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Cricket groped in the dark for the doorjamb while her eyes adjusted. Another flash of lightning cast the room in harsh white. Hannah was by the bathroom, hand on her heart. Bruce was by the bed, watching out the window. For a second, everyone seemed frozen and pale as statues.
She braced herself. Another huge crash of thunder seemed to rattle the house. Something had definitely been hit. Rain started to tap on the windows.
“Crick? You okay?” Mako came up beside her, put a hand on her arm. She felt her body tense, and shifted away.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I think there are flashlights in the bedside tables. There were some in ours downstairs. There was a note, too. Said the power went out often in storms, but usually came back on quickly.”
Her eyes were adjusting to the dark and she saw Bruce move over to the bedside table, retrieve a flashlight and turn it on. He pointed it on the bed. The blood there looked black, three large, ugly stains that would never come out of the white sheets, which had probably soaked all the way down to the mattress.
“What happened here?” she asked of no one, her breath catching.
She looked to Hannah, who had still said nothing. She could tell by the still, stoic look on Hannah’s face that her friend was freaking out, deeply. When Cricket lost it she usually freaked out on the outside—yelling, hysterics; Hannah kept it in. This was a known thing between them. Hannah was cool when the shit hit the fan. She might break down later, after things had settled. But in the moment, she was dead calm.
“Someone should call Liza again,” Hannah said, voice level.
“Or the police,” said Bruce.
“Woah.” Mako. “The police? Why the fuck would we do that? Sheleft.”
He was still clinging to that letter, held it out in front of him now. Cricket remembered something that she always,alwaysforgot about Mako. He was a liar. A really good one. Creative and easy with it. He’d lied to her so many times, about so many things big and small, sometimes about things that she had witnessed or heard herself, knowing better. And somehow she almost always believed him. Some people were just like that, weren’t they? They were so magnetic, so hypnotic that you didn’t ever realize or care that you were being duped. Or was it that they had a knack for finding the people who would believe them?
“Leftbleeding? What if something’s wrong with her?” said Hannah. “What if she’s sick? Or hurt? Or what if someone else is here?”
That’s when Mako released a sob. They all turned to look at him, Bruce hitting him with the flashlight beam like a spotlight.
“She didn’t tell me,” he said, a tear trailing down his face. “But I think she was pregnant. I found the test in our bathroom last week.”
The rain knocked at the window, the wind picking up with a moan. Almost as one, their gazes drifted from Mako to the blood stains on the sheet.
“Why wouldn’t she tell you if she was pregnant?” asked Hannah. Her tone was icy.
“I don’tknow, Hannah. Maybe, maybe she wasafraid,” he said. “We’ve been doing the IVF. She’s miscarried—twice. It’s been really...fuckedfor us.”
There was a stunned silence, punctuated by Mako’s sobs. Another flash of lightning, the ensuing thunder more subdued. Not a crack but a rumble.
This was not news to Cricket, though it clearly was to Hannah.
Truth be told, Cricket and Mako had met at a hotel bar just a couple of weeks ago. After a couple drinks, he told her he had a room and she’d gone up with him. He’d wept telling her about Liza’s second miscarriage. She’d comforted him. Then he’d fucked her from behind, and left while she was still sleeping. She’d felt used, cheap, promised herself that was the last time, even though she knew she’d meet him again if he called.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” asked Hannah finally. “About the miscarriages?”
“She didn’t want anyone to know.” Mako wiped at his eyes. Cricket had seen him cry a couple of times over the years. Usually when he was caught in a lie. “You know how she is. She’s private.”
“Okay,” said Bruce. He raised his palms, had a natural air of calm authority. When Hannah had first introduced them, Cricket thought he was a bit dull, nothing special. Over the years, she’d come to see the appeal of that. A steady, reliable man who didn’t cheat and lie. What a novelty.
“Let’s go downstairs and call the host,” Bruce went on levelly. “Mako, you try to reach Liza. Then we’ll regroup and decide what to do next. Nobody needs to panic. Everyone is okay.”
Except Liza, thought Cricket.
All that blood.
Cricket watched as Bruce moved over to Hannah and put a protective arm around her, ushered her toward the door and down the hallway.
We should get out of here, Cricket heard Hannah whisper.I want to go.
Cricket moved to the other bedside table and found a second flashlight. The beam flickered, went dark, then came back on again. Great. A glitchy flashlight in a storm. Fucking perfect.
She turned the beam on Mako, and something about the way he looked made her stomach lurch.
