The hospital knew better than to call her in for a boat accident.
Marlowe had stayed home in her bland little apartment and ran through scenarios of tonight, the night she was going to kill the woman she had the misfortune of knowing better than the rust spots on her `58 Chevy.
There were a dozen ways Marlowe could have done it, and a hundred more preferable than being in open water; but it was only right Heather’s headstone also guarded an empty grave.
Sharp, black spruce trees melted into blurred darkness behind them and tucked-away frogs in the bulrushes resumed their incessant trilling. Despite the heavy stillness, waves licked hungrily at the boatside, jostling her as sherummaged in her rucksack. Flashlight, knife for killing Heather, pack of cigarettes.
Marlowe’s holy trinity for tonight.
Their boat drifted as she slipped a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and found her lighter in the bottom of her pack. The small weight of the swirled silver comforted her, even though she told herself she didn’t need it.
Rolling paper and tobacco sparked under her lighter flame, and Marlowe desperately sucked in mint smoke. Heather pursed her lips.
“I know what you’re gonna say, so don’t,” she mumbled around the cigarette.
“Businesses have started making people smoke outside now. It’s a changing time, Marlowe.”
She spread her hands, casting a look across the dark lake. “Good thing we’re outside.”
Heather said nothing, like she always did.
On the other side of Pike’s Lake squatted the dilapidated cabin they had locked Marlowe in as Heather had said nothing. Camp Atonement assumed her silence meant forgiveness for the wicked, wicked girl who had stolen a kiss from her.
Marlowe knew Heather’s silence was regret.
After camp, after everything, Heather was still there, smothering her remorse in dropped notes and cornerphone calls, as if every hidden night she spent with Marlowe could erase her shame and lies.
Nine years of hate sex harbored in sketchy motels and forest roads had done nothing to dampen the coal of resentment blistering in Marlowe’s chest.
Thoughts of leaving had plagued her since the first time they’d fucked on a blanket yanked from Marlowe’s truck in a fevered haze, the scratchy wool scented with the pungent lotion Heather smeared herself with. She still used the same lotion now.
Pine and vanilla fingerprints clung to Marlowe’s chapped hands in a greasy film, bitter on her lips, her tongue. Heather was a mark Marlowe could scrub from her body until it was raw, but she’d still feel hands on her ribs, taste her after she swallowed a swig of alcohol mouthwash and retched into the sink.
And when she couldn’t get rid of Heather’s memory and rubbed the same thick, sticky lotion into her body until she writhed under the phantom touch, Marlowe gagged on her own fingers and wished they were Heather’s.
Addiction was dangerous.
Heather was fatal.
“Can I have one?” Heather suddenly held out her hand, beckoning at the pack on Marlowe’s bare thigh next to the balancing lighter.
“You’ve never smoked.” Still, she slid her one and Heather took it, pressing it between her lips, and leaned in.
Her breath ghosted across Marlowe’s cheek and she could almost taste the shitty, burned camp coffee. Black, no sugar. Heather would’ve sipped her coffee in cabin 9, on the porch, in a tin mug etched withCamp Atonement.
They puffed until red smoldered at the ends and Marlowe was sure Heather could smell the nervous sweat rolling off her. Tapped-off ash fell to the bottom of the boat.
Heather leaned back and took a long drag. She didn’t cough. “You said you wanted to talk. So let’s talk.”
In the oppressive stillness, Marlowe’s hair smothered her shoulders. Her rucksack leaned heavily against her feet and Marlowe knew once she pulled her knife out, there was no—
A brassy sound scraped through the air.
Marlowe flinched. Her lightertinkedoff the boat-edge into the water.
“Shit.” Laughter garbled in her throat, forced past her thudding heartbeat.
She caught a flash of amusement from Heather. “The swans have been restless since the flood.”
