Oh, CeeCee, I get so scared sometimes! I’m not afraid of dying anymore, but I’m afraid of what will happen to you and that’s what keeps me awake at night. During the day, when I’m thinking rationally, I know you’ll be okay. At night, though, the worst thoughts fill my head. I have to remind myself that you have loads of gumption! I think you may need it, darling girl.
“Open up!” CeeCee pounded on the bathroom door.
“I just want to be by myself,” Genevieve said. “I told you. I can’t get out through the window, so just give me some space, all right?”
“No, it’s not all right.” CeeCee was frantic. She kicked at the door and rattled the knob. “Open it!” She heard the medicine-cabinet door squeak open and remembered the razor blades. The cookie she’d eaten rushed into her throat. Hands trembling, she aimed the gun at the doorjamb near the lock, released the safety and pulled the trigger.
The explosion nearly knocked her off her feet, and Genevieve screamed. The door and jamb were splintered and CeeCee reached for the knob. The damn thing was still locked. “Open the door!” Behind the mask, tears burned her eyes.
“All right, all right!” Genevieve pulled the door open and raised her hands in the air. “Are you out of your mind?” she asked. “Don’t shoot!”
Holding the gun on the woman, CeeCee checked the medicine cabinet and was relieved to see that the packet of razor blades was still there. “Get into the living room,” she said.
“Fine,” Genevieve said. “Just stop pointing that thing at me.”
CeeCee flipped the safety back on and lowered the gun to her side as they walked into the living room. Genevieve sat down on the sofa again, leaning forward and rubbing her back. “You’re a loose cannon, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Keep quiet,” CeeCee said. She was glad now of the mask. The plastic features would remain frozen no matter what emotions she felt behind them. Her trembling hands in their white gloves, though, were a giveaway.
“Put that gun away. Please,” Genevieve said.
She sat down in the chair by the window again and rested the gun in her lap, wondering what they would do now. Would they sit there facing each other for the entire night? Maybe all day tomorrow as well? Exactly how far was it to Jacksonville? She looked at her watch. Quarter past midnight! She’d had no idea it was that late. Were Tim and Marty in Jacksonville yet?
“Please take off that mask,” Genevieve said.
CeeCee shook her head. Her scalp was perspiring beneath the wig. It felt like worms crawling through her hair and she wondered who else might have worn the wig before her. She longed to rip it off and scratch her head.
“Why are you doing this, Sleeping Beauty?” Genevieve’s voice had softened, and with it, her features. She was very pretty. Maybe beautiful under other circumstances. Right now, her skin was a little too pale. Wan, even. Her blue eyes looked clouded and troubled in the overhead light, and there were two small, vertical lines between her eyebrows.
“I’m doing it because Tim’s sister is a victim of the system,” she said, parroting Naomi’s words. They sounded as inauthentic as they felt coming from her mouth.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Genevieve asked. “‘A victim of the system’?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” CeeCee felt the tremor in her hands again. She clutched the handle of the gun between her hands to stop their shaking.
“Do you know her? The sister?”
“No, but I know Tim and I know he loves her and I love him so I want to help him.” The words spilled out before she could stop them.
Genevieve cocked her head, looking at her differently. “You’re in love with Tim?” she asked.
“Yes, but that’s not the only reason I’m—”
“There’s something you should know about your…boyfriend,” Genevieve said. “I taught him in my Spanish class, Sleeping Beauty. He’s a…a womanizer.”
“You taught him?” She remembered Tim saying that Genevieve was a Spanish professor, but not that he’d had her.
“He’s a lady-killer.” Genevieve sat as far forward on the couch as her belly would allow. “He played around with every woman in that class. He even had an affair with one who was married.”
CeeCee raised the gun and pointed it at her. “Shut up,” she said. “I don’t want to hear your lies. You may have taught him, although I’m not sure I believe that, but you don’t know him.”
“Please put the gun down.”
“You promise to shut up?” CeeCee asked.
“Not another word about your darling Casanova.”
“I said shut up.” CeeCee lifted the gun higher, the barrel jerking through the air in her uncertain hands. She had to be careful. The cotton fabric of her gloves was slippery.
“I’m sorry.” Genevieve leaned back on the sofa, clearly afraid of the gun. “Put it down, okay?”
CeeCee lowered the gun to her lap again.
Genevieve sighed and rubbed her forehead. “How long is this going to take?” she asked.
“That depends on your husband,” CeeCee said. “What’s he like? How do you think he’ll react?”
Genevieve shot her an angry look. “He’s a man of integrity,” she said. “He loves me tremendously, but he won’t do anything that would compromise his integrity.”
CeeCee squirmed. She loved Tim tremendously. Was she compromising her integrity for him? Holding a gun on a pregnant woman didn’t feel all that magnificent at the moment. It felt wrong.
Suddenly Genevieve started to cry, pressing a hand to her mouth. “I want to go home.” She looked at CeeCee. “I have a five-year-old daughter,” she said. “I was supposed to pick her up at the sitter’s after my class. She’s probably so scared.”
Was this her new tack, CeeCee wondered? She’d failed in her character assassination of Tim, so now she was trying to win sympathy for her daughter. At least that would give them something safe to talk about.
“What’s her name?” CeeCee asked.
“I truly don’t feel well.” Genevieve adjusted her girth on the sofa.
“It’s just nerves,” CeeCee said. She didn’t feel well either. “What’s your daughter’s name?” she repeated.
“Vivian. I dropped my purse when they grabbed me or I could show you her picture.”
“What does she look like?”
Genevieve closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the sofa. “Strawberry-blond hair,” she said. “I’m glad she’s not a redhead, like me. I’m glad she was spared that.”
“Why?” CeeCee asked. “Your hair’s a beautiful color.” She felt her true personality slipping out and knew she’d better keep her guard up.
“Thanks, but I don’t like it.” Eyes still shut, Genevieve patted her hand on her belly. “I hope this one is a blonde or a brunette,” she said, her voice tired, as though she knew they were simply filling dead air with their conversation. “Anything but a redhead.”
CeeCee remembered being five or six, waiting for her mother to pick her up from school. She’d waited by the wide double doors for a long time, watching for her always-prompt mother, but she hadn’t been afraid at all. She’d played hopscotch with imaginary lines on the sidewalk, looking up only when a neighbor called to her from a car, saying that her mother had to work late and she would take her home. She hoped Vivian was similarly resilient and unafraid when her mother didn’t show up. She hoped that fervently.
“I guess we should try to sleep,” CeeCee suggested. “I made up a bed for you.” She glanced at the handcuffs Tim had put on the end table. With Genevieve’s pregnancy, the cuff-her-to-the-top-bunk plan wasn’t going to work, that much was clear.
“Oh.” Genevieve screwed up her face, both hands on her belly.
“Are you okay?” CeeCee asked.
It was a moment before Genevieve seemed able to speak. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve had some Braxton Hicks…some false labor contractions…the past few weeks. That’s probably what this is. But maybe I’d better lie down.”
CeeCee didn’t trust her. “You walk ahead of me,” she said, getting to her feet.
It took Genevieve a moment to push herself up from the sofa. CeeCee thought of helping her but didn’t dare. In a heartbeat, Genevieve could tear off her mask or punch her in the face and grab the gun. She couldn’t get that close.
They reached the bedroom with the bunk beds. “Oh, no,” Genevieve said when she saw the beds. “I can’t fit on one of those. Is there a real bed I can lie down on?”
What the hell, CeeCee thought. “There’s a double bed in the other room. I haven’t made it, though.”
“I don’t care.” Genevieve left the room, her face still tight with pain, either real or affected, and crossed the hallway into the larger bedroom. CeeCee followed, the gun at her side, and watched Genevieve kick off her navy-blue pumps and slowly lower herself to the bed. She stretched out on her back, then winced with discomfort and rolled onto her side, one arm over her eyes. “Can you turn the light out?” she asked.
“No,” CeeCee said. There was a small, upholstered chair in the corner of the room and she sat down on it. “Not unless I cuff you to the headboard.”
“What?” Genevieve’s arm flew from her face. “Oh, give me a break, Sleeping Beauty. I’m eight months’ pregnant and feel like death warmed over. If you think I’m going to run off, you’re…” She shook her head. “Just turn it off. Please.”
CeeCee walked out of the room and turned on the hall light. Then she switched off the light above Genevieve’s bed and took her seat again. The room was bathed in shadow, but she could still see Genevieve clearly enough.
Now all she had to do was stay awake.