Chapter One

Renos

The presents under the dimly-lit tree were shiny like they had lights beneath them, making their paper glisten.

I ran a finger across the shimmering silver gift at the foot of the tree, sticking out onto the area rug. There was nothing but a huge S on the tag. No name, just an S. I ran my fingers across the S and realized it felt wet.

When I lifted my fingers, they were red. The S turned to blood and ran down the tag, making a puddle on the wooden floor.

“Shit!” I panicked, looking around for something to mop it up before it stained my area rug.

That really is the problem with being a mom, you can't switch off the need to mop up spills, even in a dream where presents bleed onto your floor. All you really see is another f**king mess to clean up. That would be why I wake up tired most days, I'm even cleaning in my dreams.

Who am I kidding? My savage addiction to caffeine had to be at least half the reason I was so tired. I wasn’t even human until my second cup of coffee.

But as the dream faded, I didn’t wake up tired that morning. I woke feeling nauseated, my head spinning.

My blurry eyes burned when I opened them so I closed them again immediately.

The crick in my back was worse. Great. My to-do list started to rifle through my head, looking for an empty slot to fit a massage, or at least a chiropractor, into.

Jules’ seventh birthday had passed, of course, but the party was still planned for Saturday. I needed to pick up the cake and a Monster High doll for each girl attending. Yeah, I was going to be the rich mom who was able to buy each girl a Monster High, instead of a shitty, little goodie bag. Let the snooty moms enjoy me upping the ante on that one.

Ha, bitches!

I went to fluff my pillow but it wasn’t there. My hand dragged along the bed but then I realized it was the floor.

I’d fallen out of bed again?

Another restless night?

I opened my eyes to see my attic.

Shit.

Sleep walking?

I looked around, “How the hell?” The attic was closed up completely. Why had I come up there? There was almost nothing up there, just me and Jules’ old rocking chair in the corner next to all the crap I still had to sort through. Most of it was from James' ‘escape my wife and kids’ death, and then his real death.

Knowing him, he’d be like the monsters in the horror movies and just keep coming back.

Fucker. Skeezy f**ker.

I sighed and sat up, but my head spun.

“Shit.”

I shook my head and tried to see the broad scope of my being in the attic alone. I hadn’t crawled up there. I hadn’t closed myself in, so there were larger issues I wasn’t addressing yet. I looked around the room, nodding. I had been put up there.

How had they done it?

I smacked my lips together, noticing something. I had all the side effects of a drugging—funny metallic taste, foggy brain, thick tongue, stomach ache, crusty eyes, and I couldn’t reach the fear and anger attempting desperately to get to me. My old spy body tried frantically to make me aware of my situation.

I looked at the hatch, it was closed. If I’d been sleepwalking, which I hadn’t done since I was nine, I wouldn’t have been able to close the hatch.

No, someone had put me up there.

I scrambled to the hatch and started to pound on it, “Mitch! Jules! Mom!” The desperation was fighting the frog in my throat as I screamed. The unimaginable started to fill my head. What if they had my children? Why had my mom not saved us?

A light stream of smoke started to filter up through the cracks.

Was the house on fire? I sniffed the smoke, coughing a little. It was real. It was all real.

"MOM!"

The raging scream for my mom left my lips just as I recalled them taking a trip. She had them at a ‘company-owned’ resort for the weekend. Payment for the suck-ass trip to ‘Thailand’. They were probably at Camp David, poor kids. God knew what she did in her free time. Nothing like democratic politicians telling stories and drinking too much while operating the boat.

I winced. At least they were safer than I was.

The good news though, they weren’t with me. The bad news, I was alone and my house was on fire.

Maybe I’d drank too much. What had I done last night?

I’d drank red wine, the new Dreaming Tree. I'd eaten a pad Thai frozen dinner and watched half of the second season of Vampire Diaries on Netflix.

Mmmmm Damon.

Everything came back into my memory slowly, and the red wine and Damon lingered in there.

My delayed reactions and dulled senses started to fade as the small traces of smoke filtering into the attic from the upstairs increased.

Was it a frame-up to make the world believe I was dead, or was it a real attempt? I looked around the attic and nodded, “It’s real, Evie.” They would have told me I was being offed if it wasn't real.

The tiny vent, in the top corner of the front of the house, was the only way out. The whole attic was a death trap.

In my peripheral, I caught a glimpse of something polished. I turned my head to see my wedding ring, engagement ring, grandmother’s ring, and my locket, all sitting in a neat little pile near the hatch, awaiting its chance to ID me after the fire.

“Shit.”

The monster from the horror movies was back. Had he done this? Had he put me up here and put my jewelry there, for me?

I reached for them, but my fingers froze along the way to touching them. If they wanted me dead, wasn’t it better if I were dead? It would be better if my ‘dead husband’ thought me to be gone.

Fuck it, I grabbed my locket. I needed that. The rest could burn, but I needed that piece of him.

I looked around. Ideas came fast, but they mostly involved Coop saving me—or Damon. Either would be acceptable.

“Shit.”

I spun in a circle, assessing every object within the small room.

I muttered, “Useless shit.” I sat down on my heels and smacked my forehead. “Evie, come on, wake up. Think Evie, think.” I needed to come up with a plan. My brain was stuck on Damon auto play and the drug hang-on wasn’t letting me switch channels. Him shirtless, drinking scotch and smirking the way he always did. Dear God, I was about to die and that was all I could think of.

I looked back over at the rocking chair and wriggled my lips.

I got up and dragged it to the side of the room where the vent was. It was several feet away still, but if I could get to the beam, I could swing over to the vent. I started piling books and boxes on top of the chair. It rocked and knocked everything off.

“Oh, Evie. Come on,” I sighed and placed a book under either side of the rocker to stabilize it. My eyes watered, and not from my usual self-pity tears. The smoke was starting to get quite thick. I coughed and stacked the boxes, books, and bags again. It made an unstable tower but it was the best I could do.

Looking around the space, I sighed at my hatred of old furniture. If I hadn’t hated it, we would have had old dressers and shit stacked up here. Instead, we had bags of clothes I wasn’t ready to part with, all size twos and possibly containing shoulder pads and acid wash. Then there was the stash of his shit I had tossed up there, not ready to burn just yet. I didn’t want my kids to think I was a soulless whore. Not to mention, the boxes of books like Sweet Valley High and V.C. Andrews. Books I swore I would save for my daughter, if I ever had one.

I glanced at the Flowers in the Attic book and shuddered; Jules would never be allowed to read that. Never. Clearly, not a well-thought-out plan on my part. It did, however, make me want to have a little conversation with my mom. What had she been thinking, letting me read it? It might have explained a few of my sexual preferences Servario had discovered, like having my hair pulled and my ass spanked. I blushed and forced him out of my head.

I held myself steady with one hand on the wall and started to climb the stack of crap with my other hand and my feet. I clung to the wood so hard my fingers began to bleed. My dream started to feel real. I felt like any second I would find an S made of blood as a signature and a farewell.

What if it was Servario trying to kill me, like he’d threatened to do tons of times?

I had no answer that I could trust. I knew my vagina’s answer was a hearty no. But I couldn’t trust that slut.

My brain screamed that I had only ever spent a week with him and he had stuck his finger in my bum. He was not to be trusted.

Tears streamed from my eyes from the exertion and the smoke. I grabbed onto the edge of the wall where the insulation ended and the beams were. I started to pull myself up, but my feeble arms shook. I cried out as more blood dripped from my fingers and splinters got lodged in them. I had to hold myself in place as I kicked away from the chair and climbed the wall with my toes. I managed to get in a near pull-up and swing my arm up and out to grab a beam in the trusses. I hung there, panting and unsure of what was next. The brilliant plan had been to get to the vent, but I didn’t feel like I had gotten much closer since I still had to get my body up onto the beam. The smoke was thicker, the higher I went, and my fingers were about to let go as droplets of blood left them and greased the beam I clutched to.

I felt the urge to give up, but Jules’ birthday party and Mitch’s soccer game were next Saturday. Not to mention, the start of school in a few weeks. I was too busy to give up. I started to move across the beam, like it was a monkey bar. I managed to get one leg on the beam and hung on with that leg as I swung with the other when I got close enough to the spot where the vent was. My core was strong. I might not have strong arms anymore, but I had killer abs. Thank you, hot yoga for not being completely useless.

I swung, catching my toes on the ledge of the vent and paused, starting to laugh.

What the f**k was I thinking?

I was going to fall and die or get hurt enough that escaping the fire would be impossible.

I crawled my hands closer to my feet, wrapped the extending leg over the beam, and hung there again upside down. I was nearly wheezing from exertion, and my hands were leaving bloodstains everywhere they touched.

I called out desperately, “COOPER!” He might hear me with all his cameras and bugs.