Camila cooks chicken and rice for dinner. The smell of garlic and wine sauce floats out of the kitchen until my stomach starts growling. But she says we can’t eat until Graham gets home.
It’s seven-thirty when I finally hear the front door unlock
—Graham is home. I’m sitting on the couch watching television, having given up on the idea of trying to read a whole book in a single day. Maybe tomorrow.
Graham’s face breaks out in a smile when he sees me. He uses his thumb to loosen the knot of the dark blue tie that makes his eyes look so blue, even behind his glasses.
“Hey,” he says. “Have a good day?”
I look up at this man. My husband. Who may or may not be trying to drug me. “Yes.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He plops down next to me on the sofa. Ziggy has his head on my lap, and when he sees Graham, he lets out a low growl. I have to stroke his head to get him to calm down. I don’t know why my dog seems to dislike Graham so much.
“I wish you could come back to work,” Graham sighs. “It’s hard doing it alone. I’m exhausted.”
I pick at a loose thread on the seam of my jeans. “Is there anything I could do to help?”
“Oh, Tess.” He smiles and shakes his head. “I wish you could. But just coming home to you at the end of a hard day makes it worth it.”
A little bullshit detector is going off in the back of my head. Coming home to me makes it worth it? How could that possibly be true? I haven’t even let Graham kiss me today. I’ve been searching his office behind his back. I called 911
on him, for God’s sake. What on earth about me makes it all worthwhile?
“Anyway.” He pats me on the shoulder. “The food smells fantastic. I’m starving.”
As if on cue, Camila emerges from the kitchen holding two heaping plates of food. Graham leaps off the couch to help her. He rescues the plates from her hands and lowers them onto the dining table. One plate for me and one plate for Graham.
“You’re not joining us?” Graham asks her.
My stomach churns at the thought of this beautiful girl joining my husband and me for dinner. Not that I feel jealous, exactly. It’s hard to feel jealous when I have no attraction whatsoever for Graham. But I don’t like the idea of him messing around behind my back.
Although it’s hard to imagine that he and I have sex much anymore. It’s not going to happen tonight, that’s for sure.
“That’s okay,” Camila says. “I’ll just get going.”
Graham’s eyes hold hers. “Come on, Camila. You should join us. Right, Tess?”
“Yes, join us,” I say tonelessly.
“No, you two should have your privacy.” Camila wipes her hands on her jeans. Her fingernails are bitten to the quick. “I have to get going anyway. But enjoy your dinner.”
At first, I think Graham is going to protest again, but he decides against it. I do notice him watching her as she makes her way to the front door and tugs on her jacket. But I can’t blame the guy. She is incredibly beautiful. I’d say there’s a sixty percent chance they’re sleeping together.
Camila exits through the front door, and right after she shuts the door behind her, Graham marches over to the door and locks it from the inside with the key in his pocket. I spent another hour searching after I hung up with Lucy and I couldn’t find any extra keys—either for the desk drawer or the front door. If they exist, they’re very well hidden.
In any case, I’m not going anywhere tonight. “Let’s eat,” Graham says.
Graham disappears back into the kitchen while I walk to the dining table like it’s my last meal—in a sense, it is. The chicken Camila cooked is juicy and glistening, with bits of rosemary sprinkled on top. The rice is yellow with flecks of red. Camila set the table with a napkin for each of us, as well as a fork and a knife. I pick up my knife—it’s a butter knife.
Ziggy joins me at the table and looks up at me hopefully with those irresistible brown eyes. Before Graham returns and can scold me for it, I break off a little chunk of my chicken and let Ziggy gobble it out of my hand.
“Got us drinks!” Graham announces. He’s holding one glass of water, presumably for me, and a bottle of beer, presumably for him. “Now let’s eat!”
I hold up the butter knife. “How am I supposed to cut a piece of meat with this thing?”
Graham nods at his own place setting. “I’ve got the same thing. It works well enough. Do the best you can.”
“You mean you don’t trust me to have a real knife?” He’s quiet for a moment. “It’s better this way. Trust me.”
Ziggy had jerked his head up at the sound of Graham’s voice and turned to look at him. Now he snarls at my husband, who takes a step back and lowers the drinks onto the table.
Graham raises his hands. “Whoa, Ziggy.”
Ziggy barks loud enough to wake up everybody in the neighborhood. He takes another step toward Graham, who takes another step back. I’ve never seen Ziggy like this. Granted, I only met him this morning. But he seems like such a happy, friendly dog. He was even licking Harry’s hand at the dog park, and he must know Graham better than Harry.
“Ziggy.” I pat the leg of my pants. “Leave Graham alone.
Come to mama.”
But Ziggy doesn’t hear me. He’s a dog with a mission. He snarls at Graham one more time, and before I can stop him, his sharp teeth have sunk into Graham’s leg.
“Goddamn it!” Graham shouts as I grab Ziggy’s collar to restrain him. The fabric of Graham’s expensive pants is ripped wide open. “He bit me! Your dog bit me!”
“Bad Ziggy!” I snap at him.
I keep my hands on Ziggy’s collar because I’m genuinely afraid he’s going to do it again. I don’t know what the hell got into him. He seemed like the gentlest dog. Why would he bite Graham?
Graham is pulling up the leg of his pants to assess the damage. Thankfully, I don’t see any blood gushing from his leg. The skin doesn’t even seem to be broken.
“He just bit the fabric,” I say. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
He lifts his eyes, which are rimmed with fury. “Get that fucking dog outside, Tess.”
“Graham, I’m sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”
“He didn’t mean to bite me?” he hisses. “Obviously, he did. Put him outside. From now on, he doesn’t come into the house. I’m so sick of this shit.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. I’m desperate for him to forgive Ziggy. After all, he could get rid of Ziggy tonight, and by tomorrow, I wouldn’t even remember he existed. But this dog is the best part of my life right now. I don’t want Graham to take him away from me. Even though I have to admit I couldn’t entirely blame him. “I’ll take him outside now.”
“Good,” Graham snaps. He props his leg up on the chair to examine it further. I’m almost certain the skin isn’t broken. “I’m going to go change. I want him out of the house by the time I’m back. Got it?”
Without waiting for a reply, he storms upstairs.
I don’t have much of a choice—Ziggy is going outside. It’ll be fine now. He’s got a dog house out there. The
weather is nice. He might be happier in our backyard than he’d be in the house.
I lead Ziggy to the back door. The lock hasn’t been turned and I’m able to open the door. Earlier this morning, I went out in the backyard and thought I’d be able to just leave, but then I discovered the padlock on the fence around the yard. This place is locked up tighter than Alcatraz.
When I took Ziggy into the yard earlier, he seemed happy to play there. But now he looks up at me and whimpers.
“I’m sorry, boy.” I stroke his soft head. “I’ll come for you in the morning and we’ll do something fun.”
Not that I can promise that. I can’t promise anything about tomorrow.
Ziggy whimpers again—his expression breaks my heart. I still can’t figure out why he bit Graham. It doesn’t make any sense. But then again, nothing about this day makes any sense.
I feel terrible about leaving Ziggy in the backyard, but he’ll be fine out there. As for me, I’m not so sure.
When I get back into the dining room, Graham is still upstairs. I look down at the beer bottle and glass of water he dropped on the table before he left. I think of the words I found written on my thigh. Graham is drugging you. Is it possible that he put something in my water glass?
I lift the glass of water. I hold it up to the light of the ornate chandelier above our heads and peer at the clear liquid. But it’s not entirely clear. When I squint, I can just make out little particles of a white substance swirling in the water.
Graham’s footsteps on the stairs startle me and I nearly drop the water. He’s coming downstairs. Now. What am I going to do?
I can’t think of anything else to do, so I toss the contents of the water glass into a nearby plant. I’ll tell him I
drank it all. Hopefully, the plant will be okay, but that’s the least of my concerns.
“Tess?” Graham is at the entrance to the dining room, now dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. He looks handsome in his casual attire, but there’s something in his eyes that makes me uneasy. “What are you doing?”
I force a smile. “I was just thirsty and gulped down all my water while I was waiting for you. I’ll just grab some more water from the kitchen.”
Graham narrows his eyes at me. He takes a step closer to me and I instinctively take a step back.
“No,” he says. “You’re lying.”
