21 #2
I usher Helen into the living room. “Would you like tea or coffee?” She looks a mess. Her hair is tousled. Her face flushed, eyes frantic. Water drips from her clothes onto the hardwood.
She shakes her head at the offer. “I . . . I just need to tell you what’s happened. Cell service has been sketchy, so I couldn’t call you. In fact I only got your earlier calls on my way here.”
The delivery guy’s mention of an SUV with New York plates rushes to the top of my mind. “I need to go first.” This can’t wait any longer. “When you were here readying the house, did someone besides the delivery guy stop by?”
She looks startled and confused, then she frowns.
“Well, yes. It was the man Mr. Belmont sent all the way from the city to check the security system. To be honest, I completely forgot. Mainly because Mr. Belmont didn’t want me to mention it.
He didn’t want you to worry, given all you’ve been through. ”
I don’t know why her words shock me so. Phillip’s involvement was always a possibility, even if remote. “You’re sure?”
She nods frantically, splattering me with water droplets. “I am, yes.”
“It sounds like you confirmed this with Phillip?” I feel myself holding my breath.
Part of me wants to hang on to the idea that Phillip would never do what this possibly means, but then I realize I should have grown immune to those sorts of foolish hopes long ago.
To ignore the possibility now would be nonsensical.
“I called him straightaway. I wouldn’t have allowed the man to set one foot in this house until I did. No matter what he claimed he was told. That’s when Mr. Belmont urged me not to worry you with it.”
A sinking feeling makes me want to crumple to the floor in defeat, but somehow I restrain the urge. I look around. “Where is that towel?” I pat Helen on the shoulder with a trembling hand and hurry toward the hall to find out what’s keeping Acacia.
Her voice reaches me from the direction of the kitchen. She speaks so softly, it’s a miracle I hear her at all. Why is she whispering? I move as close to the door as I dare, stand very still, and listen. Has she called Phillip again?
“I’m telling you what she said. She doesn’t believe me.” Pause. “Yes. I did exactly what you told me. I put it in her food when I couldn’t put it in her drink. But now she’s preparing her own food and drinks.”
Dread swells in my chest, and I do a silent about-face and make my way back to where I left Helen. My head starts that annoying ache, and my heart pounds. I think of the tea and how I’m glad I didn’t drink it.
So Phillip is the one. He told her to drug me.
I can hardly believe it. My chest feels too tight to breathe, my legs so heavy I can barely make the journey back to the living room.
I think of our daughter . . . our life. How did I not see this coming?
Does this mean I have misread the entire situation from the beginning?
Is this about the present rather than the past?
Or is my old friend working with Phillip?
How could I have been so wrong? Why would he do such a thing?
Helen watches me as if she isn’t sure what to expect from me next, and then I realize I forgot all about the towel.
I shake myself. “Sorry.” I grab a throw from the sofa. “Here. Use this.”
She accepts the throw and begins to dry herself.
I need to get this over with so I can assimilate this new reality. Why is my husband doing this? It has to be her. She is the only way he could have known about the necklace.
As for his instructions to Helen, I’m sure his excuse will be that he only sent someone to adjust, repair, or whatever the security system.
Is this why I haven’t received any notifications from the system?
Did he blind me to the arming and disarming of it, leaving me unaware of anyone who might come into the house?
Reality slaps me in the face like a bucket of icy-cold water. I have sent my child to be with the man who has apparently appointed at least one person to watch me and drug me, and possibly another to ensure I’m not safe in my own home.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Phillip would never hurt Olivia. Besides, Catherine is there. She would literally kill for that child.
Deep breath.
“I was getting ready to check on the Landers’ property,” Helen explains, snapping my attention back to her. She has the throw wrapped around her now as if she just can’t get warm again.
I nod and abruptly remember that she came to tell me something that has upset her. Shit. How the hell did I forget? Of course she’s upset. I should have warned Helen so she could just call and not race over here in a storm. But then it wouldn’t have carried the same impact, would it?
Does it even matter now?
“I wanted to get all my rounds done. Beat the rain,” Helen goes on. “When I walked out of my house, a man was waiting on my stoop for me.”
A new thread of tension coils inside me. Here we go. “Did you know this man?”
She shakes her head. Worry or dread—maybe both—dance on her face.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know if I could get a message to you. He wouldn’t leave his name. Just said he needed to give you fair warning.” She shivers, maybe from the cold but more likely with fear.
“Fair warning?” I frown as if I don’t understand. “What did he look like?” I find myself holding my breath, no matter that I fully expected this move. The precise timing and delivery was unscripted.
“Dark hair with a hint of gray. Gray eyes, I think. Good-looking fella. Tall, broad shouldered. Fortyish.”
I put a hand to my chest. I remind myself to focus on the things anyone would expect me to say and ask. Acacia may be listening.
“Did you notice what sort of car he drove?” Relevant details, yes. I need any of those she may recall.
“A black Jeep. You know, a Jeep like you take into the mountains and on rugged trails. Not the luxury vehicles or the trucks.”
Acacia appears with a towel. She looks from Helen, all wrapped up in the throw, to me. “Sorry, I had to use the bathroom.”
I turn to her, work extra hard to keep my face clean of the blast of anger that burns away all else. She cannot know that I overheard her on the phone with Phillip until I’m ready to confront her. She cannot know anything else, by God. “Would you run upstairs and get Helen a pair of my sweats?”
Acacia hesitates before going to do as I ask. She rushes up the stairs, but then her steps slow. She’s listening. Good.
I look to Helen once more. “What was this man’s warning?”
“He said to tell you the end of this is coming. When I asked him what on earth that meant, he said you would know.”
The words hang in the air, making adrenaline fire in my veins. I imagine Acacia fumbling with her phone even now to notify her partner or partners. Oh yes. I know exactly what the man who visited Helen meant.
Except he was a bit off with the wording I instructed him to use.
The end is already here.