“Thank you.” The doors opened and as we stepped on I asked, “Do you know what happened? Is Billie okay?”
Mrs. Finch shook her head, lips pursed. “All I know is that some neighbors heard gunshots and yelling.”
Fuck.I instantly imagined the worse. Billie lying in a pool of blood being fatally shot. Image after image populated in my head and no matter how hard I tried to delete them, they just kept coming up.
Mrs. Finch patted my elbow as if it would stop my heart from jackhammering out of my chest and my horrific imagination to stop working overtime.
“What’s in the bag?” Mrs. Finch asked.
“The bag?” I looked down and realized I had a bag hanging off my arm.
I’d totally forgotten I’d stopped by the store after my talk with Genesis to pick up Billie something since she’d had a tough time seeing the photos of herself, then Birdie’s speech, then fucking Genesis showing up. I didn’t even realize I grabbed them when I got out of the car.
“Oh, just something I used to bring to Billie when she was having a bad day, but I didn’t know all this...” I shook my head.
“Well, son seems like she might be in the market for somethin’ just like that right about now.”
The elevator ride stretched out like a horror movie, the kind with screeching violins and jump cuts, except all I could hear was a roaring in my ears and my own ragged breathing. The old metal cage shuddered, floor numbers flickering, and the moment the doors stuttered open on fourteen I was gone—bolting down the hallway, ignoring Mrs. Finch’s calls to slow down, that the police were probably “handling things.”
I rounded the corner and almost crashed into a uniform standing guard at Billie’s door. He put up a hand, all business. “Sir, you can’t go in there, this is an ongoing investigation?—”
“She’s my wife,” I blurted, leaning in so close I could taste the coffee he had that morning. “Billie Bliss. I need to see her. She’s my wife,” I said it again, louder, like maybe if I just kept repeating it, she’d be safe. “I need to see my wife.”
He looked at me like I was a nutjob. Somewhere behind him, I heard voices—familiar voices—and a flash of caramel hair in the kitchen through the half-open door.
Billie’s voice, clear and cutting through the chaos, “Let him in. He’s my husband.”
The cop gave me a look stepped aside, muttering something under his breath I barely heard because I was rushing past him. I found Billie in the family room flanked by her sisters—Bailey clutching a mug of something, Birdie sitting cross-legged—and two more uniformed cops, who turned to glare as I stormed past them.
My brain was trying desperately to reconcile the facts: Billie was sitting upright, still Billie, skin flushed but not bleeding, hair in a messy bun with wild bits sticking out, wearing a t-shirt and sweats, eyes wide and glassy but not dead and not hurt. Not dead and not hurt.
I crossed the room in three giant steps and just picked her up. I didn’t care that the cop behind me grunted or whowas there. I wrapped my arms around Billie’s whole body and squeezed so hard I could hear her exhale like a leaky balloon.
“Are you okay?” My voice came out hoarse, scraping the bottom of a well. “Are you hurt?” My hands were everywhere, checking her arms, her ribs, the back of her neck, searching for anything that might explain the ER-sized police presence. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Billie’s breath hitched, then steadied. “It was Jeremiah’s mom, Stacy. She was here with a gun.”
Those words landed like a sack of cement on my chest. I turned to Bailey and Birdie, both of whom looked like they’d just been punched themselves. Birdie’s mouth was a tight white line. Bailey was shaking, her knuckles bone-white on the mug.
I found my voice. “She what?”
“She was waiting in my closet when I got home. I thought something was off when I came in, so I had pulled up Detective Ramos’s number on my phone?—”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
She glared at me, clearly communicating this was not the time.
“Sorry,” I quickly apologized.
“Anyway, I went through the house expecting to find a letter. I didn’t, and when I threw my phone on the bed to get changed, thinking there was no threat, I accidentally called Detective Ramos.”
“Thank God,” Bailey exhaled.
“I told him I was fine, everything was fine, because I hadn’t found a note?—”
“But she didn’t check the closet,” Birdie interjected.
“He offered to come over. I told him not to. I went to the bathroom to wash my face and then she was in my bedroom with a gun. Detective Ramos showed up anyway, she shot at him and missed, and he shot her in the shoulder. That’s it.”
