Chapter 65
Mark grunted as he hefted each of the kettlebells onto the seat, next to David.
His body was stiff, but not the rigor mortis brick she had expected.
It had been easy to bend him into a seated position, easy to redress him into his clothes, easy to loop his hands over each of their shoulders, and half carry, half drag him into the back seat of the GEM golf cart and strap the seat belt across his lap and torso.
Once David was secured, Mark started up the silent electric ATV and opened the garage door, and the three of them drove through the backyard gate and down the course until they reached the big lake on hole six.
They kept the headlights off, their white paved golf cart path standing out easily in the dark, against the dark-green turf.
Normally, when they went for night drives, they played the radio—not too loudly where it would disturb the neighbors—but not tonight.
Tonight, they were silent. Willow held her breath for most of the drive, terrified with each corner they took that there would be the headlights of another cart, or the glow of a runner’s flashlight or late-night bicyclist’s headlamp.
They had rarely ever passed someone on the course, especially not at two thirty in the morning—but still, her chest was tight, her nerves raw.
Mark had once been told the lake at hole six was twelve feet deep in the center, so they parked in the trees on its border and looped David’s arms around their shoulders, each carrying a kettlebell, and waded David out until the water was at Willow’s neck and their feet were at the edge; then they swam another ten feet out.
It was an awkward journey, with more splashing than Willow liked, but it was a struggle to pull David with one hand and hold the kettlebell with the other.
As soon as they got above the deep drop-off, Mark counted to three and they let go.
David sank, as they say, like a stone. Like two kettlebells into pitch-dark water. Willow treaded in place for a moment, staring down into the water, certain that he would suddenly bob back up.
He didn’t and she rotated, a bit of lake water getting into her mouth, and she thought of all the warnings she’d ever gotten as a kid about amoebas and ponds.
More karma. An infection, bacteria growing in her ear that would make her deathly ill, and she would have to go to the emergency room and lie when they asked her if she had swum in any algae-filled ponds, and then she would die and David would be waiting for her in hell, that cocky little smirk on his face.
Shouldn’t have hidden my body. Should have just called the cops.
“Willow!” Mark shout-whispered from the shore. “Come on!”
She swam to him, kicking as quietly as possible, until she reached the point that she could touch the bottom, then waded out and alongside him, her teeth chattering, as her wet clothes were exposed to the night wind.
She was going to hell. This right here was past the point of no return, and she had taken it. She had hidden a body. Never mind how it had happened. She had had the option and had covered up the crime.
“Here.” Mark passed her a dry sweatsuit, and she stripped in the cover of the trees and pulled it on, suddenly frantic over the time.
She squeezed the water out of her clothes and stuffed the garments into a trash bag.
Getting back into the cart next to Mark, she held the bag on her lap and hurriedly shoved her feet back into her flip-flops.
Now to get home undetected.
“That was easy,” Mark said as they rounded the curve on number five.
“We haven’t made it back yet,” she said. Maybe the kettlebells wouldn’t hold. Maybe the skin would rot off his bones and he would float back to the top, and in three days he’d be bobbing like a top, right in the fairway’s sight. “Don’t jinx us.”
They drove down five, then four, then three, and she finally allowed herself a full breath at the sight of their home, the second floor visible above the trees, peeks of their pool and their own pond coming into view.
When they were back in the garage, the door closed behind them, she let out a sob and leaned in to Mark’s body, clutching him as if he were a life raft and she were drowning.
It was, in their seven years of marriage, the first time she’d ever cried in front of him.
He was typically, out of the two of them, the more emotional one.
But he gripped her, and he didn’t cry. He didn’t do anything more than hold her, and that was fine.
She needed him to be strong, and like always, he was what she wanted and needed him to be.
Back inside, she went straight to the shower and stared at the wall of tiles, the rainhead on its strongest setting, drilling her back with thin needles of heat.
It shouldn’t have been that easy to get rid of a body.
She had spent the entire ride expecting a problem, her nerves as tight as a guillotine wire as she waited for the moment that it would all fall apart.
Now her body was exhausted and her mind was nonstop, the silver ball in a pinball machine, ricocheting from one potential alarm to another.
The crime seemed foolproof but it wasn’t.
There was a hole, a gap, a something they’d forgotten, a something that would trip them up and flag them as guilty, a smoking gun that would land them both behind bars.
She had to find it, to figure it out, to tie up whatever loose end was hanging, and it was likely that there was more than one.
Maybe two. Three. Five. The entire basement was a crime scene.
Evidence everywhere. He’d ridden in their car.
More DNA. More fingerprints. His phone, the pieces in her garbage disposal.
The call to 9-1-1 that she had started to place and stopped.
Had she pressed send? Had she cleared out the numbers before she locked the device?
So many witnesses at the bar. What had they heard? What had they seen?
She turned off the water and stepped out into the bathroom. The heated floors were on, and she grabbed a towel off the warming rack and pulled it on. So far, everything seemed pretty airtight. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t a potential problem, only that she hadn’t thought of it yet.
She twisted her hair up in a towel and pulled on her robe, avoiding a peek at the small gold clock that sat at the edge of her perfume bottles.
She’d never realized how many clocks there were in this house.
Every room had one, the hands ticking by, the time chasing her.
One above the mantel in the living room.
One on the microwave display. The small one that looked like a seashell by her bed.
No matter what room she was in, her gaze was drawn to the clocks, her madness in tune with the ticks.
It had been twenty-three hours. Almost twenty-four. Had he been reported missing? Were the police already on the case?
David had leaned in and told her, his loafers hooked onto the rung of the barstool, that he and Sara were estranged.
Said that they hadn’t shared a bed in months.
Was it true? He’d lifted his gaze to the ceiling and remarked that his condo was on the ninth floor, and suggested they come up for a drink.
If he did live alone, his wife might not even know that he was missing.
Did his office? Maybe he had a girlfriend.
Maybe he had a dog. Her gut wrenched at the thought of a pet, locked in the condo, with no one coming.
By now, their bowels would have given up. Their water dish would be empty.
The idea was somehow even more horrifying than the thought of Sara.
A woman could fend for herself, could pick up the pieces of her life and build a new one.
A dog . . . it wouldn’t understand. It would know only that David left for drinks and never came back.
It would know only that it was hungry and there was no one there to feed it.
She slid under the covers next to Mark, whose attention was fixed on the television.
The channel was on a sports commentary where two men argued over a prediction, and he stared at the screen as if the outcome mattered.
She rolled onto her side, away from him, and her stomach flipped in disgust. Was this how their life would continue?
As if nothing were wrong, like nothing had happened?
Tomorrow morning, would they go to brunch at Mariposa’s and drink Bloody Marys and mimosas and order eggs Benedict and bitch about the service before overtipping the waitress?
She plugged in her phone and pulled up social media, searching for David’s name and scrolling down his profile.
For an hour, she read his posts, going back almost six years. She joined two local groups he was a part of and searched for and read all his comments. She read until her eyes ached and Mark snored, and she finally dropped the phone onto the bed and closed her eyes.
Willow went to sleep and woke up and waited with increasing anxiety for someone to sound the alarm about David.
Finally, three days after they’d dropped him into the water, word hit Crestmore that a husband was missing.