I look around for Margit but she’s vanished.
I am still in my cottage.
I am not in some hazy ethereal afterlife, I am still in Spring Brook, New Jersey, bound to a wooden chair with my feet on the floor, and the clock on the microwave oven says 11:52.
I can still feel an icy chill on the crook of my arm, where Caroline injected the needle—but I am very much alive and not the least bit high.
“She drugged me. Your wife—”
“Baby powder,” Ted says. “I switched the heroin with baby powder. You’re fine.” He moves behind me, tugging at the cloth straps binding my wrists to the chair. “Gosh, she really went overboard with these knots. I need a knife.” He goes into the kitchen and starts rummaging through the cutlery drawer.
“What are you doing?”
“Protecting you, Mallory. I’ve always protected you. Don’t you remember your job interview? All those rude and nasty questions about your qualifications? I was trying to scare you away. I tried scaring all the candidates away. But you were persistent. You really wanted to be here. And Caroline thought you were the solution to all our problems.”
He carries a serrated blade to my chair and quickly saws through the restraints. My arms fall to my side and I’m free to move them again. Slowly, carefully, I press my fingers to the throbbing lump on my head, and I feel little bits of glass clinging to my scalp.
“I’m sorry I hit you. We’ll stop at a gas station and get you some ice.” Ted opens the door to my closet and he’s delighted to see all the empty clothes hangers. “You’re already packed! That’s perfect. My bag’s in the car, so we’re ready to go. I figure we’ll drive all night. Find a hotel to catch our breath. Then we’ll keep pushing west. I found a gorgeous house on Airbnb. Just to get us settled. You’ll love it, Mallory, there’s gorgeous views of Puget Sound.”
“Ted, slow down. What are you talking about?”
He laughs. “Right, right, I’ve been planning so long, I forgot we haven’t fully discussed it. But I know how you feel about me, Mallory. I feel the same way, and I’m ready to act on those feelings.”
“You are?”
“I’ve cashed in my IRAs, I’ve got eighty grand in a bank account that Caroline can’t touch. That’s plenty for us to start over. Build a new life in Washington state. Whidbey Island. But we need to leave right now. Before she comes back to clean up.”
“Why are you so afraid of her?”
“She’s out of her mind! Don’t you realize that by now? She just tried to kill you. She won’t hesitate to kill me. And if I tell the police, I’ll go to jail. So we have to run. Right now. If we leave the kid, she won’t follow us.”
“You want to leave Teddy?”
“I’m sorry, Mallory. I know you love him. I love him, too. He’s really sweet. But he can’t come. I don’t need Caroline and Margit chasing us across the country. The kid stays here with his two mommies. They can fight each other, battle each other to the death, I don’t care. I can’t take this shit anymore. I don’t want to be here another minute. This whole nightmare ends tonight, do you understand?”
Outside the cottage, we hear the tiny snap of a twig—and Ted moves to the window, peering outside. Then he shakes his head, assuring me it’s a false alarm. “Now, please, I need you to try standing up. Would you like some help?” He offers me his hand, but I wave him away and manage to stand on my own. “There you go, Mallory. That’s great. Now do you need to use the bathroom? Because most places won’t be open after midnight.”
I do need to use the bathroom—but only as a quiet place to steady my thoughts. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Fast as you can, okay?”
I close the bathroom door, turn on the sink, and splash some cold water on my face. What the hell am I going to do? I pat down my pockets but of course they’re empty. I poke through the medicine cabinet and search the shower stall but there’s nothing I can use to defend myself. The closest thing to a weapon is a pair of tweezers.
The bathroom has a tiny screened window, just a few inches high, positioned near the ceiling for ventilation. I close the toilet seat and stand on top of it. The window faces south, toward Hayden’s Glen, looking toward the shadowy brambles of the forest. I manage to pop out the screen and push it out the window, letting it drop to the floor of the forest. But even if I mustered the strength to pull myself up, there’s no way I can fit through.