Chapter 32
I make the fatal mistake of falling asleep on Henry’s torso, arms and legs barnacled to him in sweaty, symbiotic attachment.
I was only planning on closing my eyes for a few minutes.
I wanted to be dressed when Corrine returned, to have the buttons of my shirt buttoned to my chin, held high.
Instead I stumble headfirst into terrifying dreams of waking to find that Henry’s form has been replaced by my suitcase.
Inside are my linen clothes and gold jewelry and my forty-two-dollar shampoo.
My laptop logged in to the many luxury e-commerce sites I surf when I have writer’s block, fantasizing about the events future me will attend, the people who will admire me and give me the attention that I am starved for at home.
These were once my essentials, and now they feel mocking and immaterial.
“Faye,” Henry’s voice is saying, impossibly, because he’s left me alone in this bed. He has abandoned me. “Faye.”
My eyes flutter open to find Henry standing over me, holding my shoulders and rocking me with gentle urgency.
“The police are here.”
I stare at him, foggy and uncomprehending.
“You have to get dressed.” He pulls me into a seated position, swings my legs around and places my feet on the floor, begins to dress me like I have just come out of surgery and my limbs are still anesthetized.
Out the front windows, the lake is dusty and unattended to in the predawn dim.
A patrol boat is docked at the pier. There are flashlights.
Holsters. The crackle and quick death of a radio signal.
My knees knock together, my mind wakes up, and I start to help Henry but put the wrong buttons in the wrong buttonholes. “What are they doing here? How did they know? What do we say?”
“I don’t know,” Henry says, an answer to all of it.
And then he sighs, the saddest sigh I have ever heard.
With strong and steady hands, he rebuttons my shirt for me.
I put my arms around his neck and hold him for the last time, maybe.
He is warm and Henry-smelling, and he holds me back and I know he is thinking the same, that I am warm and Faye-smelling and this cannot be it, an ending where we don’t make it.
I pry myself away from him and go over to the door, and I remember that while I never won an award for my acting, I have for the words I wrote for my character, and that I must have said them convincingly enough for the voters to vote for them.
“Help! We are in here. Help! Please!” I rattle the doorknob. I sob with gusto. I hate this ending; I refuse it.
From the other side comes a calm and slightly inconvenienced voice. “This is Officer Kline with the Saranac police. I need you to unlock the door.”
“We can’t!” I cry. “We are locked in here. Corrine Holland has the key. She went to the clubhouse, but she has a gun—”
“Corrine Holland is in our custody.”
I turn back to Henry with rabid eyes. He’s sitting on the bed with his hands steepled over his mouth. If they’ve found Corrine, they’ve found Campbell. I turn back to the door. I think faster than I ever have before.
“Thank God,” I say, and I repeat it again with a wail. “She killed her husband. And then she locked us in here, and we have been so scared she was coming back to kill us. Did you get my message? Please tell me you did.” Behind me, I can feel Henry staring at my back, bewildered.
“Two hikers found a note scrawled on a receipt in mud. It said, Help.”
I close my eyes. Press my forehead against the door. “That was me. I wrote that. I dropped it on the trail for them to find. Thank God. Thank God they picked it up.”
“Ma’am,” the officer says. “Are you hurt?”
“No. No. We’re okay.”
“Does anyone in there have a weapon on them?”
“No! Of course not. We’re so relieved you found us!”
“Okay, then,” he says, and am I wrong, or does he sound more reassuring now, speaking to me the way you would the victim of a violent crime?
“I’m going to radio someone at shore to see if they can get the key off her.
Hang tight for now. Can you please identify yourself and any other persons in there with you? ”
“My name is Faye Heron,” I say. “And I’m here with Henry Spalding. Please. Help us.”