“Stay here tonight, Dana. The sofa is a pullout and—”
“Be careful.” She pointed a finger at my face. “Be very careful, Ellie.”
A feeling of coolness washed over me at the way she said it, at the sudden change in her face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I . . . I’ve got a bad feeling about that man. Your aura is weird after you’ve been with him. Dark. Wrong. Something is badly off with that guy.”
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Just don’t come crying to me when he’s screwed you over. Not this time.” She swayed slightly. “This time you’re choosing to be a victim.”
“I cannot believe you just said that. After everything I’ve been through with my marriage, with losing my child—”
“You know what? I’m tired—we all are—of your victimhood. It’s always all about you, Ellie. All about your losses. When did you last ask me what’s really going on in my life? Huh? When did you last ask me about Tom?”
I swallowed. Guilt pinged through me.
“Have you ever considered you might be using your mental breakdown, your loss, as a crutch, and that you like to milk empathy? Because you’ve gotten used to playing this role and actually thrive off the attention?”
“What has made you so angry, Dana?”
“Tom was laid off last month. I told you that night at the Mallard.”
My mind reeled. I vaguely recalled her mentioning that now, but I must have been too drunk to properly encode that snippet of information. Fear whispered through me. I’d remembered all of Martin’s conversation later that night—had I not?
“Yeah. Well. We still don’t know where his next paycheck is going to come from. Have fun living it up in Vegas.” She stepped out of my apartment into the corridor, spun around, swayed for a moment, reached for the wall to steady herself, and said, “Maybe those Oahu police should have dug a little deeper, huh?” She shut the door.
I began to shake. I stared at the closed door, half expecting her to walk back in and say sorry, but also knowing she wouldn’t. I didn’t do conflict. I didn’t like conflict. My father was right. I’d do anything to avoid it if I could. How could she have dared say that about the police—what in the hell could she mean?
I dimmed the lights and hurried to the window. I waited until I saw her exit onto the sidewalk below. She popped open an umbrella and stepped into the rain. The streetlight glistened on the raindrops. She crossed the road. Anger, hurt, guilt—it all swirled in a toxic cocktail inside my chest. Dana was jealous, I decided as I watched her move into the shadows on the far side of the road. She stopped suddenly beside a parked car with its engine running—exhaust fumes puffing out the rear and crystallizing in a soft cloud in the cold air. I tensed as I watched her bend down near the driver’s side window as if to talk to someone inside. Dana then looked directly up to my window. My heart quickened. I stepped back. Was it the same car that had been parked in that same place yesterday? The car that had been there when I’d arrived home—an orange Subaru Crosstrek with misted windows obscuring the occupant? I’d noticed because it was the same model and color Subaru I’d seen in the underground parking garage. It was not a common color. Dana straightened up and continued down the sidewalk under her umbrella. The Subaru pulled out of the parking space, did a U-turn across the lanes, and drove off in the opposite direction.
A chill crawled down my spine, and I felt a sort of tick tick tick along the edges of my mind, like dry twigs against glass, trying to get in.
THEN
ELLIE
Almost two years ago, May. Las Vegas, Nevada.
“You put a spell on me . . . I was bewitched by you . . .” A curvaceous lounge singer with a sultry Billie Holiday voice crooned the words into her mike. Martin and I sat listening in a plush booth in a corner farthest from the stage. Alongside the songstress a male magician in a Charlie Chaplin outfit performed pantomime magic tricks aided by a young woman with eerily white skin. She wore a twenties-style bathing suit. A bloodred slash of ribbon around her pale neck and her red Cupid’s-bow lips were the only splashes of color on the black-and-white set. It was like watching an old silent movie, only alive and choreographed to the beat and cadence of the song.
This late-night magic-show-cum-cabaret was being performed at the Abracadabra Club downstairs in our Vegas hotel. Martin and I cuddled in a comfortable alcoholic haze, flush with our night’s wins and too many complimentary cocktails from the Second Chance Casino.
The song and tempo changed. “Luck be a devil tonight . . .”
I laced my fingers through Martin’s and leaned my head back against the padded seating. I felt blissfully buzzy and, yes, beautiful. For almost two weeks I’d spent days by the pool, or at the spa, while Martin had his meetings, and the nights had been ours. Dressing up. Shows. Fabulous food. Trying our luck. I was tanned and so much thinner now than when I’d met him on that blustery January day. I was relaxed and in love, and it showed in my face and body. I really felt as though I’d turned a corner. I’d gone down into the abyss of loss and grief and managed to crawl out. I had overcome.
The Charlie Chaplin magician waved his wand with jerky movements that replicated the choppy, almost comical action in early silent movies. He reached up to remove his hat, as he’d done several times during the show, and pulled out a live rabbit. I gasped.
Martin laughed at me.
“What’s so funny?” I said, punching him playfully. “That was brilliant! There was nothing inside his hat—I saw. He tipped it to the audience several times.”
Martin’s eyes danced in the light of
