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25
EMMA JERKS HER HEAD TOWARD THE DIGITAL CLOCK.11:23. Could it be Tom, she wonders,somehow able to catch a flight home tonight?But he would have called to alert her.
Patting frantically for her phone on the stand next to her, her fingers find nothing but the wood surface. She reaches out, fumbles for the bedside lamp, and snaps it on. Except for the clock, the top of the nightstand is bare.
And then, distraught, she sees in her mind’s eye, the phone resting on the kitchen island.
The house has gone deadly silent. No more chirping. In a second, the alarm should begin to shriek and the police will be notified. But the shriek doesn’t come. Whoever has entered has clearly used the code to deactivate the system.
Emma kicks the duvet off the bed and swings her legs around to drop both feet to the floor. She stares at the open doorway of the bedroom and the darkness of the hall beyond it, her heart beating crazily. She and Tom dismissed the ideaof landlines when they bought the house, so there’s no way to call 911 from this floor.
A sound punctures the silence. A footstep on the stairs. And then another.Lock the bedroom door, Emma thinks.Lock it now.She propels herself from the bed, but as she starts for the door, her leg is snagged by the duvet and she pitches forward. It takes a frenzied couple of seconds to right herself, and by the time she’s across the room and near the door, the footsteps are already in the hall.
She shoots out her arm for the door, desperate to slam it shut and turn the lock.
“Emma?” someone calls from down the hall. A female voice.
Brittany.
A second later, the girl appears in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater, her wet hair flattened against her scalp.
“What the hell?” Emma snaps.
“Oh gosh, I hope I didn’t scare you,” Brittany says.
“Didn’tscareme?” She pauses to catch a breath. “You terrified me. What in god’s name is going on?”
“The concert got rained out, so there was no reason for me to stay at my friend’s.” Brittany bites her lower lip for a second. “You didn’t get my text?”
“No. No, I didn’t. When—when I didn’t respond, you should have called me, told me what was happening.” Though would she have even heard the call with her phone parked in the kitchen?
“I figured you were asleep and that I’d just come in quietly and try not to wake you.”
Emma doesn’t have the psychic energy to discuss this one more second. She needs to crawl back beneath the covers and slow down her breathing.
“You should dry off and get to bed,” she tells Brittany curtly. “Good night.”
Brittany lifts her shoulders and dark brown eyebrows simultaneously. “Again, I’m so sorry.” But there’s a shadow of a smile on her face.
As the young woman disappears down the hall, Emma considers going to the kitchen to retrieve her phone, but instead shuts the door with a thud. She staggers toward the bed, yanks the duvet from the floor, and collapses onto the mattress.
She doesn’t like me, Emma thinks. She’d convinced herself she was making progress with the girl, slowly winning her over, but that’s not the case at all.
As she stares through the darkness at the ceiling, a thought wiggles up through her mind: Could Brittany dislike her enough to put it in writing?
It isn’t until she’s on the train for New York the next day, dressed in a short-sleeved white silk blouse, black pencil skirt, and low heels, that Emma finally feels some of the tension melt from her body. She’s never been a fan of Metro-North trains, the cramped beige-and-red faux-leather seats and overly bright interiors, but the 9:14 isn’t all that crowded today, and she’s able to spread out a little. Before long, she begins to lose herself in the chug and rattle of the car along the track.
Of course, she’s aware her unagitated state is only temporary. The meeting with Peter Dunne is bound to be tense, and though her get-together with Bekah should be a peaceful interlude, she’ll be back in Westport tonight, lying in bed beside a man who’s misled her from the moment they met.Thenwhat? She doesn’t have an answer.
As the train crosses the river into the city, about to descend into the underground tunnel, a text pops up from Eric:
Sry, just seeing this. Yes, we were at the movie till 9. We did drive there separately, though. Everything okay?
Separate cars means that Dario could have circled back to the studio five minutes after they left and slipped the note into the crack between the door and frame. It doesn’t seem like something he’d do—but she’s realizing every day that she’s done a dreadful job of reading some of the people around her.
Nothing urgent. Will fill you in.
The train jerks to a stop at the end of the tunnel and Emma joins the stream of passengers making their way into Grand Central Terminal and then out onto the street. Dunne’s office is a fairly short walk away on Park Avenue and Fifty-Fifth. As she heads up the wide street, grateful that last night’s rain clouds have cleared, she realizes it’s been ages since she strolled through Manhattan like this. She and Tom have been so busy with the wedding and the house duringthe last year that they’ve only come into the city together for a couple of plays and concerts. And when she’s done TV appearances here, she’s left right afterward, often jumping into a town car that’s been arranged by the show’s producer.
