Starter House(91)

“You were crying.”

“There was soap in my eyes.”

“You love him. You love them both, your husband and your baby, you do; they always do. Nobody ever loves me best.”

“Yes, yes, I love them,” Lacey said. No lie was possible now. “It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? I promise I won’t leave you. I might have to leave the house, but you can come with me.”

“It’s my house. Why would you leave it?”

“Honey, I might have to. I might not be able to stay.”

Drew’s hand flashed, and the shower was on, full strength and steely cold, rods of water beating against her. She gasped and covered her face. “Andrew, listen! If I have to divorce Eric, I might not be able to keep the house. I might not get a job right away.”

“What did you call me?”

“Andrew.” She reached for the side of the tub. Everything was slick with a layer of soap, and her hand found only the glass door. “I found your picture on the Internet. You’re Andrew Halliday.”

“No, I’m not!” She could not see him through the water in her eyes, but she felt his hands on her ankles. His hands were hot, and larger than she had thought. She turned her face out of the streaming shower and caught a breath, and then he pulled her legs up, and her head slipped down, and the bathwater closed over her head.

Lacey opened her eyes. The shower pierced the water, every thread of the stream bringing a diamond-chain of bubbles. She saw Drew, a dark tall shape hundreds of miles away, and then the soap burned in and she closed her eyes. She kicked. Drew’s grip yielded with the kick, but the upward pull never faltered, and his hands slid from her ankles to her knees; his hands circled her shin at the thin spot just below the knee. She kicked again, and her right ankle struck the tap, a numbing, stunning blow, a pain that shot all the way up to her hip. The soapy water stung in her nose.

She had time, many many seconds, before she began to drown, and Drew wanted her alive to take care of him. If he was holding her feet, he must be standing in the bath: he must be standing between her legs, holding her knees straight up. She reached her right arm down and sideways, straining along her body, grasping for his ankle. If she could pull him off balance—she felt only the bathtub’s nubby floor.

Her chest caught and heaved, her lungs straining to force her mouth open. She stretched her neck and raised her forehead out of the water, not her nose—the bath was too deep. She squinted through the shower and saw nothing, nobody was there, no visible hands grasped her knees. Anyone walking into the room—Ella Dane, where was she?—would see a woman bizarrely drowning herself, legs raised and torso sunk.

Red lights crept inside her closed eyes. She released a bubble of air to soften the pressure on her lungs, and then another bubble. She had seconds, many seconds left, before she blacked out and opened her mouth underwater. Many seconds. Drew’s hold was elastic and relentless. She could move her legs forward and back, even bend her knees within a small range; she simply couldn’t bring her feet down.

She kicked again, and something drove in between the first two toes on her left foot, a shockingly hard, metallic blow. She gasped water in and clamped the back of her tongue upward against her throat to clear her mouth, and what was that thing, what had struck her, some part of the bathtub’s machinery, not the tap—her fading mind cried out the lever, the drain. She hit it again, curled her toes around it, and pulled the lever down.

The water flowed along her body, and the sound of the pipes’ starving gulp echoed through the walls of the tub. The shower came down as strong as ever, but Ev Craddock kept his drains clear, bless his heart, and Lacey’s wet skin chilled in the air as the tub drained. She had many seconds left, four or five seconds, long enough for a lifetime, and then she was able to lift her head and take a breath of half water, half air.

Her feet fell into the tub. She sat up and turned off the shower. A breath and another breath, and she began to cough, deep shattering coughs that shook the baby. She tried to take careful, shallow breaths that wouldn’t irritate her outraged lungs, but she was full of water, she had breathed it and swallowed it, water and soap and Drew’s wild rage. She dragged herself to the toilet in time to vomit it all out, the soap and the foam, Eric and Drew and the house waiting in the hills, until nothing came but clear threads of slime. She flushed the toilet and leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the cool tank furred with clean water. And he loved her; this was what he did for love.





Chapter Forty-one

LACEY WRAPPED HERSELF in the big motel towel and set the hair dryer to low, hot, four inches from her left ear. She was safe for a while. Drew had a hit-and-run temper, like so many damaged children. She had a few hours, perhaps even a day, before he sought her again.