She stayed silent, picking up a drawer pull and examining the design.
“The cameras had sound, and I watched the recordings from the day of my accident.”
She turned to face me, her face wary. “Okay? So?”
“So ... I saw you give him a blow job. And I heard you two discussing having me killed while I was in Palm Springs.”
She scoffed, her gaze darting to the side. “What? I ... I wasn’t even here that day. I told you, he called me and told me that there was blood. He was worried. I—”
“I have the video, Jules. And I’m going to take it to the police unless you tell me why you wanted me to die.”
“I ...” She shook her head, her voice agitated. “Rachel, you’re my best friend. I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t make me play it. Don’t make me send it to your husband and have him watch you get on your knees in front of Jake.” It was an empty threat, given that I didn’t have the recording, but I was banking on the bluff.
Her face went white. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why have me killed? What did I do to you? To him?”
She raised her hands in innocence. “It was his idea, Rach. Not mine. I was ... I was just too afraid of him to say anything. I thought that if I could find out the details, I could stop it somehow. I was going to tell you. I was going to warn you.”
She was lying, her desperation clear, her voice pitching upward unnaturally. A rat, backed into a corner, frantic for an escape. I pressed harder. “You told him that if this was a kidnapping, to botch the ransom.Botchit. That’s what you said.” I knotted my hands into fists. “Explain that.”
“I ...” She faltered. “I don’t know. I was just trying to get out of there. I saw the blood and the mirror, and I was worried that maybe he did something to you.”
“Bullshit,” I snarled. “Jake was an idiot. You masterminded this.Youplanted this idea in his head. You probably hired the hit man yourself.”
“I didn’t! He met some guy, at a poker game, and set it all up. I was out of it, I swear. All I knew was that it was going to happen when you were on a spa trip.”
“And what? After I was dead, then what? You two would be together?”
“No,” she said hoarsely, her gaze darting around the room as she grasped for her next lie. “I love Sam, you know that.”
And the weird thing was, I believed that she did love Sam. But I had also believed that she loved me.
I stepped back and opened the door to my closet, revealing the police officer who had been listening. Detective Parks stepped out, his face set, a pair of handcuffs already in hand. “Mrs. Myers?”
All blood left Jules’s face, and I remembered her telling me once that she had a weakness for men in uniform. She didn’t look weak in the knees. She looked terrified.
“I’m going to need you to come with me.”
I reached forward and took the drawer pull out of her hand. “I’ll head to your house, let Sam know you won’t be coming home for dinner. While I’m there, I’ll have a nice long chat and catch him up on everything. We’ll see how anxious he is to pay your attorney’s fees once he knows what you’ve been up to.”
“Wait. Rach. Please—”
Detective Parks stepped in between us. “Mrs. Myers, I’m going to read you your rights, and then we’re going to take you down to the station.”
Jules looked at me in panic, and I wasn’t sure if it was over the thought of me telling her husband or the charges she was facing.
For a brief moment, I felt a wave of empathy toward her. After all, I knew what panic felt like. What the thought of losing your marriage, your life, felt like. For me, it was when I was watching her and my husband in our bathroom, and then hours later, when I was holding on to a slippery metal handle, hanging on for my life.
She wasn’t about to plunge to her possible death. And she wasn’t finding out that the closest people in her life hated her enough to end her life.
But she was facing her own life sentence, of sorts. And she’d provide the nail in the coffin for Jake.
Six Months Later
Isat in one of the rocking chairs on the side porch, a glass of wine in hand, and watched the sun sink below the live oaks. On the left side of the view, almost hidden by the tree line, was the well, the top of it covered with a stack of pallets and a tarp. Next week, my new contractor would fill it in completely, then cover it with sod. I was going to plant a memorial garden on the top—for the version of me who died down there.
