The baby whimpers in Merritt’s arms.
She leans down, lips pressed against his cheek. “Sh, sh, sh, sh . . .”
Everything’s happening in a vacuum—all at once and too fast to track.
“His car seat’s in there.” With a strangely calm air about her, Merritt nods toward the room at the end of the hall. Within seconds I retrieve a gray infant carrier, returning to place it by her feet. Carefully, she crouches down and straps the baby in before tucking a white muslin blanket around the lower half of his tiny body. He stirs, hands above his head and face in a pre-cry wince, but she silences him with a soft green pacifier. “I hate to ask you for another favor . . .”
“No, it’s fine.” It’s the least I can do after the devastating news she’s received—and less than a week after giving birth.
“The whole thing just . . . clicks into the base . . .” She motions with her hands, feigning the movements. “When you sit it on . . .”
“I’ll figure it out.” With a tight grip on the car seat, I head to the car. It takes a few tries, but eventually the seat clicks into the base. I double-check to make sure it’s secure, and then I run back in. It’s chilly out—and the car isn’t running.
I find her in Elsie’s room, tossing haphazardly folded clothes from the small chest of drawers into a slouchy duffel bag.
“I didn’t know how to start the car,” I tell her. Though her back is to the doorway, she doesn’t startle. She simply continues to pack.
“Put your foot on the brake and then press the button by the shifter.” She tugs the zipper closed and brings me the bag. “I’ve got to grab the diaper bag and my suitcase, and then I’m getting out of here.”
Her voice is an unexpected shade of calm, and her eyes no longer hold the tears they brimmed with when she walked away from her conniving husband mere minutes ago. I learned long ago that people handle stress and trauma in all kinds of ways. Some of us fall apart at the seams. Others of us slip into action mode and reserve the emotions for later.
“You okay?” I ask. We’re not exactly friends, but after everything we’ve been through, I think it’s safe for me to ask.
She studies me in the dark, unblinking. “I will be.”
The Merritt I first met was a portrait of insecurity and a fountain of anxiety. The Merritt standing before me is robotic and cold. But she’s been through the unthinkable. Now’s not the time to judge.
“I just want to focus on getting my kids away from . . . him.” She slips past me and heads to the hall, stopping in the doorway to brace her hand against the frame. “It isn’t safe here—for any of us.”
Believe me, I know.
“I’m going to the police after this,” I say. “I’m turning him in for everything. I could use your help.”
Her lower lip trembles, and she hesitates. “Of course.”
It’s not ideal, what with the babies and all, but the two of us together would be a doubleheader of credibility.
It must be awful, losing the father of your children like this. Knowing he isn’t dead, but he’ll never be the man you fell in love with. And what will she tell their children? It’s a fate worse than death, and I hate that this happened to them.
“Would you mind starting the car while I grab my suitcase?” She points to the open door, where Luca’s screams still echo off the wallpapered walls.
Merritt disappears into the bedroom before I think to ask her to retrieve the papers （and Delphine’s butcher knife）， and I wait at the top of the stairs. I’ll have to grab those before we leave.
Voices trail from the end of the hall. Some kind of heated exchange lightly muffled by these old walls. I pick out a handful of phrases: Luca pleading with her to cut the zip ties and Merritt calling him every name under the sun but with a dignified condescension in her voice. A second later, the sound of luggage wheels against hardwood is followed by the slamming of a door. But before I can turn around to grab her suitcase, I’m hit with blinding, white-hot pain in the back of my head.
It takes me a moment to realize what happened, and while I’m now on the floor, I don’t remember the fall. Reaching toward the pulsating throb in the back of my head, my fingertips turn wet with what I can only assume is blood. With blurred, starry vision that fades in and out with each heartbeat, I concentrate on the dark figure hovering over me.
“Merritt?”
I don’t understand . . .
My thoughts crisscross in every direction as I try to wrap my mind around this, but the pain screams too loudly for me to make logical sense out of any of this.
“What happened to staying as good as dead?” Merritt repeats a phrase only Luca could have known, hands gripped tight around what appears to be a marble bookend.
No . . .
“This is what you get for coming back,” she says, “for ruining everything.”
Luca wasn’t lying.
Merritt knew . . . she knew everything.
With the bookend clenched tight and a wicked leer painted on her face, Merritt strikes me once more.
Everything turns to black.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
MERRITT
Lydia crumples into a motionless heap at my feet, her hair blanketing her shoulders and covering her boring, punchable face.
“Merritt!” My husband—soon-to-be late ex-husband—screams at me from down the hall. I’ll cherish the day I never have to hear that voice again. “What are you doing? What was that?”
Oh—so now he gets to be the good one?
He gets to grow a conscience?
I shove my suitcase down the steps so I don’t have to lug it myself. It rolls, slides, and topples before skidding across the foyer and stopping on its side near the front door. I could’ve waited for Lydia to lug it to the car for me, but when I came out of the bedroom and saw her standing at the top of the stairs, her back to me, the opportunity presented itself with perfection.
Without giving it a second thought, I swiped a marble bookend off the hall table and launched it at the back of her egg-shaped head with every jot of force I could muster.
Two strikes in total.
That’s all it took.
I guess the old adage is true—if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.
My hands throb as I bend to examine her. Shoving her stringy hair aside, I place my palm in front of her nose. A veil of hot breath covers my skin.
She’s not dead.
Not yet.
My incision throbs, but only for a second, and then I feel nothing. Forcing myself back up, I return to the bedroom. Now that Lydia’s unconscious, I can say what I really want to say to this pathetic bastard.
Grabbing the policies off the dresser, I wave them in his face. “Five million, eh? That’s all I’m worth to you?”
I don’t know if I should be more insulted by the lowball price tag on my head or the fact that he thought he could pull this off behind my back—both are equally offensive in my book.
“Of course not.” He doesn’t blink, and his eyes hold zero fear. “That’s the amount Brian recommended.”
“Ah, yes. The guy who sells us our home and auto insurance. Let’s blame everything on him. That’ll make this go away, won’t it?” I reach for the butcher knife, palming the cheap stainless steel handle. “So Brian, I take it, is the one who told you to take out a million-dollar policy on our two-year-old?”