The_Demons_Wife_ARC by Rick Hautala

I didn’t want to talk to her. How’d you know it was a
woman…my mother?”
    Samael laughed
and shook his head.
    “I didn’t,” he
said without missing a beat. “I was guessing it was your roommate. I know she
snuck in when you—when we were asleep, and I know she doesn’t like me.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah…Really.”
He was still smiling…but the smile didn’t look quite so friendly now. His
tongue was no longer visible, but his teeth were exposed, making small
indentations on his bottom lip. “Yeah…because she wanted me to pick her instead
of you.”
    Pick me?... That
sounds ominous…What did you pick me for ?
    A shiver ran
up both of her arms to the nape of her neck. She was about to confront him on
this whole “picking me” thing when her phone started ringing again.
    “If that’s
your mother, she’s persistent. I’ve got to give her that,” Samael said, but
Claire experienced a cold hollowness in the pit of her stomach when she saw on
the Caller ID that it wasn’t her mother.
    It was a
number she didn’t recognize. If it was the student loan company calling again…
    “Hello,” she
said after snapping the phone up off the counter.
    “Yes, hello.
This is Boyd Harris at the District Attorney’s Office. Is this Claire
McMullen?”
    Claire's eyes
widened and she flashed a look at Samael. For some reason, she was suddenly
convinced something had gone wrong, and she was in trouble with the police.
    “Yes,
this…this is she,” she replied, irritated by the tremor in her voice.
    “Ms.
McMullen,” Harris continued. “I’ve got a…a rather unusual situation here,
regarding your case.”
    He paused, and
in the pause, Claire had time to say, “What is it?” while her nerves tightened.
    “The man we
arrested last night, Ron LaPierre, the person who allegedly assaulted you—”
    Allegedly?
    “—has asked if
you’d be willing to come down to the police station and talk to him.”
    “Me? Talk to
him? Are you—?” She gulped dry air that felt like a hot coal lodged in her
throat. “Why would I want to talk to him? Isn’t it, like, illegal or
something?”
    “It’s not
typical, for sure,” Mr. Harris said, “but it’s not unprecedented.”
    Claire
considered for a few pulsebeats and then asked, “Well, do you think I should?”
    “Your call,
but I wouldn’t advise it. No point to it. He says he’s innocent, so anything
you say to him could hurt the case against him. At this point, the evidence
against him doesn’t look good…for him.”
    Claire noticed
that, as she spoke into the phone, Samael kept shifting in his chair. Maybe he
was sitting on his tail and couldn’t get comfortable. She wondered if his
hearing was sharp enough so he could hear both sides of the conversation. 
    “You want to
speak with him, you can do it. You might want to have your lawyer with you, if
you got one. ‘Course I or someone from the DA’s office would have to be there,
too.” Harris paused, took a breath, and then said, “But—again, I wouldn’t
advise it.”
    “No,” Claire
said quickly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, either…not a good idea at all.”
    The
conversation was bringing back last night’s events so fast they rushed over her
like a dark tide, filling her with unfathomable dread. Her breathing was
hitching hard now, and her body was shaking as if she were facing an Arctic
blast. The sound of her pulse was heavy in her ears; her neck and wrists ached
with dull pain. When she looked at Samael, he was hiding his smile behind his
hand.
    Is he enjoying
this…what this is doing to me? She wondered.
    “It’s just,”
Harris continued, unaware of Claire’s reaction, “he insisted that you speak to
him. He says he didn’t do it.”
    “Didn’t do…”
She couldn’t finish the thought.
    “He says it
wasn’t him…that he was there, but he has no memory of attacking or trying to
hurt you.”
    “But you—you
caught him doing it.”
    “He says he
wants to