Page 36

Now we were communicating.

The daughter started crying. “Dad, I want to leave! This isn’t funny anymore!”

Her brother snapped his head toward her. “When was it ever funny?!”

“Everybody hush!” their father shouted, cutting across both of them. “We’re not leaving in the middle of the night!”

Wrong answer.

The upstairs hall light clicked on, then off.

The door to the primary bedroom Nick and Constance had claimed slammed so hard the sound traveled through the whole house.

The wife flinched and pressed closer to her husband.

Then something began dragging across the floor upstairs, slowly, and heavily. The noise scraped from one end of the hall toward the landing, stopping, and starting just enough to make it impossible to dismiss as the house settling.

All four of them froze.

The sound stopped near the landing.

A few seconds later, the wife’s Hermès Birkin slid into view at the top of the staircase.

Her entire face changed.

“That’s my Birkin!” she exclaimed.

Before anybody could move, it tipped forward and bumped down three steps before stopping.

Then another designer bag appeared behind it.

Her mouth fell open. “Oh, hell no!”

“What the fuck?” the son cursed.

His mama didn’t even bother correcting his language.

Next came the boy’s PlayStation case, followed by both controllers and the plastic case holding his games. I didn’t throw that shit, and I wasn’t trying to break it; I just sent everything sliding neatly toward the stairs like somebody upstairs had decided to help him pack.

“Dad…” His voice cracked. “That was in my room.”

His father stared upward, then his own leather work briefcase appeared at the landing.

“What the hell?”

His laptop bag slid out behind it and came to rest beside the briefcase.

There go your work shit, boss man. You got somewhere else to clock in tomorrow.

The daughter screamed next, and not because anything had touched her, but her wig bag came sliding into view.

“My wigs!”

Behind it came her ring light, tripod, camera case, portable backdrop bag, and the little makeup organizer she had spent half the afternoon setting up like she was about to turn one of my guest rooms into a damn content studio.

Take that too. You can go live from somebody else’s house.

Nothing was broken or destroyed. Everything was just conveniently relocated because I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody; I was helping them move the fuck out.