The door to the bathroom is open, of course, since there’s nobody here but me. Out in the hallway, I hear Bert’s familiar limping gait. The tags on his collar knock rhythmically against his cone of shame. I expect to hear his nails clack on the bathroom tile next, as he comes in to pay me a visit. But instead, he stops abruptly, then breaks into an uneven run down the stairs.
I crack my eyes open for a second, wondering what he’s seen or heard down on the first floor that would get his attention. Probably the shadow of a bird flying past the front window. I let my eyes flutter shut again, the dulcet tones of Chet Baker singing of his broken heart lulling me back.
The song ends, and I wait for the next one on the album to start.
Instead, what I hear is a metallic click that at first I don’t recognize.
But when I do, it makes my blood turn to ice.
“Hello, December,” Mark says.
My eyelids fly open. He’s standing in the bathroom doorway, in dark jeans and a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck.
In his right hand is a pistol. And it’s pointed at me.
A scream wrenches from my throat. I sit up in the tub so fast that water sloshes out of it. Frantically, I reach for the towel to cover myself.
Mark chuckles, but the sound has no humor. It’s bitter. Like poison.
“There’s not much point in that, is there?” He indicates the towel. “Covering yourself from your husband. I’ve seen you naked a thousand times, Ember.”
“What are you doing here?” I half-shriek. My eyes ping-pong from the gun to his eyes. My skin feels like it’s buzzing, an electric current of terror running through it.
“You’re not going to fucking ruin me.” His face twists into a grimace. “You little bitch. You little fucking bitch.”
“What are you talking about?” The water in the bath is hot, but I’m already starting to shake. I know it’s from adrenaline. Fear spikes through my veins. “I haven’t done anything, Mark!”
“No, you fucking haven’t!” he rages. “And you’re not going to. Fletcher Hadley is already fucking sniffing around, do you know that? He told me he talked to you at the gala, and that you seemed surprised that I was making him so much money. He called me the next day, and asked me for financial statements. Trust but verify, he said. Then he talked to his friends who were clients of mine and had them do the same.”
“Why was that a problem?” I ask, but of course I know. Deep down, I know.
Mark’s eyes slip off to the side for a half-second, before coming back to focus on me. “I had some investments go bad. A cash flow problem. No one would have ever been the wiser, except for you.”
“That’s why you withdrew all the money from our account,” I breathe. “There never was a plot of land from your Uncle Harold, was there?”
“Hadley wants the statements. When he sees…” Mark falters, the gun in his hand straying from me for just a second. “Get out,” he barks. “Get out of the fucking bath. Now.”
“Mark —”
“Now!”
Trembling, I grab the edge of the tub with one hand, holding the towel over my body with the other to hide my nakedness.
“I said I’ve seen you naked a thousand time!” he roars. “Don’t pretend to be modest, you fucking bitch, when you’re nothing but a cheating whore! You’re still married to me and you’re spreading your fucking legs for that biker!”
I step out of the bath, but I don’t drop the towel. Instead, I wrap it, still dripping, around myself. I want to tell him we’re not married, he has no right to say these things, but he’s so angry I’m afraid he’ll shoot me.
“What’s the plan here, Mark?” I say instead, trying to project a calm I don’t feel at all.
“You’re gonna pay me back.” His lips twist into a grimace.
I risk a glance at him. “What do you mean? You’ve already taken money that was half mine.”
“You cost me everything!” he seethes. His eyes are wild, bulging orbs. “It’s your fucking fault. And I’m taking it back, and then some.”
Mark backs out of the bathroom into the hall. With the pistol, he waves at me to do the same. I can’t think of any other options, so I do as he says. I’ve reached the doorway to the bathroom when Bert comes up, wagging his tail. He gives a hopeful bark and plants himself in front of Mark, hoping to play.
Wordlessly, Mark shifts his weight and lifts up his leg. He gives Bert a vicious kick in the chest that sends him toppling down the stairs with a wounded yelp.
“Bert!” I cry. Reflexively I take a step forward, but Mark twists toward me and brandishes the gun.
“Stop!” he grits out.
I glance over at the stairway, and I see Bert’s head peeking up from the third or fourth step from the top. He looks so meek and afraid, and somehow, that’s what finally breaks me. A sob rips through me.
“I’m so sorry, Bertie,” I whisper at him, wishing with all my heart I could go wrap my arms around him.
“You always were a soft idiot about those dogs,” Mark says with disgust. “You never figured it out about Ernie, did you?”
I stare at him, tears running down my face. “What do you mean?”
And then, slowly, it dawns on me what he must mean.
We got Bert and Ernie at the same time, but Ernie was always more “my dog.” He followed me around exclusively, and somehow never seemed to really warm up to Mark. Ernie’s death traumatized me for months. It was the day after a particularly bad fight with Mark. I was at the office in the afternoon, working late and putting off returning home, when I got a call from him saying Ernie had been hit by a car. I rushed to the vet’s office, but when I got there they told me the internal damage was too great and that we would have to put him down.
No one ever came forward to admit responsibility for hitting Ernie. I always assumed it was a cowardly hit and run. It broke my heart to think that maybe if they had stopped and taken him to the vet immediately after the accident, he could have been saved.
But now, I stare at my husband in that hallway, horrified.
“It was you,” I choke. “You killed him.”
“That night of our fight,” he tells me, his mouth twisting into a leering grin. “You went to sleep in the guest room, with Ernie beside you. Instead of apologizing to me — instead of ending the argument — you went with him.” He waits a moment, to let the full weight of his words sink in. “You chose a dog over me, Ember. A dog.”
“Oh, my God,” I breathe.
“And Bert’s leg?” he continues casually. “Yeah, that wasn’t an accident.”
“You were the one who broke in that day?” I gasp.
“Margot told me the biker was hanging around because they thought you were in danger from some dirtbags they knew.” He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “You didn’t have the sense not to take them on as clients, December. I thought maybe you’d have the sense to drop them once you saw you were in actual danger. But I guess you were too much of a slut to do that.”
“You broke Bert’s leg to scare me,” I murmur, dazed with horror. Even from Mark — even after everything he’s just said — I can barely make my brain take this in.