23
NICOLA
When Cora comes back, she looks like a different person. She’s clearly been crying and looks exhausted. She holds a couple oversize bags and enters the side door quietly. I’ve kept the lights off and sit in front of the small, gas fireplace with Avery playing on a blanket. I hop up to help her with the bags.
“Sorry, that took a lot longer than I thought,” she says, pulling items out of the bags. Granola bars, coffee, bread, peanut butter, fruit.
“Wow. You didn’t have to do all this. You’ve done enough already.”
“You need to eat. And here. This is a pay-as-you-go phone. I put my number in it for you, so if you need me, you can call.” She seems anxious now instead of steady and calm. She goes to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine.
“It’s a wine kind of night for me. Want to join me?” she asks. Something’s happened, I can tell.
“Sure,” I say, taking a glass she’s already poured for me even though I don’t want it. She sits on the blanket next to the fire, and her face changes when she focuses on Avery.
“Look at this sweet girl,” she says, swinging Avery’s little feet and pretending to gobble up her pink booties. Avery giggles. I sit cross-legged next to them.
“Have the police come back to talk to you?” I ask, treading lightly, not sure why she’s upset.
“No. I think you’re as safe as you can be here. He’s having them officially search for you, it looks like,” she says, and I put my glass down and nervously fidget, kneading my fingers in my palms.
“There is no scenario in which we will let him take you back. I don’t care who he is,” she says, and I love her for this, but I don’t think she understands the reach of his influence. Or that he really would just kill me if that’s what it came to.
“Did you know he was married before?” she asks.
“What?” I say, but I mean, I don’t know why that would surprise me, really. It doesn’t, in fact. I don’t care anything about him or his life before me. “No. Why?”
“It could be relevant.”
“What do you mean? To what?”
“Well, here’s the thing. I need you to trust me, to hear me when I tell you this.”
“Of course I trust you. How could I not?” I say, no idea where this is going.
“His first wife died,” she says. “She drowned in their pool. Years ago.”
I feel immediately nauseous: my head is light and dizzy.
“It was an undetermined cause, but, of course, he was there, and they bought his story. I don’t know if it was investigated or if it’s important. Maybe it’s irrelevant, but...”
“It’s not,” I say quietly.
“So look, I know the last thing you want here is to tell anyone else...”
“No! Please. I can’t even believeyouknow—I can’t—This is getting... Oh, my God...” I trail off, not knowing how to handle any of this.
“But here’s the thing. Paige can help us. I know you don’t know her well, but we need her. This is where thetrust mepart comes in.”
“Why do we need her? The more people know, the more risk. Please,” I say, feeling totally without control over my own fate right now.
“Because last month, she dropped a recording device in Lucas’s work bag. It’s tiny, and it records one hundred and ninety-two hours of audio.”
“What? Wait. It recorded audio in our house?” I ask, baffled by this. “Wha-Why?”
“This could be everything we need. You gotta hear me out. Do you know this bag he uses for work—a briefcase-type bag?”
“Yeah, but...” I can’t complete a thought in my mind that comes out as anything but an incoherent stutter.
