Page 57 of The Getaway

“What now?” Juliet wailed as Wintour began barking.

“Power’s out,” Sean said unnecessarily. “I’m kinda shocked we lasted this long.”

“Don’t they have generators?” Daisy asked.

They all waited a bit, hoping the lights were about to kick back on, but nothing happened.

Silence. Gemma’s revelation seemed to have had a numbing effect on everyone. It was as if they’d all run out of steam at once, and even Suzy couldn’t get up the energy to ask more questions. Marshall suggested they all take a little time, and it was as if none of them could get out of the great room fast enough. Suzy grabbed Wintour out of one of the twins’ arms—she couldn’t care less which one it was at this point—and headed upstairs.

Unfortunately, with no electricity and no internet, there was nothing to do. Suzy paced back and forth in front of the locked door, Wintour in her arms, every creak or thump sending her pulse into overdrive as she imagined a masked, knife-wielding serial killer coming down the hallway. But these were her friends. They weren’t going to axe murder her, right? Gemma and Grant were new to the group, but they seemed normal. Mostly. Except for the whole I delivered Lily’s evil notes thing. She didn’t know Cole, of course, but he totally came off as one of those wishy-washy Gen Zers who never learned how to make a decision for themselves. There was Candice, but she was halfway to a breakdown after finding Trevor, and there was no way that wisp of a thing could overpower Lincoln. That left Magdelena. Did she have anything to be angry at Lincoln about?

Sean lay on the bed watching some dumb movie he’d downloaded onto his phone. When she’d heard the first fart joke, she’d insisted he put his earbuds in. She didn’t point out how incredibly stupid it was for him to waste his battery on Chris Farley when they had no idea when or even if the power would come back. Let him suffer his own consequences.

Suzy couldn’t stop her brain from racing. Even though it made total sense that Gemma had been the one to deliver the notes—she was an outsider, and she and Grant were the only ones who hadn’t gotten them—she still felt blindsided. The woman had seemed so innocuous. So vanilla. For a minute there she’d almost thought they could be friends. But all the while she’d known their best friend was willing to screw with all of them in the worst possible way. Had she been judging them this entire time? Did she feel superior to the rest of them? Maybe she was superior to the rest of them. After all, Lily had entrusted her with this little prank of hers. No one else.

Suzy finally stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from Sean as she stroked Wintour’s little head.

Lily. Holy shit, Lily. Lily knew that Suzy had been blackmailing Lincoln. She knew that Suzy had known about him and Juliet all along. And that she was willing to use that knowledge for her own personal gain. Suzy’s heart squeezed, and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

Her friendship with Lily was over. There would be no coming back from this. How could she be so stupid? So selfish? Yes, she had needed the money, and yes, somehow blackmailing the dickhead who had screwed over two of her best friends to get it had felt justified, but she should have known she would get caught. She should have seen that she wasn’t just using Lincoln but Juliet and Lily as well.

Suzy cried quietly, which was difficult and not usually her way. Usually she sobbed and raged and let everyone around her know how miserable she was. But she couldn’t do that now. This she had to keep to herself.

She couldn’t stop seeing Trevor’s destroyed face every time she closed her eyes.

She stared out the window at the dark-gray clouds racing by. The rain spattered across the glass. What if the storm just kept getting worse? Disastrous images assaulted her brain. The Villa being consumed by a tidal wave. She and Sean bloated and floating, their milky eyes wide to the sky. The kids being thrown out of camp, mauled by bears, their bones left to be picked over by vermin. She squeezed her eyes shut so hard they hurt.

“Hey.” Sean’s hand ran up her back. “Are you okay?”

Suzy put Wintour down on the bed, where she curled up near the foot. She turned sideways toward him, her body jerking as she sobbed. Sean yanked his earbuds out and tossed them aside with his phone.

“Suze, oh my God. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He sat up and ran his hand over her hair and kissed her temple.

“No, it’s not! It’s not okay!” she said through her tears. “Nothing is okay.”

She grabbed a tissue from the box next to the bed and pulled her legs up so they were next to each other.

“Well . . . it will be okay,” he said. “We’ll figure it all out. We just need to—”

“What we need is to get out of here,” she said. She punctuated her statement with a nose blow.

Sean sighed a world-weary sigh. “We can’t get out of here,” he said as if he was talking to a toddler. “There’s a hurricane.”

“I’m aware there’s a hurricane, Sean. I’m also aware that someone in this house has murdered two people! There’s a killer here. What if this turns into one of those locked-room situations?”

He stared at her blankly. One of the things she’d had to accept about Sean early on was that he did not read. Not fiction, not nonfiction, not graphic novels or comics or even listicles. If it wasn’t a legal brief or a financial newspaper, he had no interest.

“It’s a plot in a book where all these people get trapped in a house, and they’re picked off one by one,” she said through her teeth.

“Why would anyone pick us off one by one? We haven’t done anything wrong,” Sean said simply.

“Neither did Lincoln!”

Sean pulled a face. “Well . . .”

“Fine, whatever. The notes. It doesn’t matter. You’re the one who needed to spend an extra eighty grand to get the fancy SUV that could drive through anything even though we live in the frickin’ suburbs. Well, now’s your chance to use it!”

Sean looked intrigued by the idea. Men and their toys. They never outgrew the appeal.