“I can see that.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled at her, and for a second Laura thought that everything was going to be okay. The words rushed out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. Saying it out loud made it feel real, and she wanted it so much to be real. They’d take a test together tomorrow, take a photo of it for the scrapbook they’d make for the baby.
The emotion that flashed across Dermot’s face was a mixture of horror and disgust Laura had never seen on anyone before. “Really?” He sounded incredulous.
That was the moment Laura finally realized how much of a fool she’d been. For years. For far too long.
“Yes, really,” she told him.
“How?”
“From you, Dermot.” She punched the emphasis on his name. “I’m in love with you.”
“But we never had sex.” He said it like he was schooling her in some basic logic.
“But we were together.” Of course they were. But then she thought about Simon’s visit to Dermot’s apartment, and that word. Friend.
“Not like that. We stopped, remember. I can’t sleep with you. I’d get into trouble. If work found out, they could think I’d been sleeping with you back when you were a client of mine. I could get fired. I could lose my license.” Dermot was getting agitated, waving his arms around. “I need my job, Laura. Those kids need me.”
“Your kid is going to need you,” Laura told him. She reached out to put his hands on her stomach. Maybe, just maybe, it could still be all right.
“How do I know it’s even true?” he asked, pulling away from her. He stumbled over his shoes, which were tossed in the middle of the floor between the bed and the television.
“Do you think I’d lie to you about something like this?” she asked.
“Of course I do! You’re magically pregnant, even though we never had sex? Even though we were never a couple? None of it makes sense.”
“I did it myself. When I went to the bathroom, after that time we were almost together.”
“You did what? Fucked yourself?” And Laura couldn’t believe it, but she swore she saw him sneer at her, like she was some neighborhood slut. Like she was some stupid girl he’d made the mistake of taking home.
“Yes!” she shouted into his face. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She put her hands on his chest and shoved him.
Dermot stumbled back. His feet caught the broken glass on the floor from the champagne bottle. “Ow, fuck!” He steadied himself by putting a hand on the cheap dresser. “I always knew you were crazy.”
Laura pushed him again. His head cracked open on the jagged edge of the broken champagne bottle tipped up like a toothy grin on the ground. She heard the soft slip of Dermot’s skin when the shards cut through the base of his skull. His face went blank almost immediately.
That was how she’d killed him. The man she loved. The man she was crazy for.
The fire ripped through the roof of Laura’s trailer. Her home. Laura’s lips felt warmer from the heat the blaze gave off.
Joyce was stronger than she looked, and Laura had to push as hard as she could to get her to fall over onto the ground. A streak of mud snaked over the white of Joyce’s blouse, mixing with blood from when she carried Addy out of the trailer.
Joyce started to stand up. Both women still held onto the gun. Laura would let go soon. Just a few more seconds.
She couldn’t see Simon.
The fire roared on. Simon might be a doctor, and Joyce might be rich, but one thing Laura was betting on was that neither of them knew how a trailer like Laura’s was heated in the winter.
In fact, she was counting on it.
Headlights flashed from the driveway of the trailer, catching everyone in their glow.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE SIMON
Simon couldn’t be around Joyce any longer. He should have helped Laura get the gun off his wife, but he was just so tired. The headlights snaking down the driveway drew him further away from the violence happening beside him, like a moth seeking solace from the dreadful dark of night.
“It’s you,” Simon said as she climbed out of the car. His heart did an odd flip-flop in his chest that he forgot the medical term for. He just wanted this day, this life, to be over.
Even though he’d summoned her, he couldn’t believe she was standing in front of him. Seeing her here, in a context that he’d never expect, outside of the familiar and routine, left him disoriented. If she was here, then who was back in the spot where she should be? His mind pinged strange thoughts back and forth like a video game he used to play as a child.
Right now, he’d give anything to be that young again.
“I’m here to help,” she explained. She pulled on a pair of gloves. She’d drawn her hair back severely, pulled tight into a knot that sat at the back of her neck.
There was a smash and a scream behind them. A hiss sounded for a few seconds. Something cracked the night air like a bomb exploding, throwing Simon down into the snow. Stones and grit ground into the heels of his hands. When he managed to stand up again, he’d lost her.
CHAPTER SIXTY JOYCE
That hissing. What was that hissing?
Joyce couldn’t place the sound. While she swiveled her head to look, Laura slipped out of her grasp.
Joyce started to go after her, but then the hissing stopped.
The trailer exploded.
The flames expanded from nothing to covering her entire field of vision in a few seconds. Where she was standing, the wall of heat smacked into her and made her stumble back until she could steady her feet again.
The light of the fire was so bright Joyce almost missed the beam of headlights flooding from the driveway. A glimmer of hope sounded in her mind.
Poor, manic Susan. She hadn’t thought to take Joyce’s phone.
Because who could you hurt with your phone?
Joyce’s body crumpled to the ground in a tangle of pain.
But, despite the pounding in her ears, Joyce was able to think about those headlights. About the possibility that, even if she failed, she wasn’t going to lose.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE LAURA
Even though she’d dragged Addy and hidden them both behind the oak tree for protection, Laura still felt the wave of energy from the propane tank exploding. Her head pounded from the roar of the flames.
Her hands immediately went to her stomach. She was bleeding, not from a wound, but from inside.
The baby. Was she losing the baby?
Someone was crying. Her home burned.
