Alex pulled her close. He let her cry.
Both of us could’ve done things differently.
***
Alex stood with his back to the wall. He was on the starboard side of the stairwell leading up from below deck. Chet stood in the same position on the port side.
“Pssst,” Chet hissed.
Alex looked at him, held his fingers to his lips.
Chet whispered, “Okay, okay, but are you sure about this?”
Alex nodded, pretended like he was locking his lips closed and tossed the imaginary key over his shoulder.
Chet swallowed hard.
Alex had trusted Chet with his suspicions about Wade. He had to. Chet was the only viable option. For Alex’s plans, Mark was too small, and, besides, Terri hadn’t let him out of her sight since earlier that morning. Plus, Alex had recalled Chet’s reaction when they had first seen Erica’s body. Chet’s response had been one of legitimate fear, surprise, and repulsion. If he wasn’t innocent, he’d certainly done an incredible job of acting like he was.
Jenn, standing at the top of the stairwell, nervously whispered, “Are you ready?”
Alex mouthed, “Go.”
She asked Chet the same. He shook his head no, shrugged his shoulders, and then nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Okay,” Jenn said quietly, “here goes.” She stepped closer to the doorway and shouted down. “Wade? Hey, Wade?”
All three heard a muffled response of, “Yeah? Everything okay?”
“The others are kind of concerned that you’re down there by yourself. Maybe you should come up, huh?”
His voice coming closer, he replied, “They know I’m down here searching for evidence. What’s the problem?”
“Just come up, please. Maybe if you reassured them?”
“Fine.”
Alex could tell by the sound of Wade’s voice that he was at the bottom of the stairwell. Jenn confirmed this by waving and forcing a fake smile. “Hey, sorry,” she said, then put her hands on her hips and backed away.
“Yeah, yeah.” The footsteps and the voice were close now. “I thought they were cool with it?” Closer still.
Wade appeared in the doorway, groaned as he pushed himself up the last of the stairs and onto the deck. Alex tried to flatten his body against the wall as much as possible. Wade took two more steps toward Jenn, and her flickering eyes betrayed Alex and Chet’s position.
Wade sensed the danger and spun around, spotting Alex. Bushy eyebrows sprang higher on his forehead as Chet swung the thick-glassed, heavy bottle of whiskey.
Wade said, “What’s—” and dropped like an anchor after the thick thunk on the back of his head.
***
Alex threw a glass of expensive scotch in Wade’s face, waking him up where he’d been slumped on the couch.
Wade coughed, sputtered, and struggled against the bright red mooring rope that bound his wrists together behind his back.
The remaining eight friends stood around him in a semi-circle, arms crossed, judging him, already on trial by his peers.
He tried to blink away the stinging alcohol in his eyes, rubbed his face on his shoulders. The back of his white t-shirt was soaked red from the blood leaking out of his scalp; the couch cushions, too. The bottle, thick enough to be used as a hammer, had left a nasty knot and a deep gash that would need stitches.
Groggily, Wade said, “What happened?”
“There’s no cell service this far out,” Jenn replied. “You lied about what you were doing last night.”
“Hang on. What?”
The wind raged outside the galley. Sheets of rain fell into the ocean and disappeared, returning home.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
Alex leaned down and shouted in his face, “Quit trying to play dumb, asshole. Why’d you kill Erica?”
“Erica? Huh? No, I didn’t do it. I—”
Alex shouted again, cheeks going red behind the tan. “There’s no cell service out here, and even if there was, there was no call to Linda last night. I found an old charger and we turned on your phone while you were out. Guess what? No service. We checked your contacts and there’s a Linda in your phone, but no calls to her last night. None. You’re lying. What happened, Wade? Did you try to get your dick wet? Erica said no, didn’t she? She said no, and you couldn’t take the rejection, could you? You slit her throat, you threw the knife overboard, and then told everybody you were going to find out who did it. I bet you were never even a cop, were you?”
Wade pleaded, “Yeah, I was. We get back to shore, you can look up my records, but I didn’t kill her.”
Jenn put all of her weight behind a devastating right cross. Wade’s head whipped to the side and fresh droplets of blood splattered the white cushions behind him, adding to the splotch of coloring. She tried to shake the pain away from her hand, checked her knuckles—two of them red and would bruise soon. “You did, and you know it. I’d known her since we were babies, you sadistic freak! She was my friend.”
“Jenn, you gotta believe me. I didn’t kill her, okay?”
“Then tell us why there’s no call to this mystery woman!”
“I-I can’t,” Wade whimpered. “I can’t say.”
“You can’t say because you murdered her. You, you, you!” Jenn yanked the roll of duct tape out of Alex’s hand. The harsh, vibrating sound of her ripping a strip loose, and then tearing it free from the roll, broke through the gusting wind and noise of the rocking yacht. She said, “Deny it all you want. Every bit of evidence is pointing to you. We’re exhausted. We’re done. If you won’t admit to us that you killed her, then you can say it to the cops when we get home.” She slammed the strip of tape against this mouth.
Wade slid forward, off the couch and down onto his knees, where he looked up, pleading with his eyes, shouting muted gibberish.
Chet and Karen clapped. Mark put one arm around Terri as she bit her bottom lip. The yacht’s lights deepened the shadows around her crow’s feet. Sharon and Laura stood back near the bar, cradling strong drinks in shaky hands. Alex simply nodded his approval.
Jenn said to the crowd, “Everybody okay with this? Are we done here?” They all agreed, immediately. To Alex, she said, “Let’s go home. Now.”
***
Concealed inside his jacket, held tightly by a clammy hand, Mark rolled the pocketknife around and around, feeling the weight of it, wishing he could pry it open and test the sharpness of the blade.
He smiled when nobody was watching.
REWIND
Erica yelped and strained to see who it was. “Oh, hey. God, you scared me. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?”
Mark stepped out of the deepest darkness. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “If this is, um, if this is untoward, me being in here, then you can tell me to leave.”
“No, it’s okay,” she replied, curious, because she always thought of Mark as being too timid to spook a mouse, and here he was, sneaking up on her in the middle of the night. Had he come to check on her? He used to be a doctor, right? Or was it a lawyer? Was that Chet? She asked, “Something the matter?”
“Everything, really. She thinks I’m asleep.”
“Who? Jenn?” She wasn’t thinking clearly—a hangover and a head wound combined aren’t much good for rational thoughts. It hurt when she shook her head.
“My wife.”
“Right, Terri. My brain’s kinda mushy.” She pointed to the bandage. A moment of clarity slipped in. “Wait, if she thinks you’re asleep, what’s she doing now?” Erica sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the robe tighter to hide her naked body underneath. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared. He’d seen everything hours before, and in the months prior—loose inhibitions and alcohol, her vices—but this was…odd. He seemed sad, however, and she patted the bed, asking him if he wanted to sit.