by Liz Fenton
A dense forest.
Darkness.
She heard herself scream.
A stab of fear shooting through her body.
Natalie’s head began to pound, the fragmented thoughts bringing with them more questions than answers.
“What happened to you, Ash?” She reached out and touched Ashley’s arm through the sheet. It was rigid. But she kept her hand there anyway. She didn’t want to let go. “What happened to her?” she yelled toward the mortuary technician, who winced.
Officer Garcia stepped forward. “The examiner showed me a contusion on the back of her head. It could be consistent with a fall if she hit one of the jagged rocks that surround the Cenote Calavera as she dropped into the water. Or she may have been hit with something first and then pushed, or she fell. But we will need permission to do an autopsy to be sure. Either theory is consistent with the fact she was found floating at the top of the cenote rather than at the bottom. If she had drowned or . . .” He paused as if realizing who he was talking to. “Or if someone drowned her, her body would have sunk to the bottom.”
Natalie’s stomach cramped. She covered her abdomen and pressed, trying to make the pain stop. She winced. There was something about the cenote. But what? Another sharp sting rippled through her stomach. She tried to breathe.
Why is it called the Temple of Doom? Natalie had stared at the sign. And what’s with all the skulls? I thought you said this place was peaceful.
The cenote gets its name from the three circular openings in the roof of the cave that resemble the eye sockets and mouth of a skull when viewed from above. The official name is Cenote Calavera. It’s known as the Temple of Doom only because that is the name of the cave system it used to be a part of. I assure you, there will be no doom here.
Natalie jerked her head back at the memory. She and Marco had been at the cenote with Ashley. She started shaking. What did that mean?
“Natalie?” Garcia said her name as if he wasn’t sure he had it right. “Are you all right?” He frowned at her.
She knew she had to pull it together—to not look suspicious. “No, no, I’m fine. Sorry, this is all so hard to hear.” What happened at the cenote? The tiny memory that just resurfaced made her feel like her body was being consumed by a virus.
“We need to find who did this to her or knows what happened to her,” Jason said sharply.
“We are trying to find Marco. At this point, he is our lead suspect because of the timing of his disappearance. But we don’t have much to go on other than he was one of two people last seen with her.” Garcia hesitated briefly, staring at Natalie for a beat. “And because you were the other person who was last seen with her, we’re going to need to collect your passport.”
“What?” Natalie asked, that feeling she’d been trying to ignore threatening her again. That feeling she had been involved.
“We can’t let you leave Mexico until we complete our investigation.”
“But I told you, I don’t remember.”
“Right. But what if you don’t remember hitting her over the head with something? Or pushing her over the edge of the cenote?” Officer Garcia asked.
“I would never do that! Jason, tell them I would never do that.” Natalie felt frantic. Trapped.
Jason turned to her. He stared at her for a long time. Finally he spoke. “There is no way Natalie would hurt my wife. She’s been her best friend—practically her sister—for twenty years.”
Natalie felt herself breathe.
“Sometimes it’s the people closest to us that do the very worst things, yes?” Officer Garcia said, holding Natalie’s gaze.
Natalie couldn’t have hurt Ashley. She loved her. She thought again about Ashley’s accusations toward Jason. His abuse. Then again, Jason loved Ashley too.
“Please just understand we have a job to do,” Garcia added, a little softer this time. “I am going to collect everyone’s passports, not just yours. Lauren’s. And Jason, I will need yours too.”
Natalie looked at Jason, but he either hadn’t heard Garcia or was ignoring him. She couldn’t be sure.
“I would like you all to stay in Mexico until we have more information. And Jason, do we have your permission to perform an autopsy?”
There was a long silence. Natalie strained to remember more. To reach the answer of what happened to Ashley. Because she was sure of something now: She knew. Somewhere inside of her, she knew.
Finally, Jason spoke. “Yes, you have my permission. But then I want to take her home. I want to get her out of here.”
“Of course. After the autopsy, we will need you to provide us with her birth certificate and sign some papers.”
“Birth certificate? Why? You know it’s her.” Jason rubbed his eyes. “I have no idea where it even is—in some box, somewhere.”
Natalie thought about her own birth certificate, meticulously filed away in a cabinet at home, along with everyone else’s in her family. She had no clue where Ashley would have put hers, or if she even had a copy.
“I am sorry, but it’s standard procedure. I did not make the rules. I’m sure you’ll be able to get a copy quickly if you can’t locate yours. But we will need to keep her body here until we finish our investigation. Now if you are ready, I can escort you out.”
“Wait, what?” Jason asked.
“As I said, our investigation is not yet complete,” Officer Garcia said.
“Didn’t you say we’d get the results of the drug testing today?” Natalie asked, feeling desperate to be absolved. Now that they knew Ashley’s fate, she couldn’t stop wondering if Officer Lopez was right—if she’d been a part of it. Because she had been there. What had been so bad that her mind would block it? The thought terrified her.
“Those tests should come back very soon,” Garcia said, checking his watch.
“We just all want to get back to the States now—which I’m sure you can appreciate.” Natalie looked at him. “Won’t it help you to confirm I was drugged—move the investigation along?” Rule me out.
“Yes, if it turns out you had drugs in your system, depending on what they were, it could help support the story you are telling us. And it will move things along in that regard. But we still won’t know what really happened. As I said, just because you’ve lost your memory doesn’t mean you weren’t involved in her death. Also, we haven’t ruled out the possibility that you could have drugged yourself after harming Ashley—as an alibi.”
Natalie tried to process his words. “Drugged myself?” She stepped away from him as if it would make his accusations weaker. Would she have done that? And why? “Why would I do that?”
“You tell me,” Garcia said.
“This is ridiculous,” Natalie said, trying not to show the intense fear that was radiating through her. She needed to call Ben immediately. She needed a lawyer—now.
“I’m sorry, but we have to consider all options,” Garcia said sharply.
Jason stood over Ashley’s body, weeping. He was a million miles away, not paying any attention to Officer Garcia’s accusations. “I can’t leave her,” he cried. “I cannot leave her here.”
Natalie stood over him and rubbed his back, tears streaming down her cheeks as she listened to him moaning. Here she was, worried about clearing her name when Ashley was dead. Petrified she might be thrown in a prison in Mexico for the rest of her life. What kind of friend did that make her? She forced herself to look at Ashley’s face. She couldn’t be responsible for this—she couldn’t have done this to her friend. Officer Garcia’s phone started ringing. “That’s Lopez. He’s at the Cenote Calavera now. Maybe he has more information.”
Jason was still staring at Ashley’s body. “Jase,” Natalie said. “Come on, let’s get some air.”
“I can’t, Nat. I can’t leave her.”
“I know. But that’s not her. She’s not in there. She’s already gone.”
“I know, but the thought of leaving her here. I can’t imagine.” Jason looked up at Natal
ie, his skin blotchy.
“I’ll call Ben and have him work out the details of how we bring her home, okay? He’ll collect all the paperwork Officer Garcia needs.” Jason’s hands were visibly shaking, and Natalie’s heart ached for him. How would he survive this? How would she? “Let’s take a walk.”
He hugged Ashley and kissed her forehead, and Natalie started to cry again. She opened the door and guided him down the hall.
“I need a drink or a sedative. I don’t want to feel anything,” Jason said.
“I know,” she said, putting her arm around him. “I want to be numb too.”
“I have to call the girls,” Jason said when they arrived back at the hotel.
Natalie cringed, thinking about all the people they would have to tell—including Lauren. “You should tell them in person.”
“I can’t go home. They can’t come here. And I’m scared out of my mind they’re going to find out from some dickhead reporter. I can’t, I . . . can’t let that happen,” he stammered. He paced the lobby. Finally, he stopped and stared at her hard. “How do I explain to my daughters over FaceTime that their mother is dead?”
Natalie’s heart cinched shut. She pressed the corners of her eyes to hold the tears in. She couldn’t imagine that conversation. It would break them. And him. All over again.
“I don’t even know what happened to her,” he said. “Just that she has a huge gash on her head, but she didn’t drown even though she was found in water. I just don’t get it. Are we ever going to know the truth?”
Natalie knew what he wasn’t asking. Was she ever going to remember? And if she didn’t, then what?
She peered into the large hole in the ground.
She saw a ladder that led down to the water.
It was dark as ink.
She shone a flashlight toward it, wondering how deep it was. Her light catching the jagged rocks around the edge.
Natalie’s pulse quickened. More snippets of memories. What were they leading to? “I hope so,” she finally said, watching him walk to his room to make the worst call he was ever going to have to make. In just minutes, the life Jason’s daughters knew would never again be the same. None of their lives would. Because one moment would define the rest of all of their lives: the moment when they each found out Ashley was dead. Natalie shuddered—seeing Ashley’s stark white face on the gurney at the morgue. She had no idea what the rest of her life looked like. It could be behind bars in a prison in Mexico. It could be discovering the awful depths of what she might be capable of. It could be back home with her family. It could be a million different things. But it would never include Ashley.
And that thought was sadder than any other.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE NIGHT
ASHLEY
Ashley and Natalie followed Marco in a single line through the thick tropical forest, along a man-made path, the only sound the palm leaves and branches that had fallen from the trees crackling below their feet, the only light coming from the beams of their flashlights and the full moon.
A clearing opened up, and Ashley drew in a sharp breath as she saw the cenote. She and Natalie peered over the edge—shining their lights toward the water. “It looks like dark ink,” Natalie said. “How deep do you think it is?”
“It’s fifty feet deep right there. But it connects to underwater caves where it’s even deeper in places,” Marco said.
“It’s pretty far down,” Ashley said.
“About fifteen feet, maybe more,” Marco said. “You definitely want to use that to get down.” He shone his beam over to the side where a wooden ladder was attached to the top and disappeared into the sinkhole below. “Jumping or falling would both be very bad.” He pulled Ashley by the elbow so she wasn’t standing so close to the edge.
Ashley shone her light across to the other side—she couldn’t tell how wide it was, but guessed maybe twenty to thirty feet. There was something both eerie and beautiful about this place—as if it could save you or break you, depending on what you wanted from it. Ashley felt drawn to it, still thinking about Lauren, not sure how she was going to survive without her in her life after she’d stripped away any hope of reconciliation. There was a look in her eye when she’d said the awful words that had stabbed Ashley in the heart—she had meant them. How had Ashley lost control over her friendships, her career? Her marriage? How had she lost her grasp so easily on the most vital of things?
She kicked off her sandals and put them next to her phone, then she started to climb down the ladder toward the water she prayed would bring her answers. The wood was slippery, and she tightened her grip on the rung with her one hand, and held her flashlight in the other.
“Where are you going?” Natalie asked, shining the light directly in Ashley’s eyes, causing her to lose her balance momentarily.
“Whoa! That’s bright. Are you trying to kill me by making me fall?” Ashley asked, flinching.
“Sorry,” Natalie said. “But it’s so dark down there. It’s scary.”
“I just want to feel the water. I’m not going all the way in—yet,” Ashley said, shining her light up at Natalie, careful not to point it in her face.
Marco followed her down the ladder. He stood just above her. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Ashley turned and looked up at him. “You were right. I can already feel the energy, and I’m not even in the cenote yet. My entire body is buzzing, like the spirits are inside me.” She took a deep breath, the knots in her stomach finally coming undone.
“Well, in order to truly feel the energy, I have something for you.” Marco leaned back against the ladder and removed two clear bottles from his pocket. Ashley was so close she could see that there was a green liquid inside them.
“What do you have?” Natalie peered over the edge of the cenote, looking down at them.
“This is balché.”
“It’s what?” Natalie called down. She shone her flashlight on the bottles.
“It’s called balché,” Marco answered. “An ancient drink made from the gum tree which can be found at the ruins of Chichén Itzá, among other places in the Yucatán. High priests and shamans have been administering it for centuries. Drinking the amount I’ve brought will help clear your mind so that your soul can communicate with the gods. To find your center. It will help you resolve your conflicts.”
“So we drink that and suddenly we know what to do about Revlon? We’re in perfect agreement? We’re all best friends again? Our marriages are perfect? God, who knew it was all so simple?” Natalie’s voice was mocking. “Why stop with us, why don’t you sell it to the leaders of the US and North Korea! Why not broker world peace too?” She let out a short laugh.
“Natalie—” Ashley started.
“I told you we couldn’t trust him,” Natalie said. “Why didn’t you tell us about the drugs back at your place?” she asked Marco. “You said it would be magical and conveniently left out that we’d need to get high to see the magic.”
“I didn’t want to overwhelm you with information. I wanted you to see the cenote first. Take it all in.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Natalie asked, her eyes protruding. “Is this some kind of sick game—get women to go with you to a forest in the middle of the night and take your drugs? How do we know what that really even is? It could be anything!”
“Let’s go back up,” Ashley said to Marco. She climbed up behind him. He stepped to the side so she could pass.
“Natalie, will you stop!” Ashley said as she approached her, Marco close behind. “Marco means well. Why can’t you just trust him?”
“I can’t understand why you trust him—you’ve known the guy for four days!”
“Please,” Ashley said, her voice light. She needed to convince Natalie this was a good thing, that the liquid in those bottles could help them. That the universe wanted them to heal.
Natalie stood, her gaze darting back and forth between Ashley and the bottles Marco was holding. Ashley
saw an opening as she studied Natalie’s face. She was softening, just slightly. “Come on. I don’t want to do it alone. I need you.”
Natalie’s eyes widened at her confession. Ashley typically didn’t say such things. “Do you really believe it will help?”
“I do.” Ashley reached out her hand and exhaled deeply when Natalie took the bottle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THREE DAYS AFTER
LAUREN
Lauren heard the light knock on the door—so faint she almost told herself she’d imagined it. That it wasn’t Natalie standing on the other side of the glass about to give her the news she suspected she was about to hear: that Ashley was dead. Because if it hadn’t been her body at the morgue, Natalie would have called her immediately and said so. Right? Lauren walked slowly, her legs shaking.
“It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Ashley,” Lauren said out loud. She pulled back the sheer curtain and opened the door, staring into Natalie’s eyes. They were red and puffy from crying. The room started spinning. She grabbed the edge of the bed. “No!”
Natalie wrapped her arms around Lauren and held her as she cried. Lauren’s shoulders shook hard. She couldn’t stop gasping. After several minutes she caught her breath. Natalie brought her a box of tissues, and she blew her nose repeatedly. Her throat burned.
“Not another person I loved.” Lauren was hit with a terrible realization that she’d told Ashley she wished she were dead—and she was.
“I’m so sorry,” Natalie said.
“She didn’t deserve this.”
Lauren could see Ashley standing at La Cantina, begging her to change her mind—to think about their twenty-year history. To give her another chance. And then she’d wished her dead. Those would forever be the last words she’d spoken to Ashley.
“I know,” Natalie said. “She didn’t.”
Lauren’s chin trembled, and she started to cry again. “What happened to her? How did she—”
Natalie explained what Officer Lopez told them. She ended on the fact that she was a suspect.
“What?” Lauren’s eyes widened.