“It’s the right thing,” Gertie tells me as Monica secures my limbs. “You’ve been keeping Sam from being happy. This is what he’s wanted all along. A child. A woman who shares his passion. You kept him from all of that. I felt so sorry for him when I was working for you.”

But I loved him.

And I thought he loved me.

“It’s so selfish,” Monica practically spits at me. “Any decent woman would have stepped aside.”

“As if you’re any better,” I mutter under my breath.

Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying,” I say. “There are plenty of younger, prettier girls in his classes. What do you have that they don’t have?”

“I’ll be the mother of his child,” she hisses at me, getting her face up in mine. Which is frightening, considering I currently can’t move my arms or legs.

“Right, that’s true,” I concede. “But you’ll probably be too busy and tired from taking care of the baby to give him the attention he deserves. And I hear it’s awfully hard to lose that baby weight…”

Monica looks like she wants to slap me. I hope she does. If she hits me hard enough to leave a mark, then there will be some evidence my death isn’t a simple suicide. I deserve that. Redemption after death.

But before I can say anything else to provoke her, I hear the lock on the front door turning.

Chapter 39

“Shit,” Monica says under her breath.

“Who is that?” Gertie asks.

“How should I know?” Monica replies irritably.

I’m as clueless as they are. Who is that? The super? The police, come to arrest me? Any of the above would be great. But I assume if it was one of those people, they would knock before simply barging into the apartment.

Before I can ask who’s there, Monica rips another piece of duct tape off her roll and slaps it over my lips. And then she shoves me so hard, I roll off the bed, into the foot-wide space between the bed and the wall. My shoulder hits the floor hard and I gasp under the duct tape. The radiator sticking out of the wall is sharp, and I can feel the cold metal slicing into my forearm.

“Abby? You home, Abby?”

It’s Sam. Sam’s voice.

What the hell?

Monica leans over the bed, where I’m wedged between the mattress and the wall. Her face is bright pink. “Don’t move a muscle. Or else.”

For good measure, Monica tosses a blanket on top of me. It dulls the sounds and makes it sort of hard to breathe, but I can still hear through it. I hear Monica say to Gertie: “Mom, you hide in the closet, okay?”