Page 116

One of them was Janelle.
The other was Craig.
He lay on his back, shirt off and balled under his head to form a makeshift pillow. His pants had been shoved to his ankles, circling them like manacles. Janelle sat on top of him, riding him. Each thrust moved the skirt of her dress. An ebb and tide of fabric across Craig’s bare thighs. The top of her dress was pulled down, exposing breasts so pale they practically glowed in the moonlight.
“Yes,” she moaned, the word a wisp mingling with the night air. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Anger and hurt clenched Quincy’s stomach, like there was a hand there holding her insides, squishing them as it curled into a fist.
Yet she couldn’t look away. Not with Janelle moaning like that, her movements more desperate than passionate. It was all too beautiful and painful and grotesque.
Then the sobs came, burbling out of her. Quincy slapped a hand over her mouth to block the sound. Even though she shouldn’t have cared if they heard her. Even though all she wanted to do was scream to the sky, her banshee’s wail riding the breeze.
But the angry fist inside her kept squeezing, increasing her anger, her pain. She slipped back through the woods, fresh tears forming where the earlier ones had dried. She could still hear Janelle as she slid down the incline, her repeated moans like a taunting bird in the branches.
Yes, yes, yes.
33.
“Why?” I say, still on the floor.
Sam ignores me, instead crossing the room to silence the CD player. Then it’s on to the knapsack, where she pulls out her black jeans and begins to slide them on under the skirt of the red dress.
“Why?”
“Because it needed to be done,” Sam says.
“It didn’t,” I say, rising to my knees. “You just felt like it did.”
Because she knew how much it would hurt me once I found out. And I was certain she intended to make sure I found out. This was just another way to mess with me, to wake me up, to make me angry.
I claw at the wall, using it to help me rise to my feet. Still unsteady, I lean against it, leveling my gaze at Sam. She’s removed the dress and is now yanking her Sex Pistols shirt over her head. Then she sits on the bed, replacing the fuck-me heels with her combat boots.
“You’re sick,” I tell her. “You know that, right? You can’t stand to think that one of us could have a normal life. That at least one of us could actually be happy.”
Sam goes to the window, throws it open, and lights a cigarette. Puffing out smoke, she says, “You have me all figured out, don’t you?”
“I do. You came here and saw that I was normal and stable and decided that you had to fuck it all up.”
“Stable? You sent a guy to the hospital, babe. He’s still in a goddamn coma.”
“Because of you! You wanted me to do it!”
“Keep thinking that, Quinn. If you need that lie to be able to live with yourself, then keep on believing it.”
I look away, not sure what to believe.
It feels as if gravity has failed and everything once secure and settled in my life is now tumbling in midair, suddenly just beyond my reach.
“Why Coop?” I ask. “It’s Manhattan. There are a million guys you could have picked. So why him?”
“Insurance.”
“For what?”
“That detective came by again this morning,” Sam says. “Hernandez. She said she wanted to talk to you. When I told her you were away, she said she’d be back and that you shouldn’t have left town.”
Because my running off with my lawyer boyfriend made me look suspicious. Of course it did.