Chapter 1
Rachel
This morning, I kissed my husband goodbye, aware that he’d be searching frantically for my body by noon.
Jake wouldn’t, of course, appreciate the hard work behind today’s events. He’d never know that every hour of the next forty-eight had been coordinated and orchestrated to perfection. Three weeks, that’s how long these wheels have been in motion, ever since I walked into the local bookstore, an iced toffee latte in hand, and settled in front of the Relationships section, bent on finding a solution for my lonely excuse for a marriage.
8 Steps to Fix Your Problematic Marriagewas on the second shelf, and it was later, wrapped in a cashmere-blend blanket and curled up in the big leather chair in my reading room, that I discovered the major issues in our relationship. According to Step 2, it wasn’t that Jake didn’t love me; it’s that he hadn’t been fulfilled in his Core Desires, one of which is To Be Needed. Given my trust fund, I’d stripped him of any role as a financial provider. He had quit his job when we married, a transition that, as Chapter 19 explained, likely caused an uncomfortable shift of roles to one where he felt unneeded.
I understood that—Hadunderstood that risk from the very beginning, which is why I’d been fully supportive in pushing for Jake to open his own garage. I’d financed everything, from the building to the car lift to the thousands upon thousands of dollars of tools and equipment that it apparently took to change flat tires and replace brake pads.
And look what had happened. He hadn’t listened to one piece of my advice, and the business had failed in an expensive and disastrous fashion, which, according to Chapter 21, likely contributed to our lack of intimacy, which had begun around the same time that we put the garage property on the market, then sold it at a steep loss.
Past failures aside, there was averyhelpful worksheet in the back of the book, and after completing the relationship quizzes and an audit of our Relationship Dynamic, it was clear what I needed.
First, an Incident to Catch His Attention, followed by a Fulfillment of a Need.
The Incident was going to be my disappearance. Around eleven, Jake would discover that I was gone and would make the much-needed transition from bored, unfulfilled, and uninterested husband into concerned and on-high-alert spouse.
The Need would be clear. I would be gone, likely met with foul play, and in need of his help.
The Fulfillment of a Need would be Jake’s rescue of me, and I’d make it easy—but not too easy—for him. All he’d have to do is follow the breadcrumbs I’d laid out for him. I’d be waiting, breathless and scared, and Jake would be able to save the day. Not only the day. Save mylife. It would right our lopsided balance and give him the validation he needed.
Once we were back in Honeymoon Phase happiness (Step 5 of 8), then I’d implement a more permanent setup forsuccess, one where I’d pretend to make my own bad business decision, one that would put us in a faux precarious financial situation, and “require” him to go back to work. According to the quiz results, Jake’s job as a mechanic had given him a purpose, confidence, and camaraderie, the absences of which he is subconsciously blaming on me. And if he got his original job back—one where he wasn’t the boss and didn’t have $1 million of investment hanging on his decisions—he would be better set up for success, and therefore happiness.
Our marriage could use a little happiness. And this plan could inject it in, and all in less than forty-eight hours.
The setup was complete, and now I waited, hidden from sight, for him to find my crime scene.
Chapter 2
Jake
11:08 a.m.
There was a bloody handprint on the doorframe between the bathroom and the dressing hall. Jake Redden stopped and stared at the mark, then slowly pivoted to the right and the left, trying to make sense of the item. The dressing hall split left and right into massive His and Her closets. Rachel’s closet was full, every inch a color-coordinated display of wealth and fashion, her collection of purses in lit cubbyholes, accessories on clear display racks, dresses hidden behind frosted-glass doors. On the opposite side, Jake used only three of the fifteen dressing cabinets. A pair of dusty work boots was lined up beside a few pairs of running shoes. Beside those was a pair of dress shoes that hurt his pinkie toes on the rare occasions Rachel forced him into them.
The bloody handprint was on the left side of the doorframe, as if someone had clung to it but been pulled out of the bathroom and toward the closet. Jake could relate. He’d been present when the rooms had been designed, had all but ordered that the carpenters only give him a few drawers andone hanging bar. His wife had ignored the directive and built a closet that was bigger than the RV Jake had lived in when he met her.
He leaned forward and studied the clear and distinct smear of five tiny fingers.
Rachel’s.He did a slow swivel, looking at the room, and noticed for the first time the state of his wife’s vanity. A row of her expensive creams and lotions was knocked over and scattered across the white-and-gold polished surface. There was a large spiderweb crack in the mirror, as if someone had punched the glass. By the heated towel drawer, an earring on the floor.
This didn’t make sense, and his brain short-fired as he tried to make order out of the scene.
His wife was a woman who sorted her medicine bottles alphabetically and insisted that used Q-tips go into a ziplock bag before going into the can, so they didn’t “contaminate” the rest of the trash. She would never leave the bathroom in this condition.
Not willingly. Which meant that something had happened. His chest grew tight, and he wasn’t sure whether it was out of excitement or fear. He took a few steps back and ducked into Rachel’s side of the closet, verifying that the three suitcases were still in their spot, which they were.
Okay, so time hadn’t magically jumped forward, making this the weekend that she would be killed. No, it was still mid-November, which means that Rachel should still be alive and well, her bathroom in perfect order, her blood all still pumping through her veins.
He reached into his jeans’ front pocket and dug out his cell phone. He checked the app first, making sure that he didn’t have any unexpected messages, then scrolled through two days’ worth of activity to find his wife’s name. Tappingon it, he held the phone to his ear and waited, half hoping she would answer the phone, cheerful and peppy, with some long-winded story about cutting her hand and rushing off to the doctor. He wasn’t really ready for her to die. He hadn’t mentally prepared for this, had thought he had two more weeks left with her.
Rachel’s ringtone, a delicate series of wind chimes, sounded, and he spun on one well-worn Nike toward the sound. Her cell phone, with its bright-yellow protective case, was halfway underneath the stool tucked against her makeup table. He had to crouch on one knee to reach the device, and it was still buzzing when he retrieved it. On the screen was his photo, a two-year-old one that she’d cropped from their wedding.
He silenced the call and the image of him—the goofy smile that stretched from ear to ear—faded from the screen.
The guy in that photo had been so happy. He’d thought he was hitting the jackpot. Rachel was a quiet girl, one who didn’t get trashed and post selfies on the internet with ridiculous duck lips. One who had a book tucked in her bag and who blushed when he told her she was pretty. One without a mountain of credit card debt or two kids and a baby daddy who wreaked havoc for entertainment.
