The taste of metal was strong in Laura’s mouth, even before she saw the shadow emerge from the corner of the garage, the floodlights sensor triggered, Martin jogging toward the cruiser.
She ducked down behind the seats and flattened herself across the floorboards, her heart pounding under her pajama top.
The front driver side door opened.
Light flooded the interior.
Martin climbed in, shut the door, sat motionless behind the wheel until the dome light winked out.
At last, Laura heard the jingle of keys.
The engine cranked, the car backing down the driveway and tears coming, her eyes welling up with fear and something even worse-the uncertain horror of what had just happened in their home while she was locked in the back of this car.
She reached up, her fingers grazing the backseat upholstery, just touching the leather cell phone case.
When Martin spoke, it startled the hell out of her and she jerked her arm back down into her chest.
“Hey guys, it’s Marty. Listen, I’m really concerned based on my conversation with Tim. I’m coming over, and I hope we can talk about this. You know, I still remember your wedding day. Been what, eight years? Look, everyone goes through rocky patches, but this…well, let’s talk in person when I get there.”
Laura stifled her sobs as the car slowed and made a long, gentle left turn, wondering if they were driving through the roundabout at the entrance to the subdivision.
Under his breath, Martin sighed, said, “Where the fuck are you?”
She grabbed the leather case off the seat, pried out the phone in the darkness.
The screen lit up. She dialed 911, pressed talk.
The cruiser eased to a stop.
“Connecting…” appeared on the screen, and she held the phone to her ear.
The driver door opened and slammed, Laura’s eyes briefly stinging in the light. She heard Martin’s footsteps trail away on the pavement and still the phone against her ear had yet to ring.
She pulled it away, read the message: “Signal Faded Call Lost.”
In the top left corner of the screen, the connectivity icon that for some reason resembled a martini glass displayed zero bars.
The footsteps returned and Martin climbed back in, put the car into gear.
The acceleration of the hearty V8 pushed Laura into the base of the backseat.
Martin chuckled.
Laura held the phone up behind Martin’s seat, glimpsed a single bar on the screen.
“Laura?”
She froze.
“You have to tell me what that skin cream is,” he said. “Whole car smells like it.”
She didn’t move.
“Come on, I know you’re back there. Saw you when I got out of the car a minute ago. Now sit the fuck up or you’re gonna make me angry.”
That lonely bar on the cell phone screen had vanished.
Laura pushed up off the floorboard, climbed into the seat.
Martin watched her in the rearview mirror.
They were driving through the north end of the subdivision, the porchlights as distant as stars in the heavy, midnight fog.
Martin turned onto their street.
“What’d you do to my husband?” Laura asked, fighting tears.
The phone in her lap boasted two strong bars and very little battery.
She reached down, watched 9-1-1 appear on the screen as her fingers struggled to find the right buttons in the dark.
“What were you doing in my cruiser?” Martin asked. “Looking for this?”
He held up his second cell phone as Laura pressed talk.
Through the tiny speaker, the phone in her hand began to ring.
She said, “When did you know?”
“When you played the message.”
Martin turned into their driveway.
“I’m really sorry about all this, Laura. Just an honest to God…” He stomped the brake so hard that even at that slow rate of speed, Laura slammed into the partition. “You fucking bitch.”
Faintly: “Nine-one-one. Where is your emergency?”
Martin jammed the shifter into park, threw open the door.
“Oh, God, send someone to-”
The rear passenger door swung open and Martin dove in, Laura crushed under his weight, his hand cupped over her mouth, the phone ripped from her hand, and then the side of her head exploded, her vision jogged into a darkness that sparked with burning stars.
Laura thought, I’m conscious.
She felt the side of her face resting against the floor, and when she tried to raise her head, her skin momentarily adhered to the hardwood.
She sat up, opened her eyes, temples throbbing.
Four feet away, slumped on the floor beside the sink, Tim lay staring at her, eyes open and vacant, a black slit yawning under his chin.
And though she sat in her own kitchen in a pool of her husband’s blood, legs burgundy below the knees, hair matted into bloody dreads like some demon Rasta, she didn’t scream or even cry.
Her yellow teddy was slathered in gore, her left breast dangling out of a tear across the front. She held a knife in her left hand that she’d used to skin a kiwi for breakfast a thousand years ago, Tim’s. 357 in her right.
The front door burst open, footsteps pounding through the foyer, male voices yelling, “Mooresville Police!”
She craned her neck, saw two cops arrive in the archway between the kitchen and the living room-a short man with a shaved head and her brother-in-law, wide-eyed and crying.
The short man said, “Go in the other room, Martin. You don’t need to see-”
“She’s got a gun!”
“Shit. Drop that right now!”
“Come on, Laura, please!”
“You wanna get shot?”
They were pointing their Glocks at her, screaming for her to drop the gun, and she was trying, but it had been super-glued to her hand, and she attempted to sling it across the room to break the bond, but even her pointer finger had been cemented to the trigger, the barrel of the. 357 making a fleeting alignment on the policemen, and they would write in their reports that she was making her move, that deadly force had been the only option, both lawmen firing-Officer McCullar twice, Officer West four times-and when the judgment fell, both men were deemed to have acted reasonably, the hearts of the brass going out to West in particular, the man having found his little brother murdered and been forced to shoot the perpetrator, his own sister-in-law.
All things considered, a month of paid leave and weekly sessions with a therapist was the very least they could do.