Chapter 36
Jacob never learned exactly why Tess decided to do it.
He liked to think discretion and deniability made him a more appealing confidant—and this deed would surely lock them together
for life, more ironclad than any marriage vows—but in truth he’d asked her several times after their fateful conversation
by the Gypsum River and received only vague nonanswers. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t about revenge or score settling.
She’d always been jealous of Allie, of course, but jealousy wasn’t enough of a motive, either. Why pay someone to murder your
best friend?
Tess never said.
She’d plotted out the date, the location, and the inevitable aftermath (verify everything, she’d repeated like a mantra). She’d rehearsed the story she’d tell police. She’d even warned him that Allie might bring
her GoPro, but a helmet camera wouldn’t be a problem as long as the “unknown killer” remembered to steal it on the way out.
Everything else was logistics.
Where to do it? The bottom of the Upper Vault.
How to do it? Knife to her carotid.
How to safely get close enough? Coerce her into zip-tying her wrists.
The nylon zip ties had been Tess’s idea, too—once both women were bound and helpless, Jacob would be able to cut Allie’s throat without risking a counterattack.
Tess, meanwhile, would heroically “escape” into daylight, flee the cave on foot, and tell her harrowing tale of surviving an unidentified, untraceable killer. Her plan was simple and near flawless.
The only blind spot?
The target herself.
Allie was no victim. She never would have zip-tied herself, whatever he’d threatened. She’d known, perhaps from her years
of street-smart travel, that women who surrender to their abductors are often never seen again. Of course she’d try to bargain with her PIN. Of course she’d conceal a knife behind her back. They’d underestimated Allie Merritt, and the planned ambush had stalled.
Leaving Tess standing paralyzed, with no choice but to break character: “Jacob, just shoot her in the head.”
He’d drawn his gun—but Allie was fast. She was already in motion when he fired, ducking under two earsplitting gunshots, fleeing
the only direction available, down, headfirst into the narrow Drainpipe. With her helmet camera still recording.
“Follow her.” Tess had shoved him. “Finish it.”
And God, how he’d tried.
Over nine hours, he’d tried his very hardest.
Now he felt Tess’s boot dig into his kidney, doubling him over on the ground. He was too weak to catch himself. He felt her
fingers claw through his pockets until she found what she’d been looking for.
His keys.
Sprawled sideways, he watched Tess stand up with his key chain held in her sleeve—still careful to avoid transferring her
own fingerprints—and march toward his Jeep. Of course, she had one last thing to do.
It’ll be my word against three bodies, she’d said.
And she was right.
Three bodies, indeed. Jacob knew he was bleeding out (one), Ethan was dead (two), and once his Jeep finished the job and suffocated Allie (three), not a soul would be left alive to dispute Tess’s story. No living witnesses would remain at all. Just like she’d originally
planned, and despite everything that went wrong today, Tess had still found a way to appear innocent. What an incredible magic
trick it was. As the sole survivor of the bloodbath at the Devil’s Staircase, the truth would be hers to tell.
Except, he knew, for one minor wrinkle. One little detail she hadn’t considered.
And it was delicious.
He watched Tess open the Jeep’s driver’s-side door with her sleeve, leaning inside and clicking the key into the ignition—and
he couldn’t hold it back any longer.
He started to laugh.
She froze. “What?”
He couldn’t speak. His throat rattled with deep belly laughs.
“What is it?” Tess held the key mid-twist.
Jacob tried again—but Christ, he just couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe it was the delirium of blood loss, but this was the funniest,
most karmically beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. His lips were numb, his tongue a dead slug in his mouth.
He’d die with this shit-eating grin on his face. He gasped: “She . . .”
“What, Jacob?”
With splinted fingers he pointed at the ground, at the GoPro. He strained to enunciate his words, pushing air through his
teeth: “Verify everything, remember?”
Tess didn’t understand at first.
Then her eyes widened.
She moved fast, too fast for Jacob’s glazing eyes to track. She left the driver’s-side door swinging ajar. She grabbed the GoPro from the ground and turned it over, prying the camera’s side port open with her thumb—and with a gasp of horror, finding it empty. The memory card was missing.
Allie had kept it.
“You’re right, Babygirl.” Jacob lay back and let his eyes slide shut. “It’ll be your word against three bodies.”
He choked on a final, clotted laugh.
“And her video.”