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Chapter Forty-Four


This is Nick, leave a voicemail.

"Nick. Call me. It's Sam."

I immediately redialed. For the fourth time. My heart was jackhammering against my rib cage. Addison and I stood there in the center of the living room, staring at each other with wide, terrified expressions on our faces. I could feel my nervous system tightening and releasing as my stomach churning.

This is Nick, leave a voicemail.

"I need to go over there," I said, hanging up the phone and redialing for the sixth time.

Addison's eyes widened even further, "Sam, what if he killed Hugh Walters?" she croaked.

"Nick wouldn't --" I stammered, but even as I argued her, Addison's point seized hold of my mind and I realized it was the only thing that really made sense... I shoved it out of my brain. No, I thought, no way would Nick kill Hugh. I mean he didn't get along with him, for obvious reasons, but Nick was way too terrified of Hugh when we'd talked in the kitchen. He wouldn't have tried to go head-on with him, would he? And wouldn't they have checked Nick out first, the authorities, if they'd even supsected it was possible that it had been him?

Addison took a deep breath, "Sam, Nick's done a lot of things you think he wouldn't do, I'm betting."

"No Addie, he wouldn't kill Hugh Walters," I said, almost pleading.

"Sam, I think Nick put something in your champagne last night," she said in a hurried tone.

"What?"

"Nick put something in the champagne flute you drank from last night. I saw him do it. He told the waiter to deliver it to you right after he left talking to you. There was only one flute on that tray. And I saw him messin' with that flute, Sam," Addison argued.

I ran my hands over my face. I felt overloaded. "Why would he do that? Why would he tell me Hugh Walters was dead, then spike my drink?" I asked. I shook my head, "It doesn't make sense, Addie. I feel like the answer is right in front of me, but I can't.... grasp it... or... something." I grabbed my purse. "C'mon. We need to go check on Nick."

"Sam... I'm scared," Addison said thickly.

"It's going to be ok," I answered.

Addison shook her head, "We can't go over there. What if he did do it? What if he panics and kills us the moment we walk up to the door?"

"Nick wouldn't ---"

"SAM! Aren't you listening! Are you blind? Nick did this, Nick spiked your champagne. He's lying to you about everything but you're still defending him?"

I stood by the door, clutching my purse, the phone ringing and ringing, waiting for Nick to answer. I thought it all through, thought about what if Addison was right, what if Nick had killed Hugh, what if he'd spiked my drink, what if he'd killed Z, what if he'd done it all in the name of loving Cora? Tears filled my eyes. But even as it broke my heart to think of Nick as the bad guy in all of this, I knew I couldn't hate him, whatever he'd done. I'd seen him too vulnerable, and I knew that despite everything, if he had done it all just as Addison said, that he needed me to help him through it because deep down, at the core of him, he really was a good person.

"I am," I answered, "I'll defend him to the end, Addie." I took a deep breath. "Are you coming with me or are you staying here?"

Addison grabbed her own purse and shaking her head followed me out the door and to the car. She snatched my keys as I was unlocking the door. "Give me that," she said, "You're not driving. You've been passed out drunk and drugged all night, you're in no shape to drive."

"Thank you," I said.

Addie shook her head, "I don't want you dead. Which is why I seriously am questioning our sanity for doing this in the first place."

"I won't end up dead," I said confidently.

Addison drove across town and it seemed like the longest ride of my life. All I could picture was some double jeopardy thing had gone down and Nick was laying either injured or killed at the house somewhere... Maybe Hugh had tried to kill him and Nick had shot back, maybe Hugh only got a quarter mile away before he could go no further in his attempts to get away... Scenarios played out in my mind.

But yet none of them seemed quite right. I was missing something, some key piece of information to make it all make sense.

Addie pulled through the gate and the car wove among the Stepford houses and down the winding hill toward Nick's house. The house lay dormant and dark, solo cups littered the lawn, and silly string hung from a tree. Several balloons had migrated out to the front lawn. Addison parked in the driveway behind Nick's Escalade and before she could say a thing, I leaped out and rushed across the lawn to the front door.

"NICK!" I screamed. The door was unlocked. I burst into the foyer, slamming the door behind me. "Nick! Please!" I thundered up the steps. "Nick!" I got to his bedroom door and I shoved it open. "Nick?" Everything was exactly as it had been left the night before when I'd gone looking for him. I felt my stomach turn; if the bed was exactly as we'd left it, then he hadn't gone to bed, he hadn't returned up here since the party.

I rushed back down the hallway, looking in every room, a deja'vu of the night before as room after room after room didn't contain Nick. My hands were shaking as I rushed back down the steps. Living room, dining room... still no Nick. I ran for the french doors that cut out to the backyard. It looked like a bomb had gone off out there, cups and streamers and napkins and the remains of popped balloons covered the lawn. I was just about to run outside to look there for Nick when I heard the front door slam and I turned around and went back through the kitchen to the foyer, expecting to see Addison having followed me into the house.

Instead, I found Cora.

She was dressed all in black; a black pencil skirt, a black tank top style blouse, a black hat perched on her severely pulled back hair, a little piece of toole that hung over her eyes. Her vibrant red lips stood out even more against her mourning widow get up. She smiled at me serenely. "Samantha," she said, and my name sounded like smoke being exhaled from her mouth, her voice seductive in a way that a hypnotist's might be. "What a pleasant surprise."

I swallowed.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you last night," she said, "But I really like your dress."

I looked down and realized I was still wearing the green dress Nick had bought for the party.

"Aren't you going to thank me for the compliment?" Cora asked regally.

I looked up at her. "Thank you," I said cooly.

Cora smiled, "That's a good girl. You learn quickly. Unfortunately not quickly enough." She stepped toward me and I stepped back and slammed into someone.

I spun, my heart racing, and found myself staring at Nick.