Chapter 1
Frank sat in the cabin and looked back at the boat’s wake. The day was perfect. Sunshine, a stiff breeze and hardly any marine traffic made for a perfect crossing as they headed across Georgia Strait for Vancouver Island. A perfect day for a new start. After months of preparation, the end was finally in sight.
He stole a glance at Melinda, who suntanned on the deck. She was sprawled face-down on her beach towel. Her dimpled, pasty white thighs contrasted starkly with her sunburnt back that almost blended in with her red shorts. She was motionless, either passed out or oblivious. He wasn’t sure which.
She looked hideous with the burn or without it, but that hardly mattered anymore. She had really let herself go after Emily’s birth, and even refused to exercise or diet. He couldn’t even remember the last time he saw her in shorts. She usually wore baggy t-shirts, sweat pants, and no makeup, which was, quite frankly, an improvement over the shorts. The woman he married seven years ago was a slob with no desire to please him. Enough was enough.
His situation was intolerable because of her selfishness. She had forced him to act. Too bad it had come to this, but that was her fault. He had planned for months. Now he only had to execute his plan.
Life was about to get a whole lot better. He smiled as he imagined tomorrow. The possibilities were endless.
He actually still liked Melinda, something that surprised him. As a wife she had a lot of shortcomings and he deserved more. But could he really go through with it? Of course he could. If he didn’t, he had no one to blame but himself for his miserable existence. He wasn’t about to play that game. All he had to do was stick to the script and execute his plan.
Only weak people acted on their feelings, something that amused him endlessly. Most people let their emotions rule their thoughts and actions. It made for poor decisions, and it made them easy targets, too. He was no prisoner to his emotions. He was a master of logic, controller of his own destiny. He knew better than most how and when to move on.
He had almost resigned himself to a wasted life, but he’d finally seen the light. He had married the old Melinda, not this frumpy version. It was time for a change, a permanent one. No messy divorce or child custody battles. If only she had paid more attention to him and not forced him to act. A few hours from now she wouldn’t feel a thing.
Melinda had been his second choice on the dating site. The pickings were slim but he couldn’t do much about that. He had married in a moment of weakness when she tricked him by getting pregnant. A costly commitment, but one that he could end now with impunity. He could restart his life and salvage his future now. All he had to do was carry through with his plan. Just the thought of a new lease on life energized him.
“Hon? I never thought it would be so hot out here. I’m thirsty.” She smiled and shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand.
He smiled back. “I’ll get you a drink.” Perfect opportunity. He opened the cooler and pulled out the bottle with the pre-mixed drink. He poured it into a glass and added ice. Tasteless and odorless, she wouldn’t notice a thing.
He walked slowly towards her and stilled his trembling hand. He bent over and kissed her on the cheek and set the glass beside her.
“Thanks, hon. I wish you got pictures of our new house. I can hardly wait to see it.”
“I was so focused on closing the deal that I forgot. You’ll see it soon enough.” Melinda knew only what he had told her. He managed their finances and she had no clue that there was no house, no new job. In truth they were broke. He had blown through Melinda’s inheritance, and his wealthy bankrolling parents didn’t actually exist.
She had forced him to act sooner by getting pregnant again. Unplanned, just like the last time. That really pissed him off. Her carelessness forced him into action a few months earlier, which meant he hadn’t really had enough time to set everything in motion yet.
As long as he wasn’t sloppy he could improvise. The timing wasn’t perfect, but the sooner he took care of things, the sooner his new life started. He felt a shiver of excitement as he imagined his newfound freedom.
He had planned everything down to the smallest detail. Even meticulous planners got busted, but he was smarter than most. On the true-crime shows, people inevitably missed some small detail, a fabric fiber or pet hair. Or a suspicious friend. He was smarter than most people, so he wouldn’t slip up.
He also had a huge advantage most of those people didn’t. Melinda had no siblings. Her parents had both died in a car accident five years ago and she had no other close relatives. She had few friends, and they hadn’t known any of their high-rise neighbors.
His wife had already been forgotten by her co-workers. She had quit her minimum-wage retail job months earlier at his insistence. No one ever called or came around, either. Melinda was an unimportant person in an unimportant world. Her few friends and acquaintances would soon forget all about her after the tragic accident.
This time the husband would die too. A dead husband could hardly be a suspect.
He opened the fish box and checked his dinghy and pump for the umpteenth time. Lights, camera, action. Months of careful planning had rewarded him with a cloudless July day and the perfect tidal conditions to carry out his plan.
His fourteen-foot runabout was barely seaworthy, but adequate enough to sail in calm seas. The strait between Vancouver and Vancouver Island was reasonably calm in summer so he didn’t expect any problems. He’d bought the boat just months ago and wished he didn’t have to torch it. Any deviation from his careful plan though, and he’d be sunk, too. But if he stuck to the plan, he could buy dozens of better boats to replace it.
Georgia Strait bustled with summer traffic, a constant marine rush-hour of small pleasure craft and the large passenger ferries that ran between the mainland and the island as residents and tourists sailed back and forth. The summer wind was brisk but pleasant, providing a cooling effect from the heat that had enveloped the coast all week. Frank maintained a course slightly south, just far enough away from the commercial boats not to attract attention. They were already halfway across the strait to their destination, Victoria.
At least that was what he had told her. There was no new job or house in Victoria, but Melinda didn’t know that. So far, so good. It was a fine day for the fresh start he had planned for months.
It was his mantra for his new life. Mantras and affirmations kept him moving towards his end goal. He had been living a lie for years now, but it was a necessary lie. He had been patient and now he could practically taste freedom. A few more hours and it was his.
He had sown the seeds for a successful future. Now it was harvest time.
A perfect July day.
The first day of the rest of his life.
It was cliché, but true. And he could hardly wait to start his next adventure. He patted the pocket of his cargo shorts, feeling the reassuring bulk of his new identification. Passport, driver’s license, and high limit credit cards ready to go. Counterfeit, of course. He had already tested them a few days ago. They were all he needed to establish his new life.
Frank and Melinda had moved out of their rented Vancouver apartment and placed their furniture in storage, since their temporary new home in Victoria came fully furnished. They had sublet from a teacher who was away on a year-long sabbatical in India. It was the same teacher whose position Frank would assume for one year. He was due to start in September. At least that’s what Melinda thought. It was all one big giant fabulous lie that she had bought into, hook, line and sinker. At long last his plan was underway.
The truth was something much different. There was no relocation, at least not for Melinda. That was the beauty of a work move. He pretended that the administrative people at the school had taken care of all the details, and that there wasn’t enough time to consult Melinda. She could immerse herself in the details when she arrived in Victoria, he told her. Too bad for her that she never would.
But first they would enjoy one last day on the boat.
It had been exhausting, but so far everything had worked out on schedule. The neighbors, who they really didn’t know—he had made sure of that—only discovered they were leaving yesterday, when he loaded the truck with their belongings destined for the storage locker. Four-year-old Emily was too young to attend school, and hadn’t attended daycare since Melinda quit her job. No one in their tiny circle of acquaintances would notice them missing on Monday morning.
Melinda only knew what he told her, and he had been purposely short on details. She believed anything he said, no matter how outrageous. She was stupid in a bovine, trusting sort of way.
Or maybe not so stupid. She had tricked him with the pregnancy, knowing he had never wanted children, would never want them. She duped him, but he had some tricks of his own.
Melinda had weighed him down. She held him back from achieving his true potential and it was time to change things. Except the change didn’t include a new city or teaching job. It didn’t come with a new school and certainly no new fully furnished house to move into. The whole thing was a lie, a necessary one. It had taken a lot of work to get to this point, especially since he’d had to put the plan in place months earlier than he wanted. All because of Melinda.
Never look back.
His plan was working exactly as expected. He had the power to change his life now. Right now, like the seminar said. He had what it took to be successful. It was all up to him.
Now he just had to complete his plan.
Emily slept below deck, blissfully unaware of the sudden detour her life was about to take.
He hesitated. Maybe he could get divorced instead.
No. Too many loose ends. Child support would keep him tied to that cow for almost twenty years. That complicated things. He hated complications, and he hated being responsible for other people.
Never settle for less than you know you deserve.
He was glad he’d listened to his motivational recording this morning. Fresh in his mind, it helped reaffirm his convictions and gave him the strength to undertake the next step.
They had neared their destination hours ago but had circled back when he was overcome with a case of last-minute jitters. He was fine now, and Melinda was oblivious, as usual. He cut the engine and waited for Melinda to notice.
“Hon? Why are we stopped?” She slurped the last of her drink and placed the glass down beside her.
“I don’t know. The engine stalled.” He fiddled with the motor as he studied his wife. She was well on her way to unconsciousness.
Melinda yawned. “I’m falling asleep, must be the sun.”
Her speech was slurred. The medication had kicked in.
Less than five minutes later she was comatose, her mumbled speech replaced by snores. Her right arm dropped off the lounge chair and landed with a thud on the deck. She didn’t awaken.
Another ten minutes. Frank debated tying her wrists together, but that would be obvious foul play when her body turned up. What an interesting turn of words, foul play. A term with such gravity, yet it was called play. Or maybe it meant you played someone, as in trickery.
He got that feeling in the pit of his stomach again. What if something went horribly wrong and she awakened? Bound wrists prevented her from saving herself. Were there predators that might consume her flesh? He hadn’t even thought about that.
In the end he decided to leave her wrists unbound. In the unlikely event her body was recovered, the ties would leave bruises. Those marks would not only be evidence of murder, but also provide information on the time of death. He dropped the rope onto the deck.
She was dead weight. He had given her a triple dose, so there was no way she would regain consciousness. He lifted her arm and dropped it to test his hypothesis.
No response.
Her arm was limp in his hand, dead weight.
He released it and it dropped to the ground.
He stepped back and studied her. He had positioned her lounge chair close to the edge, which made it easier to get her off the boat. He remembered his engineering theory from college and had rigged a crude sort of pulley system that he now attached to the chair.
His heart thumped in his chest, both from fear of discovery and the exhilaration of finally doing it. He didn’t even feel an ounce of guilt.
He pulled the tarp out of the storage box and unfolded it. It was probably an unnecessary step since he was torching the boat, but you couldn’t be too careful. He also hated the mess afterwards, and didn’t want to make more work for himself.
Perspiration broke out on his brow as he dragged the deck chair as close to the edge as possible. He paused and wiped his brow, then unfurled the tarp and threw it over the top. He tucked the edges around the chair and then heaved it over the side.
No blood, DNA or other evidence. No mess.
Just a small, self-contained scene he could control, without worry of evidence showing up with Luminol or other forensic tools.
An extra precaution, maybe, since the boat would be burned. But you could never be too careful.
He took a deep breath and watched the lump sink into the ocean. He brushed his hands on his shorts just as the tarp floated to the top several feet away.
Damn. He hadn’t thought of that.
He grabbed an oar and extended his arm as far as possible, but the tarp lay just out of reach.
He gasped as an arm protruded from the tarp. She hadn’t sunk at all. She was still wrapped in the damn tarp.
“Daddy?”
Frank jumped, startled. He turned to face his daughter. “Emily? I thought you were sleeping.”
“Where’s Mommy?” She wore the overpriced pink and yellow flowered dress Melinda had picked out just for the occasion of moving to a new home. Just like Melinda to spend a small fortune on something frivolous.
“She’s downstairs, honey.” He had also slipped a sedative into Emily’s juice when they left Vancouver. It should have knocked her out for hours. Instead, Emily was merely disheveled. Her hair was tangled. One tiny pink sandal was missing and the other was unbuckled.
Frank broke out in a sweat. What the hell had happened? Emily’s dose had been half that of Melinda’s, yet she weighed less than a third. What if Melinda’s didn’t take? What if the shock of the water woke her and she was somehow rescued?
“No she’s not. Daddy, my head hurts.” She rubbed her eyes and frowned. “Where’s Mommy?”
He glanced at the tarp, where Melinda’s leg was partially exposed as the buoyant tarp separated from her body. He had to fix that fast.
“She’s having a nap, honey. Now go back to sleep.” What if Melinda was discovered and rescued somehow? The strait had a lot of marine traffic on a summer day, so it was quite possible. Why hadn’t he thought to weigh her down with cement like the mobsters did?
Whatever. He had always prided himself on thinking on his feet, and now was no different. He would adapt and move on.
“Why did you throw the chair overboard? Will that hurt the fishes?”
He felt a catch in his throat. How much had she seen? “Come here and give Daddy a kiss.” He kneeled and held open his arms.
She shuffled forward with her half-sandaled feet and fell drowsily into his arms.
He caught her with one arm and clamped his other hand over her nostrils and mouth.
Emily tried to scream. She struggled against him, and her tiny arms flailed as she tried to breathe.
How long, he wondered.
Like a just caught fish struggling for its last breath.
He caught movement from the corner of his eye as the blue tarp unfurled in the waves. It was like a giant target as it floated on the water. Melinda’s body had finally separated from the tarp and slowly sank below the surface. He watched as he held Emily and waited.
She stopped struggling in less than a minute and went limp. Careful not to uncover her mouth and nose, he loosened his grip on her body and checked her neck for a pulse. Nothing. He waited another minute to ensure she was dead, then tipped her overboard.
Just in time. He spotted the sailboat as it approached from the south. At the same time he noticed the wind had picked up. He looked down at the water where Emily had gone in. He expected to see ripples.
Except she hadn’t sunk. She floated, face down in the water. Her pink rubber sandal still loosely attached to her foot. But all dead bodies were supposed to sink, at least that’s what his research had indicated. What the hell?
That stupid dress again. The fabric trapped the air.
The sailboat was closer now, within 100 feet. Close enough for them to see him clearly, and perhaps even see Emily’s body in the water. With binoculars they might have even seen what he did. He panicked and grabbed an oar. He plunged it into Emily’s back, pushing her down below the waterline. The air pockets in her flouncy dress dispersed and down she went.
Then her sandal popped off her foot and floated on the water. He almost retrieved the shoe with the oar before he realized that would release Emily’s body to the surface.
His heart pounded as the sailboat veered closer.
He swore under his breath. He had overlooked the most important thing. It hadn’t occurred to him that the bodies might not sink immediately.
The sailboat straightened course and glided through the water less than fifty feet away. Only one man was visible on deck. He was busy adjusting the sails. “Thank God,” he said aloud as he held his oar against Emily’s body in the water. He raised his free arm and waved.
It was Melinda’s fault for tricking him and getting pregnant. He wanted to enjoy life, something that was impossible with a baby, a stay-at-home wife and all the bills that were sure to follow. He was sick and tired of being manipulated and living with all the compromises he’d had to make. He only had one life to live and he wasn’t about to waste it.
He pulled out his cell phone, wallet and keys and tossed them overboard. In the unlikely event they were found, it would appear that he went overboard with Melinda and Emily. His body would never be found, but he wasn’t too worried about that. Many bodies went unrecovered in these waters. As long as nothing traced him to the torched the boat in the harbor, he should be fine.
It added a little bit of mystery and intrigue. He liked that. Might as well have a bit of fun outwitting them.
He glanced at his hand and noticed his wedding ring. He pulled it off his finger and studied it in the palm of his hand. It was symbolic, he thought as he tossed it overboard. Out with the old, in with the new.
A new life. A rich one. And it started right now.
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