“And if there was? What would we do?” he asked.
She smiled in spite of herself and their circumstances. He made her feel lighter and eased her burdens even in the worst of times. “Do you know that I’ve never gone to the drive-in theater?”
“The one down the highway? Seriously?” he asked, incredulous.
“Seriously. My parents were convinced it was only a place for teens to get into trouble.”
He chuckled. The low rumble reverberated through him to her, like a transfer of energy. “Well, I suppose there is some of that. But it caters to all ages. A lot of families.”
“I would love to go to there on a date. I’d pack a picnic for dinner. Cold fried chicken. Coleslaw. Biscuits.”
“Yum. Now I’m hungry as well as sore,” he said. “And I’m holding you to it.”
She wanted him to more than anything. Once again, he calmed her with distraction. Physical pain couldn’t be ignored for long. The room spun. Talking about food teased her stomach with the idea of tossing up everything inside right now.
She had nothing to hide anymore. She was hurt and full of regrets. “I’m sorry I never gave us a chance when I could. Now we have nothing but goodbye.”
“I understood. You were in pain.”
She still was.
“I won’t accept a farewell in these circumstances. We’ll escape. Have faith,” he whispered.
She breathed in through her nose, a loud, shaky inhalation. “How can we get out of here?” Her question came out breathy and desperate. “Margaux drugged me with the water. My head is spinning. I can barely sit upright without nausea hitting me in the stomach.”
“Margaux and Chad are not a happy couple. And they are definitely not on the same page. When they come back, just follow my lead, okay?”
She nodded.
“Okay?” he prodded.
“Yes. Sorry. Forgot you can’t see me.”
“It’s okay. I feel like I can. I know your expressions by heart. I didn’t forget a single grimace or grin.”
She sighed. “I really want us to get a chance.”
“We will.”
Her throat tightened, emotion bubbling up. She pushed it down. “Margaux seems scared of Chad, too. Maybe that can help us.” She hated even making the suggestion. Fighting to stay alive by employing terror warred with Emma’s sense of right and wrong.
The door opened, slamming against the wall.
Margaux, her husband, and the third man entered. The distance between husband and wife was marked.
“Margaux, let’s work this out,” Emma said slowly, employing her professional skills. She wasn’t following Daniel’s instructions. But she had a gut feeling about what she had to do.
Between the bindings and her headache, however, she struggled to remain grounded in reality. The whole situation was almost too surreal for her brain to process and accept. She wanted to detach like she had in the difficult days after losing Liz. But she couldn’t. She had to stay. “You are hurting. You are a victim, too.”
Chad scoffed. “Yeah right. She’s a victim? How do you figure?”
“She was a child,” Emma said.
“She was a spoiled brat,” Chad countered. “As soon as she is unsupervised and left to her own devices, she is unleashed. Right, darling? Isn’t that what you told me? It’s not your fault. It’s out of your control. Always shifting the blame.”
“Liz was a tragedy,” Margaux said, putting more distance between herself and her husband. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t plan it. I went to scare her and get her to back down. Sure, I started to tighten the scarf around her neck, but she broke away, and I just pushed.”
Garrote. No wonder Margaux had known the word. She’d probably spent decades obsessing about her failed act of killing. Straining to recall the police report, Emma couldn’t recall any suspicion about strangulation.
