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Daphne steps backward. It just presses our bodies closer together. “No.”
“Daphne.” There’s more I have to say about this, but emotion pins the words in my throat. My heart is overtired from how touched I am that she’d do this. All my explanations fail. No more words make it out.
She turns her head to look at me, astonished. “You can’t go with him.”
“I have to.”
Daphne grits her teeth. Her fear is in her eyes. Certainty, too. She knows her brother very well. As well as any person who loves her brother can. She understands the danger in this moment. But whatever happens, if I live or die, I’m going to do this on my own. She cannot rescue me. Nothing can. Not my brothers, or my money, or any piece of art. All futures are through this doorway.
I know it like I knew the closet door would open, no matter who was on the other side.
That’s what it is to be alive. To allow the door to open anyway. To go through.
I look at Leo over Daphne’s head. “Where?”
“Outside.” I don’t know whether it’s to fuck with me or because this room isn’t large enough to contain his frustration. As if this thought is visible, he continues, “I can’t fucking breathe in here.”
I’m familiar with the sensation. “Let me get my coat.”
It’s out in the foyer, pinned under the overturned table. I put the table back in its place while Leo gets his coat. His is out on the porch. I didn’t notice it when I came in. He thought ahead, I suppose. Didn’t want to get blood on it if he didn’t have to.
We go out through the front, and he pauses.
“The beach is better,” I offer. It’s the most bizarre conversation of my entire life. Fifteen minutes ago, he was intent on murdering me. Perhaps he still is. The beach is better for that, too. Waves would wash away the blood and the body.
He walks next to me around the house. We cross the yard. Go down the steps in the retaining wall. Leo looks up and down the beach and turns left.
I had to work for the ocean the same way I had to work for city blocks. It was easier, because we lived for a while in a house by the shore. Not on the shore. My father never had enough money for that. Close enough that all three of us can surf. Close enough that the steady waves is a calming beat in the background.
“Just don’t do it here,” I tell him.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t kill me here. We’re still in sight of the house, and Daphne will be watching. I don’t want her to see my body after I’m dead.”
“That’s very dramatic,” Leo says drily.
“So is sitting in my office in the dark, fucking around with a knife.”
“I wasn’t in the dark. You were in the dark. You’ve been lurking for quite some time.”
“I wasn’t lurking in my own house.”
“No, just on the street by my sister’s apartment. Just in her fucking apartment.” Leo glances at me. Narrows his eyes. My mind is starting to slip again. We’re getting farther from the house. I stop. Focus on the ocean. “What kind of recluse are you that you can follow her through the city but not walk down the beach?”
“I walked down the beach.”
He scans the area behind me. Looks back toward the house. “Where are your people?”
“I don’t have people. I have a driver who acts as a bodyguard when I need him.”
Leo stares at me like this, above all else, is the most shocking thing I’ve revealed. “You had my sister in your house, and you don’t have security? What the fuck? Why?”
“There was nothing worth protecting.”
He scoffs, looking out at the waves. Shakes his head. “You have millions of dollars worth of art in your house, and anyone can drive through the front gate. How about you start with telling me the real reason nobody’s out here?”
“Because I have panic attacks if I leave the house for too long. I didn’t want to risk having a witness.”
