He shakes his head. “That was a surprise. But they’d made a fool of you. Of both of us,” he says. “It worked out as it should. Those two didn’t deserve to bring a baby into this world.”
“Nick! You can’t mean that!” I stare at him in disbelief. How could someone do something so horrific and not see it?
How could I have loved a man like that?
His arms go rigid. His jaw tightens. “I love you, Jacks. Don’t you get it?”
The sob I’ve been holding in finally escapes my throat. “Why aren’t you upset about what . . . you did to them?”
“What I did?” He’s yelling now.
“The brake line didn’t prick itself! You killed them!” I scream, my voice shaking with emotion.
He shakes his head. “That’s on him.”
“No!” I yell the word so loudly I don’t recognize the sound of my own voice. I yell at him for taking James. For Dylan. For that baby. “No! No! No! You killed them. Oh my God. How did I ever love you?” I’m sobbing so hard I can barely see the road. Fear and anger are swirling together inside me, and I’m not sure which feeling is more powerful.
“How can you say that?” He slams his hands on the dashboard. Dylan’s purse falls off of his lap onto the floor.
A sign. That I need to get out of this car. Now.
He looks at me, a rage in his eyes I have never seen before. I let out a startled yelp when he punches the radio, his knuckles covered in blood when he draws them back. I wipe my tears. We’re on a high stretch of highway that overlooks the beach, which is several hundred feet below—if I stop now, I’ll need to outrun him while dodging the traffic on the curvy road. I know I won’t get far.
Suddenly he lunges for the steering wheel, and I turn it sharply, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car. “What are you doing?” I scream.
“Why couldn’t you just love me? Why doesn’t anyone love me the way they’re supposed to?”
He gives me a long look that I can’t read, then grabs the wheel before I can stop him. He yanks it, and I fight to regain control, but he’s too strong. I scream as we slew off the road, the car smashing through the guardrail and sailing toward the sharp rocks that separate the canyon from the ocean.
In the next strange moment of sudden silence, I think about James—the day he proposed. The goofy grin on his face as he waited for me to answer. I picture my sister, the tears glistening in her eyes when I held up my college diploma. I see my parents on my wedding day, smiling widely through their apprehension, their love for me stronger than their fear I might be making a mistake. I listen to Nick’s screams bleeding into my own and realize that no one will ever know the truth—that he killed James and Dylan. That we are both going to die with his secrets and his lies.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JACKS—AFTER
The first thing I hear is an incessant beeping sound.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Where am I?
Ding. Ding. Ding.
My foggy mind tries to take inventory of my body. There is pain. So much of it. Everywhere. In my legs. My arms. My chest. Especially in my head. I try to open my eyes, but they won’t cooperate.
“Her eyelids just fluttered! Call the nurse!” I hear my mom’s voice, more high pitched than normal, and feel someone squeeze my fingers. “Jacks, can you hear me?”
Yes, I want to say. I can hear you, Mom. But my mouth won’t open. I want to tell her I can hear the tears in her throat. She’s been crying.
Where am I?
“Doctor, she’s trying to say something!” It’s my sister’s shaking voice now, and the urgency in it gives me the push I need to force my eyes open. Beth is by my side—dark shadows under her eyes. My mom’s are swollen and puffy. Dad’s are filled with relief. He smiles at me.
I look around, my pulse quickening. I see monitors. An IV drip attached to my arm. A thin hospital gown covering me. A cast on one leg. A scratchy sheet rubbing the other. I try to move, but the pain is too severe. I try to talk, but no words will come.
A man with thinning gray hair rushes in. “I’m Dr. Turner.” A nurse follows him, and he says something about checking my vitals. They start to examine me, flashing lights in my eyes, checking my pulse, looking inside my mouth. They ask me questions that I struggle to answer, not because I don’t know what my name is or what year it is, but because my mouth is so dry. The nurse hands me a cup of water and tells me to sip it slowly. Finally Dr. Turner pulls up a stool, gives me a sympathetic smile, and asks me what I remember.
I can feel a memory sitting in the periphery of my mind, waiting for me to grab it. I think hard. Force myself to recall what happened. What brought me here.
I close my eyes, and it comes to me like an electric shock.
Nick. The lack of remorse. The refusal to accept what he’d done. His ambivalence. My rage. His rage. The fight for the steering wheel.
“A car acc—”
I start to say accident, but stop to correct it to crash. Because it wasn’t an accident at all. Just like James’s wasn’t. Tears stream down my cheeks at the horror of what’s happened—the memory of Nick’s words, his justifications—hitting me all over again. I fell in love with the man who killed my husband. James.
He’s gone. Oh my God. It feels like the wound has been torn open all over again. As if he’s been ripped from me all over again.
Beth rushes over and wipes my tears, having no idea how much pain I’m actually in. What’s really happened.
Dr. Turner continues. “You are at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. You have several lacerations from the impact,” he says, giving me a moment. I reach up and feel a bandage around my head. “We had to put eleven stitches in your scalp and three over your right eye, so you probably have a pretty nasty headache.” The nurse comes over and adjusts my IV. “You’ve been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.”
Almost a full day? It feels like I was in the car just moments ago. I can still hear his voice.
“On a scale of one to ten—ten being unbearable—how much pain are you in?”
Emotionally or physically?
“Five,” I finally say, choosing the first number that comes to mind. How could I explain that the pain in my heart is far worse than the one in my body? I’d give that pain a fifteen.
“Janet just gave you a dose of Percocet,” he says, nodding at the nurse. “So you should feel relief very soon.”
Will I?
“You also broke your leg,” the doctor continues. “In two places.” He taps the cast just below my knee and also by my shin.
“You’re lucky to be alive.” Beth says, squeezing my hand.
“Thank God,” my mom sobs. “First James and his terrible accident, and then you. When I got the call, I was outside of my own body, thinking I could not lose you, my baby. Thank God. Thank God.” My mom presses her face into my chest, and I wince from the pain, but don’t let her know how much it hurts.
“The police asked to be called when you’re feeling up to it. They have a few questions for you,” the doctor says.
I feel the rush of the car swerving out of its lane, my head slamming against the window.
The police.
The last time I talked to two officers, they told me my husband was never coming home because he’d died in a car crash. And now they wanted to talk to me about my car crash. But there was so much more to tell them.
The ID, the purse, Nick.
“How is Nick?” I find my sister’s eyes, and they tell me the answer I both feared and hoped for.
Beth and my parents exchange a look, and the doctor and nurse silently leave the room. Beth is still holding my hand, gripping it harder as she talks. “He was ejected from the car. He didn’t make it,” she says softly.
“Nick is dead?” I ask, needing to hear it again. To be sure.
“Yes, I’m so sorry.” Beth says, not realizing my tears are flowing faster and harder not because I’m sad, but because I’m relieved.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
JACKS—AFTER