And it’s stupid, but in the back of my mind I swear I can hear music playing, the kind that’s low and hurried and suspenseful, like theJawstheme. It drives me further, faster, until I’m digging wildly through the drawers, clothing flying as I pull things out by the handful.
“Here,” Heidi whispers, and my head jerks up.
“Where?” I say, standing in time to see her holding up a necklace. “Is that—”
But I break off as, just outside, someone knocks on the bedroom door.
29
IN WHICH HEIDI CONTEMPLATES A KNIFE FIGHT
The knock at the door brings my words to a halt, and something unpleasant prickles over my skin—fear like icy fingers caressing the back of my neck. My grip tightens on the locket in my hand.
It’s larger than your standard locket; an egg-shaped oval not quite the size of my palm, but close. It’s heavy, too. I shove it in my pocket and then look at Soren, whose eyes have followed the disappearance of the locket and are now back on my face.
“Yes?” he calls once I nod at him. “Hang on.” He hurries over to the door and unlocks it, pulling it open. “Sorry,” he says, and he makes a show of looking at the door handle with confusion. “Not sure why that locked. Did I lock it on accident?” he says, glancing at me.
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. My voice is casual, but my heart is pounding as I take in Elsie and Phil standing there, looking suspiciously at us.
Actually, Phil isn’t looking suspicious. He just looks miserable. His eyes dart back and forth between his wife and Soren and me, and somehow the dark circles under his eyes seem to have grown in the last ten minutes.
Elsie, though—Elsie looks very strange. She has a hostess-perfect smile on her face, a friendly expression like she’s about to ask if we’d like anything to drink, but her eyes are glacial.
“Anyway, sorry about that,” Soren says, and even though his voice is just as casual as mine, there’s tension in his shoulders, and his knuckles are white where he grips the door handle. “We weren’t able to find the earring.”
“Why don’t we all look for it together,” Elsie says, and her smile grows.
“Uh, that’s okay,” I say, forcing a smile of my own. “We can just—”
“I insist,” she cuts me off. She steps into the room, followed by Phil—poor, cowardly Phil, who looks like he would rather be anywhere else than here.
Me too, Phil. Me too.
The blood pumps more wildly through my veins as Elsie’s smile grows more brittle, like it’s ready to shatter, like the whole thing will crumble and fall right off her face. She moves further into the room, her eyes never leaving Soren and me.
When she yanks the door out of Soren’s hand and pushes it closed, I throw up in my mouth a little—a nervous response I’ve never experienced before and never want to experience again.
“Elsie,” Phil says, only it’s kind of a miserable groan. And I realize belatedly why he’s said this: Elsie’s hands have just closed around the heavy gold clock on Carmina’s nightstand.
“Uh,” I say, scooting backward. My body bumps into Soren’s, and his hand wraps firmly around my wrist.
What even is happening right now?
What’s happening right now is that Soren was right, and we shouldn’t have come here,a scathing voice of reason pipes up from the back of my mind.
“Elsie,” Phil says again, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Put that down. You can’t just—you can’t justattackpeople, Elsie!”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” she snaps at him, any last hints of pleasantness falling away. “Like I’m crazy. Like I’m going around attacking everyone I meet.” Her lip peels back in clear disgust. “Am I crazy for wanting my mother-in-law to stay out of my marriage? Am I crazy to want to stay out of prison? No! No one wants their mother-in-law to interfere. No one wants to go to prison.”
Phil says what we’re all thinking. “Yes,” he says, “but those other people don’t kill their mother-in-laws or their neighbors, Elsie. Put the clock d—geez!” He yelps as she takes a swipe at him, and I fumble in my pocket for my phone.
“Elsie!” Phil shouts, his misery replaced by rage. “What do you think you’re—stop it—stop!” He catches her arm as she’s trying to bring the clock down on his head again, and I watch, frozen, my eyes wide.
“Don’t act like you weren’t there,” she screams at him. “Besides,” she breathes, “it’s too late now. Help is coming.”
What. Is. Happening.
Time is somehow moving too quickly and moving not at all; every new moment lingers before speeding away, and I’m helpless to do anything but take it all in with wide eyes and utter bewilderment.
