Page 35 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
She can tell he’s been drinking. His movements, usually so elegant and intentional, are clumsy, cloddish. For the first time, she finds him repulsive.
“Why have you been ignoring me?” he asks, brazenly attempting to walk into her house as if he has a right to be there, as if he doesn’t need her permission to trample through her life.
She lifts an arm, grabs onto the doorjamb to bar his way. “You can’t be here.”
Colin Pembrook’s blue eyes turn to frost, his handsome face hardening into a grotesque mask of rage.
Audrey’s grip tightens. She shouldn’t have posted that photo. Baited him with the image of Audrey seated across the table from his wife at brunch. She’d wanted him to understand that if he was going to meddle in her marriage, she was capable of doing the same. He sent her a warning with the roses, and Audrey had fired back with a warning of her own.See how close I can get to blowing up yourlife too?But she sees now that the photo was a step too far. She shouldn’t have provoked him.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Colin says, his words slow and measured, “but I can do whatever the hell I’d like.” He smiles then, a twisted, taunting grin that feels like a shot of ice in Audrey’s veins.
She slams the door in his face and slides the dead bolt into place.
24
Maggie
Benton Avenue
“There you are,” Dean exclaims impatiently the instant Maggie walks through their front door.
She startles, the doorknob still clutched in her hand. “Hi,” she says, watching Dean uneasily as she steps inside.
In the center of the living room, the cracked leather couch sags sadly, and the coats on the rack hang like the ghosts of the life she thought she’d have here. Maggie wonders how many more times she’ll have to do this, how many more times she’ll have to come home to this gray and lifeless place. A few more weeks, maybe. Just a couple more paychecks until the jam jar will be full. Maybe then she could afford an apartment of her own. It wouldn’t be anything fancy, but it would be hers. Maggie imagines vases of hand-picked flowers; she imagines painting the walls a sunny yellow; she imagines a single bed topped with a clean white quilt in a small but tidy room. She could be happy, she thinks, on her own.
“I have a job for you,” he says, cracking his knuckles.
“A…j-job?” Maggie stammers. “What kind of job?”
“One easy enough that even you should be able to manage it.”
Maggie is confused. Dean has been out of work for weeks, and all he’s been talking about is how he’s on the verge of coming into some money, but as with most things in Dean’s life, his grand ambitions have yet to come to fruition. As far as Maggie can tell, Dean has done very little to pursue whatever business deal Mike had offered him, and Maggie has been grateful for that.
“All you need to do,” Dean explains, “is deliver a package to an address across town.”
“A package?”
He scowls. “Yes, Maggie. A package. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“I do, but why do you need me to drop it off for you?”
“Because,” Dean starts, exasperation lacing his tone as though Maggie had already missed something important, “you’ll look far less suspicious than me in that part of town. You know, since you already work there and all.”
Maggie opens her mouth to object, but Dean presses on before she has a chance to respond. “Just take this package”—he shoves a parcel wrapped in brown paper into her hands—“and bring it to the address I give you. Leave it exactly where I tell you to. That’s all you need to do. Nice and simple.”
“What’s in it?” Maggie asks.
Dean shakes his head. “That’s none of your concern. Just drop it off and come straight back here. Do you understand? Do you think you can handle that?”
“I—I guess,” Maggie replies, weighing the package in her hands. She notes the muscle twitching in Dean’s clenched jaw, the firm set of his glare, and knows that she has no choice.
—
Maggie looks down at theslip of paper Dean had handed her, then back up at the grand colonial home sitting in front of her. The porch lights are on, casting a warm pool of light onto the rounded bend of sidewalk. This is definitely the right address, but what could Dean possibly need her to deliver here?
Maggie shifts her car into park and reaches for the handle, but something gives her pause. She knows this block. The family she works for lives only a few houses down the road, and yet she doesn’t know who lives here, in this big, fancy house. She wonders what business dealings someone who lives in a house like this might have with Dean, of all people. She can’t picture him here, in his leather jacket, the roar of his motorcycle echoing around the quietcul-de-sac. Something doesn’t feel right to her. Maggie knows she’s not supposed to, but she looks down at the bundle resting in her lap and slides her thumbnail under the corner of the paper wrapping. She inspects the tiny opening she’s made, shifting the package this way and that in the dim light, but she’s unable to determine the contents. Maggie bites her lower lip. If she does this, if she opens the package, sees what’s inside, there will be no going back. She knows that. She’ll no longer be able to pretend that she doesn’t know what Dean has gotten himself involved in.
But it’s not just Dean, is it?Maggieis the one sitting in this car, idling in the shadows between the streetlights.Sheis the one who is expected to take the risk of stepping out into the dark night and leaving this unknown package in the hiding spot Dean has directed her to. Whatever Dean is up to, he’s dragged Maggie into it too. And she deserves to know what he’s gotten her involved in. Swallowing hard, Maggie unwraps the parcel.
