“It’s heavy. She can’t hold it straight. All of a sudden it goes off. Boom. Then two more times. It kicks, and the rounds end up in the wall. She starts crying and drops the gun.”

“That’s when you should have left.”

Thackrey looked at his phone and considered the thought. He tried to remember driving away. Had he left? No. He saw himself standing in the living room with Elise. “I stayed. I put on her favorite song—Sam Cooke singing ‘You Send Me.’ She’s like a little girl now. She wants to be held. We dance in the living room without any lights. Back and forth in front of the sofa. She’s humming along. I tell her she’ll be okay. We hold each other in the dark, barely moving. The song’s on repeat. It goes on and on.”

Each time he remembered, something different flew at him. Now, alone in the car, he held up his hands against what was coming. “But all the speed I snorted is going through me like a truck. My head’s spinning. I keep it in as long as I can. Then my whole body’s…rushing. I think I’m having a stroke. I don’t know what’s happening. All of a sudden, she’s fighting me. ‘Take me home,’ she says. ‘Take me home.’ Over and over. I try to touch her, but she’s like this thing coming apart in my hands. I grab her hands…neck. She digs her nails into my arm. She’s crying, making this terrible sound. I think: This is what I’ve always hated. How uncontrolled she is.”

Had he screamed out loud just now or only remembered it? He looked outside again and watched leaves floating in a puddle. “She falls backward.” Thackrey spoke quietly, his voice hoarse from screaming, or imagined screaming. “One minute I’ve got her. The next, she hits her head on the corner of the table and blood’s everywhere. The song…it’s unbelievable…the stupid music’s still playing. I lie down and cradle her head. For once in her life, she’s still.”

“Which is when you called us.” Russell’s disembodied voice coming out of the phone startled him.

“Yeah…that’s when I called you.” Thackrey put his hands on the steering wheel and saw their innocence.

“Ben, listen,” Russell said. “You need to do something. Call Armand. He’s got lawyers.”

“I don’t know. The thought of being in that office…listening to the way he talks—”

“You don’t have a lot of choices, Ben.”

Thackrey looked across the parking lot and saw the street number and the building’s darkened windows. Story over. “I don’t need a lot of choices—I just need one.”

(ii)

(FRIDAY, 10:31 A.M.)

Susan Hart sat in the chair that faced Mahler’s desk. “What is it this time?”