Mae breathed out a sound. It was wet and gurgly.
“Mae, I’m going to call 911, okay? We’re going to get you to a hospital.” Joey looked around wildly for the phone she had dropped. She spotted it near the bookcase, but it was split in half from hitting the hard linoleum-covered cement of the basement floor. She picked it up anyway and pressed the buttons, but there was no dial tone. Fuck.
The other handset was on the opposite side of the room, sitting on the end table closer to Mae’s head. She strode toward it, but as she picked it up, she saw immediately that it hadn’t been placed correctly on the charger. That phone was dead, too. Fuck. This could not be happening.
Mae moaned again.
“Hang on, Mae,” Joey said, desperately looking around for her friend’s cell phone. She’d heard it ring; it was here somewhere.
She spotted Mae’s purse on the floor behind the end table, its contents scattered all over the floor. In the midst of the mess, she saw the red Nokia and grabbed it, pressing the button to make a call. Nothing happened. She checked the screen. There was no cell reception.
“Fuck this fucking basement!” Joey shrieked, resisting the urge to hurl the phone across the room. It had a signal before, because it rang, goddammit. She waved the cell phone around, trying to see if she could catch a signal in a different part of the room. Then she tried dialing 911 anyway, but after she hit send, there was only silence. She checked the screen again. The cell phone had gone dead.
“This cannot be fucking happening,” Joey said with a sob.
On the sofa, Mae moaned again.
The upstairs tenants had a phone, of course … but then she remembered they were gone for the holidays, and she did not have a key to their part of the house. This was absolute bullshit. She’d have to leave Mae here and go get help. It was three a.m. She’d have to bang on the neighbors’ doors until someone woke up.
“Mae, hang on, okay?” Joey said, wrapping her bathrobe tighter around herself. “I have to go find a phone. I’ll be right back.”
Mae said something indecipherable. And then, with great difficulty, she said, “No. Joey … no. No.”
Joey walked back to her friend and kneeled, feeling the blood on the floor squish into her bare knees. It was horrific to be this close, to see the damage Vinny had done to Mae’s face and chest. If he had been determined to destroy something beautiful, he had succeeded. If not for her eyes, Mae would be unrecognizable. Joey took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. It was limp and alarmingly cold.
“Mae, I have to get you help.”
Mae’s eyes were glassy, but they were focused on Joey’s face. “No,” she said again. “Don’t … don’t leave…”
“Mae, I have to find a phone,” Joey said, trying not to cry so she could talk. “I’ll only be gone a minute. I promise I’ll come right back. You just have to hang on.”
“No,” Mae said. “Stay … with me. Please, Joey. Please.”
Joey watched as her friend inhaled, then exhaled. And then, her eyes still open, Mae died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The decision to burn Mae’s body took three seconds.
It took one second to close Mae’s eyes.
Another second to remember all the phones in the basement apartment were dead.
And a final second to realize it was time to leave.
For the past year, Joey had been telling herself that she’d know when it was time to start over somewhere new. She was certain there’d be a moment when it would be crystal clear to her, and here it was. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it, but that didn’t matter now, did it? Vinny had murdered his girlfriend in Joey’s apartment looking for something he hadn’t yet found, and to do something that horrific, and that fucking reckless, meant he wasn’t being smart, or logical. There was no doubt in her mind he would come back. Maybe to dispose of Mae’s body. Maybe to kill Joey, too. Either way, she didn’t want to be here when he did.
There was no option to call the police. And then what? They arrest Vinny? Even if he went to prison, she would be the girl who testified against the Blood Brothers, and from everything she’d heard about them, she’d be as good as dead.
If that was her fate, she’d rather take her chances and run.
It was crazy to think how fast a life-changing decision could be made when you were forced to make it. She had done it once before, with her mother. She’d felt the same then as she did now. Devastated, terrified … and furious.