Chapter 4 - The Locks Don't Turn
The sound of the second handcuff ratcheting shut echoed off the ten-foot ceilings like a gunshot.
"Skylar!" Derek shouted, his voice finally losing its veneer of civilized restraint. He twisted his neck, trying to face me as Officer Vance forced him down into a seated position on the linen ottoman. "You're destroying our lives over an argument! Over coffee! Think about my firm! Think about the Santos account! If I miss the merger dinner tonight, the whole agency is done!"
"Your agency was done six months ago, Derek," I said, watching him struggle against the steel. "You just haven't looked at the ledger yet."
The two men in gray coveralls didn't wait for instructions. They moved past the officers with cordless power drills and heavy brass strike plates. Within forty seconds, the high-pitched whine of metal boring into metal filled the apartment.
*Whirrrr-click. Whirrrr-click.*
They weren't just changing the cylinders; they were completely removing the electronic smart-locks from the private elevator vestibule and replacing them with high-security, physical Medeco deadbolts that required three-inch steel keys—keys that were currently resting in Arthur Campbell’s breast pocket.
"What about my clothes?" Suzanne cried, her voice rising to a frantic, glass-shattering pitch. She backed away from Officer Diaz, her manicured fingers clawing at the collar of her jumpsuit. "I have things here! My dresses! Derek said I could move into the guest suite for the summer! I gave up my lease in Brickell!"
Arthur Campbell adjusted his half-moon glasses and looked down at her over the rim of the lenses. "Did you sign a sublease, Miss Vance?"
"No! I'm his sister!"
"Then you are an unauthorized guest of a former licensee whose license has been terminated for cause," Arthur said flatly. "You have twenty minutes to remove any items that you personally carried into this residence today. Anything else—including those bags currently resting on the carpet—remains within the custody of the trust until an inventory audit can be conducted."
"Those are hers!" Suzanne pointed at the Birkins. "She doesn't even want them! Derek told me she never wears them!"
"They belong to Miss Vance-King," Arthur said. "Purchased through her private account in Paris two years before she had the misfortune of meeting your family. Officer Diaz, would you be so kind as to ensure the young lady does not attempt to leave with property belonging to the trust?"
"Don't touch me!" Suzanne spat as Officer Diaz moved between her and the hallway closet. "This is disgusting! You people are monsters! Skylar, you let him burn you! You're doing this because you're vindictive! You've always been jealous of how close Derek and I are!"
I didn't even look at her.
Instead, I walked past them both toward the master bedroom.
The room was vast, dominated by a king-sized platform bed framed in reclaimed walnut, looking out over the cruise ships turning slowly in the port. On Derek's nightstand sat his luxury watch winder, his leather valet tray, and a framed photograph of the two of us on our honeymoon in Amalfi.
I picked up the frame.
I looked at the Derek in the photograph—the broad, white smile, the tailored linen shirt, the arm draped possessively over my bare shoulder. Even then, his fingers had been digging slightly too deep into my flesh, holding me in place for the lens, making sure everyone who looked at the image knew who had captured the prize.
I turned the frame over, popped the back velvet tab, pulled the photograph out, and dropped the paper into the small leather wastebasket beside the bed.
Then I set the silver frame—which my mother had given me—back on the marble top.
Two large black hard-shell suitcases were already resting by the wardrobe doors. I didn't pack everything; I packed my passports, my business documents, my private journals, my grandmother's emerald ring that I had kept locked in the wall safe, and seven days of comfortable, loose-fitting cotton clothing that wouldn't rub against the raw flesh of my neck.
When I wheeled the luggage back into the living room, Derek was on his feet, flanked by both officers.
His face had gone through three distinct stages of grief in ten minutes: first arrogance, then rage, and now, finally, the desperate, sickening panic of a parasite that realizes the host has suddenly become poisonous.
"Skylar," he whispered. His eyes were wide, watery, tracking the movement of my hands on the suitcase handles. "Please. Talk to me in private. Five minutes. Just five minutes without the badges and the lawyers. I was stressed. The market is down. Suzanne was breathing down my neck about her car payment, and I took it out on you. It was a mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake. You know I love you."
I stopped three feet from him.
The smell of the coffee was still faintly lingering in the room, mixing with the sharp, acidic scent of the silver sulfadiazine cream on my skin.
"When the mug hit my face," I said, keeping my voice so low that even the drill operators paused to listen, "I screamed for help. Do you remember what you did, Derek?"
He swallowed. His throat moved, dry and clicking. "I... I was in shock..."
"You picked up your phone," I said. "You looked at your screen to see if your sister had texted you. And then you told me to look at what I made you do."
I pulled the slim platinum band from my left ring finger.
My knuckle was swollen from the tension of the morning, and the metal scraped against the bone before coming free. I didn't throw it at him. I didn't drop it dramatically onto the marble.
I set it down on the counter, directly beside the cold, dried puddle of white wine he had spilled twenty minutes earlier.
"You're right about one thing," I told him. "A little splash of reality does wonders for a person's attitude."
May you like
I looked at Officer Vance. "Take him down."
***
