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“What?”
“Hello? You have Alicia to look after. He still owes you money. You think he’ll pay after a message like that?”
“He fired you all after promising he wouldn’t. I can’t stay married to a liar. I can’t do it. Oswald used to lie to me all the damned time, and I thought Hunter was different, but he’s not. Once again, I get fucked over. I’m done. We’re through.”
“And Alicia?”
“I’ll call Toby and tell him to pick her up from school. I’ll get him to say goodbye on my behalf. I can’t go back to the house, not now, not after he’s done this to you all.”
“You sure you want to leave her like that? She’ll be heartbroken.”
“What’s the alternative? It’ll be hard enough for Alicia to say goodbye to me, and I don’t want her to pick up on my anger. He’ll find someone else to look after her, and she’ll get over it soon enough.” Even as I say the words, I regret them. “It stabs my heart to let her go, but I must do it. He’ll use my affection toward Alicia against me, the same as Oswald used to use my love toward him against me.
“ ‘You’re making me do this,’ he used to say. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. If you would just do as you’re told, I wouldn’t have to do this.’
“Over and over, it continued until I didn’t know who I was anymore. I’m not letting it happen again. It nearly broke me last time.”
“I understand,” Ursula says quietly. “I just hope she does.”
I look around me. The office is three-quarters empty. People are still filing out, all of them looking furiously at me as they go by. I walk up the stairs to Hunter’s office, grabbing a pen. Next to it is the memo. Office to close. All staff let go. Signed H Lombardi.
“Go to hell,” I write next to his signature before adding the following line, “Your soon-to-be ex-wife.”
48
Hunter
* * *
I know he’s there. It’s not like he unlocked the door quietly. He’s been standing next to the steel bunk for a few minutes. I keep my eyes shut. The longer I don’t have to look at him, the easier it is to resist breaking his scrawny chicken neck.
“Wake up, Hunter,” he yells in my ear, shoving my shoulder.
I grab his hand, reach down to his waist, pull his gun out of his holster, and shove it into his forehead. “Bang,” I say as three more cops rush into the room, their pistols drawn.
I toss him the gun. “Detective Brody,” I say as he scrambles backward. “Good morning. How are you?”
He scowls at me, waving at the other cops who slowly back out of the room. “You think you’re so smart,” he says, sitting on the bolted-down chair by the door. “Your lawyer isn’t getting you out of this one.”
“We’ll see.” I swing my legs out and sit up, yawning loudly. “You look like shit.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself.”
I feel the bruises on my face, and the swelling near my eye that was going down is much worse. “People might call that police brutality.”
“You tripped and fell on your way into the station. Not my fault you’re clumsy, is it?”
“You think a judge would buy that?”
“They’ll be too busy putting you away for murder to care about a couple of itty bitty scratches.”
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
He folds his arms across his chest. “I’m holding all the cards here.”
“How’d you figure that?”
“One, you’re locked up in here, and you’re not getting out unless I give the nod, which I’m not going to give.”
