Four minutes. I hadn’t checked the clock the last time I’d given him fellatio, but it had been on our honeymoon, and I remember my jaw cramping mid-event, so her skills must be way better than mine.
“It definitely wasn’t your guy? You asked him?” Jules questioned.
The well I was parked inside of was forty or fifty years old, with stone walls and a metal platform that was about eight feet down. It was a safety feature, if I had to guess, in case anyone or anything big fell into the opening. It wasn’t a bad short-term home if you didn’t mind sitting on a metal grate. The plan was that once I heard Jake approaching, I’d move onto the ladder and pull out the metal pin that’s holding theplatform in place, then drop the extra dozen or so feet into the water, where I’d scream out for help.
“No way he came early, didn’t check with me, and broke in and took her. Plus, the plan is to kill her in Palm Springs, not here.”
I stopped breathing as Jake’s words assaulted me with the force of a freight train.Palm Springs? Kill her?I stared down at the screen, searching to see if there was a rewind functionality anywhere, but I knew, even as my gaze rocketed across the app’s display, that there wasn’t one. I had specifically chosen an app that didn’t record, one that only live-streamed, because if the cameras were found, I didn’t want someone being able to rewind the footage and watch all the evidence of me staging the scene.
“You should call him and double-check,” Jules instructed, and I really needed someone to tell me who they were talking about and why on earth that guy was going to kill me.
I turned up the volume, my hands shaking, and if I’d been shocked by her taking his penis out, that one horrible sentence surpassed that betrayal by a thousand.
“... the plan is to kill her in Palm Springs, not here.”
He had said that. My husband, the man I just orchestrated and executed an elaborate win-back-his-attention plan for, was plotting to kill me.
Why? So he andJulescould be together? Jules was my only friend in this stuck-up, appearances-obsessed neighborhood. I had never dreamed of being concerned about her and Jake, not with her yarn vests and her barely brushed hair and tendency to fart in public. It had been a running joke, between the three of us, how well she and Jake had gotten along, but as friends, not as lovers.
I had always discounted any concerns of their relationship, due to my perception of her looks.
An error on my part. Maybe a fatal one.
I looked up, into the sky, which had started to darken as the sun moved closer to the tree line, and suddenly, this entire thing felt stupid. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get back inside and confront them both.
“I texted him. He hasn’t responded yet, but I’m telling you, I don’t think he did this.”
“Okay, so if it wasn’t your guy ... then what?” Jules asked. “She hurt herself and wandered off? Or someone broke in here and attacked her? Where’s the security cameras? How do we look at them?”
“They’ve been down for three weeks. Rachel is switching to a new company. This one uses child labor or something.”
Unsurprising that Jake hadn’t listened to a word I said when I had explained away the removal of our extensive security system, which had monitored every door, window, and movement in the house and certainly would have given away my activities. My reasoning hadn’t been child labor. It was SecureGuard’s internal employee policy on paternal leave, which was a pretty weak reason to rewire an entire home system, but I had proved to be a woman who raised a pitchfork toward any noble cause. Jake had accepted the explanation and so would the cops, especially once I was found safe and sound.
Jules bent forward, studying the bloody handprint. “Maybe someone took her,” she said, almost gleefully. “I bet for ransom.”
“Ransom?” Jake repeated the word in the same disgusted way he did when I suggested we try hot yoga or a new Vietnamese restaurant.
“Well, everyone knows she has money. Maybe you’ll get a call. Or a note.” Jules crossed her arms over her chest.
Jake looked around the bathroom, as if there might be a giant envelope taped to the mirror that he had missed. What an idiot. “I don’t have any access to her money,” he announced. “Not while she’s alive. I told you that.”
My fury flared even higher. Sothatwas what this was about. Not a divorce, thanks to my fifty-four-page prenup. A death, one that would pass my trust fund on to Jake.
So simplistically stupid.
“If you do get a ransom note ...” Jules said slowly. “Maybe that’s how we can end it. Right there. Botch it.”
If I could have fallen over in the small space, I would have.
Botch it? Whowerethese people?
Chapter 9
Rachel
Itore open a thin pack of cashews and considered the best way to reenter this situation. My initial thought—to scramble up the ladder and storm into the house—I’d paused, to make sure that I properly assessed the situation.
Also, I needed a moment to cool down because I was a little afraid that if I burst into the same room as the two of them, I might just try to kill someone.
