I cross the room and swing it open. And Roger’s there, lifting a roasting pan from the oven.
“Were you calling me?” he asks. “Sorry, the exhaust fan makes such a racket.”
“Want me to set the table?”
“Sure, I thought we’d eat in here since it’s cheerier.”
The meal turns out to be simple but delicious—chicken breasts that Roger’s roasted with fennel and herbes de Provence, green beans, a Bibb lettuce salad, and fresh bread. We leave any talk of Hugh, Marion, murder, fugue states, and financial setbacks behind and speak about local politics, my upcoming book, and anecdotes from our dad’s stay in San Diego that Quinn has been better at sharing with Roger than with me. Whether it’s from the switch in topics or the crisp white wine, or both, my stomach unknots.
As we’re loading the dishwasher, I start to tense up again and decide I have no choice but to spoil the mood. There’s something I need to know.
“Rog, the other day Hugh asked me a question I couldn’t answer, and I realized you might be the only person who could, besides Dad. Are you aware of any time in my childhood or past when I might have ended up in a dissociative state? Perhaps not as long as the one I experienced recently but some period when I lost track of myself?”
“What? No, certainly not. At least not that I witnessed or heard about.”
“And not—back then... around the time I found Jaycee?”
“Um... no. No one ever mentioned anything like that to me.”
“You hesitated.”
“Only because the question caught me off guard. Why would Hugh suggest that?”
I smile ruefully. “Maybe he’s trying to determine how much of a nutjob he married.”
Later, I make an attempt to read in the den while Roger disappears upstairs to his office for a while. Hugh calls at about nine to say good night and I keep it brief, too exhausted to play at sounding normal. Shortly afterward, my brother returns and joins me on the couch with an art book, but he seems distracted now, flipping pages without lighting on them. When I glance up, I see that he’s staring off into space, his head slightly cocked, and I half expect him to ask,Did you hear that?But he doesn’t. A minute later he announces he’s turning in, but I’m welcome to hold down the fort in the den.
“No, I should call it a night, too,” I say. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Roger.”
“My pleasure, Button.”
I follow him upstairs and soon crawl into bed. Somehow, I manage to drift off to sleep pretty quickly. But when I awake with a start, I see that it’s ten past eleven, and I’ve been asleep for only a few minutes. I lie on my back beneath the covers as my mind churns with now-familiar thoughts of Hugh in his towel, Hugh lying, Hugh andAshley. And then Mulroney, dead perhaps because of me. The large dimensions of the guest room, with its soaring ceilings, don’t help to put me at ease. But finally, perhaps from sheer mental exhaustion, I finally nod off again.
And then once more I jolt awake. The bedside clock now reads 3:12. At first, I assume my internal agitation has roused me, but as I shift onto my back, I see a faint light shimmering outside the two windows looking onto the side yard.
I scoot up in bed. Am I seeing car headlights from the road, the beams on high? But it doesn’t diminish as quickly as those would.
I toss off the duvet, slip out of bed, and cross the room toward the window. Halfway there, I notice a fiery red bleeding into the yellow glow, and as I reach the sill, I gasp in shock. One side of the garden shed that sits near the edge of the property is engulfed in flames. Smoke is billowing up toward the treetops.
I stuff my feet into flats and race down the hallway toward Roger’s room. Pounding on his door elicits no response, so I shove it open. From the dim light of the hall I can see that his bed is empty. God, whereishe?
I notice there’s light emanating from the base of the stairwell and rush down the wide steps into the center hall, pivot, and tear to the rear of the house. The chain’s off the door. I swing it open and spill into the night.
“Roger?” I scream, staggering onto the gravel drive. I can hear the fire crackling from the side yard. “Roger?”
I’m about to round the building to find him when a force whacks me hard from behind. My knees buckle, the wind knocked out of me.
I try to right myself, but something comes out of nowhere and slams into my throat. It’s an arm in a jacket, I realize. A man’s arm. Panic explodes through my limbs. The grip tightens and he starts to yank me backward. Somehow I manage to struggle, clawing behind me. For a split second, I touch something scratchy on either his head or face.
I make an attempt to scream, but he reaches up, clamps a hand on my mouth. His feet keeping moving, though. When squirming doesn’t free me, I kick at his shins. For a split second he freezes, still gripping me at a slant. Then, with hisfree hand, he punches the side of my face with the force of a battering ram.
The shock from the pain makes me crumble, but he hoists me up and keeps dragging. I dig my shoes into the dirt, trying to slow our momentum. One flies off, then the other. My feet are bare now, and stones and tree roots tear at the skin. We’re descending, I realize. Down the front lawn of the house as it drops to the river.
Finally, he stops. I hear his arms fall by his side and I make an attempt to bolt. “Roger,” I scream, but it comes out as a tiny squeak.
An arm shoots out and this time I’m yanked backward by the neck of my pajama top. The movement makes me spin a little in place and I finally see his figure. His face is obscured by a ski mask.
“Help,” I scream, louder this time. “Help!”
