by Blake Pierce
The people nearby, already talking in hushed voices, fell completely silent. The only sounds were waves sloshing against boat hulls and Natalia’s quiet whimpering. Some random guy rushed over to help her to her feet. As he did, Jessie noticed the girl wasn’t wearing any panties.
She was about to comment on that when she suddenly felt lightheaded. She reached out for the back of the bench but it was too far away and she felt herself falling backward as her legs gave out. She raised her arms instinctively around her abdomen to protect that area from the impact of the imminent fall.
But before she hit the ground, Kyle was there, his arms underneath her, easing her descent and resting her on the ground gently.
“Jessie, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice anxious and tight.
“I feel out of it—dizzy,” she said, noticing that she was slurring her words slightly. “All the walking, the champagne, the slutty hostess—I’m really struggling here.”
Kyle kept his hand under her head so that it wouldn’t lie on the hard wood dock. She watched him look around desperately before his eyes fell on something that calmed him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We’re pretty close to Teddy’s boat. I’m going to carry you over there and you can rest on a bed in the cabin until you feel better. He won’t care. Hell, you can spend the night there if you don’t feel up to going home.”
“You sure?” she asked, still dizzy but relieved at the idea of being able to lie down somewhere quieter and more secluded.
“Of course,” he assured her. “It’s the perfect spot. We’re lucky it’s right there.”
Jessie felt Kyle scoop her up in his arms. She tried to keep her eyes open so she could get a better sense of where they were going. But it was useless. She felt weak and disoriented and within moments, gave up. She sank into the warmth of her husband’s comforting embrace and allowed her eyes to close.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Jessie was awakened by a piercing pain in her skull. She opened her eyes slightly so that only a slit of light could get in. But somehow the sun’s rays found her and bored into her. She closed them again and only dared reopen them when her hand was there to serve as protection.
She lay quietly on her back, trying to get her bearings. She didn’t recognize her surroundings, though she could tell she was in a bed. Her limbs felt heavy and her mouth was dry and puffy. She opened her eyes a little more. Her environment became clearer. She felt a slight rocking motion and noticed that the room she was in was tiny, with all the walls extremely close to the bed. The mostly porthole windows were the final indicator. She was on a boat.
And then the memories flooded back. The party, the champagne, the argument with the floozy hostess, the sudden pregnancy-induced exhaustion and dizziness, nearly falling before Kyle carried her away to a boat, this boat.
After that, everything went blank. She didn’t remember getting on the vessel or being placed in the bed or anything up until this moment. Glancing out the window, she knew she hadn’t slept a full twelve hours, as she’d told Kyle she wanted to. The sun, with its unforgiving rays, was just barely peeking out above the hills in the distance. It was still pre-dawn.
“Kyle?” she muttered, the word coming out garbled, even to her.
She tried to prop herself up on her elbows but the attempt made her dizzy and nauseous and she immediately slumped back down and closed her eyes.
“Kyle, are you in here?” she asked slightly louder.
There was no response.
She took several deep breaths before rolling to her side and pushing herself up to a seated position on the edge of the bed. She waited for the nausea to return but it held back, apparently taking pity on her.
She sat there for several minutes in just panties and a bra, slumped over, her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, gathering the strength to move again. When she finally felt able, she turned around to face the bed again.
To her surprise, she saw someone else lying there next to the indentation from where she had slept. There was a sheet over the head and most of the person’s torso, but one tan leg poked out.
“Kyle?” she said warily even though she knew it couldn’t be him. It was a woman’s leg.
She leaned over and pulled the sheet away to reveal Natalia, lying on her side away from her. Despite her diminished state, Jessie felt a modified version of her anger from last night and gave the woman a rough shove.
“Wake up,” she hissed. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
Natalia continued to lie on her side, oblivious to the world.
“Hey,” Jessie said again, this time louder and more forcefully, “I said, what are you doing in here?”
She grabbed Natalia’s shoulder and yanked her onto her back. The girl, still wearing her black minidress, offered no resistance and lolled over lazily, her left arm splaying out across the bed. Her eyes were open.
Jessie blinked several times, trying to process what she saw. She felt as if she was disconnected from her own body, hovering over the scene, detached from emotion, methodically taking it all in.
Natalia was staring emptily up at the ceiling, her unseeing eyes dotted with red splotches. Her skin was a light blue. Her neck was an ugly rainbow of red, purple, blue, and black and it had deep indentations and puncture marks.
Jessie blankly glanced down at her own hands and saw that her nails were rimmed with dried blood. She held them up close to her and saw what looked to be skin underneath the nails. She reached out and touched the girl’s arm closest to her. It was cold.
Something about that snapped her out of her nightmare reverie and back into the reality of the moment. The horror of what lay in front of her suddenly swallowed her up and she opened her mouth to scream.
“Kyle!”
A second later, she heard a banging on the door, which startled her into silence.
“Jessie? What is it?” she heard her husband call out as she heard him shake the door handle. “Why is the door locked? Are you okay?”
Jessie leapt up and moved to the door, unlocked the chain latch and the doorknob, and swung it open. Kyle stood before her in a T-shirt and boxers, sleepy-eyed and bed-headed.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said, pointing at the bed.
Kyle glanced around her. His eyes fell on the bed and his mouth dropped open.
“What the…? Is that Natalia?”
“I don’t how she got here or what happened,” Jessie pleaded, her voice rising. “I just woke up and found her there.”
Kyle looked at her, stunned, then back at the dead body on the bed. He seemed at a loss.
“What is going on?” Jessie wailed.
That seemed to drag him out of his state of shock.
“Shh,” he whispered, glancing back over his shoulder. “Get back inside the room.”
He guided her in and closed the door behind her, locking it after them. He looked around the room for few seconds, his mind clearly racing.
“You don’t remember her coming in here?” he asked.
“No. I don’t remember me coming in here. The last thing I can remember is you carrying me from the dock, saying that Teddy had a boat I could sleep on.”
“You don’t remember me undressing you or saying I was going to go find a water bottle and some ibuprofen in the club?”
Jessie shook her head.
“And you don’t remember her coming on board the boat at all?” he asked.
“No, Kyle. You say that like I should.”
“It’s just that I ran into her on my way up there. She asked if she could go on the boat and smooth things over with you. I said she’d be better off not, that you weren’t feeling so well. But when I looked back I saw that she was heading this way so I assumed she was going to try anyway. When I got back a few minutes later the bedroom door was locked and you weren’t answering. I just assumed you locked the door so she couldn’t get in, that she left and you passed out.”
“I don’t remember any of this,” Jessie said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything now,” he said, glancing back at Natalia’s body. “I just figured I’d let you sleep and check on you in the morning. So I crashed on the couch out there. I didn’t hear anything until you started calling for me.”
Jessie felt slightly dizzy again and sat back down on the bed, as far from Natalia as she could get. After a long silence, she spoke.
“Well, I guess we better call the cops,” she said, not sure what else to do.
“Yeah, of course,” he agreed, kneeling down in front of her and taking her hands in his. “I’m sure they can help sort all this out.”
He glanced down and then back up at her. His eyes were questioning.
“What?” she asked.
He looked over at Natalia and then back at Jessie’s hands.
“It looks like she was choked,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” Jessie agreed, shivering slightly. “I saw that too.”
“And your fingernails are bloody,” he said, again very quietly. “Is it possible that…”
He didn’t finish the sentence but she knew what he was thinking. She glanced down at her hands again. It was like she had forcibly forgotten the state they were in until now.
“You don’t think I…?” she began.
“I don’t know, Jessica,” he said reluctantly. “Could she maybe have startled you when she came in and you thought she was an intruder or something and fought back; maybe you didn’t realize who it was because you were so out of it?”
“No! I don’t know. I really don’t remember anything.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” he said. “That girl is dead. It appears like someone choked her and your fingernails are all bloody. It doesn’t look good, especially with your memory so hazy. Plus…”
“Plus what?” Jessie asked, her stomach doing a somersault.
“You were arguing with her last night. You were pretty aggressive. Lots of people saw it.”
“What are you saying, Kyle?”
“I’m saying whatever happened, it looks bad.”
“Then we’ll just have to explain it so that everyone understands,” she said firmly.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, getting off his knees and sitting on the bed beside her. He was noticeably looking away from Natalia.
“I am right,” Jessie said, choosing to believe it.
“You’re the law enforcement type so you’d know better,” he said, then reluctantly added, “but how likely are they to believe you? I mean, with her neck and your hands and the argument and all?”
Jessie didn’t reply, though an answer popped up her brain.
Not very.
“Can I offer an alternative proposal?” he asked hesitantly.
“What?”
“Maybe we could just make this all go away,” he suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t totally thought this out,” he admitted. “But no one but me knows she was going to see you. There were so many people milling about that I doubt anyone even noticed her. And the last anybody saw of you, I was carrying you, half-conscious, to this boat.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m saying that no one has to know she died on this boat or anywhere near you. She was drinking, just like everyone else. Who’s to say she didn’t just stumble on the dock, hit her head, roll in the water, and drown? It’s not inconceivable.”
“You’re saying we should just take her up on deck and toss her overboard?” Jessie asked incredulously.
“No. We couldn’t do it here. Someone might see. And her body would be found right away. The cops would see the marks on her neck and know she didn’t just drown. We’d have to take her further out in the bay, so she wouldn’t be discovered for a while.”
He got up and carefully avoided Natalia’s body as he moved over to the largest window and stared out.
“It’s barely dawn,” he said. “We could go out, dump her, and be back before anyone woke up. No one would miss us. Or her.”
“Kyle, her family would miss her,” she said, shocked at the suggestion. “They’d demand a search.”
“What family?” he asked. “She told me she just moved here from Ukraine a few months ago. She’s new to the area. She’s a stripper. It’s not like that’s a nine-to-five job. If she’s gone, they’ll probably just assume she flaked out. It could be months before anyone asks about her.”
“I don’t like it. I didn’t do anything wrong. If I turn myself in, the authorities might understand.”
“They might,” he acknowledged, glancing over at Natalia. “But they might not. The doors and windows are all locked from the inside, so there’s no way to deny it was you. And her neck looks really bad. It might be hard for them to buy that you did this in some daze or in self-defense.”
“I don’t know. That’s a decision you can’t come back from.”
“So is turning yourself in for murder, babe,” he pressed. “You’re carrying our child. You’re about to finish graduate school. Do you really want to risk all that on the chance that some prosecutor will be super understanding?”
Suddenly the nausea that she’d been able to subdue resurfaced. Jessie stumbled to the head, barely making it in time. She stayed hunched over the toilet for a while, throwing up until only bile came out. When she was done, Kyle flushed the toilet, helped her to her feet, and led her to the room where told her he’d slept.
“Let’s do this,” he said firmly. “I’ll take care of it, okay. I can’t lose you.”
He eased her down on the couch he’d slept on and stroked her hair. Within seconds, she had drifted off.
*
When she came to, Jessie could tell they were no longer in the marina. The boat was rolling vigorously over what felt like much bigger waves.
She sat up and found that she felt somewhat better. Glancing through the doorway toward the bedroom where she’d spent the night, she saw that the door was closed. She gingerly got to her feet, wrapped a blanket around herself, and walked to the stairwell, where she grabbed the railing. Holding tight, she took each step carefully until she was topside.
The sun was brighter now and she had to squint. They were somewhere out in the bay. The air had a frosty bite and goose bumps magically appeared all over her body. Kyle was at the bow with his back to her. He seemed to be pushing something heavy.
A second later she heard a loud plop and knew what had happened. He turned around and looked so surprised to see her that he nearly toppled back in the water himself. He steadied himself and came over.
“It’s done,” he said. “Let’s get back quick, before anyone notices the boat was missing.”
Suddenly Jessie felt the urge to vomit and it had nothing to do with morning sickness. She leaned over the side and gagged on the bile in her throat. She couldn’t get the thought of Natalia’s body hitting the water out of her head.
Kyle held her shoulders until she stopped. Then, without a word, he went to the helm and turned the boat back to the marina. As they headed back to shore, Jessie leaned against the gunwale and stared back in the direction they’d come from.
A prominent rock outcropping jutted up near where Kyle had dumped Natalia, surrounded by lighted buoys to warn sailors away. Jessie suspected he’d dumped the body there so boats would be less likely to find it.
“Jessie,” he called out, “I need to you take the helm so I can hose down the deck. I don’t want to leave any skin residue or anything, just in case.”
Jessie moved absentmindedly in his direction, still in a half-haze, only barely beginning to accept that they’d just covered up a murder—one that she’d apparently committed.
Ten minutes later they were back at the dock. Kyle tied the boat off while Jessie went down below and got dressed in the main cabin. He joined her below, going to the bedroom to replace the bed sheets and stuff the used ones a duffel bag he found in the cl
oset. Then he took her hand and led her off the boat, down the dock, and back to the club. The sun was completely out now but there still wasn’t a soul in sight.
Kyle opened the door to the club and they walked through the darkened, silent dining room. It was barely 7:30 a.m. and the sun had been up less than an hour but they could hear activity in the kitchen. Pots and pans were being moved and distant voices could be heard. Soon members on boats would start to stir and come inside, ready for a hot breakfast.
Kyle led Jessie up the stairs and through the door to the lobby, which was also empty, and out the front door of the club. They were in their car five minutes later and home ten minutes after that. Jessie went straight upstairs to shower. She stayed under the water for twenty minutes, scrubbing at her nails nearly the whole time.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
When she woke up, her vision was fuzzy. She glanced down and could tell that she was seated in a wooden chair with her wrists tied to the arms with coarse rope. Her head was strapped against the chair back so that she couldn’t move it from side to side. Her feet dangled loosely. She was too small for them to touch the ground.
As she blinked to clear her sight, she felt rough fingers on her face, pulling the skin just below and above her eyes so they were wide open, then placing something like tape on the skin so she couldn’t close them. Her eyes began to water but her vision, now almost normal, allowed her to take in the scene in front of her.
She was in a dark cabin and there was a woman standing in front of a lit fireplace. She was naked. Her arms were above her head, attached to manacles suspended from ceiling beams. Her eyes were wide with fear but she couldn’t yell because her mouth was stuffed with some kind of cloth.
Jessie opened her mouth to scream but found that she too, had something in her mouth, preventing her from doing anything more than grunt. A male voice spoke softly in an oddly soothing tone from somewhere behind her.
“You have to see, little junebug. You have to know the truth,” the voice said.