Twisted

Chapter 3

Maisie

Present Day

Hope Mills, NC

The bar was crowded, overwhelmingly so, and it was loud enough to leave Maisie's ears ringing. To keep up with her innocent charade, she still wore her wedding band—the weight of which felt insurmountable on her left hand. She couldn't wait to one day take it off, only to never put it back on again.

The police had eaten up her story with ease; all evidence pointed to one woman in particular, the one who had been her best friend. Maisie brought the rim of her glass to her plush lips, the whisky neat burning down her throat. God, she loved dark alcohol. How she had ever lived those seven years without it was now a mystery to her. She was dark all around; black jeans, black top, black boots, black soul. Never before, though, had she felt more alive and free and unapologetically herself.

"How are you doin' with everything, sweets?" Her childhood friend, Beth, asked. Maisie pursed her lips and shrugged. Her answering expression actually wasn't that far from the truth. She really wasn't sure how to feel, other than a slight euphoria at being free from those monsters, and also a slight fear that she would one day be caught by the authorities. She'd been careful in her planning, though, as precise as a heart surgeon.

"Been hard, but now they've got that bitch in custody, I can rest a little easier at night," Maisie said, swirling her finger around the cool glass rim. Beth frowned, reaching across the table to place her hand over one of Maisie's. She felt herself bristling at the physical contact. After years of plain, boring sex once a month from her husband, after being slashed across her face with the jagged end of a broken bottle by that bitch, and after a whole slew of other abhorrent deeds done to her innocent body, Maisie hated affection, shunned any sort of physical contact.

"Can't believe that's how ya got your scar," Beth whispered above the din. Maisie removed her hand and cleared her throat. Remembering that night was something she'd not have brought up, a memory so potent and focused it curled in her gut like a viper. Lashing out was the only way she knew how to protect herself, now.

"And losin' a baby too, my Lord above."

Maisie downed the rest of her whiskey in answer, Jack Daniels Tennessee honey—her favorite. Sure, she'd fabricated the pregnancy as part of her cover story, and she'd also faked her miscarriage, but that was simply close to the real truth, anyways. Maisie knew the sting of losing a child, knew it like she knew her favorite jean jacket, but she wore it in secret, deep in her heart, never to be looked at or examined in any close capacity.

Like everything in her marriage, losing that child hadn't been her choice.

Carter should be burning in hell right about now, Maisie thought as she allowed a small, sadistic smile to curl onto her plush lips. Carter and Randy, while Lindsay rotted away in the confines of prison. Sure, there was still the trial, the witness stand, and a whole host of other hurdles, but she knew the charges Lindsay faced, and she was satisfied with the job she'd done and the evidence she'd fabricated.

Everyone her whole life had underestimated her; barely graduating high school because she had undiagnosed dyslexia, barely holding down a job because the men were flirts and the women hated her for her southern belle charm and good looks. So when Carter had been passing through Hope Mills on his way to a business trip eight years ago when she was working at the local gas station, she'd fallen head over heels for the older man who had it all together.

Carter had taken one look at her and seen a diamond in the rough, a child he could mould and shape like clay into the housewife and trophy he'd always wanted. They'd married when she was nineteen, and it had been a roller coaster, him dousing her fiery spirit while simultaneously ignoring her, unable to please her in any capacity that mattered to a young woman. She needed time and affection, to enjoy a honeymoon phase, and all she'd received was backlash for each minute mistake she ever made.