The sun was setting outside, but there were two long windows on one wall and the curtains were open, so there was still enough light to see without turning on a lamp. The shadows were long, giving the large, elegant bedroom an ominous feel.
In the far corner, I found Emery with her back to me, sitting on the floor with the skirt of her green dress ballooned around her and her shoes and purse off to the side. The Lagerfield was identical to mine, except it was surrounded by wooden walls and the door at the front was decorated with silver knobs. It was a clever disguise to hide the safe inside a faux dresser, but it wasn’t enough to fool my girl.
Her amplifier and graph were taped to the safe, and her paper was full of dots and crossed off numbers. Way more than I’d ever seen her use, telling the story of her struggle.
“Hey,” I whispered, creeping toward her as I slipped my hand into my interior coat pocket and pulled out a set of gloves.
She turned to face me, and my heart broke. It sank so much it plummeted all the way to the first floor of the house. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and I could see the shiny streaks of tears down her cheeks. She’d been crying.
Her voice was shaky and rasped with emotion. “I don’t think I can do it.”
I knelt beside her on the floor, quickly sliding my gloves on, and put my arm around her to pull her up against me. “It’s okay. Tell me what’s going on. Is it the amp?”
She sucked in a short breath. “Maybe? I don’t know. This Lagerfield sounds totally different than yours.” She gestured to the paper, glaring at it. “I’ve tried so many different combinations. I wasn’t sure if twenty-eight is right, or if it’s twenty-nine, but I went through all fifteen sequences for each and none of them worked. I mean, I even started over to make sure the drive cam has four wheels like yours, and it does.”
I felt utterly powerless, and I fucking hated the feeling. “So, where are you now? Is there another number you’re questioning?”
She nodded slowly. “Seventy-three. It’s sticky around that one, but the click leans more toward seventy-four. But, Vance, I’ve been trying that. I went through the sequence using seventy-four and twenty-eight, and all those failed. I’m almost done trying it with twenty-nine, and if that doesn’t work . . .” She looked utterly lost, and her chin began to wobble.
“Shh,” I said softly, squeezing her tightly. “It’s going to work.”
I’d never asked the universe for anything before. I’d been too young to do it when my mother had lain dying in a hospital, so wasn’t I owed a favor from the universe now? I needed this to work out, not for me, but for her. I couldn’t care less in this moment about whatever incriminating evidence was inside the safe or what would happen to me.
I wanted this victory for Emery.
And Wayne Lambert deserved retribution for what he’d done to her.
She swallowed so hard, it was audible, and her hand reached out, twisting the dial to the right to start entering the combination. I held my breath as she spun back and forth between the numbers, and then she gripped the spoke on the wheel.
It didn’t turn. She drew a line through the sequence she’d just tried, making her pencil scratch loudly across the paper.
“Try the next one,” I said before she let the rejection get to her and shut her down.
It was a losing battle. Defeat clung to her expression as she cleared out the dial and started again. I watched the numbers as they went by, double-checking them against the next set on her list. She tried the wheel, but it didn’t budge, and then she angrily swiped her pencil over the sequence.
My mouth was dry, and my heart pounded as she took a deep breath and began to enter the next sequence. She went slower than before, and my heartrate climbed with each number that ticked by. Back and forth the dial moved, painstakingly slow. She stopped on the final number and sat back, her hands resting on her knees.
“That’s it.” Her voice was coated with dread. “That’s the last one.”
If it didn’t work, we were finished, and time suspended. The room became a vacuum.
She was paralyzed with fear, unwilling to handle the defeat of it not opening, and I understood that. I filled my lungs with air and decided I’d do this for her. I’d deal with the sensation of the wheel not turning, and the bolt staying in place.
If that happened, I had to believe we’d figure out a way to overcome this. I wouldn’t stop until she had what she wanted.