The Siren by KATHERINE JOHN (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

When he’d related his version of events that night, I’d believed him, not inclined to suspect my husband, however rotten he might be, of murder. I also knew that overdosing after a period of sobriety was a common problem among addicts. I blamed myself—for not coming home earlier, for not making sure Cole’s drugs were out of the house, for not insisting she go to rehab—but I hadn’t questioned his explanation. I was so caught up in my personal cyclone of grief, I couldn’t see past my own nose. It was becoming increasingly clear that I’d never been able to see past my own nose.

“I believed you.” I choked back tears. “Is that why you cast me? To buy my silence?”

He laughed like a film villain. “You’re not so stupid you think I ever intended for this movie to see the light of day?” He steadied himself on the back of a chair as the boat lurched, then swung the barrel of the gun at my forehead. “You were going to commit suicide while we were filming.”

I struggled to make sense of what he was saying. “I’d never do that,” I protested, though in the wake of Iris’s death I had considered it more than once.

“Oh, yes you would.” He smirked. “Everyone knows your history, your struggle with substance abuse. You finally get a chance at redemption working on a film with your ex-husband. You even start up a romance with him. Then he dumps you for your younger costar, and you can’t handle it.” He snorted. “I cast Madison because I knew she was such a fame whore, she’d jump on the opportunity to fuck a real movie star, and she’d be dying to make it public.”

I finally understood. It all made sense: his flattery and flirtation in the first weeks of filming, culminating with sex in the wine cellar—before he abruptly turned his back on me and took up with Madison, making a fool out of me in front of the entire crew. Not to mention the pictures leaked to the press of him letting me fall into a puddle down by the marina, of me passed out. No wonder he drugged me that night at Coco’s. “You were going to do to me what you did to Iris.”

He raised the gun overhead. “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!”

“But after all these years, why now?”

A gust of wind sent the boat listing even more heavily to the side, but he managed to keep his footing. How long before the ship went under? “Even when you were out of control, I always thought your self-preservation instincts would keep you quiet. You’d never want it to come out that I was cheating on you, much less that you were a lesbian.” He spat the word like it was repulsive. “And even if you said anything, it would have been your word against mine—no one would have believed you. But things have changed.” His face contorted into a sour frown, as if lamenting days gone by. “These days no one gives a shit if you’re gay, and people believe whatever women say. Especially after some of the bullshit about me that’s been in the press lately, I figured the public might actually take your side. So when you started talking about coming clean, I knew what I had to do.”

I was almost flattered he’d arranged this entire charade just for me, spent three million to kill me. Surely it would have been more practical to hire a hit man or something, but I supposed I wasn’t the only one with a flair for the dramatic. This whole showdown was playing out like the ending of one of the Gentleman Gangster movies. Only this time Cole wasn’t the hero but the villain, giving his final monologue before he goes down in a ball of flames.

Please, universe, let it be him that goes down, not me.

I had to keep Cole talking. The more he talked, the more time I’d buy before he shot me or sent the boat plunging into the violent sea. “How was I gonna kill myself, exactly?” I asked.

His laugh turned my blood to ice. “You down enough pills and booze every day to nearly kill yourself anyway. All you needed was a little extra one evening and you’d never wake up. But that cunt Felicity kept getting in the way.”

“Put the gun down, Dad.” Jackson’s voice rose above the howling wind.

Hope sprang up in my chest.

Cole swung his flashlight to focus on Jackson, who stood in the doorway, bracing himself against the violent rocking of the ship. “How did you get out?” he demanded. “You shouldn’t be here. Where is she?” He shone the flashlight around the boat, clearly torn between wanting to find Felicity and needing to keep us under surveillance.

Jackson ignored his question, slowly inching toward us. “What are you doing, Dad?”

“Protecting us,” Cole snapped, his eyes darting from the windows to the doors.

“Against what?”

“If the truth comes out the way she wants it to”—Cole pointed at me—“we’ll both go to jail.”

“I was an eleven-year-old kid forced to lie by my violent father,” Jackson said evenly. He was nearly at my side now. “I was afraid of you and didn’t know the extent of the damage you’d done. But no more. It’s over.”

“Get off the boat,” Cole barked.

“No.”

Cole raised the gun and pointed it at Jackson’s chest. “Don’t make me do this, son.”

Jackson held up his hands. “You can’t buy our silence.”

“You ungrateful little shit,” Cole spat.

The boat pitched, sending Cole stumbling against the wall behind me. Jackson took advantage of the moment to make a move to wedge himself between us.

The sound of the gunshot was deafening.

Cole had fired the gun in Jackson’s direction, so close it was impossible to tell whether it was a warning shot or simply a miss. My ears rang; every nerve in my body stood on end. “You weren’t supposed to be here,” Cole repeated.