Chapter 16 Rachel
Rachel
Iopened the front door with a smile and waved Jules in. “Good morning,” I chirped. “Thank you for coming by; I’m so torn on what to do with this bathroom.”
Jules, who was wearing a baggy Mickey Mouse shirt and a pair of boyfriend jeans, closed the door behind her and looked around. “Wow. Did you pack all of this up yourself?”
“No, I hired a company.” I walked around the mountain of cardboard boxes that held Jake’s sports memorabilia and collectibles. “It’s all getting picked up tomorrow. I’m putting his personal items in storage; the rest will go to an auction company.”
“So he’s definitely not coming back?” She followed me up the staircase, and if she noticed the bare walls where our wedding pictures used to be, she didn’t mention it.
“No, he’s negotiating the plea deal. Likely going to get four years at Lancaster. They’re transferring him next week.” I entered our bedroom and passed through the closets—now both for me—and into the large bathroom. “Okay, so here’s what I need your help with.”
On the large counter was a collection of marble and cabinet samples. I pointed to the first set. “This is what I’m thinking of, but I’m not sure if it’s too dark for the space.”
“Oh.” She stared down at the pieces, then glanced at the mirror. “You fixed the crack?”
“Yeah. That’s another reason I’m doing the remodel. To get rid of this slick tile.”
“I can’t believe you slipped like that. You could have really hurt yourself.”
“Yeah, nothing like catching myself with my head.” I laughed.
I had originally planned a big explanation about slipping out of the shower and running face-first into the mirror, cutting my hand on the shards, but the only person who had even asked me about the blood and the mirror was Jules.
The cops had been more concerned with Jake intentionally leaving me in the well and my insistence that he was plotting to have me killed.
It was an accusation I couldn’t back up with proof, and so far, Jake had insisted I was lying about the conversation I overheard with him and Jules on my hidden cam.
She tapped a cream granite sample that was inlaid with dark green streaks. “Wow, this is so different.”
“Yeah, well. I wanted a change.” I walked over to the towel shelf and picked up one of the small cameras that had been hidden in the room. “You know, Jules, I put cameras in this bathroom, just before my accident.”
She didn’t look up from the selection, but I could see the stiffening of her spine, the way her attention piqued at the words. “Cameras?”
“Yeah. I had them throughout the house, including in here. I thought . . .” I let out a strangled laugh. “I thought Jake might be cheating on me.”
She stayed silent, picking up a drawer pull and examining the design.
“The cameras had sound, and I watched the recordings from the day of my accident.”
She turned to face me, her face wary. “Okay? So?”
“So . . . I saw you give him a blow job. And I heard you two discussing having me killed while I was in Palm Springs.”
She scoffed, her gaze darting to the side. “What? I . . . I wasn’t even here that day. I told you, he called me and told me that there was blood. He was worried. I—”
“I have the video, Jules. And I’m going to take it to the police unless you tell me why you wanted me to die.”
“I . . .” She shook her head, her voice agitated. “Rachel, you’re my best friend. I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t make me play it. Don’t make me send it to your husband and have him watch you get on your knees in front of Jake.” It was an empty threat, given that I didn’t have the recording, but I was banking on the bluff.
Her face went white. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why have me killed? What did I do to you? To him?”
She raised her hands in innocence. “It was his idea, Rach. Not mine. I was . . . I was just too afraid of him to say anything. I thought that if I could find out the details, I could stop it somehow. I was going to tell you. I was going to warn you.”
She was lying, her desperation clear, her voice pitching upward unnaturally. A rat, backed into a corner, frantic for an escape. I pressed harder. “You told him that if this was a kidnapping, to botch the ransom. Botch it. That’s what you said.” I knotted my hands into fists. “Explain that.”
“I . . .” She faltered. “I don’t know. I was just trying to get out of there. I saw the blood and the mirror, and I was worried that maybe he did something to you.”
“Bullshit,” I snarled. “Jake was an idiot. You masterminded this. You planted this idea in his head. You probably hired the hit man yourself.”
“I didn’t! He met some guy, at a poker game, and set it all up. I was out of it, I swear. All I knew was that it was going to happen when you were on a spa trip.”
“And what? After I was dead, then what? You two would be together?”
“No,” she said hoarsely, her gaze darting around the room as she grasped for her next lie. “I love Sam, you know that.”
And the weird thing was, I believed that she did love Sam. But I had also believed that she loved me.
I stepped back and opened the door to my closet, revealing the police officer who had been listening. Detective Parks stepped out, his face set, a pair of handcuffs already in hand. “Mrs. Myers?”
All blood left Jules’s face, and I remembered her telling me once that she had a weakness for men in uniform. She didn’t look weak in the knees. She looked terrified.
“I’m going to need you to come with me.”
I reached forward and took the drawer pull out of her hand.
“I’ll head to your house, let Sam know you won’t be coming home for dinner.
While I’m there, I’ll have a nice long chat and catch him up on everything.
We’ll see how anxious he is to pay your attorney’s fees once he knows what you’ve been up to. ”
“Wait. Rach. Please—”
Detective Parks stepped in between us. “Mrs. Myers, I’m going to read you your rights, and then we’re going to take you down to the station.”
Jules looked at me in panic, and I wasn’t sure if it was over the thought of me telling her husband or the charges she was facing.
For a brief moment, I felt a wave of empathy toward her.
After all, I knew what panic felt like. What the thought of losing your marriage, your life, felt like.
For me, it was when I was watching her and my husband in our bathroom, and then hours later, when I was holding on to a slippery metal handle, hanging on for my life.
She wasn’t about to plunge to her possible death. And she wasn’t finding out that the closest people in her life hated her enough to end her life.
But she was facing her own life sentence, of sorts. And she’d provide the nail in the coffin for Jake.