Woman on the Edge(46)

“I wish I knew all the answers,” I say. “Maybe someone wants to seed doubt between us. All I know is that I want Quinn to be safe.”

He looks up at me with wide, tired eyes. “That’s all I want, too.”

I decide to tell him a little more. “My attorney sent me a YouTube video a man took at Grand/State, before Nicole …”

Ben’s face turns a sickly shade of white. “Nicole’s death is on YouTube?”

I realize too late how horrifying that information must be for him. “It was taken down. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t want to watch it. Ever.”

I don’t want him to watch it, either. He might see what Martinez thinks she sees—the possibility that I pushed Nicole.

“I don’t think she was on the platform, but Greg’s assistant is a redhead who drives a dark blue Prius.”

He frowns and looks down at Quinn protectively. “Greg’s assistant? What does she have to do with this?”

I tell him about trying to talk to Greg at his office and Melissa Jenkins waiting in the dark blue Prius outside. I tug my leggings up to show him the three-inch cut along my shin.

“Are you saying Greg’s assistant tried to run us down, stalked you, then broke into my house and put a creepy doll in my bassinet?” He says it as if the possibility is preposterous. And it does sound preposterous, but we have no other puzzle pieces to put together. It’s clear something horrific happened to Nicole that made her write those notes we saw on her wall.

“Maybe someone’s messing with us the same way they messed with Nicole.”

“But why?” He strokes his hand over Quinn’s head. “Look, it’s late, and I need to get sleep if I’m going to function. I can’t even try to make sense of this right now. I’m used to pulling all-nighters, but the last couple of nights have been … a lot. I can’t deal with the police coming here right now again. It’s not like they’re going to offer us any security. They haven’t done a thing for us, except pit us against each other.”

“I know.” I wonder for a second if Martinez suspects Ben, but I don’t say it. We’re on an even keel right now.

“I’ll call Martinez first thing in the morning and tell her everything. I don’t think she should find you here, and I don’t think you should go home. You don’t want to be followed again. You can crash here if you want.” His cheeks flush.

Mine do, too. I don’t want to go back to my apartment right now. I don’t feel safe. But what will Martinez think if she finds me here tomorrow? It hits me that maybe that’s exactly what the person who sent Ben the photo wants—for Martinez to catch me at Ben’s. But it’s equally possible that someone is out there in the dark, waiting for me to get in my car, waiting to attack. A wave of fatigue pummels me, and I make a decision, hoping it’s the right one. “I’ll stay over. I’ll leave when I get up.”

He nods, then heads to the hall and comes back with a plain white blanket and pillow. “This okay?”

“Thank you. That’s perfect.”

He tosses them on the couch and gives me a sad, crooked smile. “This is all so nuts. I’ll bolt all the doors and set the alarm. Try to get some sleep.”

“You too,” I say, and wait until he and Quinn have gone upstairs. Only then do I collapse against the pillow. I pull the blanket up to my chin and fall into a heavy, dreamless sleep.



* * *




When I open my eyes, I’m unsure at first where I am. I glance around the beige living room. Ben’s house. The threat slid under my door. The email to Ben. The doll.

I sit up and wipe the sleep from my eyes. My mouth feels furry, and I don’t even have a toothbrush. I hear the rattle of plates and Quinn’s babbles from the kitchen. I smell coffee. My stomach rumbles.

I fold the blanket neatly and place it at the end of the couch, then make a quick stop in the powder room I find next to the front door. I pee, then splash my face with cold water, tie my hair into a low ponytail, and am just about to emerge when I hear a knock on Ben’s front door.

I freeze.

Silently, I push the door just a crack and see Ben open the door and let a man into the foyer.

It’s Greg Markham.

He says, “I’d like my daughter back now.”

And I watch helplessly as Quinn’s father pulls her from Ben’s arms.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR NICOLE




Before

Tessa finally left, happy with Nicole’s promise to return to Breathe on August 7, and offered to come back later with dinner. After changing Quinn’s diaper, Nicole caught her reflection in the foyer mirror. Her stomach sagged, and her cheeks had broken out into a rash of angry red pimples. She hated who she’d become. When she’d lain Amanda’s cold body on the floor, Nicole wanted to die, too. But she realized during that very first panic attack in the baby’s nursery that the fear she’d experienced when she couldn’t breathe was proof of how much she wanted to live.

Now she lived for Quinn. But having a petrified, paranoid mother and living in this house—more like a dungeon—was no life for her daughter. She had a week to get back to Breathe. Something had to give.