Chapter 6 - Rock Bottom in the High Desert
The breaking point came on a freezing Tuesday in mid-November.
A rare high-desert blizzard had rolled down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, dumping six inches of wet, heavy snow across Albuquerque. The city had ground to a halt; schools were closed, the interstates were slick with black ice, and the streets were silent save for the occasional snowplow scraping through the slush.
At 2:15 a.m., the motion-sensor security floodlight on my balcony clicked on.
I woke instantly, my heart slamming into my throat.
I lived in a second-floor corner apartment with an exterior wooden staircase that led up from the carport. Outside my bedroom window, I could hear the heavy, irregular crunch of boots in fresh snow.
*Crunch. Scrape. Crunch.*
I slid out of bed, keeping low, my bare feet freezing on the hardwood. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and slipped into the hallway.
Through the frosted side-lite of my front door, I saw a massive, hulking shadow standing on the welcome mat.
“Clare.”
The voice was slurred, thick, and ragged with booze.
Ryan.
My breath caught. My fingers flew across the phone screen: **9 - 1 - 1.**
“Clare, open the damn door,” he muttered, leaning his shoulder heavily against the frame. The deadbolt groaned under his weight. “I know you’re in there. Your car is downstairs. Just... open the door. We need to talk.”
“Albuquerque 911, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher’s calm voice cut through the darkness.
“My name is Clare Bennett,” I whispered, retreating toward the kitchen, my back pressed against the drywall. “I have a permanent order of protection against my brother, Ryan Bennett. He is currently outside my front door, trying to force it open. He sounds intoxicated. I am alone.”
“Stay where you are, Clare. Do you have a safe room with a lock?”
“Yes, the bathroom.”
“Go in there now. Officers are already in the area. Units are en route.”
Outside, the doorknob rattled violently.
“Clare! Stop being a bitch!” Ryan roared, slamming his fist against the center panel. The wood shuddered. “You ruined everything! Laura won't take my calls! Dad had to sell his boat to cover the legal retainers! You think you're better than us? You think you're so goddamn pure?”
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
I locked myself in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tile floor with my knees pulled to my chest, the dispatcher’s voice murmuring in my ear like a lifeline.
“They’re turning onto your street now, Clare. Two units.”
From down the road came the low, warbling wail of sirens, cutting through the snowy silence.
Outside my door, the banging abruptly stopped.
“Shit,” Ryan muttered.
Heavy, scrambling footsteps stumbled down the wooden exterior stairs. A loud crash followed—him slipping on the snow at the landing—followed by swearing, and then the sharp bark of an officer’s voice echoing through the courtyard:
“Bernalillo County Sheriff! Show me your hands! Down on the ground! Do it now!”
“Get off me! I’m just visiting my sister!”
“Down on your stomach! Hands behind your back!”
The scuffle was short, violent, and messy. Through the small bathroom window, I heard the metallic *click* of handcuffs, the heavy breathing of three men in the snow, and then Ryan’s voice, rising into an unhinged, hysterical scream:
“Call my dad! Do you know who Richard Bennett is? Call my dad!”
Nobody called Richard Bennett.
They loaded Ryan into the back of a patrol cruiser, his face smeared with snow and blood from a scraped cheek.
Ten minutes later, Deputy Martinez knocked gently on my door.
When I opened it, the cold night air rushed in, smelling of exhaust fumes and ozone. Deputy Martinez took one look at my pale face and stepped inside, pulling a warm wool blanket off my sofa and draping it around my shoulders.
“He violated a felony order of protection while out on bail for a felony assault,” Martinez said quietly. “There’s no bail this time, Clare. He’s going straight to the Metropolitan Detention Center, and he will stay there until his trial or his plea.”
I sat on my sofa, wrapped in the blanket, watching the flashing red and blue lights paint patterns across my ceiling.
The fear was gone. The panic was gone.
May you like
In their place was only an immense, echoing quiet. The monster under the bed hadn't been an unstoppable force of nature; he was just a sick, broken man who had finally run out of hiding places.
***
