Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
To Do:
- Keep breathing
- Instacart some ice cream
A knock at the front door dragged Claire from her sleep prison. The dogs went wild. Rosie leapt off the couch and sprinted for the foyer. Claire pried her eyes open and stared accusingly at the ceiling. Her neck ached from sleeping on Luke’s Sylvester Stallone pillow. It smelled like him. Luke, that is. Not Sylvester Stallone.
She had fallen asleep on the couch, but at least her makeshift sweatshirt handcuffs had prevented her from sleepwalking. The floorboards creaked as she rose to her feet. A shower of crumbs rained down her front. A box of Triscuits lay discarded on the floor.
What fresh hell awaited her today? Maybe she’d be accidentally guillotined, or the government would come claim eminent domain over the house. She trudged to the front door and peered through the peephole.
Sunlight streamed down, glinting in her sister Charlie’s hair. Claire pulled the door open.
With a pizza box perched on one shoulder, Charlie tapped one foot on the porch and craned her neck, casting a sweeping glance over the front yard. A black Toyota with a SoCal Security sticker stood at the curb. Mr. Nesbit, the neighbor with the golden retriever, was watering his hydrangeas. Several inches of pasty flesh were visible above his knees. Those were some short shorts.
“Hey,” Claire said simply.
“Hey,” Charlie echoed. She handed over a crinkly pharmacy bag and pursed her lips. Her eyebrows were drawn together.
“You promised no lectures.” Claire turned away from the door and made for the kitchen.
Charlie sighed and followed her. “I had to show my driver’s license to the guy out there. I half expected him to ask for my DNA.”
Claire declined to comment. The security person stationed outside had introduced himself via her video doorbell the previous evening after Luke’s departure. The security team’s presence at the curb was a blatant reminder of the fact that she had driven away the only man she had ever truly loved. All because she just couldn’t get it together.
Charlie’s espadrilles tapped the herringbone floor. Apparently she hadn’t received the unwritten “shoes off in the house” memo. “Did you try your phone?”
“Not yet.” Claire eyed the bowl of rice. As long as her phone was out of commission, there was no need for her to engage with the sure-to-be-endless barrage of texts and emails.
“Try it. We’ll get you another one if it’s dead. Can’t have you phone-less with a squad of hitmen after you.” Charlie was never one to mince words.
“Yes, Mom,” Claire grumbled.
“So,” Charlie said as Claire withdrew an orange bottle from the paper bag.
Claire braced herself. She had only texted Charlie because she didn’t have it in her to go to the pharmacy and pick up these stupid anti-anxiety meds for herself. The thought of going outside and facing the world made her stomach twist.
“I Googled the name of your medication,” Charlie said tentatively. How uncharacteristic.
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“Sounds like something you should have been on for a long time. Things must be pretty bad if you’re finally agreeing to take them.” Charlie sat the pizza on the island between them like a peace offering. Rosie danced on her tiptoes, aiming her snoot in the direction of the pie.
Silence stretched. The orange bottle was a grenade in her hand. If she opened this idiotic, fluorescent orange cylinder, it was over. She was admitting that she had a problem. One that couldn’t be fixed by alternate nostril breathing or sun salutations. A panic disorder, Dr. Goulding had said.
“I messed up,” Claire said. “Brad fired me and I just…went a little crazy.”
Charlie set her purse on the counter and swung her long legs onto a bar stool. “Tell me what happened.”
Claire slumped into a chair next to her sister and told her the whole story in intimate detail, from spying on Brad to the abduction to Luke leaving.
“I think this is my rock bottom.” Claire ran a finger over the red mark on her wrist. The police had cut off her zip ties, but she still felt their burn. “I don’t think it can get any worse. Can it?” She looked to the ceiling, half expecting to see a meteor hurtling toward the house.
“Things are pretty shitty, I’ll give you that.” Charlie’s eyes were bloodshot. She had traded in her standard tailored pantsuit for a pair of white capris and a rumpled button-up blouse. There was a stain on one shoulder. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m not going to boss you around and tell you what to do, because I think you already know what you need to do.” She glanced pointedly at the prescription bottle.
Claire grunted and popped the top off the bottle. She chased one of the round white pills with a swallow of water. There. She had done it. She paused, waiting for some monumental shift in her worldview, but there was nothing.
Charlie stood and slung her purse back over her shoulder. “Come on.”
“Come on where?” Claire was in no state to go into public. Her mass of curls had globbed into an untrimmed bush perched on her head. Her leggings had an ice cream stain on them.
Charlie glanced at her watch. “You have ten minutes to make yourself presentable. We’re going out.”
Claire crossed her arms. Had Charlie literally not just said she wasn’t going to boss Claire around? That promise had barely lasted five seconds. “I don’t really feel like leaving the house right now. I was abducted less than twenty-four hours ago, you know.”
Charlie plunged one hand into the mound of rice and pulled out Claire’s phone. Her baby blue eyes cut like lightning. “We’re Hartleys, Claire. Hartleys don’t hide from the world and pout.”
What if she wanted to hide from the world and pout? Hadn’t she earned that? If ever there was a day to hide under a blanket, it was today. But it would be too much effort to keep refusing Charlie. One way or another, Charlie always got what she wanted.
Claire let out an exasperated sigh and stomped through the kitchen and up the stairs. By the time she came back downstairs, Charlie had cleaned the kitchen, taken out the dogs, and, from the looks of it, alphabetized her spice rack. Apparently she was going to have to wait for pizza.
“Well? Where are we going?” Claire asked as she shut the door behind her and ushered the dogs down the front steps.
“Please.” Charlie darted across the lawn and rapped on the window of the black sedan. The window rolled down, and she exchanged a few words. The engine fired up.
Claire slammed the car door and slumped in Charlie’s passenger seat. Rosie shook in the backseat, sending a cloud of fur over the interior of the Lexus.
A field trip was the last thing she needed. If she wasn’t going to be allowed to pout, she needed to figure out her next steps. Did she go home and move her things out of Luke’s house? Where would she go? Mindy was living in Claire’s old apartment. Oh god, was she going to have to move to Florida and live with her mom? Alice would certainly love that. She shuddered.
“What?” Charlie asked. The car roared to life, and a finance podcast droned from the speakers.
Claire twiddled the dial. “Am I going to have to move in with Mom?”
Charlie cringed. She swung out of the driveway and headed east. “Let’s not worry about that right now. We’re going to give Luke a couple days to cool off and change his mind.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Then fuck him.” Charlie slid her sunglasses over her eyes.
Easy to say for someone who had married their college sweetheart and never regretted a single day. A lead ball the size of an eggplant lurked in Claire’s stomach. Not even the determinedly cheery California sun could lift her mood. She wasn’t ready to start all over again. She had done it after leaving Jason, and it had nearly destroyed her. The vision of her engagement ring pinging off Jason’s nose was still fresh in her mind.
She stared at the bare spot on her left ring finger. If she was being honest with herself, she thought that in a year or two she and Luke would be engaged. As much as they drove each other crazy, she couldn’t imagine a life without waking up to his stupid, smug face every morning.
And now she would be forced to. And this time, she wouldn’t have her friends at her beck and call whenever she needed a pick-me-up. Charlie and Bri would be in California. Nicole didn’t need Claire’s drama while she was growing a tiny human. And Mindy was attached to Sawyer like a fleshy backpack. Claire was on her own.
Her phone blipped. Her breath caught in her chest. Messages streamed through, and her phone vibrated continuously as Charlie dropped the dogs off at daycare. Claire flipped through them, but none of them were from Luke. There must have been thirty from her mother alone. Her lead eggplant constricted, and she dropped her phone into her purse.
“Phone works,” Claire announced as Charlie climbed back inside.
“Good. Guess who apparently stopped by daycare earlier today looking for the dogs?”
Panic gripped Claire’s chest. Who was it? ESA?
“Sorry,” Charlie said quickly. “It was Luke. Not a bad guy.”
Claire’s fingers shook as they curled around the grab handle over her door. It was like a faucet inside her had been switched off. The grief vanished, replaced almost instantly with white hot rage. Her lips pursed so hard she could practically feel the fine lines etching themselves into her face.
“Was he trying to take the dogs from me? He has the audacity to dump me after I’ve been abducted, and then he’s going to take my babies? So help me, I will fly them home to Pennsylvania and he will never see them again. Go back.” Claire pointed at the daycare center behind them. “I need to revoke his visitation rights.”
Charlie ignored her and merged onto the highway. How she did it without screaming and panicking, Claire would never know.
“I love this energy,” Charlie said, “but he wasn’t trying to take the dogs. He brought them treats and just asked if he could see them.”
Claire made a mental note to track down his car at the studio and fill his backseat with their poo. Maybe even a bee hive. That would teach him.
“He left me,” she said. “He doesn’t get to be a part of their lives. Can he sue me for joint custody?” If this went to court, she would lose the dogs on top of everything. She couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer, and Kyle was sure to take Luke’s side.
Charlie cast a glance in Claire’s direction. “You’re spiraling. He’s not going to take your dogs, and he’d never take you to court.”
“Whatever.” Claire crossed her arms and stared out the window. This morning had been a rollercoaster of emotions. “Are you going to tell me where the hell we’re going? I have things to do, you know.”
“Do you?” Charlie looked at her over the rim of her oversized sunglasses. “I thought you were funemployed.”
“Do you want me to jump out of this car?” Claire put a hand on the latch.
“Stop being a drama queen. We’re almost there.”
As dire as her business and romantic life were, a new itch had been working its way under her skin. As Charlie had not-so- kindly pointed out, for the first time in years, Claire had a stretch of free time. A deep dive into ESA beckoned. They had taken everything from her, and she was going to make them pay.
“Where the hell are we?” Her thoughts of revenge came to a halt when Charlie parked outside a building with metal siding. A chain-link fence with barbed wire stood behind the business.
“Bash Bar,” Charlie said, pointing to the sign. “Did you lose your ability to read?”
Claire shot her a dirty look. “What is this place?”
“I do lunch here once a week,” Charlie said, twisting her curls into a knot at the back of her head. “I hope you put deodorant on today.”
Claire sniffed her armpit, then shrugged. Who cared? She had no clients, no boyfriend. She didn’t know anyone in this city besides Mr. Nesbit and the guys at the pizza place. And Brad, of course, who was effectively dead to her.
“Come on.” Charlie opened the front door.
Brilliant paint colors assaulted Claire’s eyeballs. Comic book style murals with callouts lined one wall. A bar stood to their left, a handful of patrons wearing safety goggles, white suits, and holding cocktails. A sledgehammer stood next to a redhead. A metal baseball bat rested across a man’s lap.
Claire’s spine tingled. What was this place? She ran a hand over the stained oak bar.
“Hey, Charlie. The usual?” The bartender, a bearded stud in an open flannel shirt, asked.
“Not today.” She glanced above the bar, where a series of signature cocktails were written in chalk. “We’re going to have two Ex-Boyfriends.”
The bartender nodded and picked up a cocktail shaker.
“So, did you bring me here to kill me?” Claire nodded at the patrons with weapons.
“Tempting, but no. This is a rage room.” Charlie grabbed two sheets from a stack of papers on the bar and slid one to Claire.
“Oh, wow.” She should have known. One had opened up in West Haven the week before they left for California. “What’s this?”
“A waiver. Don’t worry. I only get cut once every couple of weeks.”
“Great,” Claire said. Just what she needed. She signed the waiver and pushed it away from her without bothering to read it. Who cared what she had just signed away? Did she really need two kidneys?
Ten minutes later, Charlie pushed two drinks at Claire. “Hurry up. Our time slot is in five minutes.”
Claire set a golf club and tire iron on the empty stool next to her. The white safety suit was itchy against her skin, and the goggles pressed into her forehead. She took the drinks without comment and downed one in a few gulps. They were definitely strong. She probably should have checked to see if her new medication could be mixed with alcohol. Oh well.
Warmth spread to her fingertips, and she slouched in her stool. Things weren’t so bad. It was a beautiful, sunny day. She had all of her limbs. Her dogs were safe. Sure, she had been almost murdered a shocking number of times. Frat boys had blown up her car and burned down her business. Luke had dumped her. She had been fired from the biggest project of her career. Her ex-boyfriend had had to bail out the animal shelter she was supposed to be saving. She was failing on every level—personally, professionally, romantically.
Okay, never mind. Things were still awful. She downed the second drink for good measure, then followed Charlie across the room to a set of double doors. A man led them down a narrow hallway. They passed small rooms full of broken electronics. He held open one of the doors, and Claire entered.
A row of kitschy little girl figurines smiled eerily at her in a row on the floor. A stack of decorative plates stood next to them. Shards of glass glittered in every corner.
She took a step back and bumped into Charlie. She jumped.
“Okay,” Charlie said, taking Claire by the shoulders. “I want you to take a moment and think about how unfair everything is.”
“That implies that I ever took a break from thinking about how unfair everything is. It’s a twenty-four-seven pity party right now.” Claire drove the head of the golf club into the plywood floor.
“Just humor me. Conjure up all those feelings you’ve been failing miserably at hiding.”
“This is why I love you, Charlie. You’re so warm and nurturing.”
“Shut up.” Charlie squeezed her arm and left the room.
Claire stood in the center of the room. Plywood covered the side walls. Concrete blocks made up the back wall. Gleaming breakables were waiting to be destroyed. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath. Feelings, right. God, they were the worst. The last thing she wanted was to dredge up all her feelings. She didn’t have time for the weary baggage of emotions.
Luke’s face surfaced in her mind, sporting a cheeky half-smile the way he did when she talked about a proposal and he was about to point out something wrong with her logic.
No—she couldn’t think about him. It was too painful. Think of something else.
Brad’s punchable face swam up next. Her fingers tightened around the golf club. She had given him everything—all her free time, her very best ideas. Countless dates postponed or missed because he had a last-minute change. She had fought with the city of Los Angeles, called in every favor she was owed. And where did it get her? Fired. Disgraced.
As unwelcome as a cockroach in a deli, her abductor’s face appeared next. Her breath stilled. Who the hell was he? Would he ever be brought to justice? Why was it that ESA had a million chapters and were probably responsible for hundreds of disappearances, and the FBI couldn’t manage to find a single one of their members? Was she supposed to do everything? Why was she planning proposals, confronting murderers, kidnapping her nemesis to prevent her from being killed, and tracking down the members of this terror group all by herself? Why couldn’t everyone just leave her the fuck alone?
“AHHHHH!” Claire swung the golf club back and brought it down smoothly, the way her stepdad Roy had taught her. She opened her eyes in time to see one of the creepy little girl figures shatter into a thousand pieces against the concrete wall.
Oh, that felt good. She tossed the golf club to the side and picked up another figurine.
“Burn in hell ,” she shouted. The figurine flew across the room. Shards pinged off the wall.
Her hands shook at her sides. Something was happening inside her. Everything she had been shoving down since Barney’s abduction was rumbling to the surface. Fragments of memories went zinging past—the day her father left, waking up in the parking garage, Luke pulling that damn tandem bike into a proposal, Wendy winning Planner of the Year.
An unintelligible roar escaped her throat. She picked up the metal baseball bat and attacked the first thing she saw—an industrial copier. Expletive after expletive poured out as she beat the hell out of the stupid equipment. Pieces of plastic went flying. The screen cracked like an egg. Dents littered the sides. Still, she couldn’t stop.
Her arms burned with the effort. She dropped the bat and picked up the stack of plates. That knot and whirl on the plywood side wall sure looked like Luke’s face. She aimed the first plate. One by one they exploded against the wooden imitation of Luke.
How dare he? After everything she had been through? And everything they had been through together? How could he leave her now, when she needed him more than ever? She loved him, and he had left her. She should never have abandoned her sex embargo and let him into her heart. Men only led to trouble.
Claire whirled, searching the floor. She was ankle-deep in debris, but there was nothing left to break. Her chest heaved. Sweat streamed into her eyes. She marched over to the door and ripped it open.
“You,” she boomed, startling a man in the hallway. “Get me more stuff to break. Please,” she added as an afterthought. There was no need to be rude just because she was having a breakthrough.
“Yes, ma’am.”