Chapter 14 — My Plan Starts Now
I crawled out from under the table.
My dress was gray with dust, my knees were bruised, and there was blood on my hand where I’d bitten it.
I stood up in front of my husband slowly, and I felt strangely, completely calm.
“Babe,” he tried, the salesman scrambling back up over the animal, the smile twitching at the corners.
“Nadine.
Sweetheart.
Let me explain — this isn’t what —”
“You said I was never part of the plan.” I wiped the blood off my hand onto my ruined dress without looking away from him.
“Fine.
My plan starts now.”
The front door opened.
Otis Duarte came in out of the rain with his phone in one hand and an evidence bag in the other; he’d been parked next door the whole time, listening to the live feed.
He was calm in the specific way of a man who has done this professionally for thirty years and is not going to be rushed by anyone’s panic.