I debated not getting out of bed and just letting whoever it was knock until they left. I mean, who was knocking at ten thirty on a Christmas morning anyway? Carolers? A lost Amazon delivery guy dropping off a last-minute gift? It was too early for Chinese takeout. I held my breath and waited a few more moments, hoping they’d just go away, but then an even louder pounding practically catapulted me out of the bed. I grabbed my La Perla silk robe （a gift from Adam last Christmas） and hustled through the living room to the front door.
The pounding continued. “Sheesh, okay, okay,” I muttered as I picked up my pace and then shouted down the hall, “Hold on, will you?!”
My bare feet slapped the dark hardwood as I hurried to get there before the next firestorm of pounding. I popped up on my toes and looked through the tiny peephole and was even more perplexed by the sight on the other side.
I wrenched the door open just as a large, suited gentleman standing at the threshold raised his hand to knock again.
“Whoa. What is going on?” I asked and wrapped my robe a little more tightly around me to properly cover up all my lady bits.
At the same time, two men in the front, flanked by four uniformed police officers, flashed their badges, the gold of their shields distracting me from actually catching anyone’s name. “Ma’am, we’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security. We are looking for Adam McDaniels.”
“Adam McDaniels?” I exhaled a sigh of relief. “No, sorry. An Adam lives here, but his last name isn’t McDaniels. You must have the wrong address. Merry Christmas, guys.” I moved to close the door when a meaty hand and a shiny-toed shoe stopped it in its tracks.
“Right, sure. Well, so you may know him as Adam Wright, Adam Fields, or Adam”—he looked down at his notepad and then back up again—“Daulton.”
My chest tightened as my ears began to ring. Daulton. No, this had to be some kind of mistake. Adam had never even gotten so much as a parking ticket.
“Are you . . .” He flipped through the pages of his pad. “Avery Lawrence?”
“Yes,” I managed to squeak out, past my throat now drier than the Sahara.
“We have an arrest warrant for Mr. McDaniels, uh, Daulton, and warrants to search and seize property,” he said, flashing a series of documents in front of me.
“Hold on, what? Excuse me? No, that’s not possible. I don’t under—” But before I could even finish my sentence, the officers pushed their way past me at the command of the taller FBI agent.
I’m asleep. That’s it. I’m still in a sex-hazed, dream-filled sleep. C’mon, Avery, wake up. Wake up. I pinched my arm, a total cliché, but I was out of options and willing to try just about anything to end the nightmare unraveling in front of me. I scurried ahead of them to the bedroom to at least try to throw on some pants and a shirt as a parade of agents swarmed into our Upper East Side classic six. I managed to hop into a pair of old sweatpants, slip off the La Perla robe, and grab one of Adam’s Princeton hoodies, wrenching it over my thin camisole as quickly as humanly possible to give these officers as little of a peep show as I could.
Just then, two agents marched Adam, now dressed, past me through to the living room in handcuffs, a trail of watery footprints leading toward the door. What the hell could he have possibly done to justify an army of agents pulling him from his shower while he still had soap bubbles in his hair? None of this made any sense. Instinctively, I shouted, “You can’t take him like that! It’s twenty-five degrees outside. He’ll freeze to death.”
The officers didn’t slow but continued to usher Adam through the foyer until he was by the coat closet being helped into his sneakers. I raced to grab a towel out of the linen chest and moved toward him with an outstretched arm, trying to dab away some of the water dripping down his neck onto the floor. Adam kept his back to me as he worked his foot into a shoe.
“Adam? What’s going on? Tell them this is all a mistake,” I pleaded.
The taller officer raised his voice and forearm to block me from getting any closer. “Ma’am, I need you to stand down. Get back against the wall. Now!” he barked.
“But he’ll freeze!” I pushed forward, extending the soft, plush terry toward him again. “Isn’t that some form of cruel and unusual punishment? I mean, it’s . . . it’s Christmas!” I bumped up against the portly agent and thrust the towel in his face, trying desperately to get past him and over to where Adam was shivering.
“Ms. Lawrence, turn around. Arms behind your back.” He slapped a pair of cold silver handcuffs on my wrists, the towel falling to the ground between us.
“Wait. I’m getting arrested? For what?” I tried to look up over my shoulder at the agent, but was thrust back around and forced up against the wall, the cuffs tightening with the movement. My cheek smushed into the cool plaster, the paint color—Anvil Gray—hitting me with a force almost as heavy as its name.
“Assaulting an officer.” The agent’s voice remained even and unfeeling.
“I didn’t assault you! I waved a towel in your face,” I cried. This can’t be happening! He must be joking! A crushing swell of nausea rocketed through me, and I scanned the foyer for something I could use in case I got sick.
“Ma’am, please don’t make me add resisting arrest to your charges. Agent McInerny, please read Ms. Lawrence her rights,” the agent ordered.
A young female officer with slicked-back hair and deep-set blue eyes stepped forward to recite my Miranda rights. It was simultaneously exactly how I’d seen it in the movies and the thousand Law & Order: SVU marathons I’d logged, and yet, not at all the same. The procedures seemed familiar, but this experience was wholly new and altogether more unsettling than I could have ever imagined.
I swallowed hard, trying to unjumble my thoughts and questions, but in the end, I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing that I said nothing. I prayed that somehow between getting manhandled and Mirandized, Adam would look at me. I just needed to see his eyes, his innocent face, a reassuring glance—something—to give me a clue as to what the hell was happening and that this had been a colossal mistake.
Throughout the apartment, cabinets were being slammed and drawers emptied, flipped upside down carelessly, items tossed about like junk. The SWAT team was searching every last nook and cranny, rummaging through dressers, pulling down books, files, and prized sports mementos. When they dumped over a box tucked deep in the back of the closet containing some of my old acting memorabilia—tattered scripts, cast photos, trophies from singing competitions—a tight pull in my stomach caught me off guard.
Sprawled out on the floor among the autographed Playbills and ticket stubs was the version of my life I’d given up when I’d chosen Adam six years ago and set aside my dream of an acting career for an entirely different kind of happiness. I’d forgotten that box was even back there. In this mess, it was hard to tell what they were looking for. It would take days to put things back together again.
A young agent I hadn’t seen before poked his head into the foyer. “Ms. Lawrence, where’s your phone?”