Chapter 2 - The Handle Turned Slow
I couldn't come apart. Not on that staircase. Not with three hours left.
I put my spine against the wall and made myself breathe slow. The drug tugged at me like an undertow. Rage held better. I thought about my dad. My mom. The Tahoe house. The way Bennett had described the brake line going out — flat, easy, like he was picking a restaurant.
Three hours. Maybe less.
I got myself back to the suite and turned the lock. My hands shook so hard it took two tries. In the nightstand I found the pills he'd been feeding me — a neat little silver case, tablets lined up in a row. I took pictures of all of it with my phone.
Then I opened the safe.
The power of attorney was sitting right there. My name. My signature. The loop on the C, the way I always let the last letters run together. On a document I had never seen before in my life.
My knees almost went.
Footsteps in the corridor. Then Bennett's voice on the other side of the door — low, unbothered, talking to someone on the phone.
"She's down. Hasn't moved in two hours. We're on schedule."
A pause.
"No. Nothing left behind. Not the parents, not the lawyer, nobody."
The footsteps stopped right outside my door.
May you like
I stopped breathing.
The handle turned, slow.
