Page 40 of The Exit Strategy

Arrangement.“Blackmail” would be too crass, too honest. And Natalie only speaks in lies and propaganda.

The memory of her betrayal lashes out at me in the dark—a quick one-two punch I never saw coming.

For the first few months, I wondered which loss was greater, my work or my family, and how she had managed to rip both away from me.

Six months in, and I knew which was worse. I’ve sat in the grief ever since.

Every once in a while, she’ll send me a photograph tokeep me in line. A photo strategically taken of a twenty-three-year-old and his best friend’s teenage sister who look, when framed just right, like something they’re not.

Sometimes it’s a photo of the foreclosure notice Junie never saw.

But it’s not just the threat those pictures created that gutted my life and rebuilt it according to her blueprint. It’s the video—that my misplaced trust allowed her to acquire—that keeps me in line, tethered to her fiction, while the life I could have had moves on without me.

An arrangement.

Bile coats the back of my throat. Opening another of her threats is the only time my body betrays what I’ve gotten so good at hiding—the fear, the shame, the quiet rage that has nowhere to go because the only person I’m angry at is myself.

The blackmail works because somewhere, in the deepest recesses of my mind, it holds a truth I can never explain. It’s what keeps me jumping when she calls because it’s the only thing I can do now to protect Junie’s future, even if no one ever knows of the price I pay to keep her safe.

Natalie didn’t invent the guilt I carry. She found it, framed it, and handed it back to me in the shape of her cage.

I close the drawer and lock away herarrangementfor another month.

Then I stare out my window and into Junie’s, willing her to turn on a light as though she’s been waiting for me too.

By midnight, it’s obvious that she’s shut me out again, so I head to the garage and quietly load up my wheelbarrow with LED strip lights that are waterproof and low voltage in a warm white.

I ordered them after Junie navigated her staircase in the dark. The railings are too low for my liking, and the landinghas no overhead fixture. It’s been on my personal list since before she arrived, but my personal list gets even less attention than Marley’s written warnings.

The lighting became a priority when I saw her catch herself on the wall.

I think I lost five years of my life when she stumbled and I was too far away to catch her.

It’s a safety issue, and I would be a terrible landlord if I didn’t fix it. The fact that I picked warm white because it would be softer on her eyes when she climbs her stairs at night is irrelevant.

The installation takes just over two hours because I’m working in the dark, wearing a headlamp on its lowest setting. Junie was always a light sleeper, and the last thing I need is her finding me on her staircase in the middle of the night with a screwdriver and asking for an explanation I don’t have to give.

I almost snort when that conversation plays in my head.

Why are you installing lights on my stairs at two in the morning, Cole?

Because you almost fell. Because the railing should be taller. Because you work until your eyes cross and then you navigate these steps in the dark, and I can’t fix the twenty things between us, but I can fix this one thing, and I need to fix something. I need to be useful to you in at least one way that doesn’t cost us anything.

Yeah. That would go overreallywell.

I mount the strips along the underside of each tread so they illuminate the path without being harsh. When that’s done, I add motion sensors to the wires and then test them.

The stairs light up one by one, each step outlined in soft light, then I pack up my tools and wipe down each step.

At the top, through the glass in her door, I can just makeout the shape of her laptop on the kitchen island. Which means she’s still combing through The Haven’s books, and it’s only a matter of time before she finds more.

She always will—it’s who she is.

I only hope she finds proof before it’s too late. Because the destruction Devin left behind has the potential to lead straight to the trigger that blew up my world six years ago. And if Junie finds out the truth, none of our lives will ever be the same again.

9

STAIRWAY TO SPITE