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CHAPTER 29
THE DOCTOR’S EYEBALLS were soaking wet, the sockets brimming, the sickening liquid filling her ears and hot in her mouth. Blood had already soaked through her cotton nightshirt.
Shit, she thought. What the hell happened?
The floor felt freezing against her cheek, and the grout would stain from all the blood, and maybe the tile. She and Steven had fought about it. They should have gone with the porcelain, she thought. It was far less porous than marble. Wine, coffee, and now, tonight, copious blood would never clean up. Sophie could scrub it for weeks, or Masha, the better scrubber, but the tile would be ruined. She’d have to redo the bathroom floors.
If she survived whatever this was.
That was her first thought. Not for her health, but for the house. She was going to die here, after all, and maybe tonight.
Her cheek was stuck to the cold marble. Clearly, she had suffered a head wound. The amount of blood told her that. Her scalp must be split open, she thought, its millions of tiny vessels ruptured, and her right ear burned.
Had she tripped? Had she gotten up, fallen, and busted her head open wide? This was, of course, how old people died. For sure she’d concussed, but was coming to. She was thinking, breathing, and part of her mind was assessing her state:
She was alive, yes, check. She hadn’t bled out. At least not yet.
With her ear to the floor, she could hear Bandit barking from deep in the house. Somewhere, but where?
He sounded alarmed, and was most likely trapped, wherever he was—otherwise he would be by her side. This she knew. At bedtime, she’d left the windows open, and Bandit, she knew, smelled her blood in the air. She could tell by his bark that he was concerned. It was his job, of course, to keep her safe.
She flattened her palms against the floor and pushed to her knees.
As she did, her head throbbed as if her brain was about to implode: a horrible pressure she’d never felt before, as bad and as fierce as a birth contraction, but inside her skull. Her palms were sticky, some blood had dried, and suddenly she was hearing voices.
There were voices behind the bathroom door, inside her bedroom.
Voices arguing.
She couldn’t see yet, but she could listen. She bowed her head and swore one was Josh. But she barely heard them. Or maybe, maybe she was dreaming.
Had Josh come home?
Whoever it was, they were whisper-shouting. But maybe it was Josh. She was his mother, after all. Like penguins, maybe she could pick up his voice from out of thousands? Josh’s larynx hadn’t caught up to his six-foot frame, and his voice always cracked when he was upset, like this voice did.
He was only a child.
But who was he fighting? The doctor couldn’t be sure.
She realized her head was still gushing. She needed a towel, to apply pressure on her wound. She blindly clambered to her feet and groped in the darkness for something soft, a towel, the shower curtain, something, anything, to wipe her eyes, unplug her ears, and stop the flow.
She found a hand towel on the sink, wiped her eyes, then cheeks and jaw, but still blood poured. She had been whacked.
The room was dark, and as her eyes opened and her vision adjusted, she saw herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked like the star of a horror movie. Her white nightshirt had turned black-red. It was drenched and clung to every curve. Her cheeks, clavicle, shoulders and elbows dripped with blood.
On the sink counter, too, a hammer sat. Someone had left a huge, bloody hammer? That was stupid. That was poor judgment. What the hell? Why would they leave it?
Part of the doctor wanted to cry, to vomit and collapse, and call out for help. But another voice, calm and collected—her doctor voice—told her to go; to stay quiet and slip away, into the other bedroom, and fast. The dual master bedrooms with one shared bath were a last-ditch effort to save her marriage, but tonight they might save her life. She had to flee. Get out of the house and away from the voices inside her bedroom. She had to find help before she fainted a second time. Or died.
Whichever came first.
CHAPTER 30
THE DOCTOR, PRESSING the towel to her head, slipped from the master and looked both ways up and down the hall.
All the bedroom doors were shut, and she could still hear the fighting.
She headed left, away from the voices, down the hall toward the hidden stairs in the front of the house.
