Woman on the Edge(53)

It works. I feel the pressure on the door relent. She opens it and stands before us, jittery and confused, but listening.

Then, she steps to the side and motions us in.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT NICOLE




Before

It was 6:30 a.m. Nicole had been up all night, watching Quinn sleep. She couldn’t sleep in her bedroom anymore. It reminded her of Greg, the husband she thought loved her, the man she thought would make a great father. How wrong she had been. These days, she slept on the couch, and Quinn was always only an arm’s length away.

Tessa had stayed over the night before, in the guest room. She’d been thrilled when Nicole asked her to watch Quinn today so she could have a spa day. It was a necessary lie and a turning point, Nicole knew, that she had arranged to leave the house without her daughter. That she was being proactive and driving to Morgan Kincaid’s apartment to talk to her, to make a real connection in person. She’d never received another message, but today she would find her and confess to her who she was. After all, Morgan had offered to help. And Nicole needed help so badly, but only from someone she could truly trust. Someone who truly understood her and the pain of her past.

Now that the time was here, though, she had misgivings. How could she walk out the door without her baby? What had she been thinking? What if Donna came while Nicole was gone? What if Quinn stopped breathing, or Tessa got distracted? She picked up her daughter and squeezed her so hard she cried out.

“Let me take her,” Tessa suggested, coming into the living room, her heather Breathe romper splashed with water from the dishes she’d been washing.

It comforted Nicole to have Tessa there, but she felt awful about how many times Quinn had woken her up in the night. Tessa looked exhausted. Was she awake enough to watch over Quinn all day? Thankfully the awkwardness of their last visit had dissipated. Tessa didn’t mention Breathe, and Nicole appreciated it. Yet she sensed a distance between them she’d never felt before. It was probably coming from her, though. Tessa was as calm and supportive as she’d always been.

“You don’t need to clean up when I’m gone.” Nicole clutched her baby, unable to let her go. “I’ll run the dishwasher eventually. Just make sure Quinn is looked after.”

“I don’t mind. Now let me have her,” Tessa insisted just as Quinn reached out and grabbed her braid. She laughed. “See? She likes me. She’s trying to tell you it’s okay to leave for a while.”

Reluctantly, Nicole handed Quinn over, suppressing a warning to Tessa about holding her neck more firmly.

“It will be fine, Nicki. I just updated my CPR certificate. I know how to change a diaper. And you already made an appointment at the Peninsula. Their facials are incredible. You are going to take advantage and get more than a massage, right?”

Why was Tessa asking so many questions? Why was she pushing her to be away longer? Was she prying for info? But when she looked at her friend’s face, it was peaceful. It was her guilt making her paranoid. Again.

Despite all the shades of purple she surrounded herself with, Nicole had never fully balanced her third-eye chakra, the center of her deepest awareness. But if she could just talk to Morgan, she knew she would finally see things the way they really were.

She looked at the clock. If she left now, she could catch Morgan at her apartment before she went to work. She would introduce herself; they would talk and share confidences. Nicole would know one way or another if this woman was truly the kind, loving, warm, nurturing person she seemed to be online.

Nicole stroked Quinn’s velvety skin. “I don’t know if I can leave her.”

Tessa gave her a look she’d never seen from her best friend before. It was hard and unyielding. “You have to. If you don’t, I will call your doctor.”

Nicole opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. Her friend loved her and only wanted the best for her, she reminded herself.

She waited for the usual weariness to set in, the debilitating fatigue she’d come to expect soon after she woke in the morning. Instead, she noticed that despite little sleep, she was awake and alert. She hadn’t taken her Xanax yet this morning. Maybe she didn’t need it anymore.

After a soft kiss to Quinn’s cheek and another for Tessa, Nicole walked out her front door, alone for the first time since her daughter had been born.

Pausing on her front stoop, she looked left and right. No one was there.

Step by step, she kept going. Maybe, with Morgan’s help, she could finally make things right and be the mother her daughter deserved.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE MORGAN




Donna leads us into a living room where a chocolate suede sofa dominates the L-shaped space. There are no photos on the wall, no personal touches that make a house a home. I think to myself that Donna and Ben live in such empty, sterile spaces, making it hard to instantly gauge who they really are.

Ben and I both stand, my hand still on the pepper spray in my purse. No matter how fragile Donna seems, Nicole is dead, and we don’t know what role she might have played in that.

“Did you do something to my sister?” Ben asks quietly.

Donna’s eyes fill with tears, and she wrings her hands. “I never wanted Nicole to die.”

I wait for Ben to continue. But he stays rooted near the wall across from the couch.