On my third day there, I wake to a rattling on the roof of the house. I roll out of bed and rub my eyes, go to the window, and look outside. It’s ten o’clock, my phone tells me, but the sun is bright and unflinching like it’s midday. It shines directly in my eyes. I squint and cover my face with my hands, and then make my way downstairs in shorts and a t-shirt. “Mom?” I call as I walk, but there’s no answer.
“Mom?” I repeat, when I’m in the kitchen. I search downstairs rooms, the living room and the kitchen and the bathroom, but she’s nowhere. Then the noise from the roof repeats. It sounds like there are tiny feet scampering over it, like a creature has been released above our heads.
I head outside, walk down the steps, and look up. A ladder is propped against the side of the house and Mom is fiddling with the tiles of the roof.
“Mom,” I say, quietly because I don’t want to startle her. “What are you doing?”
“Just clearing some loose shingles!” she calls down. “I’m getting the roof redone in a few days, but these loose shingles are giving me a headache. I can’t sleep for thinking about them!”
I look at the outside of the house, at its shabbiness, and think, What’s brought this on?
“The workman will sort that,” I say. “That’s what they get paid for. Can you come down? Seeing you at the top of a ladder is freaking me out.”
“I’m alright!” she snaps.
She looks like a wingless old bird up there, all bone and skin, tottering precariously, unable to find its balance. Each time she makes a grab for the roof, the ladder wobbles, her knees shake, and her feet tap against the rung. “Ah,” she grunts, making another reach for the roof, her hand coming away empty. I see that her hand has come away empty every time; there are no shingles at the bottom of the ladder.
“Mom!” I hiss. “Get down, please. I don’t see you for a year, and now you want to kill yourself!”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“Mom, please!” My voice is low, angry, and something in it causes Mom to pause. She half-turns and I walk to the bottom of the ladder, hold it still.
“Fine,” she huffs, and begins to climb down slowly.
My heart hammers with each step, but finally, she reaches the bottom. She walks away from the ladder, wiping her hands on her jeans, and grins sideways at me. “You’re such a worrier,” she says. “Nothing was going to happen to me, you know.”
“How do you know?” I say. “It didn’t exactly look safe up there. What were you doing, anyway?”
She waves a hand at the house. “Look at it!” she breathes. “Look at the state of it! Your father dealt with the outside, you know. We were very old-fashioned in that way, I suppose. But this morning I woke up, and I came out here, and I looked at it and—ugh, look at it. So I called some workman up. But I couldn’t stand to leave it until then.”
“Why now, though?” I ask. “Surely it’s been like this for a while.”
Mom shrugs. “Maybe it’s you,” she muses. “You being here, I mean. My daughter shouldn’t have to return to her home looking like this.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and lead her toward the house. She follows reluctantly, casting glances back at the ladder. “The workmen will sort all of that,” I say. “It’s their job. Don’t rob them of it.”
“You think I’m old,” Mom comments as I take her into the kitchen. I put the kettle on the boil and scoop coffee into two mugs. Mom sits at the table, tapping against it with her fingers and smiling softly at me. “I’m not old,” she goes on, with determination in her voice.
“You’ve certainly proved that,” I say. “Look at you. Spider-Woman, climbing up the side of the house at ten o’clock in the morning. But you didn’t see how that ladder was shaking.”
“Maybe I just wanted proof that you still cared about your old mother.” She raises her eyebrows, playful like a little girl.
“Ha-ha, of course I do, you silly woman.”
The kettle whistles and I pour the coffee, tip in the sugar, and splash in the milk.
We sit opposite each other at the coffee table.
“Something’s on your mind,” Mom says. “I can see it. Something’s going round and round in your mind. It’s like when you were a girl, and you had a test the next day. You have that same faraway look. Is it—him?”
“Maddox?” I stare into the coffee mug. “Sort of. But don’t worry about it. Everything will be alright.”
Do you believe that? I ask myself. Do you really believe it will be as easy as that? What if everything is not all right? What if Maddox’s plan doesn’t work and he goes to prison? Not that holding cell, but full-on, proper prison? What then?
I shiver, and Mom watches me with all-seeing eyes, but then she looks down at her coffee, and I do the same.
“It will be alright,” I say, as though speaking the words aloud make them truer. “It will.”
***
The next evening, I go downstairs into the living room when Mom is watching the news. She isn’t a devout news-watcher, like some old people, but she’ll watch it in the evening with a matter-of-fact expression, as though nothing, no matter how cruel or horrible, can surprise her anymore.
I sit beside her as the caster is talking about a spree of car theft. And then the graphic flashes and the background changes from a dark CCTV camera of a car whizzing down the street—to Cassandra and Mason.
My breath catches, I lean forward and grip my knees, and my heart suddenly speeds up my chest, as though trying to beat out of my throat.
The picture is of Cassandra and Mason at some well-to-do event. Mason is dressed in a suit, and Cassandra is wearing a sparkling dress. They’re grinning at the camera. The headline reads: Corporate Couple Flee from Embezzlement Charges.
“Turn it up, please,” I whisper. Mom picks up the remote and notches the volume up.
The caster goes on in his solemn voice, “Cassandra Beatrice Caraway and Mason Simon Abraham fled their mansion house in Silicon Valley after evidence of their complicity in embezzlement was leaked to the press early yesterday morning. Police said they were on their way to apprehend the couple when a squad car reported one of Mason Abraham’s many vehicles fleeing the city. The squad car tried to pull them over but Mason’s car – a brand-new Lamborghini – outpaced him and disappeared. The car was later found ditched in the car park of a school.”
“What’s this, then? Bonnie and Clyde wannabes?” Mom laughs.
I laugh, too, but it rings hollow in my ears.
“An APB has been announced publicly, and police urge anyone who sees either Mason or Cassandra to call the police immediately. While their crimes are not violent, police do urge the public to not approach the couple. News of their crimes emerged after a group of online hackers released the information. Police then probed deeper, and found ample evidence to arrest the pair on charges of embezzlement and corporate theft.”
“The rich always want more,” Mom sighs. She turns to me. “Do you want a hot chocolate?” she asks. “I have some powder. I’ll make it with milk, like I did when you were a girl. How about that?”
I nod, numb, and then stand up. “Yeah, sure, just need the toilet.”
***
They could be anywhere, I think, sitting on the edge of the toilet seat. Goddamn it, they could be anywhere! I wrap my arms around my knees and rest my head on my thighs, hugging myself. More than anything I want to be with Maddox, want to wrap my arms around him, want to be with him. I want him to hold me close and whisper to me, “Everything with be alright, Red. I’m here. Don’t worry.”
But he’s not here, and I don’t have that comfort. Does he even know they’re missing? Would the police tell him? Or have Mason’s friends bribed them so effectively that they would still keep him in the dark even after the supposed victim has fled? I want to go and see him, to answer these questions, but he told me to stay somewhere hidden and now I see why. It’s possible that Cassandra is watching the police station.
A fugitive staking out a police station? It’s mad, but like Maddox said, Cassandra is mad. If there’s one thing that she would do, it’s that. I realize that I can’t put anything past her now. After all, this is the woman who punched her own eyes out – really did it, without makeup – to get her ex-boyfriend in trouble. What else would she do?
I stand up slowly, stretching my arms, and leave the bathroom. When I get to the top of the stairs, I see that Mom is at the bottom with a mug of steaming hot chocolate in her hand.
“Is everything alright?” she asks uncertainly. “You look as white as a sheet.”
“Everything’s fine,” I say, and somehow my voice stays steady.
Mom nods, but I can see it in her face, in the way her eyes seem to peer through me. She doesn’t believe me.
“It’s that woman on the TV,” I say, as I walk down the stairs.
“The embezzler?”
“That’s the one,” I say, taking the hot chocolate from her. “I know her. She’s—”
But I stop, looking at Mom’s face, at the wrinkles, at the pain written across her features. If I tell her that there’s a psychopath on the loose who wants to find and hurt me, she’ll make me go to the police. And if Cassandra really is staking out the station, she’ll see, and—
And what? Attack you outside a police station?
The thing is, that doesn’t seem so ridiculous after everything she’s done. And anyway, nobody knows I’m here. Cassandra doesn’t know where Mom lives. If I’m safe anywhere, it’s right here.
“She’s what?” Mom asks.
“An old friend from school,” I say. “It just shocked me seeing her on the news like that.”
“Oh, were you close?” Mom asks as we sit on the couch.
“Sort of,” I say. “We fought over the same boy once.”
“Well, it seems she’s graduated from fighting over boys, doesn’t it!”
I laugh, making it sound as real as possible, like fear isn’t lancing through my chest. “Yes, it seems so!”