Part 21 (2/2)

I pulled the car into the gravel driveway. Monroe's truck wasn't parked outside his cabin. For a panicky moment, I worried that he'd moved out. That he was gone and I'd never see him again. I jumped out of the car, shucked the needle-thin heels, and trudged across the wet, muddy ground in my stocking feet. The porch light was on, a beacon in the growing darkness of late fall. I peered in the window and saw his laptop open on the desk, his running shoes thrown in the corner, as usual. The place was a mess. There were dirty dishes piled on the kitchen counters. Stacks of papers were strewn over every available surface. It looked like he'd started reading a half-dozen paperback novels and then just dropped them when he was finished.

I s.h.i.+vered, touching the cold gla.s.s with my fingertips and thinking of Miss Havisham and her moldy wedding dinner. It didn't seem like the same house anymore, the place where I'd spent so many happy hours. I backed away from the door, worried that Monroe would come back and find me staring into his window like some creepy stalker. I ran back to my car and grabbed my purse, thankful that I'd left some stuff behind when I bolted to Emmett's.

I took out my cell phone and called him. After he shrieked at me for a couple of minutes about being worried sick and checking the emergency rooms because he'd heard Beebee had whipped my a.s.s in the Uniquely You parking lot, he calmed down enough for me to tell him that I'd just driven up to the cabin to pick up a few things.

”Well, it would have been nice to let me know,” he huffed. ”Are you staying up there for the night? It looks like the weather is supposed to get pretty nasty.”

”It already is up here,” I told him. ”I will probably stay. But I'll come back first thing in the morning.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. ”Actually, Lace, there's an auction I wanted to check out in Sikesville. I'll be gone all weekend anyway; why don't you just stay up there?”

There was a casual nonchalance to Emmett's tone that I just didn't trust. I chuckled. Emmett had always been a terrible actor. ”Emmett, if you and Peter are getting back together, all you have to say is that you need some privacy.”

”Um, sure, you got me,” he said, laughing awkwardly. ”Remember, we're closed on Mondays, so no need to rush back. I'll see you soon, Lace.”

I listened for Emmett's line to go dead and shook my head. ”My brother is weird.”

I shrugged out of my wet dress and into some warm flannel pajamas. I spied my laptop, open and in hibernation mode, at the kitchen table. I hadn't even thought to grab it in my exodus to Emmett's. I clicked the touchpad and the screen roared to life, showing me the chapter I'd been working on before my fight with Monroe. The police had just questioned Laurie about Greg's mysterious disappearance. Greg's new girlfriend, Patricia, had stormed into the house and demanded that Laurie tell her where Greg was. Behind her, Laurie saw the sliding pocket doors twitching in the entryway to the dining room, as if any second they would snap together, closing on Patricia like the jaws of a steel trap. I'd been in Gladiator thumbs-up or thumbs-down mode, trying to decide Patricia's fate, when I'd left the computer.

Part of me wanted to write Patricia's death in brilliant, blood-soaked detail, the sound of the doors crunching through bone to meet in the middle, the look in her eyes when she realized that Laurie was making this happen. The more rational part of my brain realized that as long as I wanted Laurie to punish Greg or his mistress, she wasn't going to be a bigger, better person. She was going to be the same person she was at the beginning of the book. And she'd be stuck in an evil house that ate people.

As long as I was mad at Mike, I wasn't going to be able to finish this book. As long as I was unsettled on my future, I wouldn't be able to give Laurie the ending she deserved.

”Okay, I get it!” I shouted at the ceiling, at some invisible writing G.o.d. ”It's a metaphor!”

I chewed my lip, staring at my cell phone. I dialed Samantha's cell number. She picked up on the first ring. ”For future reference, when we talked about 'not having contact with Beebee or Mike,' that includes not beating the tar out of one of them with your car antenna on a beauty salon lot.”

”I did not do that,” I promised her.

”I know, I'm just messing with you,” she said, hooting. ”The antenna thing seemed a little too mafioso. You're more of a fists-and-fingernails kind of girl.”

”Thank you,” I muttered. ”I need to come see you next week. There's some paperwork we need to talk about.”

”Has Mike filed involuntary commitment papers?” she asked.

”It's likely, but that's not what I need to talk to you about,” I muttered. ”What would be the fastest way to wrap up the divorce proceedings?”

”Off the top of my head, you could ask for what you brought into the marriage, a fair share of your savings-slash-gifts, and promise not to come after more later if he drops the lawsuit,” she said. ”He might go for that, or he might laugh in your face and threaten you with the Sizzler again.”

”Could you have that drawn up for me this week sometime?”

I could almost hear her smiling through the phone. ”What are you up to, Lacey?”

”Growing up,” I told her.

”Sucks a little bit, doesn't it?”

”You aren't kidding,” I snorted.

After settling a few minor details and asking Sam to keep an eye open for decent rentals in the area, I hung up, closed the blinds, turned off my phone, and refused to acknowledge the outside world until I'd finished the d.a.m.n book.

Eventually, I lost track of time and the cartons of c.o.ke I'd consumed.

I didn't know if Monroe was paying attention to the lights in my window or how late I was staying up. Frankly, I was glad he couldn't see me pacing in front of my computer, dancing to Gloria Gaynor to try to make words come out of my brain... eating chocolate fudge icing straight out of the can. Using an Oreo as a spoon.

I wrote until my eyes drooped and I thought my head would explode from staring at the screen. I fell asleep with my head against the keyboard on more than one occasion.

In a gesture I preferred to think of as hope, I did not let the house eat Patricia - or Laurie, for that matter. In the end, Laurie burned it to the ground, destroying her past, banis.h.i.+ng the b.l.o.o.d.y specter of her former husband. But because this was a horror novel and I wanted the ending to be somewhat ominous, I wrote a little scene in which Laurie is moving into her new apartment. Her handsome male neighbor comes over to introduce himself while she's moving in, and romantic sparks fly. Behind her, where neither of them could see, the stairs rippled just the tiniest bit ”The end,” I muttered as I typed out the last line.

And now, according to Monroe, the real work began. Editing, writing query letters to agents, surviving the rejections. As intimidating as it was, I wanted to see if I was good enough, if my work was good enough to actually get published.

”And now, the editing,” I muttered, returning to page one. When the overwhelming smell of, well, me, wafted up from my T-s.h.i.+rt, I shuddered. ”But first, a shower. Blech.”

When I'd read the ma.n.u.script, once and then again, taking most of Monroe's advice into account, I printed it out and sneaked it over to his cabin in the dead of night. Well, I thought it was the dead of night. By the time I came out of the cabin, it was 4:30 p.m. on Monday. And I was still in my pajamas. Well, let's face it, Monroe had seen worse from me.

I padded across the lawn, my paper baby cradled in my arms. I laid it on Monroe's steps and almost made a clean getaway when I heard the door open behind me.

”c.r.a.p,” I muttered without looking back.

”Well, h.e.l.lo to you, too,” he said in a tone far more pleasant than I'd expected. ”So we're just leaving manifestos on each others' doorsteps now?”

”It's not a manifesto,” I protested. ”When I stalk you, you'll be aware of it.”

”Good to know,” he said.

There was a long awkward pause. ”I'm sorry.” I said. ”I'm sorry for the things I said and for taking the easy way out again. You said some pretty horrible things, but they were accurate, which was probably why they hurt so much.”

”Lacey -”

”I'm not saying this because I'm looking for an apology. I just wanted to say I miss you and not just because you're the closest thing I've had to a functional s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p. I miss my friend. And I'm hoping that we'll eventually find our way back to being friends again.”

”Lacey, don't -”

”Let me finish,” I told him. ”But for now, I'm moving out. I'm sorry we left things the way we did. Thank you being my friend and the voice of reason I so desperately needed. If you ever base a crazy-woman, scorned character on me, please be kind. My brother's right; I've hidden out up here too long. And if you ever tell him I said that, I will deny it to my dying breath.

”But I did want to leave this for you,” I said, handing him the ma.n.u.script. ”It's an extremely rough draft. But I'd like to know what you think.”

”You finished it?” he asked, flipping through the pages.

”Well, what did you think I was doing when I was avoiding you?”

He pursed his lips. ”I pictured something involving ice cream.”

”Well, you weren't wrong there.”

<script>