The first thing Natalie remembered afterward wasn’t the pain.
It was the sound.
A soft, ugly sound like a wet rag slapped against marble, followed by the thin metallic rattle of picture frames as they jumped on the wall. It took her a second to realize the wet rag was her body, and the marble was the gleaming edge of the bookshelf she’d dusted that morning because Armstrong liked things “presentable.”
Presentable. That word lived in the house like a religion.
Her mouth tasted like pennies. Her lip was split, and warm blood ran down her chin in a slow line, like time itself had decided to leak out of her.
Three men stood near the sofa. Not guests. Not friends. Not delivery drivers who’d gotten the wrong address.
Thugs.
They filled the room with the kind of weight that made oxygen feel expensive.
And Armstrong sat in his favorite chair by the fireplace, bourbon in hand, watching as if he’d ordered entertainment and it was finally arriving.
Natalie’s hands were still wrapped in a dish towel. She’d been chopping vegetables. She’d been thinking about dinner, about how she could make something that might soften him, something warm that might coax him back into the person who once held an umbrella over her on Fifth Street.
That person did not exist anymore.
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