Page 62

Rowan

“So where’d you leave things with Hank?” Beatrice has a lot of questions about who I’ve spoken to and what I’ve said.

Stalling, I’ve alternated between self-aggrandizing lies and outright refusals to answer.

“Why do you care?” I yell back this time.

Lickie barks. She’s stress-drooling and chewing the shit out of her leash. But every time she gives it a yank with her strong neck, it holds.

“I have to know what to write in your suicide note,” she says. “Hank is really embarrassed about trying to maul you the other night.” She snorts. “Then you blew off a meeting and took most of two work days off. This morning I told him you seemed distraught.”

Suicide note . “But nobody will believe that I shot myself. Not after you broke my dominant hand.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Kick off your shoes and your socks.”

“What?”

“Now.”

Buying time, I toe out of one of them, moving slowly. “You don’t have to do this. We could just walk out of here. You probably didn’t mean to kill Tim, right? You two had a disagreement.”

“He was an idiot,” she hisses. “He thought I’d spill the tea on the Wincott family. He said he was going to write the damn article no matter what.”

“So you thought shooting him would fix it? You have to know you’ll get caught eventually.”

“He got angry at me when I was grabbing his notebooks out of the back seat. Then I opened his glove box to see if there were more. I picked up the gun to shut him up.”

My heart feels like it might explode. “And you just pulled the trigger.”

“He tried to grab it!” She aims the gun at me again. “Stop talking. Maybe I didn’t go to Cornell, but I’m not stupid. Give me your other shoe before I break something else of yours.”

I wedge the other running shoe off my foot. Beatrice kicks both shoes away from me. She aims the gun at my head. “Roll over. Onto your stomach. The best you can.” Her finger massages the side of the gun, and I’m afraid to look away. But I make myself do it.

God God God . I know I should keep talking. Arguing. But my mind is white noise. I curl my body toward the railing, my hand useless, throbbing.

It’s a shock when Beatrice’s weight comes down on my hips, flattening me to the floor, pinning my feet with what must be her forearm.

I wriggle on instinct, but she’s got leverage on her side. Then I hear the sound of ripping tape, and two seconds later she’s binding my ankles together. I try to bounce her off me, but she’s a heavy weight on the backs of my knees.

My dog howls.

“All right,” she says. “Now we’re ready.”

Ready for what?

She grabs my thighs, and I suddenly understand. “You’re going to throw me over.”

“Yes.” She loops an arm around my lower legs and hoists them off the floor. “You’re not even the first person to die this way. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for you.”

The words barely penetrate. I’m struggling with all my might. If she manages to wrestle me over the railing, I’m dead for sure.

Beatrice is smart. She’s pulling me away from the balustrade where my hand is cuffed, limiting my leverage. I try to curl inward, using my abs to jerk out of her grasp. But her grip is too tight on my ankles.

Still fighting, I close my eyes and picture Natalie’s perfect face. I’m sorry, baby. I’m trying . But Beatrice hoists me farther off the floor, and I think: At least she has her father .

Harrison. I screamed at him today. That cannot be the last conversation we ever have. I let my body go suddenly slack. It’s the only trick I have left.

Beatrice is forced to adjust her grip, and it slows her down. So when I suddenly yank my knees in toward my core and flail my broken hand toward her head, I take her by surprise. I get a handful of her hair and tug as hard as I can.

She makes a noise of rage and I feed off it. I use the advantage to twist my bony knees into her face. And I discover there’s more fight left in me. So much more.

I hear pounding. A fist on a distant door. And maybe the squeak of the mail slot.

“ Mom? ” Natalie shouts.

Lickie goes berserk.

“ Call 911! ” I scream.

“Shut up!” Beatrice hisses, fumbling for the gun. Her face is red and sweaty. “And shut your mouth.” She turns and points the gun at Lickie, who’s straining at the leash.

Then it snaps.

I see the dog fly forward.

Beatrice takes a sudden step backward and trips, one arm windmilling as she starts to go down.

Lickie’s body arches toward Beatrice, who screams.

There’s a deafening bang as the gun goes off. The sound is followed immediately by the piercing crash of breaking glass.

A scream lodges in my throat. Lickie lands on Beatrice with all four paws and clamps her jaws onto Beatrice’s arm with a growl that would frighten the devil.

Beatrice screams, the gun dangling from her fingers.

I do one more ab curl and use my bound feet to awkwardly kick her hand. I hear the satisfying sound of the gun sliding across the wood floor, out of reach.

Beatrice screams again, this time in agony. Lickie makes another terrifying sound, while I suck in the sudden breeze. Above me, there’s a gray, cloudy sky where there should be a century-old, stained-glass window.

I’m trying to make sense of that when I hear more glass breaking somewhere else in the house. “Rowan?” yells Harrison’s voice. “Are you there?”

“YES!” I shout back.

I am. I’m still here.