Page 10 of Destined for Shadows
Melena remained silent, but her gaze was full of compassion.
“Not long after Faith was born, things changed. Griff insisted I drop out of college to take care of our daughter full-time, and he was jealous of any man who came near me.” Cori took a shuddering breath. “We fought a lot and, well, he started hitting me. At first, it was just a smack in the face or arm, but it got worse each time until I was blacking out from the pain.”
“I’d kill him myself if he were still alive,” Melena swore.
It made Cori feel slightly better to hear her friend say that, but it still didn’t absolve her of what she’d done. “By the time Faith was two, I couldn’t take it anymore. I called my father in Anchorage, and he came to get us. While I was living with my parents, I filed for divorce.” Cori sighed. “I thought…I thought that would be the end of it.”
Melena grabbed their empty coffee mugs and headed across the kitchen to refill them. She had a knack for knowing exactly when a person needed a moment to get themselves together. Cori had never spoken the whole story to anyone other than her father—not even her mother knew the full details about the next part of the story.
“So what happened after that?” Melena came back and slid the steaming mug across the counter.
Cori picked it up, catching the scent of something strong mixed in with the coffee. She sipped slowly, letting the touch of alcohol fortify her. “Nothing right away. He fought the divorce at first, but my sister’s husband is a big, strong guy. He and a couple of his friends came out to Fairbanks and put the fear of God into Griff. He signed the papers, and I didn’t hear from him for over a year.”
“But you had his daughter,” Melena said, lips thinning.
“Exactly.” Cori took a bigger drink of her coffee, hoping it would numb her a little. “He got his act together and fought me in the courts for visitation rights. Since I never reported all those beatings, I couldn’t prove he was violent—and he had no criminal record. I had to start sending my daughter to him for part of the summer and the holidays.”
“That must have been tough.”
Cori nodded. “It was, but it went okay until Faith was almost five years old. Griff got her for the week after Christmas. He flew out to Anchorage to pick her up and…and she was so happy to see her daddy. She truly loved him.”
Tears began to stream down Cori’s face, and it took a moment before she could speak again. “That day at the airport—it was the last time I saw my little girl alive. The next time,” she said, voice shuddering, “was when they asked me to identify her body.”
To this day, she’d never forget seeing Faith like that. Her still form bloody and broken almost beyond recognition on a cold, metal table. They’d said she’d been holding a doll when they pulled her out of the wreckage and showed it to Cori. It had been the one she gave her daughter for Christmas the week before, a doll that Faith had kept with her every moment afterward.
Melena leaped off of her stool and came around, wrapping Cori in her arms. “Shh, it’s okay. You can say anything you want, and I won’t judge.”
“My precious baby,” Cori croaked into Melena’s shoulder. “She had the prettiest little black curls and eyes just like mine, and she was so sweet and innocent. I felt like she was the one good thing I’d done in this world, but I managed to even ruin that by letting Griff take her. I should have fought against him harder and never let her out of my sight.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person.” Melena rubbed her back.
“It does, Mel.” She pulled away and stared into the sensor’s eyes. “Because when I found out Griff had been drinking and driving, and it was our daughter who paid the price, I wanted that man dead. He’d taken Faith’s life and came out of it with only a few scratches and a broken leg. It wasn’t fair. Why her and not him?”
Melena was quiet for a moment. “I’m not saying revenge is right, or that everyone should do it, but I can understand what drove you to that point.”
Cori wished she had a cigarette. She’d never been a heavy smoker, but she’d decided to quit a month ago, and now she couldn’t think of anything else. It was all she could do to finish the story and not run out of Melena’s house to the nearest store where she could buy a pack. Or maybe she still wasn’t prepared to talk about this. It was a part of her past she’d worked hard to shut out.
“I found him at his house the next night,” Cori continued. “His father had bailed him out of jail. He was sitting in his recliner, drinking straight from a whiskey bottle with his broken leg propped up. I swear there wasn’t a hint of remorse in his eyes.”
“That bastard,” Melena cursed.
Cori’s jaw hardened. “I grabbed a poker iron from his fireplace and hit him over the head with it. Not once, but again and again until my arms got so tired I couldn’t do it anymore. It was like I couldn’t control myself. When I was fairly certain he was dead, I got a wheelbarrow from behind his house and used it to get him to my car. Then I drove to a remote area where I was sure no one went during the winter and buried his body in the snow.”
“The ground would have been too frozen to dig,” Melena surmised.
“Yeah, though I tried at first.” Unfortunately, the ground was almost like cement during the winter in Alaska.
“Did you go back in the spring to check on the body?” Melena asked.
Cori nodded. “I tried, but I couldn’t find the spot. I’d been so out of my mind with grief that I couldn’t remember exactly where I put him. The cops questioned me about his disappearance, especially because he was wanted for manslaughter, but when his body never turned up everyone just assumed he ran away to get out of being punished for his crimes.”
“What about the blood and stuff at his house and in your car?”
“I got help removing all the evidence.” Cori shrugged. “My dad put me in touch with a guy who wasn’t the type to ask questions.”
She had a few acquaintances like that thanks to her father’s connections. He hadn’t been a criminal himself, but he knew a lot of people and helped more than a few when they were in jams, so they owed him favors. Her parents had grown up in Fairbanks, and they’d continued to live there until Cori was sixteen when her dad got a job offer in Anchorage. After he passed away a couple of years ago, her mother decided to stay there with her sister and her family. Cori couldn’t live near them again. The guilt from killing Griff ate at her, so she decided to settle in Fairbanks where the memories might have been uncomfortable, but at least people wouldn’t ask questions the way her family did.
Melena’s forehead creased. “How sure are you that Griff was dead when you left him?”
