Shadowshift by Peter Giglio

black.
    * * *
    As the night’s events unfolded, Tina and Hannah slept on the couch. And when the cockroach squeezed beneath the front door and scurried into the bedroom, they were as oblivious to its movements as they were to the dark deeds that had brought it home.
    But when a knock sounded, Tina’s eyes fluttered. She sat up slowly and glanced at the clock in the kitchen. Well after midnight. Who would be pounding on the door at this hour?
    The knock came again, this time more thunderous. Whoever wanted her attention wasn’t selling Avon.
    “I’m coming,” Tina said, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she pulled herself from the couch.
    Hannah snorted and turned. “What’s happening, Mommy?” she grumbled.
    “Go back to sleep, sweetie.”
    Tina looked through the peephole, and what she saw set her nerves ablaze. A man in a suit held a badge up for inspection.
    The next two hours of Tina’s life were hell. She endured thinly veiled accusations, restraining herself from hysterics while Hannah wept through an inquisition of her own in the bedroom. Police searched the apartment and uncovered Chet’s stash of money, which they confiscated.
    She felt a glimmer of hope when a uniformed officer carried her laptop through the living room—she had been certain Chet already destroyed it—but there was no silver lining to be found that night. The laptop was also taken as evidence.
    “Your husband is wanted for questioning in connection to a murder,” the detective said.
    She didn’t understand. Chet was a lot of things, but certainly not a killer. She wouldn’t have shared a bed with a murderer for more than seven years. The father of her daughter couldn’t have committed such a vile act. Myriad rationalizations plagued her, but none were convincing.
    Tina controlled her emotions through a seemingly endless battery of questions, but fatigue eventually set in, and she couldn’t hold her guard up any longer. She broke down and wept.
    “We’ve been fighting a lot,” she said. “He’s been…distant. I had no idea what he was up to. I wanted to leave…but…but I didn’t have a way out.”
    “There’s always a way out,” the detective said. “Come clean with us.”
    She shook her head. “It’s never easy when a child is involved. If I ran…he would follow.”
    At that point, a wave of sympathy softened the detective’s stern features. He nodded and leaned back on the couch. “You smoke in here?” he asked.
    “Sometimes,” she said.
    He palmed a pack of Kools from his sport coat and shook one into his mouth. He flipped the pack onto the coffee table and motioned for her to help herself. With a tremulous hand, Tina took one of the offered cigarettes, then allowed the detective the courtesy of lighting it with his plastic lighter. They took long drags. Each exhaled slowly.
    “Do yourself a favor,” he said.
    “Anything,” she promised.
    “Whatever loyalty you have to Chet Mitchell, let it die tonight. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your daughter.” He slapped his card on the table. “And if you hear from him, call me right away.”
    “You have my word,” she said.
    The detective stood and headed for the door.
    She wanted to stop him, correct him, to shout that her love for Chet had died long ago. But she couldn’t, because that wasn’t exactly true.
    All the same, she couldn’t beat herself up for it. All she had was now. This was the time to change the course of her life. She was done with secrets. Done with deceit. Done with Chet. And she made a vow to herself.
    With the exception of Hannah, Tina would never trust again.

CHAPTER 12

    Upon returning home from the disastrous dinner, Tina wordlessly trudges up the stairs, leaving Kevin and Hannah in the living room. The sound of a slammed door echoes through the house, signaling the potential end of their new beginning.
    He and Hannah glance at each other, then look away, neither speaking. Kevin doesn’t know what to say. He wants