Part 1
“Don’t bother trying to open the door, Rosalind. It’s already too late for you.”
Those were the last words my husband, Garrett, said to me before he climbed out the window and left us inside a car sinking into the river.
I still remember the icy water pouring into my shoes, the smell of soaked upholstery, and the sound of metal groaning under the pressure. It all happened so fast that, for the first few seconds, I didn’t even understand that the man I had been married to for three years had just tried to kill me.
That afternoon, we were driving along the coastal highway toward Savannah Creek.
Garrett was behind the wheel.
I was in the passenger seat.
And in the back sat my brother, Tobias, in the wheelchair he had used since the accident that killed our parents fifteen years earlier.
We had learned to live with that tragedy.
Or so I thought.
I always made a point of checking that Tobias was comfortable before any trip. Since our parents died, I had felt a special responsibility for him, even though he constantly insisted he didn’t need to be treated like a child.
That day, though, we didn’t have time to argue about it.
Garrett jerked the steering wheel.
The car veered toward the guardrail.
“Garrett!” I screamed.
He didn’t brake.
Our car smashed through the guardrail and plunged straight into the river.
The impact shook my whole body.
For a few moments, I didn’t know where I was. I heard a roar, felt my head spinning, and saw the water slamming against the windows.
By the time I got my bearings, my ankles were already submerged.
“Garrett! I can’t get the door open!”
He didn’t answer.
I looked at him, waiting for him to tell me what to do.
But my husband seemed strangely calm.
He unbuckled his seat belt.
He rolled down his window.
And he began climbing out.
“Wait! Tobias is still in the back!”
Garrett didn’t even turn his head.
I watched him push himself outside and swim toward the surface.
Then he disappeared from sight.
I sat frozen for several seconds.
I couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
The man who told me every night that I was the love of his life had left us trapped underwater.
I tried to release my seat belt.
The latch wouldn’t give.
I pressed again.
Nothing.
The water was up to my knees.
I bent over as far as I could and felt under the seat with my fingers.
Then I touched something metal.
A wire.
I followed it with my hand, and my stomach dropped.
Someone had deliberately fastened the seat belt to the frame of the car.
It wasn’t jammed from the crash.
It had been rigged so I couldn’t get free.
Garrett hadn’t lost control of the car.
He had driven us here so we would die.
The water kept rising.
First to my waist.
Then to my chest.
I fought the seat belt until my fingers hurt, but I couldn’t break the wire.
Then I looked up toward the window.
Through the water, I could make out Garrett heading for the shore.
He wasn’t looking for help.
He wasn’t looking desperately back at our car.
He was swimming toward someone who was waiting for him.
A woman stood beneath an umbrella beside the river.
When Garrett climbed out of the water, she walked up to him.
And then I saw her face.
Penelope.
My half sister.
The shock hit me so hard that for a moment I forgot about the water still pouring in.
Penelope was pregnant.
Her belly showed beneath her clothes as she stood next to Garrett.
I watched him wrap his arms around her.
She raised a hand and stroked his face.
Then they both turned their heads toward our car as it slowly sank.
My husband was smiling.
He wasn’t crying.
He wasn’t calling for help.
He was smiling while he waited for his wife and his brother-in-law to disappear beneath the water.
Three years of marriage.
Three years of listening to his promises.
Three years of believing I had found a man who wanted to build a family with me.
All those nights Garrett made me warm milk because, he said, I worked too hard running part of the shipyard my family had founded in Baltimore.
All that attention I had mistaken for affection.
And now I was watching him hold my own half sister while he waited for me to die.
I tried to scream.
All I managed was to gulp air in desperation.
“Rosalind…”
Tobias’s voice came from the back seat.
I turned around.
The water was almost at his mouth.
My brother’s face was pale, and his eyes were fixed on me.
Fifteen years.
For fifteen years, I had watched Tobias get around in a wheelchair since the accident that took our parents.
I had learned to help him with everything he needed. I had organized our family life around his mobility. I had spent nights worrying about him when the grief of losing our parents seemed unbearable.
And now I had led him to his death with the man I had trusted.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, crying. “Tobias, forgive me.”
He looked at me.
“Rosalind, listen to me…”
I shook my head.
“I brought Garrett into our family. I’m the one who trusted him.”
The water kept climbing.
I squeezed my eyes shut, convinced we would never get out.
Then I heard a thump behind me.
A sharp, metallic one.
