Chapter 20
The pain was an immediate, blinding white strike that tore through Felicity’s chest before she could form a defensive thought.
She screamed—a raw, ragged sound that stripped her throat and bounced flatly off the double-height concrete walls of the kitchen.
The iron carafe bounced off the quartz island, sending a secondary spray of two-hundred-degree water pooling across the floorboards, but she was already scrambling backward, her knees hitting the lower cabinets as she clutched her right wrist against her ribs.
The wool sleeve of her cardigan was a soggy, blistering trap, sealing the heat against her raw skin.
"Lissy! Oh my god, Lissy!"
Tucker burst through the mudroom door, his overcoat slipping from his arm onto the floor as he scrambled across the wet concrete.
He caught her by her uninjured shoulder, his handsome face turning a chalky, terrified white as he saw the massive, fluid-filled blisters already ballooning across the meat of her thumb.
"The sink," she choked out through her teeth, her entire body shaking so violently her heels clicked against the cabinets. "Get it off me—Tucker, get it off?—"
He ripped the wet cardigan away with an aggressive, panicked jerk that took a layer of skin with it, eliciting another high, thin shriek from her before he hoisted her up and dragged her toward the cold stream of the tap.
By the time the garage door rumbled open to let Tucker’s sedan back into the mist, Brianne was already in the passenger seat, holding a bag of frozen peas against the clean white dish towel they had wrapped around Felicity’s arm.
The twenty-minute drive to the regional medical center passed in a featureless blur of pain and windshield wipers, the steady, rhythmic slap-slap of the blades the only sound competing with Felicity’s shallow, ragged breathing.
The emergency room smelled of rubbing alcohol and industrial floor wax. They had tucked her into a small, curtained cubicle where a resident named Dr. Mehta was finishing the application of a thick, silver-tinted burn ointment.
"It’s a partial-thickness second-degree burn," Dr. Mehta said, his voice level and practiced as he smoothed a layer of sterile gauze over her wrist. "The blistering is significant, but the tissue underneath is healthy. No nerve damage, luckily. We’ll wrap it, but you're going to need to keep it clean and dry for at least two weeks. "
"It was the handle," Felicity whispered, her voice a dry rattle against the starched pillow of the gurney. She looked past the doctor’s shoulder to where Tucker and Brianne stood near the curtain line, their faces shadowed by the harsh fluorescent lights.
"Tucker, the brass fastening screws... someone filed them down.
It didn't crack. It was a clean shear. Someone tampered with it while I was at the library. "
Tucker let out a short, heavy breath that sounded dangerously close to a groan. He stepped forward, his hand reaching out to slide over her forehead in a gesture that was entirely attentive but felt heavy with an exhausting, public weariness.
"Lissy, honey, please," he said softly, his voice dropping into that smooth, clinical register he used when he was trying to manage her in front of an audience. He looked at Dr. Mehta with a small, sorrowful shake of his head. "The plastic casing around the upper joint failed. It’s an old kettle. She’s been... she’s been under an immense amount of stress lately, Doctor.
She’s having a very difficult time adjusting to our new property in the woods. "
"I am not imagining it!" Felicity cried out, trying to pull her arm back, but the movement sent a sharp, agonizing jolt of heat through her wrist that made her spots dance in her eyes.
She looked at Brianne, searching for a fracture in the wall.
"Brianne, you saw the screws. You saw the basement utility door on Monday?—"
"Lissy, sweetie," Brianne murmured, stepping into the cubicle, her camel coat open, her signature jasmine perfume instantly fighting the antiseptic smell of the room. She reached down, her long, pale fingers gently squeezing Felicity’s uninjured left hand with a deep, sisterly protection that looked entirely unassailable to anyone watching. "The utility door was just an old latch that caught in the wind. And the kettle was just a freak accident. You’re so hyper-focused on that thriller novel that you’re turning every broken household item into a threat. You’re exhausting yourself, honey."
Dr. Mehta paused, his eyes moving from Brianne’s calm, serene face to Tucker’s drawn, protective expression, before finally settling on Felicity’s wide, bloodshot eyes.
His tone turned deliberately soft, the tone reserved for the unstable.
"Mr. Sanderson, is your wife currently under the care of a specialist for anxiety? "
"We have a prescription from a doctor," Tucker said quickly, his jaw tightening as he stepped closer to the gurney. "Lorazepam. For the sleepwalking and the panic attacks. But she refuses to take it. She thinks... well, she’s convinced the medication is part of a pattern."
"I see," Dr. Mehta muttered. He turned to a tray behind him, preparing a small, clear syringe. "We’re going to give you something to take the edge off the pain now, Felicity. It will also help calm your nervous system so the tissue can begin to heal. You need to rest."
"No," Felicity whispered, her fingers curling into the thin fabric of the hospital sheet as she stared at the needle. "No sedatives. I want to stay awake. Tucker, please?—"
"Let them help you, Pooh Bear," Tucker whispered, his hand flattening against her cheek, his thumb catching a tear before it could drop.
His expression was a perfect portrait of a husband who had reached the absolute end of his rope, choosing the easiest, most rational medical explanation because his own comfort demanded it.
"Just close your eyes. Let’s just get through tonight. "
The sting in her left arm was small, a tiny puncture wound that felt completely insignificant compared to the roar of the burn on her right.
Within three minutes, the sharp edges of the room began to soften, the white privacy curtains shifting from crisp linen to a heavy, liquid fog.
Her eyelids grew thick, dropping down until the fluorescent lights were reduced to thin, bright slits.
Her chin sank into the stiff collar of the hospital gown.
The doctor’s footsteps retreated, the tracking rings of the curtain clattering softly as he stepped into the main corridor.
Felicity lay perfectly still, her mind floating inside a heavy, chemical grayness, but her ears remained operational, tracking the low, confidential murmurs of the two people standing just outside the fabric barrier.
"It’s getting worse, Bree," Tucker’s voice drifted through the gap, a low, ragged whisper thick with exhaustion and defensive fear.
"She’s emailing our friends in the middle of the night.
Now she’s inventing sabotaged appliances.
I’m terrified she’s going to do something worse when I’m in the city. "
"I know," Brianne’s voice replied, her velvet tone dropping into that smooth, complicit register that left no room for doubt. She stepped closer to him, the rustle of her sweater fabric distinct in the quiet hall. "It’s a classic paranoid escalation. The isolation out there has completely broken her coping mechanisms. Dr. Mehta said we should look into an inpatient evaluation if she keeps refusing the daily pills. We have to face reality, Tucker. For her own safety, she can’t be left alone in that house anymore. "
"An inpatient evaluation," Tucker muttered, the words sounding heavy, reluctant, but ultimately compliant as he leaned into her reasoning. "God. How did we get here?"
"We'll handle it together," Brianne whispered, her voice filled with a steady, dependable care that sounded entirely like a lifeline to a drowning man. "I’m right here. I’m always going to choose what’s best for you both."
Felicity tried to lift her hand, tried to scream through the heavy weight of the sedative, but her tongue felt like lead against her palate.
The final lines of chapter sixteen rolled through her darkening thoughts with an absolute, terrifying clarity: The file was complete.
The audience was prepared. And the wife was finally asleep.