“I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it when you take your percentage,” Remi called over her shoulder.
Camille’s car was glossy yet understated, just like her. The Mercedes purred to life when she pushed the start button.
“Well, that was quite a night. I think the entire art world is going to be saying your name,” she said, waiting for Remi to fasten her seatbelt before pulling out of the parking space.
“Let’s go back to the packing thing,” Remi suggested. Her commercial success was nothing compared to her friend being ready to leave.
“Warren is in Washington for the next four days. Something terribly important about next year’s campaign,” Camille said, pointing them toward the expressway, leaving Chicago’s cold but sparkly downtown behind them.
“Where are you going to go?” Remi asked.
“My parents’ first,” Camille said. “I already called my mother. She thinks it’s a spontaneous visit, so she’ll be very disappointed when I tell her the real reason.”
“But they’ll support you, won’t they?” Remi pushed.
“They’ll have to,” Camille said. “I have a lawyer friend in town and I have an appointment with her on Tuesday. She already has a copy of the prenup.”
“You didn’t send it from your phone, did you?” Remi asked. Camille seemed awfully calm for a woman who’d just decided to leave her husband. A man who’d mentioned on more than one occasion that if she did leave, he’d end her life.
Remi believed him. She’d noticed something, a twinge, really, when she’d met him. But he’d been so smooth, so charming. He seemed like such a doting husband. And she’d never met a real monster before.
Now she knew.
“Are you okay? How much are we packing? When do you leave?” Remi asked, unable to hold back the onslaught of questions. Camille guided the Mercedes down the exit ramp and headed toward luxury suburbia and the senator’s ultra-modern mansion. It made Remi’s semi-renovated loft look like a garage where people got murdered. Well, to be fair, red paint looked an awful lot like blood.
“I’m okay,” Camille assured her with a genuine smile. “I’m terrified, of course. But it’s now or never.”
“Did he hurt you?” Remi asked, trying to keep any of the seventy-five emotions she was feeling out of her voice.
“He always does.”
Camille turned on the radio. Radiohead’s “No Surprises” filled the interior of the car. Its colors and their textures calmed Remi. This was a good thing. This was what she’d fought for. This is what she’d put their friendship on the line for.
“I’ll come with you,” Remi said suddenly.
“Where? To my parents’?”
“Yeah. They can’t misunderstand you or downplay it if I’m there telling them to their faces it’s all true. They can’t try to make you go back to him if I’m there to kick them in the balls into supporting you.”
“You’re a good friend, Remi,” Camille said as the car began to climb into the hills. It was a moonless night, and the sky was thick with clouds. The snow was deeper here, and tree boughs bending under the weight flashed by in the headlights.
“After your parents and the lawyer, you should come home with me,” Remi said suddenly.
“To Mackinac?” Camille asked. “I have to admit, it sounds idyllic from your description.”
“Oh, not in the dead of winter. But you’ll be safe there. It’s this beautiful, quiet snow globe. You could really get away. No one in their right mind would follow you there,” Remi promised.
“Hmm. Will I meet Brick?”
“Brick?” Remi repeated innocently.
“You’ve never said as much, but I put a few things together. Brick is the guy who broke your heart, isn’t he?”
“Can anyone break your heart when you’re young and dumb?” Remi asked airily.
“You’ve still got a heart even when you’re young and dumb.”
“Ugh. Brick and I may have had our differences. But I wouldn’t say he broke my heart.”
“Oh, so it was someone else then,” Camille said slyly.
Remi snuck a look at her profile behind the wheel. Her friend was smiling.
“No. He was the one who temporarily dented my ego.”
“Ah, dented your ego. That sounds much safer than broke your heart.”
“Let’s talk about what you’re packing,” Remi said, changing the subject.
A set of headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. High beams that looked as if they were approaching much too fast.
“Remi. It’s him.” Camille said, her hands tightening around the steering wheel.
“Maybe it’s just a drunk—”
But the car didn’t slow around the bend. They could hear the squeal of tires, the revving engine over the music.
“Call 911,” Remi said a split second before the sound of metal crunching into metal rang out.
The Mercedes lurched forward and across the double yellow line. Camille gave a shrill yelp while Remi upended her own purse in her lap and grabbed her phone.
Camille was crying silent tears. The hope, the plans from moments ago seemed to vanish into the dark.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Before Remi could speak, Camille gave a heart-rending sob as the headlights got closer, blinding them in the mirrors.
“He’s trying to kill us,” Camille whispered.
“I won’t let him,” Remi said.
“What is your emergency?” the operator repeated.
But it was too late. The car rammed them from behind again. The impact sent her body lurching against the seatbelt as the Mercedes smashed into the guardrail that separated them from a dark drop-off. Metal scraped and buckled. Sparks lit up tiny pockets of the night.
Shrill screams echoed over the music. Remi didn’t recognize her own voice.
The high beams disappeared around the next bend in the road.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” Remi yelled, blindly feeling for her phone.
Camille was frozen in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the wheel. Chest heaving in shallow breaths. Remi’s own lungs burned.
The Mercedes was still running. But the acrid smell of smoke and rubber filled her nostrils.
“He’s gone,” Remi breathed. “He’s gone.”
Camille was shaking her head. “He’s never gone.” Tears glistened on her cheeks in the light of the dashboard.
“We have to get out of here,” Remi said sharply. “We have to get out of the car.”
“He’ll find us. He won’t stop.”
Remi was reaching for her seatbelt when more lights cut through the windshield. High beams traveling much too fast. For one second, Camille’s lovely profile was frozen in time, burned in the light of the approaching vehicle.
And then there was nothing.
She wasn’t sure if she’d been knocked out or if she’d blinked and the world had gone away. Her vision was obscured by the airbag that had deployed. Something felt unstable, wobbly. Almost as if the car wasn’t on solid ground anymore.
Camille’s head hung limply, face down.
Remi could smell something besides smoke now. The brackish tang of blood.