Chapter 1 - The Edge“I’ll be right back.”
Adrian Brooks kissed his wife on the cheek and smiled down at her.
It was the kind of ordinary sentence people said without thinking.
A promise so small no one would ever remember making it.
Except Junie would.
The afternoon sun glittered across the Atlantic as Adrian straightened his white linen shirt. At forty, he had finally learned how to take a vacation without checking his phone every thirty seconds—although Corinne claimed he still checked it every forty-five.
She sat on one of the cream loungers near the bow, her long chestnut hair lifting in the salt breeze.
“Try not to conduct a merger in there,” she teased.
Adrian grinned.
“No promises.”
His four-year-old daughter, Junie, was farther down the deck, fascinated by a gull floating above the yacht.
“Daddy, look!”
“I see it, bug.”
“It’s following us!”
“Then we owe it gas money.”
Junie laughed.
That laugh followed Adrian as he stepped through the left cabin door.
He never saw Corinne’s smile disappear.
The instant his back vanished behind the glass, her face changed.
Her fingers rose to the cheek he had kissed.
She scrubbed it hard.
Once.
Twice.
As though his affection had left dirt behind.
“Disgusting,” she whispered.
Junie had turned back toward her.
The little girl wore the yellow dress Adrian had bought because she said it made her “look like sunshine.”
She smiled at Corinne.
Corinne stared at her.
There were guests at the stern, distant enough that their conversations dissolved into the engine noise and music. Nobody was watching the bow.
Nobody saw Corinne rise.
Junie tilted her head.
“Corinne?”
Corinne walked toward her.
Something in the woman’s expression made Junie’s smile disappear.
“You little bastard,” Corinne said.
Junie froze.
“You’re just as hateful as your father.”
Four-year-olds did not understand hatred the way adults did.
They understood faces.
They understood when a voice suddenly became dangerous.
Junie took one small step backward.
“I didn’t—”
Corinne shoved her.
Both hands.
Hard.
Junie’s shoes slipped across the polished deck.
For a fraction of a second, there was confusion rather than fear on her face.
Then there was nothing beneath her heels.
She went backward over the unrailed edge.
Her right hand struck metal.
Caught.
Her body slammed against the hull.
Her left hand found the lip below the deck rim and clamped onto it.
Seven meters beneath her, the ocean churned white against the yacht.
Junie screamed.
“Daddy! Help me!”
Inside the cabin, Adrian stopped.
Everything inside him recognized that voice before his brain formed the thought.
He turned toward the right-side door.
“Junie!”
He ran.
By the time he burst outside, Corinne was standing near the edge.
She looked terrified.
Convincingly terrified.
“Oh my God!”
Adrian saw two tiny hands wrapped around the metal lip.
For one second, the entire world narrowed to Junie’s fingers.
“Daddy!”
“I’m here!”
He dropped flat.
Corinne moved toward him.
“Adrian, be careful—”
“Don’t touch me.”
His voice frightened even himself.
He reached down.
Junie’s right hand slipped.
She shrieked.
Adrian caught her wrist.
“Got you.”
“Daddy!”
“I got you, baby. Look at me.”
Her feet kicked against empty air.
Adrian hooked his other arm under her shoulder.
“Corinne, grab my belt.”
Corinne hesitated.
Just long enough for him to notice.
Then she grabbed him.
Adrian pulled.
Junie came over the edge sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
He rolled away from the drop and crushed her against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She clung to his neck.
Corinne crouched several feet away.
“What happened?” Adrian demanded.
Corinne’s mouth opened.
Junie answered first.
“She pushed me.”
The wind seemed to stop.
Corinne stared at her.
“What?”
Junie pressed her wet face into Adrian’s shoulder.
“She pushed me, Daddy.”
Corinne laughed once—a small, shocked sound.
“Adrian, she slipped.”
Junie shook her head violently.
“No!”
“Sweetheart—”
“No!”
Adrian stood with Junie in his arms.
Corinne reached toward him.
“Adrian, listen to me.”
He stepped backward.
Something in her face bothered him.
Not the fear.
Not the tears beginning to appear.
Something else.
Then Adrian remembered the moment he had reached the deck.
Corinne had been standing near the edge.
But she had not been kneeling.
She had not been reaching.
She had not been screaming for help.
She had simply been standing there.
Watching.
Junie whispered against his neck.
“She said she hated you.”
Adrian looked at his wife.
May you like
Corinne went completely still.
And for the first time since he had married her, Adrian wondered whether he had ever actually known the woman standing in front of him.
Related Stories
