I rejected most of it as wildly risky and unnecessary, but they all pushed, and I soon saw I had no choice. Neil, Jesse, Grace—they all had reason to hate me. I’m lucky to still be alive.
So here I am, standing in this cabin, looking at a man about to die, and a woman about to kill him.
His face is white, ghoulish. All the desire is gone, thank God. For the last half hour, I’ve been resisting the urge to slap away his groping hands. His fingers on my breast felt like the scurrying, desperate paws of a rat. I could have vomited when he forced his tongue down my throat.
But now that’s over, and the real fun can begin.
“Not sure why we had to make it dramatic,” I say to Grace, as I find the swimsuit she had brought for me. I cover my breasts as I get changed. I don’t want him to see me like that ever again. “I mean, we could’ve just killed him.”
I told Grace before we started that we could just knock him out and set the boat on fire. A simple revenge. Less risky. But she said she wanted to know what it was like to watch the life leavehis eyes. She wanted to see how he bled. She made it sound like it was research for a novel, but I don’t think that’s true.
“It’s a better story,” she says.
“We can’t tell this to anyone.”
“It’s not for anyone. It’s for us.” She beams at me, and as usual, I feel the warm glow of her attention. It’s over now. All the mind games, the petty revenges, the tricks. It’s time for it all to end.
“Is this real?” Bradley whispers. He’s staring at his hands, his eyes wide.
“As real as life ever can be,” Grace says. She shuffles off the bed and extends her legs. “Thank God that’s over. I was getting cramps.”
“This can’t be happening.” He turns to me. “You’re crazy! You wanted her dead, just like me!”
“Women are always crazy to you, aren’t they?” I say. “Grace was crazy. I’m crazy. All the students you toyed with. They’re all crazy. And you’re the sane one? The man who smashed a rock into his wife’s head.”
“Is that what this is?” he says. “Some feminist bullshit?”
“Shut up,” Grace says, then turns to me. “You can leave now.”
“You’re not going to tell him what happened?”
I think I catch something like sadness in her eyes, though only for a second. Bradley is the man she married, the man she lived with for fifteen years. Though we’re both acting cool, his death is no small thing.
But then, her eyes are hard again. I suppose I was just imagining the flash of sympathy. Seeing what I wanted to see.
I’m tired of doing that. I’m tired of fantasies. I’m tired of fiction. It’s time for me to see the world for what it actually is.
“No,” she says finally. “Let him die wondering.”
I’m halfwayto shore when I hear the first crack. There are two more. By the time I’m walking on the rocks, searching for a path up the cliff, the boat is moving away, deeper into the Pacific. This wasn’t the plan. Grace was supposed to make him sail far away from land before staging a suicide, but I guess she couldn’t help herself. Or maybe Bradley attacked her, and she had no choice.
Either way, he’s dead now. And my debt to Grace is cleared.
I see a light above me. Neil calls down, and I wave. I find the steps and climb up to him.
“Are you OK?” he says, handing me a towel. “I heard shots.”
“All gone to plan.” I dry myself off, then put on the track pants and sweatshirt I had told him to pack.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.” I look out over the water. With any luck, I’ll never see Grace again. Or Neil, after today.
I’m about to tell him to drop me off at my car when he touches me on the elbow.
“Baby, I’m so glad this is all over. Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
