"Exclusions" - NYC Midnight Short Story Contest 2022 - Round 1 entry

Hi, darlings! "Exclusions" is my NYC Midnight entry for 1st round of Short Story Contest 2022. My assignment was to write a suspense story incorporating a curfew and a policyholder. It took 4th place in group; judges' comments follow the story.

Synopsis: 

Nadine Bentham, socialite wife of a prestigious lawyer, finds herself in danger of paying with her life for his recklessness several years before. Somebody has to pay, don’t they?

 “Exclusions” 

“What? I lost you there for a minute,” Nadine said, tipping her head back to speak louder into the Lexus’ Bluetooth.

She hated the Bluetooth in the Lexus, but Kurt had the Tesla tonight, since he was meeting with his partners for drinks after the dinner party. She’d offered to drop him off, but he’d promised to get Luke to give him a lift if he wasn’t fit to drive. He knew she’d always hold him to it, even though neither of them ever mentioned the accident.  

“Still here,” her mother, Susan, said airily, her mouth full. “I asked about the party.”

“Penny always sets a beautiful spread. This time it was tapas: she hired servers to circulate and make sure everyone—” Nadine broke off, seeing a doe hesitate in the sprinkling rain and the darkness of the shoulder and expecting it to leap into the road. She put her foot on the brake automatically as she swerved.

Nothing happened. The deer didn’t leap. Also, the brakes didn’t grab.

“What in the—?” Nadine breathed. “Mom, I’ve got to go.”

“Tapas! Doesn’t that mean the booze was really flowing—” Susan asked archly.

“Gotta go, Mom.” Nadine pumped the brakes. They were mush: no response. Nadine bit her lip.

“I know, I know—” Susan grumbled. “Oh! But before you go, let me ask you about—”

Nadine had taken her foot off the accelerator, but the Lexus continued to hurtle into the curve. She whimpered with frustration. “My brakes are out!”

“Was the brake pressure light on?”

“All the time – Lexuses leak a little – but they’re out!”

Susan’s voice was suddenly practical. “Okay. Hazard lights on, baby. Keep pumping the brakes. Downshift. If the brakes don’t catch, use the emergency brake.”

“Okay, Mom.” Nadine stabbed the lights with a manicured finger and pumped the brakes hard and fast, scuffing her Valentino heel; guess that isn’t why they’re called pumps, she thought ludicrously.

“Is it working?! Oh, I knew Kurt wasn’t much of a mechanic, but—baby, were you two getting along?”

Nadine was too busy even to be annoyed with her mother’s melodrama. She shifted down, hearing the transmission scream, and fumbled for the parking brake. “Dammit, Lexus,” she hissed through clenched teeth. The brake switch was practically hidden. Pulling it while moving was not something she’d ever expected to do.

“Dina, is it working--?!” her mother asked shrilly, just as Nadine’s finger found the switch and pulled.

Nadine shrieked as the car began to fishtail on the wet road, spinning; the rear wheels had locked and the brake had practically stood the car on its head as it took all of the vehicle’s momentum at once. She wrestled the wheel and lost.

The car seemed to waver for a hopeful moment. Then it rolled over, tumbling once, twice.

Everything seemed colorless and faraway. Nadine could just hear her mother screaming, “Dina? Nadine?!” before she lost consciousness.

 

Nadine woke up strapped to the ratty back seat of what looked like a van. Everything hurt, especially her right leg: she blearily looked down, whimpering as the movement hurt her neck, and saw that it was mottled and swollen under the hem of her Chanel LBD.

The van smelled like burned oil, armpits, spoiled milk, ordure, and old tires. Wincing from neck pain, she looked around. The interior seemed to have been stripped: no carpet on the floor, and all the seats folded up except the one that she was taped to. There were plastic laundry baskets fastened down in the back, overflowing with clothes and stained bedding. A threadbare purple teddy bear perched jauntily atop what she suspected to be a closed camping toilet: toilet paper rolls were impaled on a broom nearby. Rain pattered on the windshield, flung off by a decrepit set of wipers. One of them shrieked with every swipe.

Feeling a stab of fear, she tried to focus on the driver. Nadine could only see the back of her head and a lumpy curve of arm and hip.

The woman looked hauntingly familiar, but she certainly wasn’t someone from Nadine’s social circle: she wore an ill-fitting, ancient glitter sweatshirt and had her poorly-cut hair up in a grayed scrunchie. Who was she?

The driver’s seat was a wheelchair, clamped into accessible mounts.

Nadine gasped with recognition. “Mrs. Ledbetter?” she rasped.

Jennifer Ledbetter turned to glance at Nadine in the rear-view mirror. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Did you save me from the crash?” Nadine asked hopefully. “But… why didn’t you just call 911?”

Jennifer laughed until she wheezed.

Nadine felt slow, her head pounding. It occurred to her that maybe the brakes had failed for a reason. How ridiculous that her mother’s soap-opera explanation could be right. “You cut my brakes?”

“Had ‘em cut,” Jennifer cackled, swerving the van.

“Oh, God, Mrs. Ledbetter – why?”

“Don’t play like you don’t know, Miz Bentham,” Jennifer spat. “After what your Kurt did to my William four years ago…”

“But I didn’t hurt anybody, Mrs. Ledbetter. Please don’t hurt me!”

The lumpy woman snorted. “You shoulda died in the crash, bitch. I didn’t want to talk to you. And I gotta pay Clark extra for getting your skinny ass in this van. He couldn’t believe how hard it was to move you. But you had a good airbag, din’tcha? A golden fucking parachute.”

Nadine started crying. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to your husband, Mrs. Ledbetter. But – I didn’t hurt anybody. God knows Kurt’s sorry too. He never meant to hurt anyone.”

“That’s not what the insurance company said,” Jennifer growled.

“I’m not the insurance company, Mrs. Led—Jennifer! I’m just a human being. Please let me go. I—I won’t press charges—I won’t mention it to anyone—"

The kidnapper scowled into the mirror and turned up the radio. Incongruously lively bluegrass twanged out into the van.

Nadine wailed. “But I’m innocent!”

“Just like the fancy appeals lawyers said about your hubby, huh?” Jennifer said. “Ain’t that something. I figure if I get a big enough legal team, I can get off too. Free as a birdy, hmm? Maybe I’ll hire your hubby’s company to represent me.”

Nadine drew a shaky breath. “They’re not that kind of lawyers.”

Jennifer laughed again, breaking off in a coughing fit. “Birds of a feather. Vultures.”

“Is it money you want?” Nadine begged into a lull in the music.

“Nooooo. Not anymore,” Jennifer shook her head. “Back when your Kurt murdered Billy—”

“—Murdered!—”

“Listen, my little brother Clark has a wet’n’reckless on his record, too. His parole officer told him if he drives drunk again and somebody dies, that’s murder. So why ain’t that what it is for little ol’ Kurt?”

“I—”

“Does your fancy man even have parole?” Jennifer spat. “He doesn’t, does he?”

“He did,” Nadine whispered. She didn’t add, until the appeal overturned his conviction.

Jennifer continued. “A person like that, he shouldn’t be allowed out alone. You know, Clark had a curfew when he was living with us, ‘fore Billy got killed. Couldn’t go out alone unless it was necessary. Never at night. Know what happened? After I lost the house, he went homeless, and do you know how hard it is to stay off booze on the street? Lost his living as a mechanic. Then his fucking PO had him arrested for breaking curfew and having a drink or two. Never mind that I was depending on him. Didn’t get out ‘til last week. Well, prison makes the man, they say.” She laughed nastily.

“Oh, Jesus,” Nadine moaned. “Are you going to ransom me?”

“What’s the point?” Jennifer hissed, snapping off the radio. “Gonna buy me a good life? Too late. I can’t even afford my pills anymore. There’s nothing left. But my Billy gave me a real good life, ‘til Kurt.”

“Jenn—”

“Shut up! You’re gonna hear about Billy whether you like it or not, bitch. Billy was a fine man. The best! He used to sing like a crooner, all those old Rat Pack songs, and he brought me flowers every month or two just because they made me smile. He was the best damn flooring contractor in the county. A Rotarian. He did Toys for Tots every year at Christmas. And he always took care of me, and never minded that I couldn’t make a living because of the paraplegia. I always worked, you know – sold crafts on my Etsy after I lost my job at the schools. But do you think that paid for the house after your Kurt stole him from me? Fucking coasters and keychains?!” Jennifer paused to cough wrackingly, swerving perilously as she hacked. “There’s no money for contractors when they die. No pension, you know?”

“Didn’t he have life insurance?” Nadine whispered.

The kidnapper heard her. “Life insurance—that’s rich! Regular people don’t get life insurance.”

“But—”

“His dad and grandpa died of cancer,” Jennifer said bitterly. “He was packing a few extra pounds. And he smoked. He quit smoking, but they kick about everything, even speeding tickets. The fucking vultures’ll turn you down if they think you might actually die on their dime.”

“God,” Nadine whispered, choking on tears.

“So, no, he didn’t have life insurance. And when your man ran him down, the fuckers at your insurance got off the hook, too.”

Nadine stared at the woman’s angry reflection foggily, wondering if everything seemed so surreal due to shock.

Jennifer’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “I know, right? They literally have one job: pay for what their policyholder does. But they got out of it. Know why?”

She shook her head dumbly, feeling tears drying on her cheeks.

Jennifer jabbed the mirror with a stabbing finger to punctuate her words. “Because your man Kurt is a criminal, that’s why. They call it a ‘criminal activities exclusion.’ The insurance company was talking like they were going to handle Billy’s medical bills and everything, and then they heard your Kurt was a drunk and they just said, ‘nope! We don’t have to cover criminals!’ I guess that makes sense on paper, but who suffers, Mrs. Bentham? Because look at you! You sure don’t look like you’re suffering, do you?”

Fear and pain warred in Nadine. She felt pretty sure she was currently suffering, but the other woman’s red-rimmed eyes in the rearview frightened her: she shook her head no.

“No! ‘Course you’re not! You’re rich!” Jennifer’s face flushed with rage. The van teetered on a curve. “And then we did the whole civil court thing because, you know, you have more than enough to cover what a life insurance policy would have covered – Christ, we only had six years more on our mortgage – and that’s when your insurance shit on me, and before you – you Benthams – that’s the worst word I know – before you had to pay up, you dragged me through that appeal and your fair-haired boy Kurt got the judgement overturned! Well, how can he be such a criminal that his insurance company can nope out, and still get off scot-free from criminal and civil court!?”

“The charge was excessive!” Nadine yelled, suddenly losing her temper. “I’m sorry Billy died, he sounds wonderful, but it wasn’t murder! Kurt didn’t even know he was drunk!”

Jennifer’s jowls had flushed alarmingly red, and her face contorted with hate in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you talk to me that way, rich bitch!” she wheezed.

“Why not? Are you going to kill me?”

“I was gonna kill you anyway,” Jennifer snarled. “Kurt’s gonna cry like I’ve cried.”

“Then what difference does it make? You can’t just accuse people of murder and expect people to agree – words have meanings! It was an accident!”

Jennifer swerved to avoid the shoulder on a curve, the van rocking as it passed a truck: its headlamps were the first Nadine had seen in a while, but faraway sirens wailed.

Were they looking for Nadine? She hoped so.

Her kidnapper shouted, “Whaddaya mean, ‘he didn’t know he was drunk?’ Of course he knew he was drunk! He told the prosecutor he’d been drunk! That’s why the goddamn exclusion applied!”

“Only one mixed drink. He had witnesses. Someone must’ve put something —” Nadine protested.

“Oh, grow up, lady!” Jennifer bawled. “He had witnesses. Cronies, you mean: he had cronies! Lawyers never go to jail, do they?”

Nadine glared at the other woman sullenly. “They are held to a higher standard. He could’ve been disbarred.”

“He should’ve been disbarred! You should’ve lost everything, instead of me! He murdered a good man because his drunk ass couldn’t be bothered to get a goddamn Uber! ‘A higher standard,’ for fuck’s sake. Listen to you! Your insurance company knew he was a criminal, didn’t they?”

“Fat lot of good it did you,” Nadine said acidly, losing patience. “The appeals jury disagreed.”

Jennifer stared at her, mouth open in an angry little O, cheeks flushed crimson.  “Why, you—"

Behind the mirror, Nadine saw what she’d expected to see earlier this evening, seemingly lifetimes ago: the graceful, terrible leap of a deer in the headlamp-illuminated rain.

Jennifer saw it too, wrenching the wheel sharply to try to avoid the impact.

The van slammed into the animal at windshield level, the glass shattering into tiny cubes and spraying into the car. The struggling animal fell half-in and half-out of the windshield. Nadine smelled the sharp penny scent of blood as Jennifer simultaneously wrestled the steering wheel, the handbrake, and the buck. For a moment, it seemed as though she would win the struggle, but the vehicle crashed into a tree with shattering impact.

Nadine had the absurd impression of the teddy bear flying overhead. Body-smelling clothes and bedclothes went everywhere, half-burying her; there was a sudden reek of excrement as the camp toilet toppled forward. The pain in her neck and leg became excruciating, but this time, she didn’t quite faint. When she could bear it, she opened her eyes and looked around.

Jennifer had been partially thrown from the van, her chair having broken free and her frayed seatbelt failing to hold her as a result. The airbag, if the old van had ever had one, had failed. The woman’s gory legs dangled across the dash. One torn arm wrapped unnaturally around her back. Woman and buck were horribly still.

The duct tape had held Nadine in place as firmly as an airbag. Her neck hurt desperately.

After a while, a man’s weathered face appeared at the windshield, shock and sorrow twisting his features. He looked like Jennifer. “Clark?” Nadine asked. “Help!”

He fled. In a moment, tires squealed and an old Honda zoomed by. 

Nadine shuddered. She was having a hard time concentrating. Sirens filled her head for what felt like eternity. Eventually, a flashlight lit the van.

“Holy shit,” an officer said. “Are you hurt?”

And Nadine laughed painfully, realizing that Jennifer’s insurance would never pay for her injuries.

____

 Judges' comments: ''Exclusions'' by Linda Scott -     WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY - {1774}  This piece is truly captivating, especially layered with insight about the how the rich manipulate the justice system for their benefit. Nadine's initial accident, with her mom on the phone (and giving advice), set things off at a thrilling pace. Nadine's rescue-turned-kidnapping kicked this adventure into high gear. You've set the scene so well, with the rank odors of poverty and questionable hygiene. The conversation, that became an argument between the women, draws in the reader ... to the drama and emotion of the scene and their painful, shared past. How exhilarating!   {2026}  What a gripping premise: a heartbroken mother wishes to avenge a lawyer who killed her son four years ago in a drunk driving incident by killing his socialite wife. This story develops much of its plot through dialog. I was especially taken by the conversation between Nina and her mother as Nina gets into a car accident. I was also engaged by Nina's conversation with Mrs. Ledbetter, who explains all the reasons why the ruling on her son's death was unfair, and why the insurance company's 'criminal' exclusion forfeited a payout. I especially appreciated the attention to detail, such as the brands used throughout to characterize Dina's socialite status and privileged lifestyle, My favorite part in this story is the deer, whose presence at the beginning of the story foreshadows the SECOND car wreck Dina gets in. This is a wild ride! Thanks for sharing.  {2063}  A well rounded story with a solid story arc and clever twist at the conclusion.

You have set the scene quite well in the first act and have clearly plotted out your characters, and have considered backstory and traits in order to inform their actions and reactions in the present.

Your description of the back of the van as Nadine finds herself tied up works particularly well.  You use a number of the senses in your description here - smell of dirty clothes, interesting visuals (e.g. toilet rolls on handles, teddy bears on camping toilets etc.), shrieks of the wiper blades etc, all of these really bring the inside of the van to life and transport your reader to the feeling and uneasiness of the scene.    WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - {1774}  Clarify how Clark showed up on the scene after Jennifer crashed. Had he been trailing them? You might explain Jennifer's intentions with Nadine. If she and Clark were planning to kill Nadine, they could've simply punctured her gas tank (as might have occurred in the initial crash) and she her ablaze.   {2026}  I feel as though the dialog in this piece doesn't 'sound' organic. Mrs. Ledbetter's monolog feels particularly unnatural, I think because it almost reads like a villain's tell-all. A person who decides to kill somebody isn't going to discuss it with the victim. I also wasn't sure who she'd paid to cut Nina's breaks or carry her into the van. I wonder if the other character can be brought in a little more. I also wonder if Nina might be on the phone with her lawyer husband to develop his character and their relationship a bit more in the prose.   {2063}  When Nadine awakes, tied up in the back of the van, this a crucial turning point where the mood changes to something more sinister, this hits quite hard at this point and is written well as discussed above.  The pace really heightens at this point.   You then begin the extensive dialogue from Jennifer, explaining her feelings, anger and hatred to Nadine, and her reasons for the kidnap, with not much action going on.  Any heightened tension and fast pace that was present before these fairly long monologues begin is then greatly reduced as we listen to her reasoning.  

Consider how you can cut down this dialogue quite extensively and instead intersperse it with visual cues/ action, and subtle body language from Jennifer that can 'show' her anger and frustration instead of her having to 'tell' everything to Nadine.  

This will keep the tension and fear high as Nadine is afraid of her possible fate, and will also make the scene more visually interesting.  We will then be able to 'feel' Nadine's fear further.

I have a questions about story to think about; what was the reason why Jennifer felt she had to put Nadine in the van and take her away?   If she found Nadine alive and was disappointed she hadn't died, why didn't she perhaps do something to stop her breathing at the side of the road in the accident while she was unconscious? The whole thing would then look like part of the car accident.

A good story with a satisfying conclusion.