Page 65 of The Devil She Knows
One minute Daphne was standing beside her and the next she was pressing a glass of amber liquid into Sam’s hand. She must’ve zoned out for a second. Spaced.
“There’s more where that came from.”
She lifted the glass to her lips and took a gulp. The whisky burned like fire, warming her inside and chasing away the chill that had settled in her chest. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Daphne took a seat beside Sam, sweeping her hands over the skirt of her dress to smooth the bubblegum-colored fabric. The crinoline poked out slightly from beneath the hem.
Sam opened her mouth, a question on the tip of hertongue. She swallowed it with another small sip of whisky, not sure she was ready for the answer. Whatever it might be.
“Go on,” Daphne prompted, obviously sensing both her curiosity and her hesitation. “Whatever it is, you can say it.”
“It’s a question.”
“Okay.” Daphne paused. “Ask me anything.”
She took a long sip before speaking. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
What happened to the demon who had gleefully declared,News flash? I’m evil? Who had delighted in Sam’s growing frustration and told her perfunctorilythere’s no such thing as a free lunch, Sam?
“Who says I’m being nice?” Daphne tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder and smirked at Sam. “Maybe this is all part of some grand nefarious scheme to get you to lower your defenses, hmm? Maybe I plan to pull agotchaand yank the rug out from under you as soon as you drop your guard. Have you thought about that?”
“Daphne.” She sighed. She was too tired for this. “You can cut the bullcrap. Also, you can’t tell me I can ask you anything and then go on to answer my question with another question. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Says who?”
Said Sam. “You’re pussyfooting. Quit.”
Daphne’s eyes narrowed peevishly, and for a minute it looked like she was going to dig her heels in, put up a fight. After a moment, she sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I want to show you something,” she said, lips pursing thoughtfully, but also a little like she’d tasted something bad. “We’ll see how nice you think I am after.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Okay.”
“You’re not going to like it,” she warned, brows flicking up.
“Isaidokay.”
“Sam—”
“Just show me already.” She huffed.
The suspense was unbearable, worse probably than whatever it was Daphne wanted to show her. Definitely worse than whatever horrors her own mind could cook up.
Daphne held Sam’s gaze for a moment so long and fraught with words not spoken that it took everything inside Sam not to squirm beneath her unblinking gaze. Finally, Daphne pointed to the right, drawing Sam’s attention to the cartoonishly oversize look-alike of the retro box TV that had rested on the media console, which was now gone. It stretched from the floor up to the cathedral ceiling, easily half a dozen feet over her head, the bunny ears squashed flat.
A rainbow-colored standby message appeared on the television. The screen flickered, suddenly filled with at least a hundred squares, each, by the looks of it, a different video frame. All at once, they started to play, the effect dizzying. Sam didn’t know where to look. On second thought, Sam didn’twantto look.
She quickly averted her eyes, her stomach lurching. “Actually, if this is about to be like what you showed me last time, I don’t think I—”
“It’s not,” Daphne said. “These aren’t. I promise.”
Reluctantly, Sam opened her eyes.
On the screen played scenes from Sam’s life. Not just her life; Hannah’s, too. Only, Sam didn’t recognize half of thesemoments. She didn’t recognize herself in some of them, her hair different, longer, lighter, styled differently.
Sam’s eyes snagged on the top corner of the screen. In the booth of the bar she and Hannah had gone to on their first date, Sam sat, talking. Out of nowhere, Hannah stood and flicked her drink in Sam’s face. That hadn’t happened.
“They’re real,” Daphne said, as if reading her mind. Maybe just reading her. “Or they could have been.”
In the video playing out dead center on the screen, she and Hannah sat at opposite ends of a long conference table inside a glass-walled room. Sam had a ballpoint pen in her hand and tears swimming in her bloodshot eyes. Eyes that had lines at the corners of them that Sam didn’t have, didn’t have yet. On the desk in front of her were divorce papers waiting to be signed.
