“Lots of stuff going around at the twins’ daycare, too,” she says. “It should only last forty-eight hours. Anyway, when can you meet up? We shouldn’t say too much on the phone.”
As I take the off-ramp, I’m glancing at all my mirrors. There’s no sign of whoever was tailing me earlier, but I’m sure they won’t give up that easily. If they find me again, I can’t risk leading them back to the house.
“Margaux?” Elodie’s voice comes through the Bluetooth. “You still there?”
“Yes, sorry,” I tell her. “Um—today is going to be difficult.” As I’m stopping at a red light, I spot my friend in the black BMW at a parking lot across from the intersection. They were waiting for me. “Shit.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I blurt. “I have to go.” I’m not sure if Elodie hears the string of expletives I mutter as I disconnect the call.
There’s a gun locked in my glove box. Mr. X adapted the door so that it only opens with my thumbprint, ensuring Collette will never find it there. But a lot of good that will do me now if this car decides to run me off the road, or if they shoot through my rear window.
The light turns green. Whoever it is, they didn’t place a hidden tracker on my car, because they would have followed me on the highway if that was the case, and they didn’t realize until too late when they’d lost me in that alleyway.
But they’re determined nonetheless, and they knew I’d be headed this way.
I turn left, away from the school and away from my neighborhood. They’re going to catch up to me. It’s inevitable. And suddenly I’m thinking of Waylen, whose angry silence filled the house when I left this morning. No doubt he’s still stewing on it, wondering why I can’t be his perfect wife, wondering why he still loves me despite his better judgment.
And of Collette, who threw her arms around me when I dropped her off, hugging me in a way she rarely does anymore. She’s getting older now, and she doesn’t say, “I love you.”
She used to say it all the time when she was a toddler, blowing kisses, her chubby fingers wiggling like starfish as she waited to be held. I never thought to notice when she stopped saying it, when she stopped crawling into my lap and nuzzling me like a sleepy cat. I can’t remember the last time I read her a bedtime story, or carried her from her car seat to the bed.
I try to imagine how she’ll look in a few years, when I’m dropping her off for college. I can almost see her, tall with long wavy hair, lugging a suitcase up the steps. I wait for her to turn around so I can get a look at her face, to see the angles of the budding young woman she’s becoming. But she doesn’t turn. She doesn’t hear me calling for her.
All I see is that BMW in my mirror, gaining on me. I speed up, the shoreline blurring beside me, the water cold and glittering, flanked by jagged rocks. It’s not the ideal place to hide a body, what with the water chopping up against them. But maybe they mean for me to be found, to send a message to Mr. X, to my family.
I grab my phone and dial Mr. X’s number. He always answers on the first ring, but this time he doesn’t. It goes to voicemail, something that has never happened. “Goddamn it,” I shout at my phone. “The one time I need you to be stalking me, and you’re taking a break.” I hang up. Briefly, I wonder if someone has gotten to him, too. If he’s even alive.
I swerve off of the road and onto a patch of dirt. There’s a row of Cape Cod houses across the street, and maybe if I’m lucky, somebody is home. If this is the end for me, they’ll call the police to report what they’ve seen. Waylen and Collette won’t spend months wondering what happenedto me, appealing to the news, making sappy Facebook posts about how much they want me to come home. It’ll be clean, quick. They can have the funeral and know better than to look for me in crowds.
But if today is the day I die, I won’t make it easy for them.
I retrieve my gun from the glove box and tuck it into my waistband before opening the car door. The gravel crunches as the car pulls up behind mine.“I can’t just call the police if you disappear on me.”Was it only this morning that Waylen said those words? It feels like ages ago. He won’t be able to do this without me. He’s too sensitive, too caring and sweet. He’ll fall to pieces, and Collette will be tasked with holding him together. That will be her burden in life because she’s twice cursed. Cursed with my strength, and cursed with having me for a mother.
It’s a quiet suburb, not a single car passing us on the road now. But there are cars in the driveways of the adjacent houses. Wealthy retirees line the coast, and families that hire someone to clean their houses or nanny their kids. My heart has stopped pounding and I’m eerily calm. I have no idea why.
I’m expecting a driver to get out and accost me, but the back passenger door is the one that opens. In my mind there’s a revolving door of every “client” I’ve ever put in jail or made to atone for their crimes. I do try to give them all a fair chance, and it’s not my fault if they pick the option that lands them life in prison. If they play fair, if they do as I ask, they’re free forever and I will never darken their doorway again. It’s a promise I’ve always kept. So who is it? What loose end did I not properly tie?
A brown faux leather oxford shoe steps out. Bertram Casimir. His green eyes catch the light, which gives the illusion of a playful wink, but his expression is stony. His jaw is tight and his lips are set into a grim line, like a disappointed parent.
Is this the last thing Annie saw, before the end?
My mouth opens, but for all the questions spinning around in my head, I can’t seem to form words. I end up gaping like a fish.
“What do you want, Margaux?” he asks. “Why are you snooping around my life?”
“Me?” I manage, and to my surprise my voice sounds firm. “You’re the one chasing me all over town.”
He takes one step toward me, and then another. My palms go cold, but I don’t back away.
“Pretending to be a reporter,” he says, so close now that I can smell his cologne. “Pretending to be a delivery person.” I glance at his hands, at his pockets and waist. I don’t see a weapon. But then, I can’t see the driver of his car. For all I know, there’s a gun trained on me right now. “Did you think I wouldn’t look into you and your little friend from the supposed ‘newspaper’?”
His voice is so calm and flat that it frightens me more than if he’d come out shouting, guns blazing like a cowboy in a TV western. It’s apparently my turn to speak now. He raises an eyebrow expectantly.
Lying comes so easily to me most days. I’ve been doing it since I was a child. The day my parents died, all the rules were broken. I was a tightly bundled package, tied up with a little pink bow, and then suddenly it was as thoughsomeone pulled the ribbon loose. The box opened up and everything I was taught scattered in a million directions. I didn’t chase the pieces because they didn’t matter anymore.
But now I struggle to come up with something convincing. I hadn’t expected to be caught. In all my years, I’ve never been found out. And so quickly.
