Page 59 of Escape Girl

Thanks so much,

Emily

I hit Send and glanced through the room service menu, but nothing sounded appetizing. Not even a plain cheese pizza. Was Bobby eating today? Hating myself, I looked through my list of unopened emails just to be one hundred percent sure there wasn’t a new escape room invitation.

Of course there wasn’t.

Sloan said he hadn’t gone to work yesterday and hadn’t been in this morning. I practically had to sit on my hands not to text her and ask if he’d appeared in the afternoon. Bobby was noneof my business anymore. I had no right to any information about him. I didn’t deserve the smallest of facts.

Frankly, I didn’t even feel like I deserved to eat lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever meal this was.

In whatever day this was. In whatever city this was.

My euphoria at finding Hill was draining as fast as water down a toilet bowl. What did it really matter anyway? I’d already known Taggert was scum. Was finding out that his lawyer also sucked really any sort of help?

The facts of the case remained the same; nothing had changed. Taggert had the money, resources, and relationships to drag this on for years. Bella didn’t have money or years. If I didn’t get my butt back to New York soon, the partners would find another workhorse to fill my position.

Nothing I’d found today mattered.

No—even simpler: nothing mattered. Not anymore.

The wave of panic I’d held at bay, the panic I’d been able to suppress today with work…it was coming for me now. It swamped over me, just like the night a few weeks back when I realized it had been exactly a year since I’d met Bobby.

I welcomed it.

I heard the wheezing coming from my mouth like it was a sound from someone else. My extremities felt cold, numb with pins and needles. My hands cramped into strange little paws. My forehead and cheeks grew damp with sweat, and my vision went black at the edges.

Good. I didn’t really want to see any more of the world today anyway.

Chapter Nineteen

Bang! Bang! Bang!

What the hell? I wheezed in as much air as I could and pushed myself out of the desk chair.Bang! Bang! Bang!Was that someone knocking on the door? It sounded more like they were trying to break it down.

“Open up, Emily!” a woman called. I gulped in a little more air, trying to place the voice. Not that I needed to since she immediately followed up with, “It’s Tess and Jo, and we’re coming in!”

Oh for fuck’s sake. What waswiththe women in this city? Couldn’t they just let me fall apart in peace? Supreme irritation distracted my brain long enough for my lungs to grab more oxygen.

I swung open the door. “You’re not coming in unless I say you’re coming in.” I’d wanted to meet Tess’s attitude with a bunch of my own, but my trembling, breathless, sweaty gasp-announcement didn’t quite cut it.

Tess raised a saucy eyebrow. “OK,” she drawled, tapping her booted foot and holding up a brown paper shopping bag. “But if you don’t let us in, you don’t get what’s in the bag. You’re really going to say no to tacos, chips, and guacamole? Is that even legal?”

My lungs were barely working, and my brain didn’t want any, but my stomach roared at the scent of chipotle and lime. Enough to make me waver at the door instead of shutting it in their faces.

Jo stood silently, her brown-eyed gaze seeing way too much: my chest heaving to catch more air, my flushed and dampened face, my manic blinks over dead eyes.

I’d been expecting Tess to charge right in, but it was Jo who actually pushed right past me, ignoring my strangled peep of protest. “Sit on the bed,” she said firmly.

I did what she asked, but only because my knees were buckling anyway. When my butt hit the mattress, I almost fell sideways off the bed, but Tess crossed the room in one long stride and steadied me. “Shit, what’s wrong?” she hissed.

“Emily, close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” Jo said. Her voice sounded far away. “Focus on making your exhalation longer than your inhalation.

“She’s having a panic attack,” she said, presumably to Tess.

They murmured back and forth to each other a few times, but I couldn’t make out the words over the static in my ears. But eventually the focused, measured breathing did help; my muscles in my neck and shoulders relaxed.

“I’m OK,” I breathed, standing gingerly and crossing the room to put some space between me and these uninvited guests. In the bathroom, I splashed cold water a few times before opening the door. “I’m OK now.”

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