She Jumped Into His Pool and Blamed Me, So I Left Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Boathouse

The dock footage shows Lila slipping off her shoes and looking up at the house before she steps in; the viral video tags Valerie's clinic, and by morning she is suspended.

"Tonight," I said.

Mitchell opened the passenger door of the truck and put my bag on the floor.

He didn't say anything else until we were off the gravel and out through the gate.

The boathouse sat at the end of a dirt road on the bay side of the property.

It was a long gray building with a dock running out from it.

Inside it smelled of cedar and engine oil.

He pointed at a stool by the counter. "Sit."

"I can walk on it."

"There's glass in it. Sit."

I sat.

He brought a metal bowl of warm water, a flashlight and tweezers.

He knelt on the plank floor and lifted my foot onto his knee.

His hand closed around my ankle.

It was a rough, warm hand, and it did not move while he looked.

"Two pieces," he said. "Breathe out."

I breathed out, and he pulled the first one.

It hurt less than I'd expected.

I looked at the top of his head and the gray starting at his temple instead of at the blood.

"You don't talk much," I said.

"I'm talking now."

"You said two sentences to me at Easter."

"I said three." He set the glass in the bowl. "You were holding a casserole, and I said it smelled good."

I had no memory of that.

He pulled the second piece and the muscle in his jaw tightened.

It was probably the flashlight.

When he had bandaged my heel he set my foot on the floor and stood up, and my ankle stayed warm where his hand had been.

"Footage," I said.

He opened a laptop on the counter and turned it toward me.

The dock camera looked straight up the lawn at the terrace.

The time in the corner read 7:57.

I saw myself at the rail in my white dress with a glass in each hand, standing very still.

I saw Lila come up beside me with her sandals hanging from two fingers.

She stopped at the pool edge, and she turned her head and looked up at a dark window on the second floor of the house.

She stayed that way for two full seconds.

Then she said something to me, and she fell backward into the water.

My hands never moved.

"Again," I said.

Mitchell played it again.

I watched Lila's face, because it was the only part that mattered.

She wasn't frightened and she wasn't angry.

She was waiting for a signal.

"Who's in the window?" I asked.

"That's the library." He closed the laptop partway. "I can't see in from the dock."

"Can I have a copy?"

"I'm making one." He pulled a small drive from a drawer and plugged it in. "The server wipes itself every fourteen days. After tonight I'm not leaving the only copy on it."

My phone buzzed against the counter, and then it buzzed again.

Bennett, 9:40: Where are you? Please call me.

Bennett, 9:52: I know you're upset. Don't talk to anyone, okay? Don't post anything. I've got you.

Bennett, 10:15: Mom's lawyer is drafting something stupid. I'll kill it before morning. Just let me handle it.

Mitchell didn't ask what the messages said.

He watched my face, and then he went to a cupboard and took down a folded blanket.

"Guest room's through there," he said. "The bed's made. My mother doesn't come down here."

"One night," I said.

"Fine."

"I'm leaving in the morning, and I'm not going back to him."

"That's your call." He took the drive out and set it in my hand. "Keep it on you."

I lay in a narrow bed under a slanted ceiling and listened to the bay hit the dock.

I tried to sleep and watched the video on my phone instead.

Someone had posted it at 8:04, six minutes after it happened.

It was shot from the terrace and cut so that the splash and Lila's scream came first.

Then came my face, and then her voice: "She pushed me."

There was no frame in it of my hands.

The caption read: Rich girlfriend shoves best friend into pool over a "giant infant" joke.

It had two million views.

Under it, a stranger had written my clinic's name and the street it was on.

I closed the phone.

I did not sleep until after three.

At six the phone woke me, buzzing against the floor.

The first email was from the clinic director.

It said I was suspended without pay, effective immediately, pending a review of a complaint about my conduct.

The second email was from a law firm.

It was addressed to me and copied to a Rainsford family address.

It demanded a public written apology to Lila by Monday morning or the family would sue.

Bennett had said he would kill it.

I read the sender's time stamp twice.

It had been sent at 5:59.

Two minutes later a text from Bennett came in under it.

Don't worry about any emails. I've got you.

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