CHAPTER 73

GRANT

The girls drifted on the surface of the pool, each on her own float, their bodies silhouetted by the brilliantly lit water. In front of them, the new version of Mean Girls played on the big screen I had stretched across one end of the pool. I'd connected the projector to our exterior surround sound system and couldn't help but flinch when one of the characters' voices would come from the rock speaker behind me.

My fear of Perla was increasing by the hour. I could only stall out here for so long before I would have to go back inside, where she was waiting with a hot drink. Clingy was not a word I would have ever used to describe Perla, yet that's suddenly how she was acting. Maybe suffocating would be a better adjective.

I was paranoid—I realized that—but I was also suddenly seeing things I'd been oblivious to before. The pause before she smiled, like she was processing what reaction to deliver. The manipulation of the girls, of every single aspect of this party, even the minor details that didn't matter. The way she ordered me to do something and didn't wait to see or hear my reaction or opinion. Like now. I was supposed to be adjusting the sound crackle that occurred when the audio hit a certain frequency. The girls hadn't noticed it and neither had I, but Perla did, and she told me to fix it, so I got up and went outside and spent twenty minutes checking the audio connections and settings, listening to the movie, on alert for this sound that I was beginning to think she'd made up.

I turned toward the house, our home, which suddenly looked ominous—lit up against the dark California sky, almost every room ablaze in light. It was like a dollhouse in its perfection. She'd made it that way, and I always appreciated that about her—how every item had its place and was picked for a specific look and purpose—but now it just seemed psychotic. Like that guy in that Julia Roberts movie ... Sleeping with the Enemy . That's what I'd been doing. Sleeping with. Living with. Loving ... the person who'd murdered my sister.

I'd told Leewood just a few weeks ago that I didn't have the ability to kill someone. I spoke of the line of morality, how a good person wouldn't cross it and that only someone who was broken in some sense would intentionally take a life.

Maybe I was broken, but I was suddenly looking at the act of murder in a new light. I could suddenly imagine killing this woman ... this beautiful carcass of a person with a rotten inside. What kind of woman married the brother of the little girl she'd murdered? What kind of woman let her father sit in prison for decades for her crimes? What kind of woman did I marry?

Maybe she's changed.

There it was, that little voice that wouldn't be silenced. The one who thought I wasn't a complete idiot, that I could judge someone with some degree of accuracy, that maybe I—and Sophie—had healed her broken soul. Maybe the woman I loved was not the same person who'd done those horrible things as a child. Maybe that person had died in Leewood's arms, and her life with George and Janice, and then with me ... it had changed her.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out and checked the screen. A text from work, the fifth so far this evening. Like the others, I ignored it. Our project deadline, which had occupied the majority of my focus for the last eighteen months, no longer mattered. I wouldn't be returning to the office. I wouldn't log into my email, or check my voicemails, or do anything in the next forty-eight hours that wasn't directly tied to Sophie and getting her and me to safety.

Maybe my wife was healed and maybe she had changed, but we would have to explore that idea somewhere far away from Perla.

Another text lit up my phone, this one from Perla.

Don't worry about it. Just come inside and have a drink and relax.

I looked back at the house, and I could see her through the second-story window, standing there, cup in hand, watching me. And I thought about that morning, when I was getting ready and had snooped through her side of the bathroom, which I'd never done. But in my new life, I was plotting to run away with our daughter and I was terrified of my wife, and so the status quo must change. In one of the drawers of her sink had been her bottle of Ambien, and I'd counted the pills, then cataloged the information along with a few dozen other statistics I was now keeping track of. Anything that could be a weapon or used in conjunction with one. The problem was, the house was huge, and it was her castle, with secrets in places I didn't even know existed.

Twenty-two pills of Ambien.

Eight gallons of bleach.

Two boxes of rat poison.

Twenty-six knives.

Two axes.

One BB gun.

One chain saw.

The list went on, and the problem was, when you started looking at things that could harm someone, everything started to look suspicious. Latex gloves under the sink. Gasoline. Matches. Rope.

Perla waved at me, gesturing for me to come inside, and I stood, then looked at the girls. Sophie had her head resting on the pillow of her float, a wide grin on her face, one of her feet dangling in the water. Mandolin was propped up on her elbows, laughing at something on-screen. Bridget was cross-legged on her float, a bright-red bowl of popcorn in her lap.

Only two friends at Sophie's party. Perla had been insistent on that, and insistent that I lay down the rule as my own. Why? Last year, she'd had more than a dozen. I had accepted it without much argument or thought, just like everything.

A twelve-year-old's birthday party. Three girls, spending the night together.

I didn't like it.

Inside, I forced myself to approach Perla and gather her against me for a kiss. She tasted like whipped cream, and I pulled away as soon as it felt long enough.

"Here." She held out the cup, and I knew without looking that it would be an Irish coffee, made just how I liked it.

"Give me just a sec. I need to run upstairs and get one of my heartburn pills."

"Sure." She settled in on one of the couches in front of the windows, tucking her bare foot underneath her as she picked up her own drink. Outside, there was a view of the pool, and from that spot, you could see all three girls and the movie screen.

"I'll be right back. You're watching them?"

She scoffed. "Yes, Grant. I'm watching them."

I didn't even know why I'd asked. I'd probably feel better if she weren't. I took the steps two at a time upstairs and grabbed my antacid medication. On my way out, I stopped, then crossed over to her side of the bathroom and pulled open the lowest drawer, withdrawing her Ambien and twisting open the cap.

I counted it once, then twice, the burn in my chest increasing at the total. Thirteen pills.

This morning: twenty-two pills. Now: thirteen.

I returned the bottle to the drawer, being careful to place it exactly as I had found it, then hurried back downstairs.

Nine missing pills. Where the fuck had nine pills gone to? I thought of the cake and ice cream that the girls had yet to eat, and of the drink that was downstairs, waiting for me.

Maybe she had tucked the pills away for a special occasion. Or maybe she was doing something with them tonight. But what? And why?

The number echoed in my head as I took the spot on the couch next to Perla and allowed her to curl into my body. I sipped the Irish coffee, which tasted off, and as soon as I finished it, I excused myself to the bathroom, where I stuck my finger in the back of my throat and vomited it all up.

Nine missing pills. I sat on the toilet and searched the internet to see how much Ambien it took to kill someone. It was, apparently, the wrong thing to look up, generating a slew of suicide-prevention alerts and websites to click on for help.

I flushed the toilet, aware that I was taking too long. I checked my watch: 9:47 p.m. Nine probably wouldn't kill anyone, just knock us all—or at least one of us—out.

I shouldn't wait until Monday. Tomorrow, as soon as the girls had been returned to their parents, I was taking Sophie and getting the fuck out of here.