Chapter 64
They left David in the basement. It seemed insane, to leave his body on the mattress, his eyes still open, staring at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open, his body naked. She had covered him with a blanket and hesitated, then covered his face with a towel.
They needed to think and to plan. Mark needed to come off the benzo and back down to earth.
She started the shower and they both stepped into the large double space.
Silently, they stood at opposite ends and washed.
Willow used her strongest exfoliant and scrubbed her skin until it was red, then shampooed her hair before following Mark out of the stall.
They dried off and dressed for bed, then got into the large California King.
Mark rolled onto his side and faced Willow. “I’m hard.”
“Jesus, Mark.” She lay on her back, on the verge of an anxiety attack. She was still freezing, her teeth chattering whenever her jaw relaxed. It was possible she was going into shock.
“It’s the Viagra. I took two of the one-hundred-milligram.”
“Well, fucking deal with it or ignore it,” she snapped. “I can’t think about your dick’s problems right now.”
“I’m just saying that it’s hard to go to sleep like this.”
“Say one more word about it and you can sleep in the guest room.”
He sighed, and she rolled away from him.
She stared at the double set of doors that led to their balcony and thought about David’s wife.
She had met Sara a few times. She was nice.
Very smart. She’d asked about her tonight, and David had told them that they had separated.
Was it true? Willow hadn’t really cared, and maybe this was karma for her act as an accomplice to infidelity.
What the fuck had happened tonight? How had one night of relatively innocent play ended up with a dead man in their basement? And how culpable was she for this crime?
Pretty fucking culpable, it felt. If she hadn’t entertained Mark’s proclivities, if she hadn’t brought up the idea of bringing home someone tonight, if she had thrown away the shock kit when Mark had ordered it, or not given David the benzo, or just been an ordinary good little wife like every other house in this neighborhood . . .
David would still be alive.
This was 100 percent her fault, and if they got caught for this, she’d have to take the fall.
Mark had a reputation and a business to protect.
She had an exceptionally high record on Candy Crush and little else.
No one would notice if she went to prison for a few decades.
No one, aside from Mark and maybe her sister, would likely care.
But maybe they wouldn’t get caught. She ticked through everything that had happened at the bar.
It had been crowded, so much so that it was likely no one had noticed them talking to him.
And if they had, it wouldn’t have stuck out as strange.
They had left separately, and his car was still somewhere downtown.
He had ridden in the back seat of their car, which meant that he wouldn’t show up on the neighborhood’s security cams at the entrance and exit gates.
His cell phone was here, and that was a problem. She rolled out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Mark asked.
“I’ll be right back.”
She found David’s phone downstairs, in the pocket of his pants.
She touched the screen, and it lit up with a photo of a football player Mark had represented a few years back.
She used a hammer from the utility room and smashed the screen until it splintered, chunks of it falling away as she hit it harder and harder, until it was as broken up as her life.
She dumped the shards into the garbage compactor and ran a cycle.
She returned to their bedroom, and Mark was already asleep, softly snoring in the dark, the blanket slightly tented at his hips.