Page 113 of Wrong Mail

For a second I think he will tell me to leave it. Instead he guides me back against the wall, keeping one hand on my arm until he is sure I’m steady.

"Wait here."

He disappears through the plastic. The seconds stretch. I hear the storm. I hear my breathing. I think of Julia lying a few feet away in the dark, and I try to move, but the wall tilts hard and I have to close my eyes.

Then Henry returns, the plastic whispering behind him, my phone in his hand. I take it from him and look at the screen.

Shit. No bars.

Whatever the storm has done, he wasn't lying about that.

I put it in my pocket. Henry doesn't try to take it.

Then he gets his arm around me again. I take a step, then another, past the plastic and away from her. It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life, but I do it.

At the front door, the wind takes my breath and the rain comes in sideways. His car is near the end of the drive, dark, its lights off, waiting.

"Where," I say. "Where are we going?"

"Across the water." He’s walking me down into the rain, his arm all the way around me, and I am letting him. "Cell service is better once we're off the Point. Once we have a signal, we’ll call for Julia, and then get you seen. After that, a lawyer. Then Rodriguez. In that order. You don't say a word to anyone until someone is standing beside you who knows what this really is."

I stop one last time. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the last of David in me, his voice still saying the thing he wouldn’t let go.

I look back at the dark house and its open door. My feet won’t carry me the rest of the way. I can’t bring myself to get into Henry’s car. He feels me stop, my body going rigid against his arm.

He doesn't pull at me. He just says it, very gently. "There's nothing more you can do for her standing here, Mallory."

And it’s true. I already left her. I left her when I ran, when I chose that study and my life over the friend on the floor behind me.

Standing at his car changes none of it.

The fight goes out of me.

I get in.

Chapter Forty-One

Agreen sign flashes past as we climb onto the span. SR 520. Evergreen Point Floating Bridge.

Then there is nothing but road and black water, Lake Washington on both sides of us. Rain hammers the windshield so hard the far end of the bridge disappears. All I can see is the glow of the dash and his hands on the wheel.

I glance at Henry.

He grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles go white. He drives carefully, keeping the tires out of the standing water where he can. The wipers drag rain across the windshield but never clear it for long. Between their passes, Seattle shows in dark flashes in the distance.

I rest my head against the window. The glass is cold through my hair. Behind us, Hunts Point disappears into the rain.

"Not long now," Henry says. "Once we're across, hopefully we'll have bars. Then we'll get help for Julia and get you seen to." He says it like a route he has driven a hundred times.

I don't answer. My skull aches in a wide band above the ear where the desk found it. Everything past a certain distance has a smear on it, like the road. I am so exhausted the tiredness feels like a place I could lie down in.

Then my phone vibrates against my thigh. Once, then again. I must have switched the ringer off earlier and forgotten. I take it out low, below the line of the window, more from instinct than decision. A message has dropped in as the reception finds us.

It's Cassandra.

Henry's eyes flick to me, then back to the road. “You got bars?”

"No," I say. "Not yet."