Page 52 of Bird on a Blade
“That sounds nice,” I tell him.
He grins wolfishly and ducks around the counter and starts flinging open cabinets. I leave him to it before the ED voice makes me change my mind.
My bedroom also looks how I left it, with the comforter halfheartedly tossed over the mattress and my pile of dirty clothes in the corner. I gather those up first and toss them in the washing machine. I want as many clean clothes as possible before I go to Sawyer’s.
I’ve just started the cycle when I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. It’s Charlotte.
I hesitate before swiping to answer.
“Oh thank god,” she says, before I’ve even gotten out a fullhello. “Tell me you’re okay. Where are you? Are you still at the cabin?”
I peer around the edge of the hallway so I can see Sawyer rummage around in the fridge. He’s already pulled out the few pantry items I bought, canned soup and a bag of brown rice. He glances over at me, smiling—although it turns to a frown when he sees me on the phone.
“I’m fine,” I tell Charlotte and Sawyer both, my eyes locked onto his. He nods, and I duck back into the hallway and scurry into my room. “And yes, I’m at the cabin now.”
“You can’t stay there,” she says, breathless.
I freeze. “Why not?”
“Scott’s looking for you,” she says. “Those PIs that came by? They know where you are. They came to visit me and asked how long you’d been in Virginia. I told him you weren’t in Virginia, I had no idea where you?—”
“I’m leaving.” I blurt it out, the first thing I can think to say. Charlotte still doesn’t know that one of those PIs actually camehere, and I don’t want to tell her, because then it’s one more path for a cop to trace between me and his death. Sawyer said I don’t need to worry about cops, but I don’t believe him.
“You’re what?”
“Leaving. I—” I hate lying to Charlotte, but I can’t very well tell her the truth, can I? “I ran into an old friend from high school.”Is that how you’re describing the Fat Camp Killer now? “I went into Roanoke and he had moved there from DC. It was such a fluke?—”
“Right.”
“Anyway, he invited me to stay with him for a little while. That’ll get me out of the cabin, at least.”
“It’s better than nothing. But Edie, you need to be careful, okay? Scott, he—” Her voice wavers, and I squeeze the phone tighter.
“He what, Charlotte?”
“He came to see me, too.”
Ice pours through my body.
“He was with the two PIs. He didn’t—didn’t say much. Just sat there and stared at me. And he?—”
The floorboards creak, and I look up to see Sawyer step into the doorway, his face a mask of concern.
“He scared the fuck out of me,” Charlotte finishes.
“What do you mean?” I force myself to look away from Sawyer. To focus on Charlotte. “Did he try to hurt you?”
“No. But he—he threatened me, I think? He sent the two PIs out after they finished asking me questions and then told me that he knew I was helping you and that once he found you, he would—” She takes a deep breath. “That he wouldn’t ‘let us embarrass him.’ Exact words.”
I can barely move. I just stare at the wall, my breath tight and fast. When Sawyer touches me, I jump, nearly dropping my phone.
He turns me around and gives me a questioning look.
“Edie, you know I don’t want to freak you out, but it really sounded like—like he doesn’t want a divorce, if you know what I mean? Like he’d rather keep you trapped?”
Of course Scott doesn’t want a divorce. A divorce would make him a failure, and it would grant me freedom, and he couldn’t have that. Me, as a divorcee, can tell people what he did. What he tried to do.
What he’s going to do if he finds me.