tied together. They’re faster than she is, even though they are just walking.

  “Oh, Holly,” one of them yells. “Hoooollllyyy!”

  Holly pants, trying to push herself forward. She wants desperately to move faster, but the rope tied around her feet blocks them and she falls flat on her face onto the asphalt. Holly screams loudly as her nose scratches across the ground.

  Get up! Get up and run. You can’t let them get you.

  She can hear them laughing behind her.

  You can make it, Holly. Just get to A1A right in front of you. Only about a hundred feet left. There are cars on the road. They’ll see you. Someone will see you and help you.

  She tries to scream, but she has no air in her lungs. She is exhausted from swimming with her legs tied together. Luckily, her arms got free when she jumped in the water. They have pulled off her pants. Cut them open with a knife and pulled them off. Before they stabbed her in the shoulder. It hurts when she runs. Blood has soaked her white shirt. She is naked from the stomach down, except for her shoes and socks. Holly is in so much pain and can hardly move. Yet, she fights to get closer to the road.

  A car drives by. Then another one. She can see them in the distance, yet her vision is getting foggier. She can’t lose consciousness now.

  You’ve got to keep fighting. You’ve got to get out of here! Don’t give up, Holly. Whatever you do, just don’t give up.

  Their footsteps are approaching from behind. Holly is groaning and fighting to get a few more steps in.

  So close now. So close.

  “Hurry up,” she hears them yell. “She’s getting away!”

  Holly is so close now she can smell the cars’ exhaust. All she needs to do is get onto the road, then stop a car. That’s all she needs to do to get out of there alive. And she is so close now.

  “Stop her, goddammit,” a voice yells.

  Holly fights to run. She moves her feet faster than she feels is humanly possible. She is getting there. She is getting there. She can hear them start to run now. They are yelling to each other.

  “Shoot her, dammit.”

  Holly gasps, thinking about the spear gun. She’s the one who taught them how to shoot it. She knows they won’t hesitate to use it to stop her. She knows how they think. She knows this is what they do. She knows this is a kick for them, a drug.

  She knows, because she is one of them.

  “Stop the bitch!” someone yells, and she hears the sound of the gun going off. She knows this sound so well, having been spearfishing all her life and practiced using the gun on land with her father. He taught her everything about spearfishing, starting when she was no more than four years old. He even taught her to hold her breath underwater for a very long time.

  “Scuba diving is for tourists. Real fishers free dive,” she hears his voice say, the second the spear whistles through the air.

  It hits Holly in the leg and she tumbles to the ground. Holly falls to the pavement next to A1A with a scream. She hears giggles and voices behind her. But she can also hear
something else. While she drags herself across the pavement, she can hear the sound of sirens.

  “Shit!” the voices behind her say.

  “We gotta get out of here.”

  “RUN!”

  1

  September 2015

  Blake Mills is enjoying his coffee at Starbucks. He enjoys it especially today. He is sipping it while looking at his own painting that they have just put up on display inside the shop. He has been trying to convince the owner of the local Starbucks in Cocoa Beach for ages to put up some of his art on display, and finally Ray agreed to let him hang up one of his turtle paintings. Just for a short period, to see how it goes.

  It is Blake’s personal favorite painting and he hopes it will attract some business his way. As a small artist in a small town, it is hard to make a living, even though Blake offers paintings by order, so anyone can get one any way they want it and can be sure it will fit their house or condo. It isn’t exactly the way the life of an artist is supposed to be, but it is the only way to do it if he wants to eat.

  Blake decides to make it a day of celebration and buys an extra coffee and a piece of cake to eat as well. He takes a bite and enjoys the taste.

  “Looking good,” a voice says behind him. He turns in his chair and looks into the eyes of Olivia.

  Olivia Hartman. The love of his life.

  Blake smiles to himself. “You came,” he whispers and looks around. Being married, Olivia has to be careful whom she is seen with in this town.