Chapter 2 - Two-Way Audio
On the morning of December twenty-third, the temperature in Nassau was eighty-two degrees.
The sky was an uninterrupted dome of brilliant, crystalline sapphire, and the Atlantic Ocean tumbled against the white sand in rhythmic, hypnotic sweeps. I was sitting under a broad canvas umbrella on the teak deck of the resort pool, wearing oversized sunglasses, a linen cover-up, and sandals that were currently buried in warm sand. A sweat-beaded glass of cold brew with coconut milk rested on the small wooden table beside me, right next to a plate of fresh papaya and pineapple.
I had spent the morning working. From 7:00 AM to 10:30 AM, I had hammered out eight thousand words of crisp, pristine web copy for the Austin software launch. Without the low-grade hum of family emergencies vibrating in my peripheral vision, my brain worked with terrifying efficiency. The project was practically done.
At 11:14 AM local time—which was 9:14 AM in Denver—my iPhone vibrated on the table.
It wasn't a phone call. It was a push notification from my Ring app:
*Motion detected at your Front Door.*
I picked up the phone. A faint, bitter smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
I unlocked the screen and tapped the notification.
The live feed buffered for a split second before snapping into high-definition clarity. The wide-angle lens distorted the edges of the hallway, but there was no mistaking the tableau unfolding outside apartment 412.
It was an expeditionary force.
Mom stood directly in front of the camera, wearing her black puffer coat with the faux-fur collar, her designer handbag tucked under one elbow. Flanking her on either side were Jason and Stephanie. Jason was dressed in his sleek North Face ski jacket, looking aggressively put-upon while juggling two massive oversized rolling duffels, a Pack ’n Play portable crib folded into its black canvas sheath, and a nylon tote bulging with juice boxes. Stephanie had baby Sky strapped to her chest in a carrier, while her hands were occupied gripping four-year-old Oliver by the hood of his parka. Six-year-old Emma was slumped against the wall, her arms crossed over her purple winter coat, looking bored and miserable.
Outside my Denver apartment, the hallway was dry, heated, and sixty-eight degrees, but outside the building, Denver was currently sitting under an inversion layer of grey clouds and twenty-two-degree sleet.
Mom raised her gloved hand and knocked.
Three sharp, authoritative raps. *Bang, bang, bang.*
I took a slow, deliberate sip of my iced coffee. The coconut milk was cold and rich.
Through the phone’s tiny speaker, I heard the muffled silence of my empty hallway.
Mom waited approximately four seconds before knocking again, harder this time.
"Riley!" she called out, her voice carrying that patented tone of irritated command she usually reserved for slow waitstaff. "Riley, open up! Jason needs to hit the highway before the I-70 traffic gets backed up at Georgetown!"
Nothing moved inside the apartment. Because inside the apartment, the only living presence was my robotic vacuum cleaner, currently docked in its charging cradle.
Mom huffed, exhaling a sharp breath that ruffled her bangs. She turned to Jason. "She’s probably in the shower. Or she’s pretending not to hear us."
"Mom, I told you we should have called first," Stephanie said, her voice thin, fragile, and fraying at the seams. Sky began to whimper against her chest. "She sent that text. She said she wouldn't be here."
"Oh, stop it, Stephanie," Mom snapped, dismissing her with a wave of her leather-gloved hand. "You know how Riley gets when her feelings are hurt. She’s just being dramatic. She’s not going to turn away her own family. She wouldn't dare."
Mom reached into her deep leather tote bag and pulled out a gold key on an old brass keychain.
My stomach gave a tiny, involuntary leap—not of fear, but of profound vindication.
The emergency key.
The key I had given her three years ago when I had a burst pipe while visiting a conference in Chicago. The key she had since used to let herself into my home without knocking, to drop off items I hadn't asked for, to inspect my refrigerator, and to leave passive-aggressive notes about my dusting habits.
Mom slotted the key into the deadbolt.
She turned it to the right.
It didn't move.
She frowned, jiggling it slightly. She pulled it back a millimeter and twisted again with more force. The key refused to budge. The deadbolt cylinder Marcus had installed twenty-four hours earlier was an entirely different brand, with entirely different tumblers.
"What is wrong with this lock?" Mom muttered, rattling the handle violently.
"Let me try," Jason said, shoving past her. He grabbed the key, jammed it into the keyway, and applied the full force of a man who spent his days wrenching stubborn molars out of human jaws.
*Click. Scrape.* Nothing.
"Did she bolt it from the inside?" Jason asked, anger flaring in his eyes. He pounded his open palm against the wood. "Riley! Open the damn door! We’re standing out here with three kids and all their luggage!"
Oliver began to whine. "I have to pee, Mommy. I have to pee right now."
"Hold it, Ollie," Stephanie whispered, her face pale. "Just hold it for a second."
My phone suddenly lit up with an incoming call.
*MOM - MOBILE.*
I declined the call with a flick of my thumb and returned to the Ring camera feed.
On the screen, Mom looked at her phone, her mouth dropping open in utter disbelief. "She just sent me to voicemail!"
"Call her again," Jason demanded. "Call her right now."
She did. I declined it again.
Then Jason reached for his phone. A second later, his name flashed across my screen.
I let it ring until it timed out.
On the video feed, Jason kicked the bottom of my door with the toe of his snow boot. "Riley! Stop acting like a five-year-old! Open the door!"
I decided they had danced enough.
I pressed the small green microphone icon on my screen.
The ocean breeze rustled through the palm fronds above my head as I brought the phone toward my lips.
"Hi, Mom," I said.
My voice emerged from the small, brushed-nickel speaker embedded in the doorframe outside apartment 412, loud, clear, and perfectly digitized.
All five of them froze instantly.
Emma stopped leaning on the wall. Oliver looked up with wide eyes. Stephanie clutched the baby closer. Mom and Jason snapped their heads toward the little camera lens like two animals caught in headlights.
Mom took a step forward, leaning her face until her nose was practically touching the glass. "Riley! Stop this nonsense right now! Unlock this door!"
"I can't," I said smoothly.
"What do you mean you can't? You're sitting right on the other side of that door, being spiteful! The kids are freezing!"
"They're in an indoor, climate-controlled hallway, Mom," I noted, watching Oliver hop from foot to foot. "And I'm not on the other side of the door."
Jason stepped up beside Mom, his face crimson, veins bulging along his neck. "Where the hell are you, Riley? Did you go down to the coffee shop? We don't have time for this! Our check-in at the cabin is at two o'clock!"
"I'm in Nassau," I said.
The silence that descended upon the fourth floor of my apartment building was so profound, so utterly absolute, that through the microphone I could hear the faint whirr of the elevator motor forty feet down the hall.
Mom’s jaw went slack. "What?"
"I’m in the Bahamas," I repeated, enunciating every syllable with crisp, sunny precision. "Nassau. Cable Beach. It’s eighty-two degrees, and the water is gorgeous."
"Nassau?" Mom repeated, her voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical pitch. "You went to the Bahamas?!"
"I know you know where it is, Mom. You went on that Royal Caribbean cruise three years ago."
"Are you insane?!" Jason bellowed into the doorbell, spraying saliva onto the lens. "You went on vacation?! We have reservations in Breckenridge! We have non-refundable lift tickets! You're supposed to be watching our kids!"
"Jason, look at me," I said, though obviously he couldn't see me; he could only see the tiny black lens of the camera. "I texted you on Tuesday. I told you I would not be babysitting. I told you I would not be home. You responded with a thumbs-up."
"I thought you were being passive-aggressive!" Jason shouted, losing all composure. "I thought you were throwing a fit because Mom surprised you! Nobody actually flies to the Bahamas two days before Christmas just to get out of babysitting!"
"I didn't fly to the Bahamas to get out of babysitting," I replied, my tone flat, unbothered, and entirely devoid of the frantic apologies I used to supply. "I flew to the Bahamas to enjoy four days of uninterrupted peace, sleep through the night, and drink rum punch by the ocean."
Mom grabbed the brass handle again, shaking it so violently the metal rattled against the frame. "You changed the lock! Why doesn't my key work?!"
"Because you no longer have an emergency key, Mom."
"You changed your locks because of me?!" Mom shrieked, clutching her chest as if I had driven a physical stake through her heart. "Your own mother?! After everything I have sacrificed for you?!"
"I changed the locks because you treat my life like an annex of yours," I said. "You believe that if you push hard enough, my 'no' will magically turn into a 'yes.' You brought three children, three suitcases, and a crib to a door that I told you would be locked. You gambled with your own grandchildren’s afternoon because you assumed you could bully me into compliance."
"Riley, please," Stephanie cried out, speaking directly to the camera for the first time. Her face was contorted in sheer panic, tears finally spilling over her cheeks. "Oliver really has to go to the bathroom. Just give us the code to the door! We can just leave them inside until Jason and I figure something out! Please!"
"Stephanie, listen to yourself," I said, my voice softening slightly, but holding absolute rigidity. "You want me to give you remote access to leave three children—one of whom is an infant—unattended in an apartment with zero child-proofing, while I am two thousand miles away in the Caribbean? Do you hear what you are asking?"
"Just let us inside for an hour!" Jason yelled. "Let the kids pee! We’ll figure out a Plan B from your living room!"
"No," I said.
"Riley!" Mom roared.
"The leasing office is on the ground floor," I informed them. "There is a public restroom right next to the mailroom. I suggest you take Oliver down there immediately before he has an accident on the carpet."
As if summoned by the mention of the word, Oliver let out a wail: "Mommy, it’s coming out!"
Stephanie let out a strangled sob, grabbed Oliver’s arm, and turned toward the elevator. "Jason, take the bags. We have to go down."
"We're not going anywhere!" Jason yelled at his wife, completely unraveling. "Riley, you open this door or I swear to God, I am going down to the office and telling them you locked us out of our family apartment!"
"Go right ahead, Jason," I said, a dark amusement settling into my chest. "Marcus is down there. He has a copy of my lease, a copy of my photo ID, and strict instructions that anyone attempting to breach my apartment without my presence is trespassing. Try your luck with Denver Metro PD if you'd like to spend Christmas Eve in county processing."
Jason stared at the camera lens, his mouth opening and closing like a landed trout. For the first time in thirty-six years of life, the golden son was facing a locked door that his charm, his title, and his mother’s tantrums could not pry open.
"You're a selfish, vindictive bitch," Jason spat into the camera.
"And you're an orthodontist who can't read a text message," I replied. "Enjoy the snow, everyone."
I tapped the red button.
The screen cut to black.
I placed the phone face-down on the teak table. My hands were trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the sudden, massive rush of adrenaline that accompanies cutting an anchor you’ve dragged for thirty-one years.
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Across the pool, a waiter in a crisp white polo shirt was balancing a tray of fresh drinks. The turquoise waves hissed against the shore. The breeze smelled of salt, sunblock, and freedom.
I picked up my glass of iced coffee, leaned back against the cushioned lounge chair, and closed my eyes.
