The Perfect Husband by Chris Taylor Read Free Book Online

doorway to the kitchen, his
eyes filled with tears. Isobel cried out at the terrified
expression on his face.
    “Get out of here, Ben, or you’ll be next,”
Nigel growled and Isobel’s heart stood still.
    “Please don’t hurt Mommy. Please, Daddy,
please. Please don’t hurt Mommy.” Ben’s sobs came harder and his
body shook with fear, but he bravely held his ground. Isobel bit
down hard on her lip to hold back a torrent of tears.
    “Ben, baby, please go back inside. Daddy and
I… We…we…”
    With a savage curse, Nigel stepped back and
turned and moved away. He threw the knife across the room and it
clattered loudly into the sink. Isobel collapsed back against the
freezer door and dropped her head into her hands, sobbing out of
control. She trembled so violently, her legs gave out and she
crumpled to the floor.
    In some distant part of her mind, she
registered the sound of Nigel’s boots on the tiles and then she
spied them inches from where she sat. One foot came out and
connected hard with the side of her leg. She cried out in pain and
buried her head harder against her knees. She didn’t know where her
son was, but she could no longer hold back the flood.
    Tears poured down her cheeks. Nigel hunched
down beside her and she whimpered in fear and squeezed herself into
a tighter ball.
    “One hour, Isobel. You and the kids. That’s
all the time I’ll need.”

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Dear Diary,
     
    They say a person’s eyes are the windows to
their soul. A deep hidden place which contains every one of their
secrets. Look long enough at someone and eventually you’ll see
their hidden truth; that little something everyone tries so hard to
mask behind layers and layers of falseness.
    I know this truth: If someone stared at me
long enough, they’d see a woman caught up in the terror that her
own life has become. They’d see the reflection of hell.
    Damn you, Father O’Dell! Even after all
these years, I still remember your dark, evil eyes, flashing with
hell and brimstone. The perspiration dripped from your skin and
became entangled in your thick beard. With your piercing gaze, you
preached to us sixth graders all those untruths during catechism
class. You scared me enough to envision hell as some hot, fiery
hole, a place of banishment for sins committed…
    I might have believed hell was like that
then, but I know better, now. It’s not hot and fiery at all. It’s a
dark, desolate, lonely place, barren and cold and empty. Shrouded
by a silence so deep and impenetrable, one’s mind skitters between
sanity and madness and the seconds, minutes, tick away… A lonely
place, even in a crowd.
    How did I get here? What awful sin did I
commit that God chose this as my punishment? I have no answers. All
I know is that I woke up one morning and found myself here. The
only sound I hear is the ticking of the clock: tic toc, tic
toc, tic toc … And it suddenly comes to me: I’m stuck. No matter
how much time passes, there’s no escaping him…
    * * *
    Isobel glanced over her shoulder, but the
staff car park was empty. She was late. No doubt the other staff
rostered onto the evening shift had already made it to their wards.
She was meant to start work at two-fifteen and it was now going on
for half-past. She’d fallen asleep beside Sophie right after lunch
and had woken tired and disoriented and in a panic.
    After her nightmarish skirmish with Nigel,
she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go to bed. She’d spent the
night curled up on the couch in a ball of tension and fear. She’d
wracked her brain for a plan, for some hope that she could escape
with her children, but as the hours rolled over, she’d been
overwhelmed with hopelessness.
    She had no one to turn to. The few friends
she’d had from her past were now a distant memory. Since arriving
at the Sydney Harbour Hospital, she’d resisted any attempts her
colleagues made toward friendships. They would only end in an agony
of embarrassment and