Текст книги "The Starboard Knife"

Автор книги: Ernie Lindsey

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 5 страниц)

“No, goddamn it. Get off me.” They struggled, wrestled, and rolled until Wade wrapped his arm around Alex’s neck. He used his momentum to fall to the side, squeezing tight, controlling him.

“Enough, man. Calm down.”

Alex growled and struggled.

“Calm down. Just stop for a second. Just stop. Chet, go check on the others. We have got to keep this shit under control.”

PART SIX

Chet climbed to his feet, rubbing the side of his face where Alex’s elbow had left a red welt, paused, and then relented. Once he was gone, Wade loosened his grip, enough to give Alex some air, but he didn’t let go.

“Are you gonna calm down?”

Alex hissed through his teeth and tried to wrench free.

Wade squeezed again. “Think about this, man. Just think for a second. We’re over twenty miles from shore and nobody’s going anywhere. Who would be stupid enough to do this? Nobody’s getting away. There’s nowhere to run, Alex. Nowhere.”

Alex jerked to the side, but Wade held on.

“Stop. I’m telling you there’s an easy answer. Has to be, okay?”

Alex patted Wade’s arm, signaling his surrender. Wade granted him the release and spun quickly away and up to his feet as Alex writhed on the floor, gasping for air, spittle flying out of his mouth. He rubbed his throat and said, “We can’t trust anybody. I can’t trust you.”

Wade dropped down beside Alex, out of arm’s reach, but close enough to quietly reason with him. “There aren’t that many options. Seriously, use your head. Maybe we call in the Coast Guard, maybe we don’t.”

“If I were you, I’d say the same thing just so people wouldn’t suspect me.”

“That probably makes sense, but honest to God, I didn’t do it.”

Alex crawled over to the bed and pulled himself up. Moving away, stepping back once, twice, putting some distance between them. “Prove it.”

“I barely slept a wink. I hate boats, man. I hate them—”

“Then why’d you come?”

“Jenn invited me and…and…damn it, honestly, I had to get away from Cheryl for the weekend. That’s it; that’s why I came.”

“Doesn’t prove anything.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. I’m terrified of boats, like full-blown phobia, so I’ve barely been holding it together this whole time. I couldn’t sleep at all last night and—”

“And what?”

“Okay, Jesus. Just don’t tell Jenn, okay? Not that it matters anymore, but I was up…I was up talking on the phone, talking to Linda.”

“Linda?”

“This woman I’ve been…seeing. I—damn, just don’t tell anybody, please? I don’t want it to get around. We talked until about four in the morning, that’s all I can tell you. The cops, the Coast Guard, whoever, they can check my phone records. They’ll talk to Linda and confirm it. And from the looks of it, it’ll match up against whatever her time of death was. Looks like she’s been dead a lot longer than that.”

“How can you tell?”

Wade, hands on his hips, looked up to the ceiling, and exhaled heavily. “Because I used to be a cop, ages ago. And I’m only telling you this so you’ll believe me. That’s something I wanted to walk away from, indefinitely. Mental health stuff, but not a word of it to anybody else, understood?”

Alex nodded, but hesitantly.

Pointing at Erica’s body, Wade said, “I got tired of seeing shit like that all the time. Worse things. Unimaginably worse things. This is a cupcake compared to some of the things I saw, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. It was getting into my dreams—so depressing. I was clinically depressed. We had a shrink on staff who tried to talk me through it, you know, to give me some help, but nothing worked. Not drugs, not therapy. I put a gun to the side of my head and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. I’m telling you, that empty click sounded like a cannon going off. Talk about a wakeup call. I walked into the station and quit that day.”

“So just because you used to be a cop, I’m supposed to believe your story.”

“The evidence—evidence, Alex—it’ll prove it. And right now, I’m about the only friend you’ve got on this boat, and you need somebody on your side, because you’ve got a dead body on your yacht.”

“You’re blaming me?”

“Blame, no. Acknowledging responsibility, yeah.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Maybe not, but you better believe that they’ll come looking at you, being your yacht and all.”

“Why? Tell me why. Would I be stupid enough to kill her on my yacht, in my own bedroom?”

“That’s what they’ll look at first. You were in here with her for a while last night, after you brought her down.”

“I was fixing her damn head, Wade.”

“We all went to bed. Remember? Did anybody see you leave?”

Alex clasped his hands, wringing them together. “No.” Jenn hadn’t waited on him like he’d asked, and they hadn’t had a chance to talk about what happened between her and Erica.

“Exactly. Your yacht, your bedroom, and nobody saw you leave. I have an alibi. You don’t. Where’d you sleep, huh? Where were you all night?”

“I went up to the cockpit to think, and about twenty minutes later I passed out. That’s where I woke up. So, no, nobody knew where I was, and nobody saw me go up there.”

“Which means you need a friend.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“There’s no guessing about it, man, and honestly, I have no reason whatsoever to believe a word you’re saying, but I will. I’ll trust you. For now. That leaves…one, two, three…Sharon, Laura. Seven. Seven people. Process of elimination. We start narrowing it down, and once we figure out who did it, we’ll keep an eye on them until we can get the authorities here to make sure they don’t hurt anyone else. Sound like a plan?”

“And how’re we supposed to figure that out?”

“We start with motive.” Wade crossed his arms, tilted his head to the side, avoiding eye contact on purpose. “I hate to say it, but you know where my mind’s going first.”

Alex understood immediately. “Don’t. No. She wouldn’t.”

“We have to. It’s the most logical place to start.”

“I don’t care. There’s no way. She couldn’t do something like that.”

“You saw her up on the table, saw what she did. We all saw it. What was that about, huh? I mean, damn, she practically growled before she threw Erica off there.”

“I don’t—no, just no. They’ve been friends for almost thirty years.”

“One second everything was fine, and then she got all crazy-eyed. I hate to say it, but Terri’s probably right—there was a lot of territorial anger there. It was brutal. You saw it.”

Alex looked at Erica’s dead body, the slit across her throat, and tried to see it happening in his mind—Jenn sneaking into the room, finding Erica face down on the bed, passed out. Jenn grabbing her by the hair, pulling her head back, sliding a sharp blade across the model’s petite neck. Could Jenn do something like that? Was she capable? What if she’d found out about him and Erica? Was there any way she could’ve known?

Maybe—yeah, was that it? Maybe Jenn had come in to check on her friend, to apologize, and Erica had admitted to cheating. She’d wanted to tell Jenn for some time.

Still, no matter how much it made sense, he couldn’t see Jenn reacting with such violence. She was calm, quiet, and kind. A bit of a prude, as far as he was concerned, and slightly manipulative—he was completely aware that she’d been stringing him along for the last year, using him for trips, gifts, and expensive dinners. He hadn’t minded, not at all.

And then Erica happened. It was passionate, dirty, lustful sex, but that was it, and only because he couldn’t get it from Jenn. His heart was in one place, his hormones in another.

He’d never seen anything from Jenn like he had the night before. That one single instance of pure, raw, outrageous jealousy had seemed totally out of character and far from the woman he’d been chasing since he met her at a bar down in Key West.

No, it’d been a different person up there on the table, different, but the same.

But not different enough to murder her best friend.

And yet…

“Jenn,” he said, in little more than a whisper. “I don’t see how. I can’t. I can’t see it.”

“What happened last night? Those two are closer than sisters. Why would she do that?”

“The reason’s dead.”

“What?”

“Erica.”

The realization spread across Wade’s face with wide eyes and an O-shaped mouth. “Ooooh. You and Erica? But I thought—how long?”

“Six months.”

“Six months? And Jenn didn’t know?”

Alex shrugged and nodded toward Erica’s body. “You tell me.”

“Holy shit. If that’s not motive, then I don’t know what is. Are you sure? You think she found out?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh my God.” Wade walked over to the wet bar and poured whiskey into a tumbler, considered the amount, and then added some more. “You want one?”

“No, I’m good. I need my head clear.”

Wade stepped away, halted, and then went back. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe at the molded glass.

Alex caught him doing it. “Worried about fingerprints?”

“Not worried,” Wade said, “but we don’t want to give the guys who catch this case any false leads.” He sipped his liquor near the edge of the bed. “Let’s think about this for a second…before we run up there and blame Jenn.”

“This is insane.”

“Hang on. You know her pretty well. Better than I do, obviously, but let me ask you this; if Jenn had found out before they got on the yacht, would she have come?”

“I doubt it. Wait, no. Before I put Erica to bed last night, she said she wanted to tell Jenn, and I told her to keep her mouth shut.”

“She hit her head pretty hard and was three sheets to the wind, Alex. You think she could’ve been confused?”

“Maybe? God, it’s so hard to say. I’ve been chasing Jenn for over a year, and she had never really acted like she was that into me. It’s possible that Erica told her, and Jenn didn’t care. It doesn’t feel right, though.”

“It doesn’t?”

“My gut says she didn’t know, and yeah, she would’ve cared. As much as she acted like she wasn’t into me, I could always tell that there was some small part of her that wanted to say yes.”

“Right. Then let’s lock that down. She didn’t know before she got here. How about after that, once we were on board? I don’t ever remember seeing those two off by themselves, and if the truth had come out, and Jenn cared like you think she might’ve, then she should’ve been pissed off, shouldn’t she? Showed some signs? She seemed fine all day yesterday, right up until she went apeshit.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Normal all day.”

“If she didn’t know beforehand, what caused her to blow up?”

“I think she caught me looking at Erica.”

“Right, but who wasn’t?”

“It’s different.”

“Jealousy?”

“I think so. It’s the only thing I can think of. Maybe the only other possibility is that Jenn came in here to apologize, and Erica told her then. Erica wanted to for a long time, but I wouldn’t let her, and then she mentioned it again right before I left her alone.”

“I see.”

“Do we have to do this right here? It’s creeping me out.”

“Yeah, sorry. I guess once a cop, always a cop. You kinda get used to the bodies.”

Alex turned to leave, but Wade grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“One more thing before we go up. Supposing Jenn found out, and it led to this, you act normal around her. Understood? Not a hint, not a word, not a question. We’ll go up, see what’s happening with the others, and then we tell them we called it in.”

“What for?”

“Just to see who it puts on edge. I’m on your side here, yeah? If we can figure out who did this before we report it, your culpability quotient goes way down.”

“Are you sure? Won’t waiting look suspicious?”

“We won’t wait too long. We know there’s a murderer here, and nobody’s going anywhere, not unless they can swim back to shore.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Alex. Can you do that? Can you be cool?”

“I have to.”

They heard footsteps hurrying down the hallway and turned to see Chet poking his head through the door. He was out of breath, sweating, with blood dripping down his forehead. “Get up here—I can’t control them anymore.”

“What’s going on?”

“They’re all losing their minds, blaming everybody else. Terri and Sharon were throwing punches and Mark hit me over the head with a coffee mug when I tried to stop them. It’s goddamn chaos, man. We need to do something before they all kill each other.”

Wade downed the last of his whiskey and then followed Alex and Chet out of the room, up the steps, and onto the middle deck.

By the time they reached it, tempers raged and curse words littered the air. It was a strange sight, the mixture of fear and uncertainty on each of their faces, combined with anger and blame. They stood in a wide circle, an arm’s length away from one another, hands and arms out in guarded stances, their eyes flitting back and forth, watching, waiting for something to be thrown or the next attack to come from a flying fist.

Sharon pointed at Terri, finger shaking with fear. “You did it, I know you did.”

Terri bared her teeth. “Screw you, Sharon. Mark and I were in the same room all night.”

“Maybe both of you did it. Maybe that’s why Mark finally got sick of your shit. He said it this morning. He said you went too far, and I know I’m not the only one who heard it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mark said. “I only meant that she’d pushed me too far with all her damn nagging.”

Terri slapped his cheek. “That’s for—”

Alex shoved his way into the middle of the circle. “Stop it. Just stop, all of you. We’ve already hailed the Coast Guard. Let’s stay cool until they get here, and we’ll figure it out then,” he lied, hoping to catch a subtle, fearful, telltale reaction from the culprit.

Nothing.

He got nothing.

PART SEVEN

Anxious, wary, and terrified, the remaining eight, minus Wade, stared at Alex in disbelief, stoic statues of incredulity. The moment hung there, a fat, pregnant pause, amazed at his suggestion, floating, floating, until their confusion and panic erupted.

“Stay cool? What do you mean stay cool?”

“Erica is dead, Alex.”

“One of you is a goddamn murderer, and I want off this boat.”

“Alex, take us back, please,” Jenn begged.

Their voices blended into a miasma of curses, questions, and demands.

He couldn’t think clearly. Wade was right. They needed time to consider motives.

We can’t do that, he thought. Coast Guard. Radio the Coast Guard. It’s too dangerous to stay here. They’ll escort us in, maybe take everyone into custody until—no, he said they might hold me responsible. My yacht. A murder on my yacht. Okay, okay…if we can figure out who did it, we can tie them up with the extra mooring line downstairs. It can’t be that hard to figure out who did this, can it? There are only so many choices, just like he said.

“Quiet!” he screamed. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to stay right here, we’re going to wait on the Coast Guard, and we’re going to let them handle this.”

“Seriously?” Karen said. “So, what, we’ll all just stay here, trapped like sardines out in the middle of the ocean, while one of you takes a knife to the rest of us?”

Sharon stepped forward, hand on her chest, brunette ponytail swishing back and forth as she shook her head, saying, “One of us? One of us? How do we know you didn’t do it?”

Karen’s head whipped back as if she’d smelled something disgusting, like putting her nose to a carton of spoiled milk. “Chet and I were in our room all night. Jenn slept on our floor. She knows we didn’t go anywhere, right, Jenn?”

Alex watched Jenn as she opened her mouth, closed it, then admitted, “I guess so, but I was asleep. I mean, I’m not saying you did anything, but I can’t say yes for certain.”

Karen’s hands went up in the air. Chet, still bleeding from the forehead, crossed his arms and turned on her. “Are you kidding me?” he asked.

“I’m not trying to blame you,” Jenn replied. “I’m only saying I didn’t stay up all night watching you. Do I think you could’ve done it? No. Do I think anybody on this boat could’ve done it? No. And for that matter, neither one of you can say that I didn’t get up and leave the room because both of you were snoring like foghorns. Okay? Okay?”

“She’s got a point,” Alex said, though unintentionally planting that seed of doubt about her whereabouts wasn’t the best idea. “Nobody knows where anybody was. Nobody has an alibi except for Wade.”

The others whipped their heads around to face him, skin swishing against nylon windbreakers.

“How’s that?” Mark asked.

Wade eyed Alex, annoyed, but he shook his head and lifted his hands in resignation. “I cheated. I was on the phone until about four in the morning.”

“You’re not supposed to get service out here,” Laura said. “That’s why we came this far out.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I had a bar. It worked.”

“Well, let’s use your phone, call the cops,” Chet said.

“It…it died. I know that sounds awfully convenient—”

“Damn straight it does.”

“Hey, look, you guys. I brought the phone, I cheated on Jenn’s rules, and it died on me because I wasn’t even sure there’d be a way to charge it on the boat. That’s it, end of story. I should’ve known better, but listen, I have proof I was talking to somebody all night and they’ll confirm it, so stop wasting your time pointing fingers at me.”

Jenn asked, “Were you talking to Cheryl?”

“I, uh… No, not exactly.”

“And what does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“We’re, uh, we’re…” He took his wide-brimmed hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. Nervous hands crumpled the hat’s flimsy material. “We’re not doing well. She knows it, I know it, and we’ve both been—we’re seeing other people, trying to see how things play out. I was up talking to Linda until my cell bonked on me.”

“Who’s Linda?” Mark asked.

“It doesn’t matter who Linda is,” Terri said, twisting the woman’s name around in disgust. “What does that prove? You could’ve done it any time after that. And what’s to say you weren’t in the main cabin pretending like you were just all hunky dory in love with your cell phone in one hand and a knife in the other? It only takes one hand to hold a knife, Wade.”

Wade’s cheeks flushed red. He shoved his finger in Terri’s face, and for a moment, Alex thought that Mark was going to push it away, but her fed-up husband let it be. Good for him. Wade said, “You were in there. You saw the body. She was on her stomach, across the bed.”

“Get your finger out of my face. That doesn’t prove anything.” Terri swatted his hand. Wade put it back, index finger an inch from her nose.

He asked Alex, “You went down with her last night. How was she in bed?”

The question caught Alex by surprise. He flashed a look at Jenn. “Oh, we didn’t, you know, there wasn’t anything going—”

Wade rolled his eyes. “I meant how’d you leave her?”

“Right, oh. Right. Yeah, she was under the covers, still wearing my jacket. Passed totally out after I bandaged her head so…normal, I guess, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And how’d she look when you saw her, Terri?”

“I don’t remember. I was freaking out and—”

“How’d she look, Terri?” Wade interrupted, raising his voice.

“Sideways,” she admitted. “Sideways. Naked. On top of the sheets.”

“Right. Which says to me that she was up and about, she’d been awake at some point, or there had been a struggle. Something.”

“Meaning what?” Laura asked.

“If she was awake, and I was on the phone, Linda would’ve heard.”

“Too bad we can’t call her and ask,” Terri said, not without a thick layer of sarcasm.

Mark grabbed her arm, shushed her, harshly, and said, “You do not get to be an asshole to anyone else. Not anymore. You hear me? That could go against us, total character assassination.”

“I’m just trying to prove—”

“Enough, Terri.”

She jerked her arm and turned her back to him, hugging herself. “It still doesn’t prove he wasn’t in the main cabin after he got off the phone.”

Wade said, “Then if we ever get to the point where a medical examiner can look at the crime scene, I’ll be cleared, because from what I could see, she’d been dead a lot longer than that. Coagulated blood. She’d already bled out a long time before four in the morning.”

“And how do you know that?” Sharon asked.

She was standing beside Laura, not shy now about hugging her close. Alex knew that Jenn suspected they were having an affair, she’d told him months ago, and whenever the two were around, it had been hard not to imagine them in various stages of undress, giggling that their husbands had no idea what was going on.

He wondered if either of them had been jealous of the other last night, watching Erica and Jenn dancing on full display in front of everyone. From what he remembered, they were cheering and appeared to enjoy it.

Wade interrupted Alex’s train of thought by saying, “Jesus. The more secrets I have, the worse this is going to look. Okay, listen, I was a cop, a homicide detective, for about five years. I never brought it up because it was something I wanted to get far, far away from, and I was worried that if I talked about it around you guys, you’d want to ask questions, know details, and I knew I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t risk the PTSD coming back, so to you guys, I’m Wade the contractor, and that’s all I ever wanted to be. Not Wade the former detective, not anymore. And Wade the former detective can stand right here and tell you that he’s seen enough dead girls to know Erica’s been a corpse a lot longer than a few hours. If I had to guess, I’d say it happened sometime between one and three, but not after.”

Chet said, “No shit? So now what do we do, Mr. Cop?”

He exchanged a glance with Alex. “We wait on the Coast Guard, like Alex suggested,” he replied, their mutual nods a silent agreement that the Coast Guard wouldn’t be arriving any time soon. “We wait, and maybe we try to figure out who did this.”

“Why can’t we just go back?” Jenn asked, nearly pleading. “Let’s go back and call the police, Alex. Why bother with the Coast Guard? What’re they gonna do, huh? They’ll just escort us in, and more than likely, the cops will question why we waited. Won’t it look even more suspicious? We’re all friends, right? Maybe they’ll think we’re trying to cover for each other. Maybe they’ll think we know who did it, and we’re trying to protect him.”

“Whoa, hang on there,” Chet said, pointing at her. “Easy with your accusations.”

“What?”

“You said him.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t, but come on now. That’s not being fair, right, Wade?”

Wade lifted a corner of his mouth, shook his head. “Statistically…”

“We’re not talking about statistics here.”

“Hey,” Karen interjected, “there’s a real simple fact that we all seem to be ignoring. One of you is a murderer—”

Terri scoffed. “One of you, she says.”

“—and we’re standing around chatting like we’re trying to decide where to go for lunch. I know one goddamn thing, I don’t want to stay another minute longer than I have to on this boat, and I don’t want to look at you people for another second. I’m with Jenn. Get us back on land, and call the cops.” She stomped away, shoving Mark out of her way, then headed over the railing and stared out toward the horizon, her back to the group.

“I’m with Karen,” Chet added. “You’re friends, and maybe we’ll try to understand, but don’t come anywhere near us.” He retreated and joined his wife.

“Us, too,” said Laura. Sharon nodded.

“Land’s best,” Mark agreed. “Wade? Your professional opinion?”

“I can’t say I agree. Look at that weather coming in over there.” He nodded toward the darkening horizon to the south. The water had already grown choppy. Not enough to shift them too much, but enough so that they felt the subtle swaying under their feet. “We hit rough water, it could damage the crime scene.”

“Oh my God.” Jenn threw her arms into the air. “So we just sit here that much longer and wait on the Coast Guard to come? We wait on the storm to get here? That doesn’t make any sense. None whatsoever. We leave now, we can beat it, can’t we, Alex?”

Alex looked her over, the young woman he’d been infatuated with for the past year. Something had changed in her yesterday. He’d noticed it, the jealousy flaring up last night when she yanked Erica off the table. She’d always been sensible, reasonable, but at the same time, she had that manipulative streak, the one he hadn’t minded. Did she suspect him and Erica? Was that why she had shown so much emotion last night? And now she was begging to get back to land; was it so she could run?

Did he even really know her? He thought he did.

No matter what was happening on his yacht—who was betraying whom and which one of these vile people, all Jenn’s friends, had murdered Erica—the only thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t do it. He put her to bed, he passed out in his captain’s chair, and he woke up, nothing more, nothing less.

But, again, his yacht, his responsibility; he’d been the last one to see Erica alive, aside from the murderer, and he was of questionable character, cheating on the woman he supposedly loved with a gorgeous model. He was also disgustingly rich—even he knew it—and young, handsome, with a reputation for being a bratty prick among certain social circles, a perfect example of someone suffering from what the media had recently dubbed, “affluenza.”

Yeah, he was the perfect pretty boy that the cops would just love to make an example of, no matter how innocent he was. Better that he and Wade try to control the situation here before the authorities got involved.

Save yourself first. That seemed like the best kind of plan.

Jenn pleaded at him with her eyes. “Alex?” she said again.

He shook his head. “We’re staying put.”

“Hey, no, you can’t do that,” Mark said, moving toward him.

“Back off.” Alex put his hand up and stopped the smaller man, palm meeting chest. A soft thud.

“But we voted. Seven to two, you little shit.”

Alex clenched his teeth, jaw muscles flexing. “Doesn’t matter.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I have the keys.” Alex held them up, taunting Mark and the others.

Mark lunged for them as Chet moved swiftly across the deck. “Give me those,” Mark said. “We are not—”

Alex shifted his weight to the side, planted a hand on Mark’s shoulder, and shoved, sending the smaller man down. He turned, cocked his arm, and hurled the keys into the ocean. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The others stared in abject silence.

Alex kept his face flat and determined, thinking any hint of an expression might betray the fact that he knew exactly where the spare set of keys were hidden.

PART EIGHT

Jenn sat beside Alex as he brooded in his captain’s chair, holding a bag of ice to his jaw. Mark, as scrawny, henpecked, and weak as he appeared to be, had caught him with an unexpected roundhouse that sent Alex to his knees. He hadn’t been looking and hadn’t expected the cowed husband of a domineering wife to take a swing.

After he had thrown the keys in the ocean, it took Jenn and Wade a full half hour to convince the others that they needn’t throw Alex in after them. She wasn’t on his side then, and still wasn’t now, but she felt she owed him a defense, had maybe even pushed him too far. She’d backed him into a corner, and he’d reacted, not how she would’ve expected, but then again, he’d always been impetuous.

She stood up and tucked her chilly hands into the warm pockets of her jean shorts. The approaching storm had set the yacht noticeably rocking now, bringing with it a cold wind and deepening shadows. She felt sturdier on her legs, able to balance herself better, shifting her weight with each undulation.

She said, “Wade says there’s a knife missing from a rack on the middle deck. Thinks it’s what they used.”

Alex didn’t respond.

Jenn glanced down at her feet, trying to think of something comforting to say to him, and noticed that her pink toenail polish had chipped. She felt a brief moment of annoyance, and then a surge of remorse. It was such an innocuous thing to be irritated over. Her soul sister, her jealousy inducing, gorgeous, fortunately gifted by the universe soul sister, friend since the days of pureed beets and pears, lay lifeless in the bowels below.

Death, rather than life, incubated in The Harlot’s belly.

The despair over Erica’s death had taken her breath away earlier, beaten her emotions into a pulpy blend of regret and anger. She understood that she alone was responsible for the death of her friend. She’d invited Erica along, in addition to the rest of the gang, so it was her fault.

Jenn stared past Alex and his vacant gaze, out into the ocean where the sunlight was slowly being swallowed up by the gathering rainclouds. What lay out there was so expansive and empty, emptier now that Erica was gone. Jenn would have to live the rest of her life knowing that their last moments together had consisted of her bitter envy and subsequent apologies.

Grief, earlier slithering in her stomach like an oily nest of snakes, had been replaced by mistrust and suspicion. She would mourn later, back on land when she could wear black and watch a coffin being lowered into the earth, but for now, there was a murderer among them.

And for that, she was also responsible since she’d invited them all along.

Alex shifted in his seat. She thought he might speak to her. He didn’t.

She sighed, but her sign of discontentment was lost in the wind. She wanted him to say something, anything, to break the waves of silence washing over her.

She wondered who and why. None of them had come out and said as much, but of course they all suspected her. Her drunken, violent act of resentment would make her the prime suspect once they got back on land, and once the police began questioning the others.

Eight stories. Eight people. All corroborating the same scenario.

Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Alex had thrown the keys in the ocean. It delayed the inevitable.

No matter what they thought, no matter how vigorously they pointed fingers—friends ‘til the end or until a man with a badge asked questions, whichever came first—she hadn’t done it. She’d fallen asleep on the floor of Chet and Karen’s room because they had been the last ones to comfort her and listen to her profuse apologies.

Not fallen asleep, but passed out in a drunken stupor and later awakened by the married couple’s raucous snoring. She had no idea what time that might’ve been, but she had wondered if Erica was already dead while she lay awake and tried to get back to the dream about having a writing bungalow overlooking the ocean.