“I don’t know!” The words cracked out of me. “Can’t you just trace my phone?”
“We’re working on locating you now. Take a breath. Officers are on their way. Do you know this woman?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just visiting with my husband. It’s his childhood home.”
“Is your husband with you? Does he know the woman?”
“No!” That came out too quickly. “He’s not here. He’s in Boston. And he doesn’t know her.”
Right? He didn’t know her. Hecouldn’tknow her.
“Is she conscious? Injured?”
“She’s not injured. She was—she was sitting in a chair. Reading a book. Then she got upset. Started talking about a monster who hurts women.”
The dispatcher paused. I noticed a shift in rhythm, like she was weighing the words.
“A book,” she said. “She was reading?”
The weight of it hit me. How this all must sound.
I stepped away from the basement door.
“Are you safe right now?” she asked. “Is anyone else in the house?”
What if none of it was real?
“Ma’am?” she said again. “Are you safe? Is anyone with you?”
“I’m not hurt. And I think I’m alone,” I said quietly.
“Are there any weapons in the house?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Can you stay on the line and wait outside?”
“Yes,” I said, the word sounding small, half-trapped in my chest.
Then a thought snapped into place. Mochi.
He wasn’t in danger, but the idea of leaving without him made my skin crawl. I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the cage, and stepped outside.
The sun was shining. A soft breeze carried the salty scent of the ocean up from the water and stirred my hair. It rustled Mochi’s feathers inside the crate. Warmth settled over my arms, kissed my cheeks, but none of it felt real. Not with what was happening. Not with what I’d just seen.
“I need to call my husband,” I said.
“Ma’am, please stay on the phone with me,” the dispatcher replied.
“I really need to call him.”
“Ma’am, please don’t—”
I hung up.
Daniel didn’t pick up. I tried again, pacing up and down the gravel driveway in front of the main entrance of the Breakers. The house loomed behind me, still and ancient, its windows staring at me like eyes.
Nothing. Still no answer.
