Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EMMA
After Ellie storms out, Sophie peeks into the room.
“Oh, no, we missed her,” Sophie says sarcastically as she enters with a mop and a broom. A downcast Otis follows her in with a towel, a Buchanan Brewery sweatshirt, and sweatpants.
“Oh, God bless you,” I say, because my beer-soaked dress is disgusting, and if I got pulled over, I’d have an interesting conversation with the officer who stopped me.
I accept his offerings and start to towel off.
“Did you get what you needed from her?” Sophie asks, propping the broom and mop against the table. She worries at a locket around her neck. “I had no idea who Ellie was on Friday, but I’ll admit I fell down the proverbial rabbit hole after Otis took that job. I’m not surprised Jeffrey’s a jerk. He made Otis shave a wart off his foot and he didn’t even say thank you.”
Otis shrugged, then says mournfully, “Ellie thanked me. She even gave me a couple of dollars for the vending machine.”
“I’m sorry about your job, Otis,” I say.
He gives a gusty sigh. “Oh, it’s all right. Soph thinks I was drinking the Kool-Aid. I think I should take some time off and reevaluate, you know? Maybe spend some time fixing things around the house. They have instructions for just about everything on YouTube.”
Sophie looks horrified, and again, I have the impulse to help her.
“Uh, you know, my friend did some work for Honey Do. It’s this app where you get matched up with people who want help with household work. Maybe that’s something to look into. He said they don’t ask for references or anything.”
“Hey, that’s an idea,” he says, brightening.
Sophie mouths thank you from behind him.
I help her clean the private room, which she insists is unnecessary. I insist otherwise. It feels like the least I can do given how many problems we’ve caused her over the last several days. I also give her my number in case she ever needs help. Before I leave, I stop into the bathroom to change into the clothes, putting my beer-soaked dress and underthings in a plastic bag.
It’s a relief to be in clean clothes, even if I’m not clean and stink of beer. I get into my hatchback, feeling the pang I do whenever I see a hatchback lately, and try to enjoy the drive. At this time of year, the liminal space between winter and spring, it still gets dark early, although the days have been lengthening.
My mother is gone, but there’s a handwritten note on her personal stationery— From the desk of Dahlia Rosings— waiting for me on her usual seat in the parlor saying Chuck has whisked me off to a wine and cheese tasting.
I smile wistfully. Here, again, is proof that my mother has more of a life than I do. But I don’t feel bitter about it. The bitterness has seeped out of me over the past couple of months. If anything, I feel inspired. Wistful. I want more out of life. I want my life to have several different chapters, and for them to seam together to form a story I’m proud of. One I want to share with other people.
My mind flits to Seamus, but I can’t let it linger on him. Not right now. I need to get through this situation with Jeffrey and Ellie before I make any big, life-changing decisions.
I’m about to head upstairs for a shower, when I hear the distant thump of the front door opening and closing.
My pulse jumps, but it must be my mother and Chuck, home early. Or Anthony and Rosie, who have a key.
“Mom?” I call. “Anthony?”
No one answers.
There’s a scurrying sound behind me, making me flinch, but I catch sight of Shadow as she slips behind an ottoman and out of sight.
“Who’s there?” I call out, hearing the faint wobble in my voice.
Nothing, but I can hear the faint sounds of someone moving through the house. It’s a big house. Huge. But it’s a house that speaks in its own language of groans and squeaks—a language I’ve spent a lifetime learning.
My body is trembling, but I take deep, slow breaths. I hope it’s some kind of misunderstanding, that the house cleaning service is here on a day they usually have off, or something. But I need to be prepared in case it’s not.
I set my purse down by the door, so I don’t have my pepper spray. But I glance around and pick up a paperweight—my mother has proven their efficiency—before grabbing my phone. I can’t risk speaking, but I call 9-1-1 and leave the call open. Just in case.
If it was a false alarm, I’ll explain myself when they come.
But it may take them a long while to come. Smith House is just outside of Marshall, enough of a distance that it’ll take them several minutes if not longer to get here. Plus, my mother has been known to call 9-1-1 for the occasional non-emergency, like when a raccoon got caught in the detached garage.
I minimize the call and draw up a text window. A text from Nicole is first on the list, followed by one from my brother, but I scroll down to Seamus’s name. Right now, with danger possibly at my door, I want him. I trust him to protect me. I want him here, with me, because I’m afraid.
But I don’t have time to write anything, because I hear footsteps approaching the room. I prime my arm, ready to throw the paperweight.
“Who’s there?” I call out.
The phone slips from my grip when Jeffrey steps into the doorway to the parlor. My breath leaves my lungs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since that last day at his office. He’s not dressed in one of his usual work suits, but khakis and a white button down that makes his tan look orange. His brown eyes look black in the dim room, and the smile on his face has no joy or humor in it.
Anger and fear flood me at the same time. I tighten my hand around the paperweight.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.
He lifts his eyebrows, glancing around dismissively. “You had a key. I copied it.”
Blood pounds in my ears. “Why?”
His gaze settles on me, his lips forming a self-satisfied smile. “I made you, Emma. Just because you decide to throw something away doesn’t mean it’s not still yours. Without me, you’d be nothing.”
The anger in my chest overpowers the fear, even as he strolls into the room like it’s his, moving across it and toward me.
“Like hell.”
He pauses, watching me.
“Are you planning to throw that at me?”
“What are you doing here?” I repeat, my tone seething.
“You think I don’t know you snuck into Ellie’s room the other night?” His smile broadens, sending a chill down my spine, because he can only be here with the intent to harm me. Why else would a man like him take the risk? He thinks he can hurt me and get away with it, and my experience over the last few months suggests he might be right.
My best move is to keep him talking. The 9-1-1 operator will hear, and then they’ll send someone. I need to buy them time to get here.
“You were hiding under the bed in that room, Emma.” He steps closer. I stand my ground, flexing my fingers around the paperweight. I’m iffy about my aim, so my best bet might be to wait until he’s closer.
I might be able to outrun him, but if I try and fail, he’ll have the advantage of grabbing me from behind. I cannot let him do that.
“I smelled your perfume. And the song choices….sloppy for someone wanting to hide. How’d you know we were coming to town? Have you been watching me?”
“You’re demented,” I say, finally moving. I walk over to the bar, tucked into the side of the room, as if I’m going to offer us both a drink. The alcohol bottles could be projectiles too, if I need them to be. Or I can splash grain alcohol in his eyes.
“You were there that night. You know, you already smell like a bar, Emma. I can smell it all the way over here. Is this rock bottom for you? Soaked in beer, wearing a sweatsuit, and living in your mother’s house? I wondered what it would look like. You’ve always had such a superior-than-thou attitude, but without me, this is all you’ve ever been. All you’ll ever be.”
Chills spread across my skin, because this man is a fucking sociopath . I’d assumed as much, but it’s different to see him acting and talking like this in my mother’s house.
“I’m doing just fine, thank you. Nice of you to check in. Now, you can leave. Or I will throw this at you.”
He steps closer, and I continue on toward the bar. Not running. Not losing sight of him.
“I won’t be going anywhere,” he says. “I know you met with Ellie. She texted me to say she was leaving Asheville. She gave the information to you, didn’t she? Do you have it here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I keep the tremble out of my voice form sheer force of will, but he’s reached the place where I dropped my phone, the spot where I was standing when he entered the room.
I need to make him leave, or I need to incapacitate him.
He glances down at it, his brow flattening as he lifts it up. His eyes fill with hot rage, and for a second I think he’s going to charge toward me. If he tackles me, I’ll go down. He has the weight advantage, the height advantage…
He presses the phone to his ear, listens, and says, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” His voice has transformed to jovial, embarrassed. “It must have been a pocket dial. I apologize for causing trouble. It was unintentionally done.”
They won’t be coming, then. I’m on my own. I reach the bar and open the cabinet, deciding this is where I’ll make my stand. I have the bottles and the paperweight. It’ll have to do. As far as I know, he’s never physically harmed anyone. It would be foolish for him to start now, and he’s a man who cares about his own reputation more than anything.
He hangs up the phone and pockets it, shaking his head as if he’s still my disapproving mentor, giving me a dressing down for not doing my research.
“Don’t play this game with me, Emma. You’re going to lose. Don’t you get it? You’re always going to lose.”
Fuck this.
I throw the paperweight like a javelin. His eyes widen, but he sidesteps it at the last minute, and it thuds into the meat of his arm. He flinches but starts prowling toward me again, slow but steady, his eyes flat and dark and full of intent.
I wonder why he isn’t charging in, but then I realize it’s my fear he’s enjoying. He’s having fun with me.
“You’re going to give me that thumb drive.”
So that’s what Ellie has. I don’t know what’s on it, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of proof he was embezzling.
“I don’t have it,” I say flatly. “But if I did, I certainly wouldn’t give it to you. If Ellie’s smart, she’ll send it to the police and the press.”
“She’s not.” He moves closer, his eyes fixed on me. “And neither are you. Or at least you’re not half as smart as you thought you were.” He smiles as he comes toward me, too close now. I open the whiskey bottle and then grab a small round bottle of Chambord.
I toss it at his head.
He dodges it easily this time. “I see your aim has suffered. You did better with the cactus.”
“Ellie knows you were planning to throw her under the bus about her age.”
He grimaces at me. “You’re going to regret telling her that.”
“My mother has a security system.”
He doesn’t even pause in his prowling. “She only turns it on at night.”
Another chill engulfs me at this evidence that he’s been watching. Lurking in the background of my life.
I’ve always seen him as a threat—a bad person , a destroyer of lives—but I never saw him as this kind of threat.
I throw another bottle at him, hitting his other shoulder hard.
He grimaces but keeps coming.
I throw another bottle and miss, this one smashing on the floor.
I have the inane thought that my mother is going to be pissed at me for thinning out her bar.
“You never were very athletic, were you?” Jeffrey sneers. “Fucking Ellie has been a real delight.”
“Leave now, and I won’t tell anyone,” I say.
He laughs. “You think they’d believe you? I have a restraining order against you.”
“Yes, which will make them wonder why you came to visit my hometown and showed up in my house.”
“You’ll have to do better than that.” He tsks. “It’s easy to fake text messages. I do it for clients all the time.”
I throw a larger bottle at him and clock the side of his head. That one had to hurt, because he finally gives up the slow prowl and barrels the rest of the way toward me, so close now. So close. I get the whiskey up and ready to splash.
Time seems to slow down and speed up as Shadow darts out in front of him and screeches, tripping him. He looks up, and I’m ready—I pour the whiskey directly into his eyes, and then snatch Shadow up into my arms and run as fast as I can, heading for the front door.
I think I’m going to make it, right until he grabs me by my wet ponytail and wraps his arm across my neck, squeezing.
I scream as Shadow falls from my grip and I’m tugged backward.