The Accident by Linwood Barclay Page A

bedroom.”
    “The girls were playing hide-and-seek,” Ann explained. “I told her it was okay for her to hide in there.”
    “The kids should not be playing in our room. That’s off limits as far as—”
    “Okay, fine! Jesus, do we have to make a federal case out of this? You don’t think I’ve got enough to worry about?”
    “ You? You think you’re the only one with things to worry about? You think they think you’re in this on your own? Let me tell you something. If they take you down, they’re taking me with them.”
    “I know, okay, you’re right. All I’m saying is, there’s enough shit going on around here that I don’t have time to have some stupid fight about where the girls are playing in the house.”
    “Letting Emily even have a sleepover was a stupid idea,” Darren said accusingly.
    Ann gave him a look of exasperation. “What are we supposed to do? Just stop having lives while we try to sort this out? What do you want me to do? Ship Emily off to live with my sister or something until everything is back to normal?”
    “And how the hell much did you spend on pizza?” he asked. Waving his arms in the air, he said, “You think we’ve got money to just throw around?”
    “Right, Darren. That twenty bucks I spent on pizza, that’d make all the difference right now. We tell them, hey, look, here’s twenty bucks, cut us some slack.”
    He turned away angrily, then just as quickly turned back.
    “Were you on the phone a while ago?”
    “What?”
    “The light on the extension in the kitchen. It came on. Was that you?”
    Ann rolled her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”
    “I’m asking, were you on the phone?”
    “The kid called her dad, remember? He just left?”
    That shut him up for a moment. The whole time he’d been talking, Ann had been thinking, I have to get out of here . But she needed a reason. Something believable.
    The phone rang.
    There was a cordless extension in the living room. Ann was closer. She snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
    A voice shrieked, “He came to see me!”
    “Jesus, Belinda?”
    “He said I was running out of time! I was in the basement, I was getting some prescriptions ready and—”
    “Just calm down for a second and stop screaming in my ear. Who came to see you?”
    Darren said, “What’s going on?” Ann held up a palm.
    “The guy,” Belinda said. “The one you deal with. Honest to God, Ann, I thought, just for a second there … I didn’t know what he was going to do. I have to talk to you. We have to come up with this money. If we can just come up with thirty-seven thousand for him, and whatever you put in, I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ll pay you back.”
    Ann closed her eyes, thought about the money they needed. Maybeher earlier caller, the one she was going out to meet, could do more to bail them out. Say something like, This is it, this is the absolute last time, after this, I’ll never ask you for anything again .
    Something to think about.
    “Okay,” Ann said. “We’ll figure something out.”
    “I need to see you. We need to talk about this.”
    Perfect. “Okay,” Ann said. “I’ll head out now. I’ll call you on my cell in a minute and we’ll figure out where to meet.”
    “Okay,” Belinda said, sniffing. “I never should have got into this. Never. If I’d had any idea that—”
    “Belinda,” Ann said sharply. “I’ll see you soon.” She hung up and said to Darren, “He’s leaning on her.”
    “That’s just great,” he said.
    “I’m going out.”
    “Why?”
    “Belinda needs to talk about this.”
    Darren ran his fingers into his hair and pulled. He looked like he wanted to hit something. “You know we’re totally fucked, right? You never should have brought Belinda into this. She’s an idiot. That was your call. Not mine.”
    “I have to go.” Ann brushed past him, grabbed her jacket, car keys, and a purse that was on a bench near the front door, and left.
    Darren turned around