"How long have I been out?" I asked, my voice still feeling like it belonged to a stranger. Sarki caught my gaze, her expression softening. "Two days, Megs."
"And the body? The car? My God... what about everything else?" The panic began to claw at my throat again.
"Vanessa handled it," Sarki explained, her tone clinical and steady. "Well, not her personally, but a specialized firm. The scene has been... sanitized. There is no evidence you were everin that car, no record of your call, and no witness who saw you leave together."
A wave of nausea-inducing relief washed over me, immediately followed by a crushing weight of guilt. Before I could process the magnitude of what they’d done, Ali, the doctor from our night together, entered the room with a reassuring smile.
She moved with practiced efficiency, examining my vitals and asking me to perform small, agonizing movements. She noted everything on her clipboard before a man I didn't recognize stepped into the room.
After a brief, whispered consultation with Ali, he turned toward the bed.
"Mrs. Woods, I'm glad to see you’re finally with us. I'm Max, Kelsey’s personal doctor." I offered a small, pained nod, feeling Kelsey’s fingers tracing soothing patterns through my hair. "You took a severe blow to the face, fractured your collarbone, and suffered significant hypothermia. Now that you're stable, we’re removing the monitors. Your medication will be strictly oral from here on out."
"But you aren’t leaving this house until her course of treatment is finished, Max," Kelsey’s voice was an iron command.
"Of course, Kelsey. The entire team is at her disposal for the week," he replied, bowing slightly to her authority.
The moment the medical staff cleared the room, the atmosphere shifted. Lisa and Sarki exchanged a look, one of those heavy, indecipherable glances that usually preceded a storm.
"What is it?" I asked, sensing the shift.
"We were terrified, Megan," Sarki snapped, her composure finally breaking. "Do you have any idea how reckless you were? Charging after that son of a bitch on your own? We had a dozen other ways to get that phone back."
"Sarki is right, baby girl" Lisa added, her voice lower but no less intense. "You’d been drinking the night before, the car wasn't even yours, and you were seen at the hotel... You almost threw your entire life away."
"But none of that happened. She’s alive, and she’s safe," Kelsey intervened, her voice dropping an octave as she leaned down to press a tender kiss to my temple. "Not that you don't deserve the lecture, believe me, you do. But we’ve already handled the fallout."
"The funeral..." I started, the word feeling heavy and metallic in my mouth. "Has it already happened?"
"Next week," Sarki answered, her eyes fixed on me with a clinical intensity. "Vanessa and I have discussed it, and we agree: it’s best if you attend. You need to show up and support the family. Play the part of the grieving ex-wife one last time."
I offered a slow, weary nod of agreement. The irony wasn't lost on me; I would be standing over the casket of the man I had essentially watched sink into the abyss, shedding fake tears for the sake of a clean record.
"It’s the final seal on the story," Vanessa added, appearing in the doorway. "If you’re there, crying in the front row, no one looks for a motive. No one asks why he was on that road. You’re just the tragic ex-wife of a tragic accident."
#47
"But blessed with beauty and rage. Jim told me that, he hit me and it felt like a kiss” Lana Del Rey
Shit. A thousand times, shit.
The second we reached the gas station, the air had turned to ice—and not just because of the storm. Megan had started babbling, her voice a fractured mess, confessing that Peter was in the car. Dead. Which was a godsend in terms of the blackmail, but a logistical nightmare for everything else.
I sat in one of the kitchen chairs, a blank sheet of paper before me, scribbling out scenarios like a general planning a siege. Sarki had given me the room to handle it, but the truth was, I dreaded making the one call that could fix this. I didn't want to involve my sister.
Instead, I called Pietra because I know she had always been my shadow, my extension within that complicated family.
"What did you do this time to make you call me?"Pietra’s voice came through, her Italian accent thick and melodic, a sing-song lilt that made me ache for a life I’d left behind.
"I need help," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I need to erase a body and reconstruct a crime scene. Who do I call?"
"Damn, Vanessa... I love a good mess,"she laughed."Too bad we’re already in Brazil. I’ll send you Psico’s contact info. Tell them you’re with me. They’ll have a narrative written in blood and ink before sunrise."
"Pietra, I love you."
"I love you too, Kiddo. Stay safe. I’m watching you."
Psico, the premier specialists in cleaning up Mexico’s most sensitive 'mishaps', responded within minutes. They were sending a team across the border immediately.
