Page 129 of Tear Me Apart

Lauren’s car appears at the end of the driveway. The car stops, and Zack can imagine what this looks like—him on the front porch, looking ready to break down her door, a stranger’s car blocking the garage doors. Zack waves and runs down the stairs. Lauren pulls up closer. She is alone. Where is Juliet?

He is standing by the car now. Lauren puts down the window.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Juliet?”

Lauren points to her sister’s car. “Isn’t she inside?”

“I don’t know. The door is locked, no one’s answering. I thought she was meeting you here.”

“She is. She called and said she had something to discuss. I was shopping, drove up here as quickly as I could. She called you, too, I see.” Mild curiosity, or is it derision? He can’t tell with her anymore. He wants to wring her neck. He wants to reach through the window and pull her hair, twist her head to the side, force her to admit what she’s done. But his hands hang limp at his side, and she shakes her head impatiently as if he’s simply an insect who’s buzzing around her face. What sort of game is she playing? Has she really not talked to Juliet yet? She’s not acting evasive or concerned.

“Yes, she did call me. We were talking when you came home. She hung up when you pulled in the driveway. She hasn’t answered her phone since.”

“She must have seen someone else, because I’ve been at the grocery store and just got here. Could you get...whoever that is to move his ratty little car? I’d like to pull into the garage.”

“I’m happy to. Hey, Bode? Move the car to the other side, will you? Mrs. Wright wants to pull in.”

Bode salutes and jumps behind the wheel, and Zack steps out of the way. Lauren zooms past and into the garage, then comes out, keys jingling. She pops the trunk. “Can you grab the bags for me? I thought we could all eat here tonight. Since we can’t eat with Mindy, a family dinner among the rest of us is a good thing, right? We have to get used to our new normal.”

Either she is the coolest customer to ever live, or Juliet saw the wrong car and Lauren doesn’t yet know she’s been implicated in Vivian’s murder. He grabs two brown bags of groceries and a zipped-up insulated freezer bag. Lauren has already gone inside. Bode signals and Zack nods. He opens the door, and Kat rushes out, straight past Zack, into the house, a streak of brown fur. Zack pushes the freezer bag into Bode’s arms. “Listen, I don’t know—”

Kat begins to bark, sharp and urgent, and Zack hears a long, high-pitched scream.

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Zack bolts through the garage door and up the stairs, Bode tight on his heels. He enters into a nightmare.

It takes a moment for him to register everything. Lauren, on her knees, screaming. Kat, two feet away from Lauren, neck stretched taut with the ferocity of her barking.

Legs, clad in jeans and boots, akimbo on the carpet.

Three long strides and the face comes into view.

Juliet.

Her face is dusky purple, her eyes slivers of white, a thick foam on her lips. He drops to his knees by her side, dimly hears Bode yelling in the background.

“Call 911,” he shouts, and Bode whips out his cell phone.

“Is she alive?” Lauren is calling to him, crying, grabbing at his arm. He shoves her away and sticks two fingers against Juliet’s carotid. There is a slow bump, then another, but the intervals are too spaced, and he realizes she’s very nearly dead.

He has no idea what’s happened, no idea what is causing this, though the back of his mind is screaming,Some kind of poison, some kind of overdose; that foam is a dead giveaway.

“Is she on any medications?”

“I don’t know. I think she takes an antidepressant. Oh, God, is she trying to commit suicide?”

They have no time to lose. Without another thought he starts chests compressions, hard and professional, a soldier’s response, counting off as he does. He feels a rib give way. Lauren weeps by his side. Bode drops to his knees across from Zack. His face is white as bone.

“Ambulance is on its way. Can I do anything? Should I breathe for her?”

“No. Don’t touch her, don’t touch her mouth. Get Lauren out of here, and let the paramedics in the second they get here. Shout ‘Narcan’ at them as they come in.”

He pumps on her chest, heels of his hands to her breastbone, feeling the strange intimacy of flesh to flesh, knowing this is the only chance he can give her.