The Last Housewife (95)

It was Don, close enough to touch.

Do it, the dark voice urged. Go back, give in, beg his forgiveness.

Laurel and I wrenched away from each other, wild-eyed. Her nails dug into my skin. In that moment, the past echoed back, and we were twenty-one again, sharing the same look we’d shared a million times before: Don was home, and we were in trouble.

“Where are you?” he called. “I have good news. Everything’s ready.”

The air became electric, desperate, as we stared at each other. A decision hung between us.

Laurel lunged. Too fast for me to do anything but cringe, understanding the worst was happening—but instead of the searing pain of the pugio in my stomach, the rope binding my wrists pulled sharply, then released. The tatters fell to the floor. My wrists were free. I could only blink in shock as she ran to the back door and ripped it open, revealing the garden and forest at dusk. “Run, Shay.”

I darted forward and seized her. “Come with me.”

She shook her head. “I need to distract him. Trust me.”

“Please,” I begged. “We can start over together.”

The basement stairs groaned under the unmistakable weight of footsteps.

“I love you, Laurel.” I forced myself to breathe. “Come with me.”

“Go now,” she whispered, her eyes bright with fear, “or else I swear you’ll never leave.”





Chapter Thirty-Seven


I tore across the grass, terror pumping my legs. Past the ornate swimming pool, sculpted out of rock; past the verdant garden, bursting with brilliant autumn flowers, lush from the unnatural soil. I paused only at the edge of the forest to look back, and there she was, standing in the half-cracked door, watching me flee with a look I couldn’t read. It had to be sadness. It had to be.

A shadow appeared over her shoulder.

I plunged into the trees and kept going until dusk dissolved into night. I didn’t know where I was, but I searched for some sign of people, a phone to call Jamie. Eventually I came to a road, softly illuminated. I expected to keep along it until I came to a gas station, or maybe even a town, but to my surprise, after only a few minutes, an old wood-sided sedan pulled to the side of the road. An elderly woman with white hair leaned out the passenger window and called, “Do you need a ride?”

I squinted into the car. A little old man sat in the driver’s seat, trying to puzzle me out. He raised two bottle-brush eyebrows. “We’re on our way home to Woodstock. Saw you and thought you might need a lift. Old habits, you know.”

“I only need to borrow a phone,” I said, wrapping my arms tight around me. “I’d be very grateful.”

They were happy to give me their cell phone, one of those big, clunky models with buttons, and watched me with unmasked curiosity as I dialed Jamie.

“Hello?” His voice was strangled.

“It’s me.”

A noise of relief broke from him. “Thank god. Where are you? What happened? I didn’t know—”

“I’ll tell you everything, but first I need you to come get me. I’m somewhere in the Adirondacks.” I glanced at the couple in the car.

“Off Highway 30,” the woman supplied. “Near Upper Saranac Lake.”

I repeated it to Jamie, and he swore he’d be there as fast as possible. To my chagrin, the couple insisted on waiting with me. Despite their seeming kindness—the man called himself an old hippie—distrust kept me on the side of the road instead of in their warm car. Another hour passed, our conversation growing stilted, before headlights swept around the corner and I recognized my rental car pulling off the road.

I’d barely stood before Jamie was there. He swept me in his arms and clutched my head to his chest. When he released me, he looked at the couple in the car and shoved himself through the open window, hugging the old woman, thanking her profusely. Her cheeks turned pink, and I knew that was the kind of gratitude she’d been waiting for. Jamie always knew how to give people what they wanted.

On the ride home, as the car sailed over the mountains in the dark, I curled in the passenger seat and told him everything. When I was done, I pulled out the recording device from where it had been wedged inside my bra and set it in the cup holder. Such a small thing, holding such weighty evidence.

Jamie didn’t say a word when I told him Laurel was alive—only stared ahead, frowning into the darkness. I didn’t know whether he was shocked or could feel the sand moving faster through the hourglass like I could, time slipping full tilt. Maybe he could sense the inferno under my skin, no longer simmering but roiling. I almost asked him, but then I thought, No. Let him be shielded. One of us should be.

***

Jamie woke me when the light was still dawn-bright. His face was grim, and I could tell he hadn’t slept. “I’m sorry,” he said, hovering. “But there’s a lot I didn’t say last night that I need to tell you now.”

I sat up, realizing I was in our hotel bed, still wearing my forest-ravaged dress. I tugged at my ripped pantyhose, peeling them off. “I’m awake,” I said, unfastening the pearl buttons down my chest. “Talk to me.”

He sat on the bed and looked at me cautiously, like I was a vase balancing on the edge of a table. “I didn’t want to tell you last night, but Dougie found Greg Ellworth. You were right. He lives in the city and used to work in finance, at a trading company called Culver Brown.”