The nurse couldn’t find a vein. Dehydration caused them to constrict, she explained while jabbing the inner fold of Melissa’s arm. It was the second attempt in the right arm after failing to insert the cannula between the bones on the back of her left hand. Melissa could only nod in response. The days of silence and darkness had rendered the outside world intolerable. Everything was too loud. Too bright. Her senses needed time to adjust.
She wouldn’t receive any respite, though. Through the door to her private room, Melissa could see two people hovering. Though they wore hospital masks, Melissa pegged them as cops. Her circumstances and the dour looks that she’d seen imitated on too many Law & Order episodes seemed to confirm it. They were watching the nurse’s attempts to fit the needle beneath her flaky, near-translucent skin, waiting for her to take in the liquid required for her brain to function.
During her captivity, she had drunk handfuls of water from the bathroom sink. But she hadn’t gorged after her belly had become more and more bloated from lack of food. Melissa wondered if, secretly, some part of herself had made the decision that quickly dying of thirst was better than slowly starving in darkness. She hadn’t worked that hard to keep herself alive during the last days of her confinement. Once she’d realized that Philip couldn’t be negotiated with, she’d unconsciously begun preparing for the end.
But she was alive. Melissa wasn’t sure if that was true of the other woman. By the time they’d limped out of Coffre, Tonya’s shirt had been soaked in blood.
“Is she okay?” Melissa shouted toward the door as the needle pierced her skin.
The nurse looked at her as if she’d expressed pain in a foreign language.
“Tonya,” Melissa said. “Did she make it?”
She wanted to know. Perhaps just as much, she wanted to get the police interview over with. The sooner she spoke to the detectives, the sooner she could see Imani. They wouldn’t let them talk until she’d given a statement, Melissa figured. Otherwise, her friend would be here. Unless, of course, there was some crazy COVID protocol preventing patients who’d narrowly escaped being killed from quarantining in the same room.
The nurse glanced over her shoulder at the detectives, providing tacit approval for them to enter.
“Hello, Mrs. Walker,” the female said. She extended a hand and then, seeming to remember that no one shook hands anymore, patted the slick side of her tight bun. “I’m Detective Linette Calvente, and this is my partner Detective Roger Powell.”
“Is she all right?” Melissa tried again. “Tonya, the woman who was stabbed.”
“She’s in surgery,” Linette said.
“We’re hoping for the best,” her partner added.
Melissa had barely seen Tonya’s state, having collapsed shortly after escaping. But she’d felt the woman’s blood, hot and wet against her side as she’d helped her limp from the room. They’d both been banging the pipes with all their might, despite Melissa’s dehydration and Tonya’s wounds. Before Imani had rescued them, Tonya had nearly collapsed. It had taken the last of Melissa’s energy to drag her out the door.
“Melissa”—the female detective said her name with a certain amount of awe, as if Melissa had been resurrected—“we need to know what happened.”
She told them everything from the moment that Philip had ordered her into his car at gunpoint and demanded that she drive to what she now knew was his restaurant—though, at the time, she hadn’t been sure of anything. It had been a dark night, and the city had looked so strange with all its empty streets, bereft of the markers by which she’d usually navigated—the recognizable restaurants and storefronts. She’d only known that Philip had forced her out of the car into an alley and then dragged her through a door into a darkened space leading to the pitch-black abyss where she’d spent her captivity. Melissa also explained the impetus for Nate inviting Philip over to discuss business. Hours earlier, she told the detectives, she’d asked for a divorce. She’d learned from Tonya’s friend Micky that her husband had been sleeping with female actresses, and she’d decided to leave him.
“I’d always known that Nate was a flirt, but I’d never thought he was cheating.”
Melissa was surprised at how easily the news rolled off her tongue. Before her kidnapping, she would have guarded the information. She’d resolved to tell the paparazzi that her marriage was ending because of the standard “irreconcilable differences.” But being held in darkness had added value to bringing things into the light.
“The prospect of dividing our wealth in half spurred Nate to reexamine his financial dealings,” she explained. “He thought Philip owed him the unused part of his investment. I don’t know if he did or not, but that’s clearly what they’d been arguing over. Nate had been drinking since I’d told him my intention to leave. My guess is that he’d invited Philip over for more booze, things got heated, and he pulled this stupid gun I’d gotten in a drunken machismo power play.” Melissa shrugged. “He pulled it on the wrong guy. Philip took it and shot him. After, he panicked and kidnapped me.”
Detective Powell wrote furiously in a notepad as she spoke. Meanwhile, Detective Calvente kept her hand around the play button of a tape recorder.
“So you think it wasn’t premeditated?” Powell asked.
“I think he only wanted to talk—at first,” Melissa cautioned. “But after you guys seemed to be pointing the finger at me, he thought maybe it would be best to let the search die down. He couldn’t bring himself to kill me, so he was allowing me to starve to death. I assume he thought he’d ultimately get rid of my body and pin the murder on me.”
Detective Calvente exchanged a guilty look with her partner. Their quickness to blame the spouse had contributed to her entrapment. “So, why bring Tonya into things?” Calvente asked.
A sharp pang in her temple kept Melissa from answering. She rubbed the side of her head with the hand unattached to a suspended plastic bag and glanced at the needle that the nurse had placed in her arm before slipping from the room.
“I gather that Tonya had been involved with my husband at some point.” Melissa cleared her throat. “Perhaps under duress.”
Detective Calvente’s eyebrow rose.
“You would have to speak to her or her bartender friend Micky, who informed me of my husband’s indiscretions. Apparently, Nate had been using his position to influence young actresses to begin romantic relationships.” Melissa smirked at the last part. Romantic was such a poor euphemism for fornication.
“So he thought Tonya…” Detective Powell trailed off. He knew what she was getting at, Melissa thought, but he wanted her to say it.
“My guess is he thought Tonya could be blamed for the murder. She was a pissed, abandoned lover, or something. I don’t know. I gather that he thought the police might not believe that I’d left my child.”
Detective Powell looked up from his notes, clearly wanting some sort of justification. Why would Philip believe that the police wouldn’t accept Nate’s wife had killed him?
“Imani never thought I was guilty,” Melissa said. “He knew she’d keep harassing you about my innocence until you looked deeper. He wanted an excuse that his wife would accept.”
As she finished her answer, Melissa spied a shadow in the doorjamb. Imani stood in the hallway. Melissa saw her hair first, curls turned frizzy by the events of the past twenty-four hours. A flash of bronze skin followed. Imani’s expression registered moments later.
If Melissa had researched an image for bittersweet, she would have found her friend’s face. Imani wore a smile, happy to see her alive and well. But there was so much pain behind it.
Melissa raised her good arm and motioned for Imani to come closer. Tentatively, her friend crossed the threshold. Detective Calvente glared at Imani over her shoulder. Detective Powell raised his pen over his notepad.
“Do you think she ever suspected what Philip did?” he asked.
Melissa stared at the door and Imani’s big brown eyes, filling with tears. “No,” she said, more certain than ever. “My best friend saved me as soon as she figured it out.”
The detectives seemed satisfied by the answer. They retreated toward the exit, giving room for Imani to enter. She tentatively approached the side of Melissa’s bed, perhaps unsure whether it was too early for visitors.
“How are you?” she asked.
Melissa raised the hand with the IV. “Better now that I’m drinking.”
Imani smiled. The situation was too serious to laugh. “I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t know.”
Melissa reached out with her good hand and grabbed her friend’s palm. “I know you didn’t.”
Imani’s eyes welled. Melissa watched her tears fall for a moment before Imani wiped them away and turned her attention to the hovering detectives. “What will happen now?”
Detective Calvente awkwardly smoothed the button-down covering her chest. “Philip will have to answer for what he’s done.”
Imani pressed her hand to her heart, as if she could stop it from shattering by holding it tight enough. Her bottom lip quivered. But as she made eye contact with Melissa, it stopped. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
Melissa caught Detective Calvente’s sideways glance at her friend, as if she was expecting her to admit to something. “You didn’t know,” Melissa emphasized.
“I should have figured it out sooner.” Imani looked at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “I guess I’ve only ever seen one part of Philip, or maybe I only allowed myself to see one part of him. It was like he was this ink blot on a folded paper, and I assumed that the side out of view matched what was in front of me. But it didn’t. And I never opened it up, you know?”
As Nate’s wife, Melissa knew exactly what her friend meant. Love wasn’t blind, but it involved blinders. She’d seen Nate as the debonair director whom all women wanted long after his appeal had faded, and he’d begun using his influence to force himself on unwilling girls. She’d kept courting his attention as if he’d still been the artistic genius she’d married.
A sob escaped Imani’s pressed lips. Melissa continued clutching her hand. They’d both been in the dark about their husbands. Now their spouses were gone—one dead, one destined for prison. But they were alive. Together, they would find the light.