Page 45 of The Devil She Knows
Who was she, if not in love with Hannah?
Clearly, she and Daphne did not see eye to eye. If Samdidn’t know better, she’d think Daphne’s disdain for love was personal.
“It sounds a little to me like you’re speaking from experience,” she said. “The personal kind.”
Daphne’s eyes flickered to Sam’s, and her jaw hardened with a barely perceptible twitch that Sam would’ve missed had she not been watching her so closely. Close enough to pick up on the subtlest changes, the way any trace of warmth left her eyes, her face cold and shuttered, like a veiled bust made of marble.
“Would you like to know what the woman whose heart you’resohell-bent on winning is doing right now?” Daphne walked over to the media cabinet and turned the topmost knob on the television. Black-and-white static flickered across the screen, crunchy white noise filling the room. She rotated the knob a few clicks and the static cleared, a picture finally coming through. “While you have been turning yourself inside out trying to make her love you,thisis what Hannah’s been doing.”
Reluctantly, Sam stepped closer, eyes on the screen.
She was looking at a bedroom, that much she could tell, but not one she recognized. The walls were painted red, the bed positioned next to a window overlooking the city, a sliver of the East River in view. It was night. Nothing happened.
“What am I looking at?”
“Just keep watching,” Daphne said tonelessly. “You’ll see.”
From outside the frame came the sound of a door opening. Hannah stepped into view, wearing the same cornflowerblue dress she’d had on at the restaurant where Sam had proposed. She walked backward into the bedroom, a smileflirting at the edges of her lips, looking at something offscreen. Her hands rose, reaching for and slowly unbuttoning the row of tiny pearl buttons running down her front.
Sam shouldn’t have been watching this. It didn’t matter that she’d watched Hannah undress a million times before; Hannah didn’t know Sam was watching now, and if she did, she’d probably have words for her. It was wrong, it was an invasion of privacy, and it made Sam’s chest tight, but for some reason, she couldn’t look away.
Hannah’s dress hit the floor and—
Coco Duquette stepped into the frame.
Sam’s heart pounded. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. Her tongue felt huge in her chalk-dry mouth and her skin felt too tight, like it was shrink-wrapped around her bones. Her eyes burned from not blinking, her vision beginning to blur, and still she couldn’t look away, not even when Coco put her hands on Hannah, palms on her waist, sliding up over her ribs, cupping her bare—
Sam was going to be sick.
Standing beside the TV, Daphne rotated the knob another click, and the picture changed. Sam would’ve called it a small mercy had this new scene not told the same story, only on a different day. On the screen, Hannah and Coco were locked in an embrace, Hannah’s mouth leaving a trail of lipstick kisses down the front of Coco’s throat. Hannah’s hair was long and loose, falling down around her shoulders, the length it had been some six months ago, before she’d chopped it off at her shoulders.
Daphne reached for the knob and a whimper clawed its way up Sam’s throat.
“Don’t.” She pressed a fist against her stomach as if that would settle it. “That’s enough.”
Something soft and sorrowful flickered in Daphne’s eyes. By the time Sam blinked, it was gone. A trick of the light, no doubt. Daphne’s eyes were pretty little chips of ice, her gaze cold and sharp. “I’m sure this is hard for you to see, Sam, but you need to understand that—”
“Hard for me to see?” Sam scoffed and rubbed her eyes as if by doing so she could banish what she’d seen from her brain. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I knew you were evil, but I didn’t think that you’d stoop so low as to do something as—asdespicableas this.”
On the television, a scene out of Sam’s worst nightmare continued to play out. Except not even her subconscious could cook up something as awful as this, the idea of Hannah and Coco …togethernever once crossing her mind.
Daphne’s brows drew together. “Not to be platitudinous at a time like this, but shooting the messenger isn’t going to change the fact that—”
“Messenger?” Sam thrust a hand out at the television. “That isnotreal.”
Daphne’s brow smoothed, her lips parting soundlessly. “Sam, no. This isn’t a trick. What you’re seeing? It really happened. It’s happening as we speak, and it’s been happening right under your nose for months.”
“Not a trick? And why should I believe a goddamn word that comes out of your mouth? You lie. That’s what you do. You lie and you trick, and you prey on people. Desperate people. Don’t you see that makes you a terrible person? What am I saying? You’re not even a person at all. You’re ademonand I’m—I’m a fool for getting into bed with you.” Her vision went fractal, and she scrubbed at her eyes. “God, I don’t even know why I’m bothering to say any of this to you. You don’t care. You probably think this is funny, don’t you? Fodder to take back to your buddies and laugh about around some fucked-up demon watercooler? Tell me,Daphne, what circle of Hell is that in, huh?”
Sam’s breath hitched and she quickly dragged the side of her hand under her nose, beneath her eyes. Daphne had taken enough pleasure in her pain, and Sam wouldn’t give Daphne the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
“Do you feel better now?” Daphne asked quietly. “Now that you got that off your chest?”
Sam clenched her jaw and looked away.
No. She didn’t feel better. She felt sick to her stomach about it all. What she’d seen, what she’d been told, lashing out even if it was warranted, all of it.
“You don’t have to believe me,” Daphne said. “But deep down, Sam, youknowthat what I just showed you is real.”
