6. Fran
— ? —
Fran
Three days.
Sloane gave me three days, and I’ve spent every one of them waiting for something to happen.
Jumping at sounds. Checking the locks again and again, doors, windows, the old brass lock on the bedroom, though I know they’re as secure as they can be.
Watching Logan move through our house like a stranger, wondering if he knows what his childhood friend threatened, wondering if he’d care.
We haven’t talked about the showcase. We haven’t talked about anything. He sleeps in his workshop now, or doesn’t sleep, I’m not sure which, and I lie awake in our bed counting the hours until this marriage is over, until I can take my farm and my dignity and walk away from all of it.
Five months. That’s all I have to survive. Five months until the two-year mark, until the deed transfers to my name and I’m free.
I can do this. I’ve done harder things.
***
It’s the third evening when everything falls apart.
Logan left for the warehouse hours ago, some emergency with a client, he said, though I didn’t ask for details and he didn’t offer them.
The house is quiet in that particular way it gets when I’m alone: creaking floorboards, the hum of the refrigerator, all the small sounds that remind me how empty this marriage has become.
I’m upstairs in the bedroom, getting ready for bed, when I hear the front door open.
My whole body goes still. Logan’s car isn’t in the driveway, I checked, the way I’ve been checking everything these past three days, and he usually texts when he’s on his way home.
Not because he’s considerate, but because I asked him to, back when I still thought our marriage might become something real.
Footsteps on the stairs. Light and quick, not Logan’s heavy tread.
I move toward the bedroom door, reaching for the old brass knob, but before I can turn it I hear something that makes my blood freeze: the scrape of metal against metal, the distinctive sound of a key sliding into the lock on the outside of my door.
The same key works this lock from either side. I’ve thought about it before, worried about who might have access. But I never imagined someone would use it against me from the wrong side.
The lock clicks home.
“Hello, Fran.” Sloane’s voice, muffled through the heavy wood but unmistakable. “I told you three days.”
I yank at the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. The key, the spare key that’s supposed to live in the nightstand drawer, I lunge for it, pawing through the drawer with shaking hands, but it’s not there. Of course it’s not there. She took it. She planned this.
“Sloane.” I press my palm against the door, trying to keep my voice steady. “Open the door.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I can hear the smile in her voice, that sugar-sweet tone that’s always had poison underneath. “You had your chance to leave. You didn’t take it.”
“This is insane.” I’m looking around the room now, searching for options, the window, maybe, but we’re on the second floor and there’s nothing to climb down to.
My phone is on the nightstand. I grab it, but my hands are shaking so badly I can barely unlock it.
“Whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to work. Logan will-”
“Logan will what?” She laughs, and it’s an ugly sound. “Come to your rescue? He’s at the warehouse, Fran. He thinks you’re asleep. He thinks everything is fine.”
“How did you get in?”
“Oh, honey. I’ve had a key to this house since before you were in the picture. Logan gave it to me years ago, back when we were - well. You know how it is with childhood friends.”
I don’t know. I don’t know anything except that I’m locked in my bedroom and there’s a woman on the other side of the door who threatened to destroy me three days ago and I’m starting to realize she meant it literally.
“Let me out.” I hate how scared my voice sounds. “Sloane, whatever this is about, we can talk about it. Just open the door and-”
“We’re done talking.” Her voice has gone cold, that flat tone I remember from the bathroom at the showcase. “I gave you every opportunity to walk away, and you didn’t. So now we do things my way.”
I hear her footsteps moving away from the door, heading toward the stairs. And then I smell it: something sharp and chemical, cutting through the familiar scents of the house, making my eyes water.
Smoke.
“No.” The word comes out as a whisper. Then louder: “No, no, no - SLOANE!”
I pound on the door with both fists, screaming her name, screaming for help, screaming until my throat goes raw. The smoke is getting thicker now, seeping under the door in wispy gray tendrils, and I can feel the heat building somewhere below me.
My phone. I need to call 911. I need to-
My hands won’t stop shaking. I dial the numbers wrong twice before I finally get through, and when the operator answers I can barely form words.
“Fire,” I manage. “There’s a fire. I’m locked in - I can’t get out-”
I give them the address, or try to. The smoke is making it hard to think, hard to breathe. I hear the operator saying something about staying on the line, about help being on the way, but the phone slips from my fingers and I don’t pick it up because I need to get to the window, I need air-
The window faces the front lawn. I can see the driveway from here, can see the street, can see-
Sloane.
She’s on the lawn, stumbling away from the house with her hand pressed to her mouth, playing the victim so perfectly I almost admire the commitment. And then I hear her voice, high and terrified, carrying across the evening air:
“HELP! SOMEONE HELP! THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!”
The house is on fire. The house she set on fire, with me locked inside.
I pound on the glass, screaming, but she doesn’t look up. She’s too busy performing, too busy making sure everyone sees her as the frightened friend who barely escaped. I watch her collapse onto the grass, sobbing theatrically, and something inside me cracks.
She’s going to kill me. She’s actually going to kill me, and she’s going to get away with it, because everyone will think it was an accident and I’ll be dead and she’ll be right there to comfort Logan through his grief.
The smoke is getting worse. I can feel it in my lungs now, thick and choking, and my eyes are streaming tears that have nothing to do with emotion.
I stumble to the window, fumble with the latch, but the sash won’t budge.
Painted shut, maybe, or just swollen and jammed from years of humidity.
I slam my palms against the frame, desperate, but it doesn’t give.
I need something heavy. I need to break this glass. I need to-
A car screeches into the driveway.
Logan’s car. Logan’s massive frame unfolding from the driver’s seat, running toward the house, toward Sloane, who reaches for him with trembling hands as he drops to his knees beside her.
“SLOANE!” His voice carries through the glass. “SLOANE, ARE YOU OKAY? I’VE GOT YOU!”
He’s helping her up, his arm around her shoulders, guiding her away from the house. Away from me. And I’m pounding on the window, screaming his name, but he can’t hear me over the roar of the fire and the wail of distant sirens and the theatrical sobbing of the woman in his arms.
“WHERE IS FRAN?” His voice again, loud and desperate. “SLOANE, WHERE IS FRAN?”
I see her gesture, a wave of her hand, pointing away from the house, toward the road, toward anywhere that isn’t where I actually am. I can’t hear what she says, but I see Logan’s shoulders relax slightly, see him nod, see him turn back to Sloane with obvious relief.
She must have told him I’m not here. It’s the only explanation for that sudden ease in his body. He believes her, believes I’m safe somewhere else, and now he’s focused on her while I choke on smoke in my own bedroom.
Something breaks inside me.
I look around the room, vision blurring from smoke and tears, and my eyes land on the small wooden stool in the corner, the one I use to reach the high shelf in the closet. I grab it with hands that don’t feel like mine anymore, and I swing it at the window with everything I have.
The glass shatters.
Cold air rushes in, and I suck in a breath that’s half oxygen and half smoke, coughing so hard my ribs ache. I lean out the broken window, jagged glass cutting into my palms, and I scream his name one more time.
“LOGAN!”
His head snaps up.
I see the moment he understands, the confusion becoming horror, the horror becoming action. He drops Sloane’s arm and runs, and I hear his voice roaring through the house, hear the thunder of his footsteps on the stairs, hear him fighting the fire to get to me.
“FRAN! FRAN, WHERE ARE YOU?”
“HERE-” My voice is barely a rasp. I try again, louder. “THE BEDROOM - THE DOOR’S LOCKED-”
A crash. Another. He’s kicking the door, over and over, and the wood is splintering but it’s old and heavy and it doesn’t want to give.
The smoke is everywhere now. I can barely see, barely breathe, barely stay upright. I slide down the wall beneath the broken window, the fresh air not enough to clear my lungs, and I think: He came back. He came back for me.
The door explodes inward.
He’s there. Coughing, wild-eyed, more real than anything else in this nightmare. His eyes find me on the floor and he crosses the room in two strides, pulling me into his arms like he cannot get me close enough fast enough.
“I’ve got you.” His voice is rough with smoke and something else. “I’ve got you. Hold on.”
I try to say something, about Sloane, about the lock, about everything, but my lungs won’t cooperate. The last thing I’m aware of is his heartbeat against my cheek, fast and desperate, and the distant wail of sirens getting closer.
Then nothing at all.