And now? Now he wasthatguy. The one who didn’t work. The one who had to ask his wife before buying a new truck. The one people whispered about at the country club—“Must be nice, marrying into money.”
And Jules. Jules had been in his ear for eighteen months now to leave Rachel, feeding him line after line about how much happier she could make him. Sure, Jules wasn’t gonna win any beauty pageants, but to be honest, her little librarian look ... the oversize sweaters, the big glasses, the orthopedic-looking shoes ... they were like taping a ruler to his dick and took him right back to high school and the insane crush he had on Mrs. Plant. Fucking Jules was like giving in to every high school fantasy he’d ever had, dipped in an extra helping of dirty, given that she was Rachel’s best friend.
Should that have made it hotter? No. But it did.
And Jules gave him something Rachel didn’t. Praise. She trailed around after him like he was a god, all gooey eyes and breathless smiles. All he had to do was wink at her, and her panties combusted inside those thick gray leggings.
It was nice. Would it be in six months? A year?
Probably not. More likely, he’d get tired and bored with her. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Jules would rat him out, not with her own involvement in the crime. Hell, it was practically her idea. She was the one who came up with the idea for him to gift Rachel with a weekend at the spa.
Jake went through the rear garden gate and took one final look at the dark woods that occupied the back area of their lot. Rachel was right; the well was hard to see. How she fell in a hole twice in one week was anyone’s guess, but that was Rachel for you. They often joked that she had three left feet, she tripped over them so often. Once she got up from a fancy dinner in Pasadena, tripped over the leg of the table, fell onto the neighboring table, and in attempting to stand up, slipped on a piece of food and took out the hostess stand.
She didn’t let it faze her, though. She burst out laughing, and her laugh was contagious. Everyone started in. She bought a bottle of wine for every table in the place, and everyone started clapping when they left at the end of the night.
The memory gave him pause, because it wasn’t like it hadn’t been fun, at times, being with Rachel. For all her griping and nagging, she was a sweet girl. Didn’t take herself too seriously. Snorted when she laughed. Cried at almost any movie. Tightfisted as shit, but see two kids at a lemonade stand and she was dropping a hundred-dollar bill in their jar. Same with panhandlers and homeless people.
Last Thanksgiving, she’d made him work a buffet in the park, where they spent four hours filling plates and handing out blankets and clothes. She hired three barbers and got two doctors to work pro bono, giving checkups and medicine.
He had dreaded the charity event. There had been a 49ers game that day, and this had cut into the beginning of it, but it actually had been pretty cool. She’d been wearing these cute little overalls, with her hair back in a braid, and she’d smiled at him while he’d been at the serving line, scooping out mashed potatoes onto the paper plates and ... And maybe this was wrong, leaving her down there in a well to die.
Not maybe. Definitely. Having the guy take care of her had felt a lot different. Jake wasn’t even going to be in the same city. It would be like one moment he had a wife, and one he didn’t, and the guy promised that it would be quick and painless. Just one shot to the head. She wouldn’t even know it had happened.
But this, this was way worse. She’d freeze to death or drown, and both of those options sucked. This was a girl who used her Mercedes’ seat heater in August and wore a sweatshirt to bed. She hated the cold. She was a pretty good swimmer, but was that necessarily a good thing?
Jake went straight to the liquor cabinet in the wet bar and pulled a bottle of Van Winkle off the top shelf, then took an expensive swig directly from the bottle.
Wincing against the burn, he looked at the clock: 8:11 p.m.
What had she said? That she’d pay him $1 million if he pulled her out? Had she meant it? Or would she renege as soon as she was out of there?
He didn’t know, but it seemed like a big risk either way.
Chapter 14
Rachel
My legs, which had started to cramp, suddenly found new life, and I kicked furiously, breaking the surface and holding the tablet out of the water as I treaded. The display light illuminated the cramped circumference, and I whimpered in relief at the sight of the home screen, which seemed to be in normal working order. I tapped on the internet icon, and a browser window spun.
Joy bloomed in my chest. I could call the police from this thing. At least send them a message.
The window loaded with an error message.Dammit.I looked at the signal bars in the upper-right-hand corner. No service. Wait ... one bar. The short stubby bar blinked, then disappeared.
Shit.This was what I got for being thirty feet underground. Ignoring the error message, I typed in “San Francisco police department help” in the URL field and hit Enter.
It didn’t load, and I waited for a moment, then refreshed the page. I just needed a moment. Enough service for a few pages to load.Come on,I silently urged.Please. Please give me this one thing, and I’ll never ask for anything else.
A search page loaded, and I yelped in joy, then pressed the top result with a shaky wet finger.
It was a Contact Us page for the San Francisco Police Department, and in the bottom-right corner there was a chat box. As I bobbed unsteadily in the frigidly cold water, I clicked on the box and typed out a message.
Chapter 15
Jake
He was three shots down when he decided that married life wasn’t as bad as he was making it out to be and Rachel didn’t deserve to die. He’d break it off with Jules and go rescue his wife. Sitting on a bench in his closet, he pulled on his boot and was lacing it up when the front door chimes went off.
Another delivery? He looked at his watch: 9:08 p.m. He blinked, surprised that over an hour had passed since he’d discovered Rachel in the well. He shouldn’t have thrown the coin down there. It had felt right at the time, witty even. But now it just seemed stupid. He hadn’t even really focused on the wish. He’d just envisioned himself paying off the gambling debt and tossed the coin down there.
