Page 109 of Wrong Mail

He looks from me to Julia, then back again. "No," he says. "You don't understand."

I fumble my phone out with one hand, Julia sagging against the other. My thumb finds Rodriguez's name.

David sees the screen. "Mallory, don't."

Shit. The call won’t go through. One bar flashes, vanishes, comes back empty. Rain hammers the plywood. The whole unfinished wing shakes with it.

"Mal, just put it down."

David moves for the phone. I see him coming for me.

I twist away, but his fingers catch my wrist. The phone flies out of my hand and skids into the dark. Julia slips off my shoulder, folding hard against the studs. I reach for her and miss. Then David has my arm.

"Mallory, stop."

I shove him with both hands. He catches me by the arms. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to hold me there.

"Listen to me."

"No."

I drive my knee up. It catches his thigh, maybe his hip. He grunts and loses his balance on the loose boards. We go down together. My shoulder hits first. His weight comes across me for one blind second, an accident of the fall. He’s already trying to pull back.

"Stop. Please," he says.

I don't hear the please. I feel his body over mine. I hear Julia somewhere in the dark. I hear every dead woman I've put his name to.

I thrash sideways and drag myself out from under him, but his hand closes around my ankle before I can get clear. I kick back with my free leg, blind and hard, and my heel hits something solid. His face, I think. He lets go with a broken sound, and I scramble up before he can reach for me again.

I’m through the plastic and into the hall before I know I’m running.

The hall is black, and I run with one hand dragging along the wall. The storm moves through the house in great walls of sound. I can't hear his footsteps, can't tell if he is up, if he is coming.

Then his voice cuts through it, close behind me.

"Mallory. It's Henry. Please, listen to me."

I don’t slow for even a second.

The study door stands open. I burst through it and drop hard to my knees at the low cupboard under the bookshelves. Pain shoots up my legs. I yank at the doors, but they stick, and for one horrible second they don't move.

"Mallory!"

His voice is in the hall.

I pull harder. The doors give.

My hands know where to go because I watched David do it the night of the break-in. The case is at the back, exactly where it was then, his initials stamped into the corner. I drag it out, thumb the latch, and take the gun in my hand. It is cold and wrong and heavier than it should be.

I stand and turn with it.

And he’s there.

David’s in the doorway, out of breath, his eyes wide.

He stops when he sees the gun. Everything stops. Him in the doorway, me by the desk, the barrel wavering in the air between us. The window flashes white and drops us both into black, then hands us back to each other.

"Mallory. Wait." His hands come up. "Put it down."