He stops suddenly. So suddenly that she gives a start. He’s sitting up on the sofa, his body straight, his fading erection slinking back into his undone pants. He never fully undressed when they did it, and he didn’t bother with it now.
“What the fuck?” Laura hears him say.
She scrambles to a seated position, and that’s when she sees the small silhouette in a frilly nightgown standing only a few feet away from the sofa.
Shit.
Michelle considers them with her dark eyes. Then she lets out a melodic giggle. “You’re not allowed to have boys over, Laura. You don’t know anything about babysitting, do you?”
“Go the fuck upstairs,” Frank snaps.
“Oh, it’s you. The policeman.” Michelle tilts her head. “I always thought you were handsome.”
“Michelle,” Laura says, her voice trembling, “go back to bed. Now.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to fall asleep again. I think there’s a monster under the bed,” Michelle says in a singsong voice.
Frank climbs off Laura, hastily zipping up his trousers. “Michelle, you’re too young to be seeing this. You’re too young, and you don’t understand.”
“I understand just fine,” Michelle says, laughing. “Your father won’t be too happy if he finds out. Or your real girlfriend.”
Frank doesn’t flinch. “Go to your room,” he tells her.
She raises her chin. “No.”
Laura clambers off the sofa, but she’s nearly naked and self-conscious and also freezing. She looks around for her shirt, spots it, struggles to put it on the right way.
“How’s your brother, Frank? I heard he’s at the hospital. I hope everything is okay.”
Laura goes still.
“What do you care about my brother?” Frank snarls.
“Frank,” Laura pipes up, “please calm down. I’ll take care of her. Just let me get dressed.”
“You,” he turns to her, and the fury in his eyes scares her. “You be quiet and let me deal with this.”
He storms over to Michelle, who doesn’t move an inch. She hardly looks intimidated at all.
“It’s so sad,” she says pensively.
“What’s sad?” he snaps.
“That I guess it’s true your whole family is cursed.”
Laura watches the scene, transfixed.
Frank’s face is a mask of fury. “What the hell did you just say about my family, you little twat?”
“A woman cursed you all,” Michelle says genially. “Because of that woman, all the men in the family will pay the price. And try to tell me it’s not true! Poor Pierre. He used to have all that land, a family, two beautiful sons. And now one is an imbecile and the other, a—”
Frank slaps her across the face.
It all happens so fast—Laura only now understands what that really means. Not that she didn’t know Frank is capable of violence. She, of all people, knows exactly what he’s capable of. This is just the first time she truly sees it. He slaps the young girl so hard that she practically goes flying. She hits the pool table behind her and collapses to the floor. Laura isn’t entirely sure at what point she hears the sickening crunch. Is it the corner of the pool table or the tiled floor—the only place in the whole house, it seems, without that damn carpeting?
With a gasp, Laura rushes over and kneels next to Michelle, her knees freezing on the icy tiles.
Michelle’s head is at a strange angle. Her neck is twisted, her eyes slightly open. She’s not moving. Not breathing.
Perfectly still.
How is that possible? Only a second ago—
“Fuck,” Frank mutters behind her, pacing the room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Just like time slowed to a crawl in that fateful second, now it accelerates. It accelerates enough to give Laura whiplash, and everything else she remembers is in snippets, like stills from a movie she never really wanted to watch.
It doesn’t take long before there’s a second car in the driveway, the famous Impala, and then Pierre Bergmann enters and heads to the basement where Michelle still lies on the floor. Laura has had time to cover her with a throw blanket, even though there’s no point now. It just seemed like a respectful thing to do. Well, it would turn out to be the last thing she ever did for Michelle—the rest of that night, she mostly huddles in a corner while Frank and his father go about their business.
The blanket is pulled aside and then a large piece of tarpaulin appears. They wrap the small body in it. Pierre throws it over his shoulder and carries it upstairs. Then there’s the sound of tires outside, and for a while, he’s gone.
Frank picks up the rest of Laura’s clothes and throws them at her. “Get dressed.”
“I—”
“One word out of you, and I swear, you’re going to follow dear little Michelle. Get dressed.”
Laura obeys. It takes a long time to get her clothes on because her hands are shaking. All the while, Frank is looking down at her with contempt.
