The Break(91)

A shake starts in my legs. I lean into Gabe. “I think I’ve misunderstood something,” I say, my voice barely making it above the noisy scene around us. My hand presses against Lila, grounding me to real life, making me stay here.

“Who’s down in the basement?” I ask.





FIFTY-ONE


June. Three days ago. Tuesday, November 8th.


I’m on the floor of the billiards room and Harrison is still on top of me, shouting, “Do you get it now? Do you understand what you’ve done?” I’m fading in and out, praying he’ll just take his hands off my neck and let me breathe again.

There’s a clatter on the stairs. Someone’s coming to help us; someone has heard Harrison shouting—someone knows something bad is happening down here.

Gabe? One of the neighbors?

If we didn’t shut the steel door at the very top of the stairs, someone in the lobby could still hear us down here. It could be Henri; it could be anyone.

Please, help me.

“I didn’t want to do this to you,” Harrison says, his voice strangled and wild, and when I snap open my eyes I swear I see the craziest thing: Sean’s face, contorted and rageful, his arm lifting, his Swiss Army knife glinting.

I close my eyes again—I can’t seem to keep them open.

Was that really him?



I force my eyes to open, to try to see him again, and there he is: Sean. Not in my imagination—I’m almost sure of it. His Swiss Army knife flies high into the air above us. Is he here to help me? He is, he is. He’s here to help.

“Get off of her!” he screams. And then down he goes onto Harrison, but Harrison’s too fast; he turns and pounds against Sean’s ribs, and Sean’s going down now, they both are, onto the floor, the knife between them.





FIFTY-TWO


Rowan. Friday night. November 11th.


Sean is dead, Rowan,” Gabe says, his eyes roving my face like he’s trying to make sure I’m all right. “He and June were both down there together in the billiards room.”

“What?” I ask. “But is June, I thought June was . . .” And then I turn to the stretcher, and I swear I see a flicker of movement between the people around her, strapping things to her, fussing over her body. I swear I see June’s slender wrist move from her side to rest gently on her stomach.

I sink to my knees, clutching Lila. “Rowan,” Gabe says, bending, helping me get back up. “Rowan?”

“I thought,” I start to say, but instead of explaining anything to him, my feet start carrying Lila and me in the direction of June. I can feel Gabe behind us, calling my name, but I don’t stop. Through the warm bodies I go, trying hard to be polite and say excuse me and not push them aside. Hot tears are on my cheeks. Maybe because there’s a newborn on my chest they all let me pass, no one restrains me, and then I’m right there at the stretcher, so close I could reach out and touch my beautiful babysitter.

“June,” I say. The word is magic on my lips.



There’s dried blood in June’s hair and caked on her hands. Blankets cover her. She smells like she was the one who died down there, and I have to fight my stomach not to get sick. “June,” I say again, and I can’t help it, I want to be strong for her but I can’t stop crying. “Are you okay?” I ask softly. I reach forward and take her bloody hand. And unlike in the café that morning, this time I don’t let go.

She can’t meet my eyes. Her gaze is vacant as she stares down at her fingers, and it’s hard to tell if she even knows I’m here. In the minutes since I saw her lying on the stretcher the paramedics have put an IV line into her arm and an oxygen mask on her face. They’re barking orders to each other, and then one of them says to me, “Do you know her?”

“Yes,” I say. Gabe is right there by my side, staring at June. “We know her,” I say. “She’s our babysitter.”

The paramedic nods. “You can ride with her to the hospital,” he says. “That way she won’t be surrounded by a truck full of strangers. But I’ll need you to step aside for the moment while we stabilize her.”

Tears are all over my face and my legs are shaking. I back into the crowd of people, and from this angle I can see Harrison: he’s near the front of the ambulance, talking with Detective Mulvahey. I see Louisa and Sylvie right there with him—Sylvie must have called Louisa when I got the call from the detective in her office. Louisa’s crying, her hand on her pregnant stomach. Sylvie is hanging on Harrison’s words. Gabe guides me toward Sylvie and Louisa and I let him, even though I don’t want to leave June. “Sean was stalking her,” Harrison is saying to the detective. “He was obsessed with her. She told everyone that.” Harrison looks at all of us to confirm it, and so does Detective Mulvahey.

“She told me sometimes he worried her,” I say. I need to comprehend this, to know what happened to June six floors below where I’ve been living and breathing for the past three days while she lay trapped. “You’re sure Sean’s the one who hurt her?” I ask.

“It certainly looks like it,” Harrison says. “She must have tried to fight him off and thank God she did.”



Detective Mulvahey stares at me. “There are only June’s and Sean’s fingerprints on the knife. There’s a partial of June’s thumb on the handle along with four neat fingerprints. She only held it once, likely to defend herself, and then never touched it again.”