I knew I was in no position to challenge him, but his story was bullshit. She didn’t just fall and knock herself out. He’d pushed her or hit her, or both. “What did you do to her?”
“She was rushing me,” he snapped. “I was defending myself.”
“She weighed a hundred and ten pounds.” I glared at him. “Then what happened?”
“She was unconscious.” He clung to the railing on the wall with his free hand to steady himself as the boat seesawed. “There was blood, and her neck was all twisted. I couldn’t have her dying like that, but I’d been shooting Bloodhound—you saw Bloodhound, right? The prostitutes whose murders were made to look like overdoses? So I thought quick and finished her off with the heroin before her heart stopped beating, then staged the car wreck to cover up the other injuries.” He actually sounded proud of himself. “I did it to defend us. Our lives, our careers. Yours as well as mine.”
The air left my lungs as though I’d been punched in the gut. I could see the scene in the bedroom like it was before me now: the shattered heavy glass coffee table, the blood, the syringe. He’d sworn she was shooting up when he found her and had fought him when he tried to stop her, falling into the table as she emptied the syringe into her arm.
When he’d related his version of events that night, I’d believed him, not inclined to suspect my husband, however rotten he might be, of murder. I also knew that overdosing after a period of sobriety was a common problem among addicts. I blamed myself—for not coming home earlier, for not making sure Cole’s drugs were out of the house, for not insisting she go to rehab—but I hadn’t questioned his explanation. I was so caught up in my personal cyclone of grief, I couldn’t see past my own nose. It was becoming increasingly clear that I’d never been able to see past my own nose.
“I believed you.” I choked back tears. “Is that why you cast me? To buy my silence?”
He laughed like a film villain. “You’re not so stupid you think I ever intended for this movie to see the light of day?” He steadied himself on the back of a chair as the boat lurched, then swung the barrel of the gun at my forehead. “You were going to commit suicide while we were filming.”
I struggled to make sense of what he was saying. “I’d never do that,” I protested, though in the wake of Iris’s death I had considered it more than once.
“Oh, yes you would.” He smirked. “Everyone knows your history, your struggle with substance abuse. You finally get a chance at redemption working on a film with your ex-husband. You even start up a romance with him. Then he dumps you for your younger costar, and you can’t handle it.” He snorted. “I cast Madison because I knew she was such a fame whore, she’d jump on the opportunity to fuck a real movie star, and she’d be dying to make it public.”
I finally understood. It all made sense: his flattery and flirtation in the first weeks of filming, culminating with sex in the wine cellar—before he abruptly turned his back on me and took up with Madison, making a fool out of me in front of the entire crew. Not to mention the pictures leaked to the press of him letting me fall into a puddle down by the marina, of me passed out. No wonder he drugged me that night at Coco’s. “You were going to do to me what you did to Iris.”
He raised the gun overhead. “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!”
“But after all these years, why now?”
A gust of wind sent the boat listing even more heavily to the side, but he managed to keep his footing. How long before the ship went under? “Even when you were out of control, I always thought your self-preservation instincts would keep you quiet. You’d never want it to come out that I was cheating on you, much less that you were a lesbian.” He spat the word like it was repulsive. “And even if you said anything, it would have been your word against mine—no one would have believed you. But things have changed.” His face contorted into a sour frown, as if lamenting days gone by. “These days no one gives a shit if you’re gay, and people believe whatever women say. Especially after some of the bullshit about me that’s been in the press lately, I figured the public might actually take your side. So when you started talking about coming clean, I knew what I had to do.”
I was almost flattered he’d arranged this entire charade just for me, spent three million to kill me. Surely it would have been more practical to hire a hit man or something, but I supposed I wasn’t the only one with a flair for the dramatic. This whole showdown was playing out like the ending of one of the Gentleman Gangster movies. Only this time Cole wasn’t the hero but the villain, giving his final monologue before he goes down in a ball of flames.
Please, universe, let it be him that goes down, not me.
I had to keep Cole talking. The more he talked, the more time I’d buy before he shot me or sent the boat plunging into the violent sea. “How was I gonna kill myself, exactly?” I asked.
His laugh turned my blood to ice. “You down enough pills and booze every day to nearly kill yourself anyway. All you needed was a little extra one evening and you’d never wake up. But that cunt Felicity kept getting in the way.”
“Put the gun down, Dad.” Jackson’s voice rose above the howling wind.
Hope sprang up in my chest.
Cole swung his flashlight to focus on Jackson, who stood in the doorway, bracing himself against the violent rocking of the ship. “How did you get out?” he demanded. “You shouldn’t be here. Where is she?” He shone the flashlight around the boat, clearly torn between wanting to find Felicity and needing to keep us under surveillance.
Jackson ignored his question, slowly inching toward us. “What are you doing, Dad?”
“Protecting us,” Cole snapped, his eyes darting from the windows to the doors.
“Against what?”
“If the truth comes out the way she wants it to”—Cole pointed at me—“we’ll both go to jail.”
“I was an eleven-year-old kid forced to lie by my violent father,” Jackson said evenly. He was nearly at my side now. “I was afraid of you and didn’t know the extent of the damage you’d done. But no more. It’s over.”
“Get off the boat,” Cole barked.
“No.”
Cole raised the gun and pointed it at Jackson’s chest. “Don’t make me do this, son.”
Jackson held up his hands. “You can’t buy our silence.”
“You ungrateful little shit,” Cole spat.
The boat pitched, sending Cole stumbling against the wall behind me. Jackson took advantage of the moment to make a move to wedge himself between us.
The sound of the gunshot was deafening.
Cole had fired the gun in Jackson’s direction, so close it was impossible to tell whether it was a warning shot or simply a miss. My ears rang; every nerve in my body stood on end. “You weren’t supposed to be here,” Cole repeated. “I didn’t want to do this to you.”
“So don’t,” Jackson urged. “Put the gun down. We’ll go somewhere safe for the rest of the storm—”
“And then you’ll ruin me after?” Cole tightened his grip on the gun.
“We’ll figure something out that satisfies everyone,” Jackson said.
Cole narrowed his eyes, his jaw tight. “Betrayed by my own son.”
“It’s for your own good, Dad,” Jackson said. “You think you won’t get caught for this? Then what? I only want what’s best for you. For all of us.”
“I don’t think so.” Cole shook his head, his mind made up. “It’s better for you to all go out now, victims of the storm.”
“Hurricanes don’t shoot people,” I spat.
“But everyone will believe you would”—Cole turned on me—“after I tell them I just found out you killed Iris all those years ago because she was planning to tell the press about your affair.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
I detected a split second of movement in my peripheral vision before everything once again went black.
Felicity
Hidden outside the rocking portside door of the ya
cht with the rain lashing my back, I watch in horror as Cole smacks the gun into Stella’s head with a sickening thunk.
“Dad, stop!” Jackson cries, but it’s no good. She slumps forward, limp.
The boat lurches in the turbulent surf, the stern barely out of the water now. I grasp the door handle, my thumb resting on the release latch, and tighten my grip on the neck of the champagne bottle dangling from my free hand. Not the weapon I would have chosen if given an alternative, but the kitchen and restaurant were blocked by the fallen tree, so I had to find what I could in the wine cellar. In the cabin, Cole raises the gun and points it at Stella’s head.
“You’re gonna kill her!” Jackson dives at him, providing just enough distraction for me to fling the door open and spring through it, smashing the bottle into the back of Cole’s skull with all my might.
He staggers and shoots, aiming toward Jackson’s shoulder, but doesn’t go down. Jackson attempts to wrestle the weapon away from him as I bring the champagne bottle down on Cole’s head again. He’s on his knees now, but strong as an ox. The gun goes off again, and Jackson cries out in pain. I clutch the heavy bottle in both hands and smash it over Cole’s crown. Glass splinters as it makes contact, and the gun drops from his hand into the sloshing chaos of the floor. Jackson moans in agony. In the darkness, I can’t tell where he’s been hit, but he’s on the ground where his still conscious father scrambles for the gun.
A towering wave crashes through the open door, flooding the cabin with a foot of water. My head jerks back as Cole grabs my hair and slams my face into the rushing water, holding me down. Unable to breathe, I flail, punching and kicking my arms and legs with all my might. But I connect with nothing. My lungs burn.
Don’t inhale.
Suddenly the pressure releases, and I yank my head out of the water. A grunting tangle of limbs writhes next to me as Cole wrestles with Jackson, both of them reaching for the gun. The flashlight shines toward the ceiling at an odd angle, swinging wildly with the pitching of the boat. I lunge toward it, scrabbling in the dark until I have it in my hand, and sweep the cabin to locate my broken champagne bottle, wedged beneath Stella’s limp legs. I grip the hard glass neck in my hand and point the light at the thrashing heap of men.
I hear myself screaming as I bring the sharp end of the bottle down on Cole’s chest, but my body’s gone numb and all I can see is red.
Stella
Darkness splattered with shards of fragmented light, seawater crashing into a sinking ship. A woman screaming.
I tried to move but couldn’t, a paralyzing night terror. I tasted salt, fought to breathe. Nausea welled in my stomach. The rocking. Stop the rocking. Pain—in my ribs, my head, my back.
The woman continued to scream. I fought to wake, but the dream wouldn’t clear; the pitching and tossing persisted.
“Stop, stop!” A man’s voice now, urgent. “He’s gone. It’s over.”
The woman’s screams turned to muffled sobs. “Shhhhh…” The man comforted her. “It’s all over now.”
I struggled to rise, but found my arms were trussed over my head, my legs bound. I closed my eyes against the beam of a flashlight. “Stella. Are you okay?”
Jackson. Everything came rushing back. Cole, the boat, the gun. It wasn’t a dream. I felt the light move from my eyes and squinted at Felicity and Jackson, clinging to each other next to me on the floor, water sloshing around us. In the gloom I could see the arm of Jackson’s sweatshirt was torn and soaked in blood; Felicity’s tear-streaked face was speckled with drops of red.
“Where’s Cole?” I asked.
“He’s dead,” Jackson said, helping a shaking Felicity to her feet while the boat rolled with the pounding surf. As he moved toward me to untie my hands, my gaze landed on something behind them, partially hidden by their bodies. I craned my neck to peer around their legs as they struggled to keep their balance. It was Cole, lying on his back, dark water washing over him. His eyes were open and fixed, his chest bloody.
And again the world went black.
Felicity
Stella, Stella!” Jackson grabs her shoulders, trying to rouse her. He slaps her cheeks, and her eyes flutter open, struggling to focus. Her face is bruised; a deep cut gapes above her eye. She’s not going to be happy about the scar it’s sure to leave, but it could have been a lot worse.
“What happened?” she manages weakly.
“You fainted,” Jackson says.
“Cole,” she mumbles, straining to look around Jackson as he undoes the rope around her wrists. “He was…”
“He was going to kill all of us.” His eyes flick to me. “We did what we had to do.”
I register the we and appreciate it, strangely more moved by Jackson’s fictionalization of the event than the event itself. What I’ve done. Me. I killed Cole. Stabbed him in the chest with the sharp end of the champagne bottle, long past his last breath, from the looks of it.
I know I did, though I can’t recall it now, his blood cooling on my skin. After all these years, my mother’s killer has finally paid for her death at my hands. I know I should feel something other than the heavy numbness that’s settled over me now that he’s stopped moving. Elation, anger, grief…something. But all I feel is oddly empty. After all my preparation, I hadn’t really wanted to kill anyone, it turned out. And now that I have, I feel only a dull, aching disappointment.
Stella rubs her wrists as Jackson helps her to her feet, both of them stumbling as the boat lurches with the waves. “What are we gonna do with him?” she asks, gesturing to Cole’s body.
“It’s my fault,” I volunteer. “I’ll take the blame.”
“No.” Jackson looks at me pointedly. “We’re gonna do the same thing he was going to do to us. Let the boat sink with him aboard and blame the storm.”
My guilt-ridden conscience cries out for punishment, but at the same time, I’m enormously relieved he’s clearly not going to let that happen.
“But his chest.” Stella points out. “It doesn’t look like he drowned.”
“There are sharks at sea,” Jackson reasons. “And he’ll be in such bad shape by the time he washes ashore, no one will be suspicious.”
“Do you know how to work the boat?” I ask. Jackson looks at me, and I can see in his eyes he doesn’t. “I don’t either.”
“I know how to operate a boat,” Stella pipes up.
We both turn to her, surprised.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I’m not completely useless,” she continues. “I learned for Call of the Sea. I haven’t done it since, but it’s not that hard.”
Stella grabs the flashlight from Jackson’s hand and steadies herself against the wall to step over Cole and mount the stairs to the bridge. After a moment, she nods. “Yeah, I can do this.”
“Good.” I meet her eye. “Thank you.”
Water sloshes over Cole’s lifeless form as waves toss the boat, but he’s heavy enough his body stays put. “We’ve got to move him out onto the deck to make sure he goes into the ocean when the boat sinks,” Jackson says. “It’s already taking on water, so it shouldn’t take long to go down. I’ll grab his arms.” Jackson kneels behind him, hooking his forearms beneath Cole’s shoulders.
“But your shoulder,” I protest.
“I’ll be all right,” he says. “The bullet only grazed me.”
I grab an ankle in each hand and lift as Jackson drags him toward the ocean-side door behind him, stumbling beneath his weight. The boat tips, throwing Jackson into the bulkhead. He cries out in pain and drops Cole, gripping his injured shoulder. “Fuck!”
“Go sit,” I say.
“I’m okay,” he protests.
“I can help,” Stella says.
I appraise her. She’s in pretty bad shape herself, but at least she’s not bleeding from a gunshot wound.
“We can both take his legs,” Jackson offers.
I drop Cole’s legs, moving to take his upper half as Stella stares at the mess I’ve made of Cole’s ch
est, fighting nausea. “Look at me,” I instruct. She lifts her eyes to meet mine, and I see the distress there. “You’ve got this,” I say. She and Jackson each take a leg. “Now lift.”
Cole’s deadweight is far heavier than I’d imagined. Even tugging with all my might, moving him is painstaking work, made no easier by the erratic lurching of the boat. Once outside, I’m immediately slammed by a wave and lose my footing on the rain-slick deck. Jackson reaches out and grabs my arm as I hold on to Cole’s bloody torso for dear life, wind threatening to throw me into the sea.
“That’s enough,” Jackson shouts over the din.
Another wave slaps me as I step over Cole’s body into the cabin, spluttering salt water. The three of us push him as far out the door as we can without stepping onto the deck. “Okay,” Jackson finally says. “That’s good. We want the boat to get a ways out before he goes overboard so he doesn’t wash ashore. Let’s start the engines and untie the ropes.”
Stella mounts the stairs to the bridge and inserts the key beneath the wheel. The engines roar to life. “It’s gonna start pulling when I put it in gear. Get ready,” she warns.
I nod. “We’ll do the front, then the back.”
She throws the boat into gear, and we all bolt out the back, holding on to the walls for stability as we stagger into the screaming storm. Standing at the sinking stern, I struggle to maintain my footing as the vessel pitches wildly in the surf, completely out of sync with the floating dock bobbing next to it.
We move to the edge of the boat, watching as the dock rises and drops, waiting for the two to fall into rhythm while the wind whips around us, threatening to throw us all into the roiling sea. “Okay,” Jackson yells. “In one, two, three!”
We jump from the stern onto the dock and dart to the bow. My raw hands chafe against the rough ropes as we fight to untie the dock lines from the posts while the boat rolls with the waves, pulling and slacking the cords unpredictably. When the last loop is undone, the rope jerks from our hands and the front of the boat veers away from the pier, tugging the back line straight. Jackson and I scramble to the stern to unwind the rest of the rope until it rips from our hands.
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