“How many guns?”
Ella swallows, her mind spinning. He could be turning his key in the lock of the gun safe right now, pocketing bullets and coming back to make sure this door opens. Or the one downstairs.
“Lots,” she whispers. “Lots.”
She hears the woman’s voice switch over to the other half of her job, and she sounds competent and confident and not at all chill as she barks orders at someone else. To Ella it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher, wah-wuh-wah wah wah. Somewhere outside, a siren wails. As if in response, there’s a loud bang downstairs, harder than fists could make.
He’s trying to beat the bathroom door open with…something.
Bang.
Bang.
“Look, bitch, you’d better open up!”
“He’s trying to bust the door open,” she tells the woman, her voice a whisper now in case he can hear her. Not that he should be able to hear anything—not through whatever he’s slamming into the door downstairs. A golf club? Her old softball bat? “Downstairs. My mom’s in there.”
“Just stay put,” the woman reminds her. “Stay safe, okay? The police are almost there. They’re going to help you. But I need you to stay out of the way. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Just stay on the line.”
The woman’s voice clicks over as she talks to someone else, and Ella’s phone bings with a message. She doesn’t pull it away to look at what it might be. Bing. Another message. Bing. Another one. She glances down quickly and sees that it’s Hayden.
Come on, baby. I said I’m sorry.
He is the least of her problems now, and she doesn’t care if he’s sorry.
She snort-sobs and touches her cheek, surprised to see that she’s crying. The sirens are louder now, and she wants to go to the window and see what it looks like when the cavalry comes, but Brooklyn’s still got her in a death grip, and the animal deep inside Ella refuses to budge, as if holding completely still is the only thing that can save her, can save them all.
The banging stops, and she exhales as if she’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Okay, bitch. You don’t want to open up? Let’s see if the doors upstairs are up to it.”
Her dad’s feet on the stairs is her least favorite sound in the world. When they watched Halloween at some stupid slumber party, she didn’t need the scary music and mask to feel her heart in her throat; just the way Michael Myers walks is too much like her father when he’s angry.
A shadow falls under the door. If she leans over, she can see his bare feet.
“Ella, this is your father. Open this door right now.”
He says it breathless, slurring, commanding.
He says it like he wants a reason to break the door down.
“Daddy, no!” Brooklyn screams, and Ella drops the phone and slaps a hand over her sister’s mouth.
“Ella, are you there?” The woman’s voice is tinny and far away, the phone lying on the blankets.
“Brookie, sweetie, can you come open the door for Daddy?”
Her mouth still covered, Brooklyn frantically shakes her head—that’s Ella’s special name for her, and the fact that Dad is using it is utterly chiling.
And then he hits the door with something much harder than his fists.
The door shakes, and he hits it again, and the sirens are loud now, probably right outside the house. Red and blue and white lights flash through the blinds. Brooklyn is shaking and crying, Ella is holding her close, the woman on the phone is calling her name, her phone is buzzing with Hayden’s stupid texts, and the entire world has shrunk down to a grown man testing the strength of a plastic door.
Until there’s an even bigger slam downstairs, the front door rammed open.
“Drop the weapon, put your hands up and step away from the door!” someone barks, and the banging stops.
Something heavy and metal drops to the ground outside in the hall.
“You don’t understand,” Dad slurs.
And then everything happens very fast.
Ella hears it all, wishes she could stop Brooklyn from hearing anything. Dad shouts and curses and threatens and fights the police. They have to Taser him. He thumps and writhes on the ground, and feet pound up the stairs to collect him and drag him away. They don’t ask Ella to open her door, though—she won’t do that until her mom is there.
As they take her dad outside, Ella picks up her phone again. The woman is still there.
“They’re here,” she says. “Thank you.”
10.
There is a fruit fly floating in Patricia’s glass of water and her waitress has disappeared.
This is not why Randall pays the club an exorbitant fee every month, and she will definitely be having a little chat with the manager. It won’t go well; she’s already in a terrible mood.
She has just hung up from another unapologetic phone call that could’ve very easily occurred before she went to the trouble of getting done up and arriving at Emerald Cove for a late dinner.
An unexpected meeting, Randall said.
Order champagne and dessert. Treat yourself.
Ha.
Patricia has chosen to stay and dine alone because to do otherwise would suggest that she’s been stood up or is suffering some other unfortunate occurrence. Unfortunate occurrences would not dare befall Patricia Lane. She’s at the very best table in the clubhouse, but she has her back to the window to monitor the room. Instead of ordering the champagne Randall suggested, she is waiting on a very dry, very distinguished Cabernet and a Cobb salad. Champagne is for celebrations. Champagne is ordered by a man and delivered to the table with its own stand to chill in a silver bucket. Champagne is not a consolation prize for neglected wives who are already dealing with dead flies.
The silly man. Does he not know her at all? Champagne and dessert. If she partook in champagne and dessert every time life disappointed her, she wouldn’t still be a size four.
She dabs at her lips, careful not to upset her lipstick. Her mouth is numb, so numb she can only feel her teeth grinding together. She thinks of them as robot teeth, those gleaming, expensive, foreign objects screwed into her jaw when her own teeth finally crumbled after all those years of poverty, bad eating, and rage. These teeth are more substantial. These teeth could bite through glass.
Patricia berates her waitress, receives her salad, picks at it without really tasting it, and barely sips her Cab, which is drier than an attic floor—and comped in apology for the fruit fly. She does not enjoy anything about the meal.
Her smile is in place as she stands and saunters out of the room, giving little parade waves and exchanging compliments with everyone she passes.
New earrings, Denise. Lovely!
Oh, Bob, where is Sharon tonight? And who is this? Mm. Your niece. Charming.