“What did you take? What did you take?” I cast my gaze around the room, expecting to see empty pill bottles or something. But that only happened in the movies. If Neil was really intent on killing himself, he would have disposed of the evidence.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.
“Tell me what you fucking took!” I didn’t wait for an answer. I charged to the bathroom and threw open the medicine cabinet. Nothing there but his usual prescriptions.
Except the Valium.
I grabbed the wastebasket and poured it out. The empty brown bottle clattered hollowly across the floor. God damn him.
Rushing back to the bedroom, I snatched up my phone.
“Sophie, don’t,” he pleaded. “Just—”
“What? Let you die?” I shouted. “I’m calling an ambulance!”
“No!” He lunged for me to get at the phone, and I took a step back.
“I swear, Neil, if you try that again, I will knock you so flat on your ass you won’t need pills to kill yourself!” I screamed, just as the emergency call connected. I didn’t even wait for the 911 operator finish asking what my emergency was. “My husband is trying to kill himself. He took a bunch of pills. I need an ambulance, right now!”
Neil got out of bed and pulled on the jeans he’d hastily discarded on the floor. Oh, god, that’s why we’d made love. He’d planned on it being the last time.
“Is he conscious?” the operator asked with authoritative calm.
“He is.” My fingers trembled around the phone.
“Do you know what he took?”
“Valium. I don’t know how much, but the whole bottle is empty.”
Neil headed for the door, and I raced him there, throwing myself in front of it and shouting, “No!”
“What’s going on?” the operator demanded. “Ma’am, are you in danger?”
“No.” Even now, as desperate as he was, Neil wasn’t going to hurt me. I knew that the way I knew the Earth was round. “No, he’s just trying to leave, and I don’t know what he’ll do.” I hurriedly recited out the address for her, even though she hadn’t asked, yet. “Please hurry!”
“I’ve got officers in the area, and they’re on the way,” she assured me. “Are there any firearms in the home?”
“No. None that I know of,” I revised. I had no idea if Neil had bought a gun as a backup option. I didn’t know anything about his plans. I didn’t know anything about him, right now, at all.
“Sophie, stop this.” He was trying to sound reasonable, but he was begging. His words were slurred. All the drugs he’d taken were apparently working. My entire body shook with the adrenaline coursing through me. I was fighting for Neil’s life, against Neil.
How did we get here?
The intercom was to my right. I hit the panic button. That would bring our security guards in seconds. I didn’t know if they could help, or if they would think we were just having an out of control domestic situation. Either way, they would buy me time. Neil couldn’t do anything drastic in front of them. Even if he did, they would probably help me stop him.
“I’ve got security on the premises,” I explained to the operator, while Neil scoffed as though I were having the worst overreaction in the history of overreactions. “I called them.”
“Are you in a gated residence?” the operator asked. Only in the Hamptons would that question be on the tip of a 911 operator’s tongue.
“We are, hang on!” I hit the intercom and shouted, “I need the gate open, right now!”
“Yes, Ms. Scaife,” the nightshift guy said immediately.
“Sophie, just stop!” Neil patted the air with his hands, gesturing for me to calm down. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Stay on the phone with me, ma’am,” the operator instructed.
“God damn it, listen to me, Sophie!” Neil shouted, and I flinched. We’d had arguments before. We’d had shouting fights. But not like this. He looked like he hated me.