Chapter 4 - The Nightcap
"Vianey, listen to me very carefully," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Where are you right now? Whose phone are you using?"
"It's the old emergency phone from my treehouse," she whispered, her teeth chattering. "The one you kept charged in the waterproof box."
Thank God for my paranoia. Six months ago, after Vianey had a panic attack during a power outage, I had bought a prepaid burner phone and hidden it in her backyard cedar playhouse with only two numbers programmed into it: 911 and mine.
"Are you inside the treehouse now?" I asked, already pulling on my damp boots while Mara grabbed her car keys and dialed emergency services on her own phone.
"Yes. The rain is really loud. Elena, I'm scared. Daddy was knocking on my door, and then Celeste called him down to the study to have a drink so they could 'make up.' I saw her put two white pills from Uncle Adrian's pocket into the decanter."
"Stay inside the treehouse, Vianey," I ordered, sprinting out into the hallway toward Mara’s elevator. "Do not turn on the flashlight. Pull the green canvas tarp over yourself in the corner behind the toy chest. Do not come out for anyone unless you hear my voice. Do you promise me?"
"I promise," she whimpered. "Come back, Elena. Please come back."
Ten minutes later, Mara’s Audi was tearing across the I-5 overpass at eighty miles an hour, hydroplaning slightly on the slick asphalt.
"Seattle PD is dispatching a cruiser to the Madison Park address for a welfare check," Mara said, her hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel. "But because we have no proof of a crime and you were just fired four hours ago by the homeowner, the dispatcher flagged it as a low-priority domestic dispute. Wait time is twenty-five minutes."
"In twenty-five minutes, Ricardo could be in a coma," I said. "Does Ricardo have a private line? No, his cell goes straight to Do Not Disturb after ten o'clock. Wait—the house landline!"
I dialed the main house number from memory. It rang once. Twice.
Then someone picked it up and immediately hung it back up on the receiver. They had taken it off the hook.
Inside the Vance estate, Ricardo stood by the fireplace in his wood-paneled study, staring into the dying embers. His head throbbed. Up on the second floor, when he had found Vianey’s door locked from the outside, Celeste had appeared at the end of the hall holding the skeleton key, claiming she had accidentally turned it while checking the hallway linens.
When they unlocked the door together, Vianey was already tucked under her comforter, pillows mounded beneath the quilt. Celeste had whispered, See? Sound asleep, and steered him downstairs before he could cross the room.
"Here, darling," Celeste said softly, walking across the study and handing him a crystal tumbler of amber Scotch. "Just drink this and let the tension go. Tomorrow, I’ll sit down with Vianey over pancakes and we’ll have a long talk."
Ricardo looked at the glass in his hand. A tiny trails of undissolved white sediment clung to the bottom edge of the heavy crystal.
Across the room, the double doors of the study opened slightly. Adrian stepped inside, his raincoat still dripping onto the hardwood floor. He hadn't gone home after all.
May you like
"Drink up, Ric," Adrian said, his usual warm smile completely gone. "You’ve had a very hard three years. No one is going to be surprised when the stress finally gives you a stroke."
Ricardo’s eyes narrowed. He didn't lift the glass to his lips. Instead, he looked past Adrian toward the hallway window—just as a pair of high-beam headlights smashed right through the front wrought-iron gates of the driveway.
