Trespassing(106)

But the house hadn’t been rented . . .

Or so the cops say.

Or maybe this scenario is only a face in one of Mama’s jeweled pins, sticking its tongue out at me, as I swallow the line, hook, and sinker.

I whisper to Elizabella, “It’s going to be okay.” I follow the statement with something else, whispered at an even lower decibel: “One, two, three, fly.” She looks up at me with a confused expression, but nods and reaches for Natasha’s hand.

If the authorities are listening, why haven’t they come in yet? I get that they need to gather as much information as possible before they pounce in and save the day. But they don’t know about the rum. They might not know about the gun. I have to find a way to communicate the dire situation we’re in.

Or maybe they aren’t listening all the time. Maybe they’re checking recordings at the end of the day, to see what I might have revealed. If that’s the case, they might not hear any of this for several hours, and by then, it might be too late.

Or maybe Buffett was a coincidence, and the bug is the work of Diamante.

If that’s the case, we’re screwed.

There’s only one way to find out.

“I’ve done what you’ve asked,” I say. “I’ve drank. I’ve encouraged you to tear this house apart, looking for whatever it is you want. Please. Take the gun off my child.”

If ever you feel that frustrated again, and you start breaking things again . . .

I choose to believe it: Christian is on my side. He will come if he hears me.

But I have to pick my moment.

I have only one chance.

And if I’m wrong, there might be no chance at all.





Chapter 58

My glass is already in my hand, full with another double shot of rum, when Lincoln loses concentration and looks away for a split second.

In a liquid motion, I spill my daughter into Natasha’s arms—one, two, three, fly, she says as she goes—and I throw my glass to the floor and manage to reach the bottle before either of them can get to it.

I crack the bottle against the marble countertop. Again and again. Making as much noise as possible.

Glass shatters and splinters.

The cat bolts toward the studio, but I hope the necessary message was transmitted.

Natasha and the girls are hiding under the snack bar by the time I hit the bottle against the marble a third time.

Mick has me in a barrel hold now, and he’s dragging me toward the laundry room.

I’m sure the second agent will be back any second now, hearing the ruckus. I hope Natasha can get the girls out of the house.

My daughter is shrieking; I hear her cries over Mimi’s, over Natasha’s.

Please let Natasha be on my side.

I kick and wriggle, holding tight to the neck of the bottle, which represents my only chance at getting out of this house alive.

Mick shoves me through the louvered door to the studio.

And only then do I realize he’s cut, bleeding at the side of his abdomen. I must have grazed him with the neck of the bottle.

Good. His blood will be in the house, too. More evidence that he was here. No one can convince me it didn’t happen, that it was only in my mind.

Papa Hemingway is hiding under the shelves on the far wall. I charge toward the shelves, where my first attempts at pottery sit. One by one, I throw them to the floor.

Crash, crash, crash.

The cat takes off again.

When there’s nothing left to break, nothing left with which to summon the man who maybe placed a listening device on the cat’s collar, but definitely told me to smash something when I needed him, I point the jagged neck of the bottle at my father-in-law.

Mick staggers toward me.

I swallow over my fear. “This isn’t going to go the way you thought it would. So stop. Just get out of my house. I don’t know what you need me to know, and I don’t know what happened to that blue diamond . . . or the money.”

Yet he keeps coming at me. “It’s more than the money. It’s more than the diamond. I brought him on board, you see. I vouched for him. You could’ve just drained the bottle of rum when you got here. You would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.

The sound of a gunshot paralyzes me for a second, and the sonic boom of it rings in my ears.

Elizabella.

The world goes blurry through my tears, and the piercing tone in my eardrums has yet to subside. My knees weaken, and I stumble.

My father-in-law is too close now.

He pulls from its hook the wire tool with the knobby buttons on each end, and seemingly in slow motion, he wraps the device around my neck.

No one comes. Not Christian. Not the cops.

I was wrong.

But so was Mick, if he thought I wasn’t going to fight.

Visions of a blue table flash in my mind. Crystals of all shapes, sizes, and colors rain down on me.

My throat constricts.

I can’t breathe.

But I elbow and kick and stab with the remnants of the bottle.

“Veronica.”

He has me by the wrist.

“Veronica.”

My airway starts to open.

When the crystals fade away, reality slowly bleeds into view.

Guidry’s there.

Officer Laughlin.

A few other men in blue.

My father-in-law in cuffs.