Chapter 21

“Guys!” I stomped on the ground to get Ade and Ericka’s attention. None of this was unexpected, of course. After the initial period of silence had come the babbling, pacing and uttering of death threats, and while I especially appreciated Adrianna’s bloodlust, I really didn’t want to wake Dad. Telling him... still didn’t feel quite right. I guess I wasn’t quite ready for that. “No police.”

Ericka’s hand was already on the home phone’s receiver. “What? Why not? That’s the first thing you should have done!”

I looked down, shifting on my feet. “I didn’t have any proof. I still don’t. And if Anton finds out, I don’t know what he’ll do. He threatened me, remember?”

“So what?” Ade snarled. “We just sit on our asses? Forgive and forget? This bastard’s head should be slowly decaying on a pike!”

I sighed. “No argument there.”

Dropping the phone back onto its base, Ericka sat down, staring through the black expanse of the television screen. “You’re a swan. You’re… Deanna… how could you not tell me? Either of you?” She rubbed her face, which droplets of tears had already begun to stain. “Do you really think that little of me?”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

“Look, I know some guys.” Ade folded her arms over her chest. “Over in Hell’s Kitchen. If we do it right we can make it look like an accident.”

Tempting. “Look, I’ll figure out what to do with Anton later. Right now, I need your help.”

“Ah. Hyde,” said Ade. “That poor bastard.”

I hadn’t told them everything. It wouldn’t have been right. But if I was going to save Hyde from Beatrice, I would need help.

Ericka tapped her chin with a finger. “What are you going to do? If it’s true that Beatrice has Hyde’s feathers, then he shouldn’t be able tell anyone about it. And you don’t have any proof of that either so involving the police–”

“I don’t need to involve the police. Besides, Hyde doesn’t want this getting out. All I have to do is get his feathers back.”

“Get them back?” Ericka narrowed her eyes, incredulous. “And how do you propose to do that?”

“Easy,” Ade answered instead. “Beatrice probably has his feathers stashed somewhere in her house. I mean, that’s how it works, right? That’s how swans know where to go every night. Oh,” she added quickly, because she must have noticed the look on my face. “Uh, not that we want to think about what he does with Beatrice every night–”

“Yes, let’s not,” I snapped.

“But still,” Ade continued quickly, “the point is that if we want to get Hyde’s feathers back, we need to walk straight into the cougar’s den.”

“Adrianna!” Ericka clutched her nightgown collar nervously – a poor substitute for pearls. “That’s trespassing. If Beatrice catches you, she could press charges. And how would you even manage to get in? The whole idea’s insane.”

“What the hell,” I said. “I think I’ve got a cat-suit lying around somewhere.”

“Hey, the guy gave me a year’s worth of DVDs. It’s the least I can do.” Adrianna’s smile turned wicked. “All right, then. Suit up, bitches.”

“I can’t even believe this,” I said, shaking my head as Ade sent her text. “Didn’t you kick him the last time you saw him?”

All the fretting had made Ericka tired, so she’d already gone to bed promising to talk some sense into us in the morning. But the operation had already begun.

“Maybe he forgot?”

“Probably didn’t.”

Ade thought for a second, before shrugging. “Maybe it doesn’t matter to him anymore.”

“Probably does.”

“Maybe ass matters more.”

Bingo. We waited. We stayed awake for two hours, but Ade’s phone didn’t buzz.

“He probably doesn’t even remember you.” I crossed my legs on her bed. “No offense.”

Ade grimaced. “Ew, none taken.”

We were about to move on to plan B when, at precisely half-past six, a text came in:

Always room 4 more. Come on down.

“Really now.” Ade shuddered. “Ew.”

Indeed shuddering was an appropriate response. I followed suit. “You know, he still probably doesn’t even remember you.”

“He will.” Ade got up and, grabbing her hair straightener, started over to the bathroom.

“Wait!” I leapt up and followed her. “We’re going now?”

“Not ‘we’,” Ade replied, straightening out a row of curls. “Me.”

I watched as smoke curled off her hair, fogging up the bathroom windows. “What? No way, we’re doing this together. We have to!”

With a sigh, Ade placed the straightener on the sink and turned to me. “Dee, there’s no way I’m letting you go anywhere near the psychopath from this day forward.”

“You think I want you going anywhere near him?”

Ade laughed. “Please. I can handle myself. Besides, you’ve been the one doing the heavy lifting all this time. It’s my turn. I promise I won’t actually kill him.” She winked as she picked the straightener up again, raising it to the opposite side of her head. “Trust me, kay? Let me do this.”

Trust Ade. It was about time I did.

An hour and a half later, Ade left the house looking gorgeous in a mauve bandage dress with her rolling charcoal hair and perfect eye-shadow. Seduce and destroy. Anton was a pig, so why not use his own logic against him?

Less than an hour later, I got the call. “Got it.”

“Really?” I stood at the door, watching Ericka load her baby into her Lincoln Town Car. “That quick?”

“It wasn’t too hard to manage. There were like four girls already there. Half-dressed.”

The driver cursed when his finger caught in one of the suitcase’s handles.

“And I think he was slightly high. Wasn’t difficult at all to get what I needed.”

I heard muted traffic in the background and guessed that Ade was in a cab. “You remembered, right?” I said in a hushed voice, so Ericka wouldn’t hear. “The smallest key on his key chain? Bronze?”

“Yes, yes.” Ade laughed. “Like I said, mission accomplished.”

The only way to break into Beatrice’s house without getting caught was to have a key. But stealing Anton’s would be too risky.

So we were going to replicate it instead.

“I told you this clay stuff worked,” Ade said. She was probably referring to the fresh modeling clay she’d bought on the way to Anton’s. “It’s super easy to make an imprint. All you have to do is use your thumbs to keep the pressure even and presto, home invasion.”

I probably should have been a little more worried about her knowing that. Oh well.

“Thank God I barely had to touch that skeez. He was so busy with the other girls, he didn’t even notice when I left. It was a little pathetic, actually.”

“So now what?” I said as the driver took his seat.

I sort of loved how the mischief slipped into Ade’s voice when she answered. “Now for phase two.”

Right, then. “Ericka, wait up,” I called, hopping down the steps. It was time to bring her in.

“Daisy Bennett: daughter of the cosmetics mogul… Her mother knows Beatrice.”

All I needed to know. “And? What did she say?”

I heard François cooing over the phone, happy, perhaps, to be back in Manhattan where the bathwater was properly prepared by maids who could probably stand to be paid a little better. “There’s some gala going tomorrow afternoon.”

“Another party. God, don’t you people do anything else?”

“What, you mean something potentially beneficial to society and the people who live in it?” It was rare, hearing that wry spark in her voice. It was a little amazing.

“Ah to be rich and self-absorbed. So?”

“Daisy said she’d be there for a while. It’ll give you some time.” Ericka sighed just as Ade bustled through the door, shutting it behind her with an excited click. “I hope you’re aware of how ludicrous this whole thing is.” Pearl-clutching Ericka was back, right on schedule. Ade winked at me and set her tote bag down on the table next to me. “I mean don’t you need a locksmith to make a new key from an imprint? But a locksmith wouldn’t do it unless he had the original key to make sure you’re not doing something–”

Ade plucked it out of her purse: a shiny, brand new key courtesy of her shady friend who she didn’t see today, nor has she ever met, for that matter – if anyone asked. It was a perfect replica.

“Illegal?” I finished for her, grinning from ear to ear.

I could practically hear Ericka pursing her lips from here. “Promise me you guys will be careful.”

“Right. And you keep an eye on Beatrice at the gala. She leaves, let us know.”

“I see her,” said Ericka over the phone. “B. She just walked in.”

“It’s ‘copy that’, damn it,” Ade hissed at me as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Look Dee, do it right or don’t do it at all.”

I rolled my eyes. Ade and I stood in front of Beatrice’s million dollar townhouse. We’d gotten there late, but only because Ade couldn’t find her sunglasses. She finally did, along with those ridiculous half-gloves I’d worn at the masquerade. At the very least I’d convinced her not to wear a black jumpsuit – though the part about not leaving any prints was probably a good idea.

Ericka was at the gala, our point man. Ade and I had worn our best outfits without being too dressy. It was the easiest way to blend in: if anyone saw us, they’d probably assume we belonged here. Besides, that girl in a cute gray corset dress couldn’t possibly be illegally breaking into someone’s townhouse, right?

Ade shoved the key inside the lock and with a quick twist we broke into Beatrice’s townhouse.

“Damn.” Ade shut the door behind her, her eyes tracing the gold rim on the French doors that separated the foyer from what I was assuming was the dining room – or living room? Dressing room? This place was definitely built to have rooms.

“I know. OK, it’ll be best if we split up.” I lifted the phone back up to my ear. “Ericka, text me with updates on where B is. That way Ade and I can communicate over the phone while we’re searching the house.”

“OK. Remember, the gala isn’t that far away from where you are now, so you’d better… Oh!” And then suddenly Ericka’s voice changed. The nervous tremor in her voice dissolved with a quick breathy laugh. “Frank, Nina, darling how are you?” The phone clicked off amidst the first round of cheek-kisses. It was like flicking a switch: the survival tactic a Brooklyn girl needed to learn before braving any socialite ball of the Upper East. Looked like Ericka had learned it well.

“OK.” I looked from the staircase to the French doors. “If you were the Queen of Darkness and you were holding some poor boy’s feathers hostage, where you would keep them?”

“God, this one banister probably costs more than our whole shitty house; there are like little designs in the wood... is that handcrafted?”

“OK, OK!” Ade rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know. It’d have to be somewhere Hyde couldn’t find it easily.”

Maybe. Though I wondered if the loyalty curse kept swans from even seeking them out.

“Let’s just look everywhere. I’ll take upstairs you take… whatever’s here. Just make sure that you put everything back where you found it.”

Ade nodded and we parted. I climbed the staircase. The living room looked somehow less vile without Beatrice and Hyde lying half-naked on the couch.

I shuddered at the thought, but shook it away. Hurling on the floor would leave DNA evidence. I slipped on the white tiles as I ran over to the couches; five of them, all white, of course. I checked underneath them. It was worth a shot: back home the world underneath the couch was a black hole that had sucked up every pencil I’d ever owned.

“Damn it.” Nothing.

My phone rumbled with a text from Ericka. B still in sight. Don’t take your time.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I muttered, checking underneath the smooth ottoman by the low chestnut wood table. Posies soaked in a vase next to a bowl of fresh fruit that looked more for decoration than eating. Three magazines, all of them Bella, were stacked one on top of the other in order of their publication dates. None even a hair out of place. “Lord,” I breathed.

“There’s, like, no food in this kitchen!” Ade hissed from the other end of the receiver. “I mean seriously. I see probiotic yogurt and celery sticks in the fridge and that’s it.”

“I can see myself in the floor.” I peered down at my reflection before heading past one of the two fireplaces. “This place is more sterile than a surgical knife.”

“And we all know she’s seen plenty of those in her day. Any luck?”

I checked under the table, under the chairs at the table – the problem was that the place was so sterile, so orderly and clean, that there simply wasn’t any area that screamed “hiding place”. I walked through the screen doors onto the terrace, looking behind the clinically-preened bushes. “What about you?”

“There’s no laundry in her laundry room. Why have a laundry room if you don’t plan on having the kind of laundry that usually needs to be cleaned in a laundry room?”

“Let’s just keep looking.”

Apparently, there were six floors in all. Ade took the basement while I worked my way up through the top floors. At some point I had the brilliant plan of scouring her closets, except she had several closets and several more, all of them flooded in a sea of couture.

Wait a second. Oh God, what if she’d had Hyde’s feathers turned into a coat? Plucked, pinned, and dyed fuchsia… it would be the human-autonomy equivalent of skinning Dalmatians. Could people do that? I checked each and every item of clothes regardless and when Ade was done with her floors she came up to join me. We’d already been in the house for more than half an hour, but each of Beatrice’s closets was a Cretan labyrinth and neither of us had brought any yarn.

Closet number three: the one in the main bedroom. Ade flicked a modesty tab holding together a gorgeous print caftan and shook her head. “Seriously? I might steal one of these.”

“Please don’t make this experience any more complicated than it already is.”

“For real though, it’s not like she’s gonna notice. I mean, shit, if we don’t find Hyde’s feathers we might as well take something for our troubles.”

I tossed her an ugly glare. “We will find Hyde’s feathers if you stop eyeing your bounty and start helping.”

Ade pouted. “I am helping,” she muttered under her breath. And as she ran a finger down the silk of a black draped dress, she smiled. “I’m helping. Finally.”

Frowning from the floor, I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“You finally let me help you.” She flashed me a two-fingered victory sign. “I think that means I win.”

I rolled my eyes even though I couldn’t help but smile myself. “Technically nobody’ll win, except Beatrice, if we don’t find–”

“I know, I know. And we will find it. But seriously, Dee. I’m really… relieved.” She turned to face me, flicking one of Beatrice’s silk scarves around her neck. “I know I’m not the most responsible Davis girl in the bunch–”

“Technically, you’re the least–”

“–but anyway,” she continued, louder, “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to come to me. I know you’ve been through a lot. And to be honest, there was maybe a fraction of a second or two when I was a little… jealous. Of you. A little. I mean I thought first Ericka and now you, and hey, where’s my rich boyfriend to buy me a life of ball masks and glass slippers?”

I thought of Ericka and shook my head. “It’s not as great as you think it is.”

“I know, I know.” Ade brushed her hair out of her eyes and shifted onto one foot, folding her arms over her chest. “I know. But I just want you to know that none of that crap matters. No matter what’s going on in your life, I’m here for you, OK? But only if it’ll eventually involve us breaking into rich people’s houses.”

I laughed, thinking back to the day Ade had dumped a handful of cheesy pamphlets on my bed, to the day Ade held me and cried with me, my new feathers crushed against my back, beneath her fingers. It was true. Ade was here for me. And for the life of me I couldn’t remember when I’d forgotten that.

“Hey, what’s that?” Ade pointed at a fancy-looking gold-embroidered case-thing at the far northeast end of the closet, just beneath the assembly line of hemmed skirts.

“Oh yeah, I already looked in it,” I said as Ade walked up to it and lifted the lid. “It’s got tons and tons of Bella magazines in it. Issues from years and years back.”

Ade looked inside, rummaging through until she stopped, frowning. “Doesn’t this seem… off though?” I walked up next to her and peered over her shoulder. “This case thing looks a bit bigger on the outside than it does on the inside. The base of it is here.” She knocked on the surface. “But if you look outside it, it’s probably not more than halfway to the bottom of the actual case.”

She was right. My heart started racing. “Take out all the magazines,” I said. “Carefully.”

We did, leaving them in a pile behind us. The base of the chest looked completely solid.

A text from Ericka: Beatrice just left. Get out of there!

“Wait.” Ade moved her nails around the edges, tugging until something snagged. Breathlessly, I shoved my fingers into the sliver she’d made and we both tugged until we’d dragged the entire bottom to the other side. My mouth dropped, my eyes filling with tears.

“Found ’em,” Ade said, because my throat was too dry to carry the words.

Hyde’s feathers folded neatly in the hidden compartment, as pristine as if they’d just left his back. Slowly, gingerly, I reached down and curled my hands around them. I’d never held another swan’s feathers in my hands before. It felt somehow wrong, unnatural. Hyde’s free will felt like cashmere against my fingers. They fluttered against my skin when I buried my face in them, the feathers disturbed by each shaky breath. I’d done it: all I could do. And if Hyde still wanted us to part ways, still wanted us to go on living as strangers, then I would give him this as my parting gift – and an apology.

A door slammed. Ade’s hands flew to her mouth. Our eyes locked as footsteps started climbing from one of the lower floors.

No way. I didn’t even remember hearing someone come in. Ade’s wide eyes told me she hadn’t either. But Ericka’s last text had come in not more than a minute ago. Was it a time-lag?

“What the hell do we do?” Ade’s whisper was almost completely imperceptible. Immediately, I pulled back the trap door, threw in the magazines and shut the case. More footsteps echoed as the feet in question climbed another flight of stairs. Soon I could hear someone outside the bedroom door. Ade’s face said it as clearly as I ever could have.

We are giga screwed.

The door opened and shut with a click. A loud sigh – a man’s. A young man’s.

Hyde? I shot to my feet but Ade put up a hand to stay me, shaking her head with a frown and a finger to her lips. She was right. There was no way of knowing who that was and trespassing was still an offense listed in the New York penal code. Luckily there were piles of clothes to hide behind.

We hid. The young man plopped onto the bed with another heavy sigh. I pressed my back against the corner, tucked my feet in behind the waves of fabric. Ade had wedged herself behind a rack of shoes. She was too close to the door, but it was too late to move. I expected the worst. But the young man didn’t seem interested in peeking inside Beatrice Hoffer-Rey’s fashion wardrobe. I barely heard him move. From what I could tell, he simply stayed on the bed, silent. Waiting.

Ten minutes passed and suddenly I heard footsteps – heels. Movement on the bed. The sound had caused the young man to stir, but he didn’t move further. The door opened.

“What are you doing here?” Beatrice’s voice dripped with venom.

“What’s wrong? You were expecting your new boy toy?”

Anton’s sneer was a jackhammer to the chest. My heart ricocheted into my throat. I saw Ade’s jaw drop from the other side of the closet.

Beatrice laughed with arrogance. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re still sore about that.”

“While my dad’s rotting in jail, you’re screwing the asshole who put him there. Yeah, I’m still sore about that.”

There was something curious about the tension in his voice. It whispered beneath the bile – a breath of hesitation, or a quiver. The anger was unmistakable, but for some reason he seemed distracted.

A chair scraping the ground. Then something clattered onto the table. I knew there was a vanity mirror that took up almost half the wall opposite the bed. I’d rummaged through each of the little drawers. As I sat in the corner hugging my knees I hoped to God I hadn’t left something out of place.

“Your father’s in jail because he did something illegal. Can’t be helped.” Another clatter, light and thin – jewelry?

“Can’t be helped? My father is in jail and you’re going to parties?”

“Aren’t you?” I could almost picture Anton’s snarl. “Between the girls that leave your loft in the morning and the ones who swarm in at night, I’m surprised you have any energy to visit your father at all.”

“What did you–?”

“And let’s stop with the righteous indignation, shall we?” The chair dragged again. Heels clicked towards the closet. Oh God. “We both know your concern over your father’s wellbeing has had more to do with securing your trust fund than familial love.”

The closet doors breezed open. Ade nearly fainted behind the shoe rack, her eyes locked onto mine, wide with horror. But no sooner did Beatrice open the doors than Anton strode up to her and grabbed her wrist.

“Who the hell do you think you are saying that shit to me? You have no idea what I’ve done for my father. None.” His face was red and he was breathing hard, but the way he was looking down at her, his hand gripping her skin hard, pulling her body close–

Oh God stop, Deanna. Stop, stop, stop. Yes, my mind had gone there. Nobody had to tell me how twisted it was. But there was just something so off about the way her grin slid up to him, how comfortable she looked in his grasp–

I said stop, Deanna. Stop, stop, stop.

Gracefully, she slipped her shoes off and threw them into the closet without looking. With a quick tug, she adjusted the fur coat over her little black dress and closed the door behind her. Ade mouthed at me from her hiding spot, and while I had no idea what she was saying I knew it was either “we have to get the hell out of here” or “have I totally lost my mind or is something else going on here that I sincerely wish was not?” I was thinking both.

Beatrice laughed. “Oh, I’m sure.”

“I’ve done a hell of a lot more than you’ve even attempted.”

Ade started to fiddle around with her phone, maybe texting Ericka. My fingers were too frozen to even attempt it.

“Oh yes. Like blackmailing that poor girl into ruining Hedley’s son.” All the warmth drained from my face as Beatrice snickered. “I’m still a little embarrassed you tried something so... juvenile.”

“I had to. Hyde was going to ruin us.”

“So you threatened to sell a teenage swangirl to an organized crime syndicate? Oh Anton.” She was laughing full out now. Nice to know that my weeks of utter horror amused her so. “Isn’t that a little over the top? Darling, there’s a simple kind of beauty in subtlety.”

“She was Hyde’s weakness. Besides–” Anton’s word clipped off as something flopped to the floor.

Sounded like fabric.

Stop, stop, stop, Deanna, stop. But even Anton’s voice didn’t seem quite as firm as it had before. “Besides, Beatrice, what’s more juvenile? Threatening some throwaway bitch who means nothing, or blackmailing the son of a dead publishing mogul to get into his pants.”

“Well, technically it was to get the company, now wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t stop there. You’ve got to tell me, Beatrice.” His voice dipped low. “What do you have on him? If it were that easy to get him to give up the company, I wouldn’t have had to waste my time on that annoying little Brooklyn slut.”

I clamped my teeth shut so that I wouldn’t leap up, burst out of the closet and beat them both down right then. I could see Ade’s right hand squeeze into a fist from here.

“Really, Anton. Is it so hard to believe that I won him over with my beauty and charm?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“You… owe it to my father.”

But he wasn’t fooling anyone. Not Beatrice, by a long shot. And not me either – as much as my stomach churned at the thought, I knew there was something more to it. “You really can’t hide it, can you?” said Beatrice.

His jealousy. Everything in his words dripped with it.

“It’s been two months and you still haven’t gotten over it. Twenty years old and still a child. All your manly yelling and laughable ‘bravado’ only make it all the more embarrassing.”

She gasped, suddenly. “That. Hurts,” she said. She sounded truly annoyed for the first time, but even the faintest bit terrified.

“End it with Hyde and I’ll keep quiet about everything.”

“Do something about my father. You have the money.”

“And again, no.” A playful lilt carried Beatrice’s words and I didn’t know whether it was infuriating Anton or turning him on. It was all I could do not to throw up into Hyde’s feathers. “My two-year marriage to your father was a business transaction. I got what I needed and he got what he needed, and more. And yet none of this changed the fact that he was vile – about twice as much as you are.”

“He could get twenty years in prison. You’re really going to let him rot there?”

“Why wouldn’t I when I’ve got everything I want right now?”

“And so do you.”

An awkward pause – awkward for me, anyway. It dripped with a tight, beating tension broken only by Anton’s heavy breaths. Something else plopped to the floor.

“What… Beatrice, what the hell are you doing?”

“Do you want to know what I did to Ralph Hedley’s son? I took his feathers.”

Ade and I exchanged glances, eyes wide. Anton sounded about as shocked as I felt.

“Hyde’s a–?”

“Swan,” Beatrice repeated. “And I took his feathers.” I clutched them to my chest. “But you, Anton?”

Something else plopped to the floor. Ade’s jaw dropped. The way her face contorted in horror would have made me laugh if I didn’t already want to kill myself.

“I don’t need feathers with you, do I? You were hooked after a few weeks. I thought you knew as well as I did that we were only playing around.”

“All this sudden concern for your father. Where was it when you and I were–?”

A crash. The table whined. The sounds of a struggle; and if I didn’t know better I’d have assumed Anton was trying to kill her. And then I heard them: a belt buckle clinking, clothes falling to the floor one by one, gasps searing the skin in my ears. Ade’s mouth was still open, her head shaking and shaking because it couldn’t stop and what else was there to do?

I covered my ears and buried my face in Hyde’s feathers in the hope that it would stem the bile currently corroding its way to my mouth. There was no denying it. Anton was doing his stepmom. It was the last part of the Rey Trinity of Crazy, right behind threatening innocent girls with sexual slavery and planning to drug his cousin in order to force him into an orgy with masked Russian models. It was insane.

But Beatrice was no better. They were a circus sideshow, the two of them: the filthy, revolting result of having too much money and too little sanity.

And lucky us – Ade and I had front row seats.

Ade was still shaking her head.

I don’t know how I got through it. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if I were still alive, or if the lack of oxygen I’d deprived myself of for the past hour while holding my breath in order to keep from screaming and screaming had actually killed me dead.

I stared at Ade. She was still shaking her head, except her head was now against the wall, her neck muscles far too weak to even lift it. But it was over. It was over and we’d survived. We’d stared into the deepest bowels of hell and come out breathing.

Beatrice was taking a shower.

I flicked my head to the door. Ade grimaced, still dazed. I crawled out of my hiding spot, carefully, and stepped towards the door while the shower prattled in the background.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” said Anton lazily, and every word that came out of his mouth made me want to scrub myself clean with a bleach-soaked wire brush. “Dad’s got some shampoo in there I’ve been meaning to grab.”

I rolled my eyes. Just ew.

No matter. This was our way out. Glaring at Ade I flicked my head towards the door. She didn’t need telling twice. She was on her feet in moments. We waited for the bathroom door to shut. Quietly, I pushed the closet door open a crack and peeked outside. No one. Just clothes discarded on the floor. Stepson and stepmother were in the bathroom, perhaps doing things that would give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

Which meant now was our chance. Quietly, we sneaked out of the closet, closed the door behind us and tip-toed out of the master bedroom. Careful, I told myself as we descended the first flight of stairs. Careful. Don’t make a sound.

And yet, slowly but surely my feet were carrying me faster and faster. Ade wasn’t far behind. We’d gotten to the third floor before we broke into a straight out run. We fled to the nearest intersection before coming to our senses and calling a cab.