Genuine Fraud(42)

The feeling of triumph waned and Jule jumped into the sea, grabbing Immie by the shoulder. She wanted a response.

Immie owed her a response.

They weren’t done yet, damn it. Immie couldn’t run away. “What do you have to say to me?” Jule cried, treading water and lifting Immie up as best she could. “What do you have to say to me now?” Blood ran down her arms from Immie’s face. “Because I’m not your fucking pet, and I’m not your fucking friend anymore, either, you hear?” Jule shouted. “You look the fuck down on me, but I’m the strong one, I’m the fucking strong one here. Do you see, Immie? Do you see?”

Jule tried to turn Immie over, to keep her face in the air, to keep her breathing, and listening, but the wounds were enormous. Imogen’s face was pulpy and leaking blood from the ear, from the nose, from the smashed side of her cheek. Her body jerked and shook. Her skin was slippery, so slippery. She threw her limbs around, hitting Jule in the face with the back of a flailing hand.

“What the fuck do you have to say now?” Jule said again, begging. “What is it that you want to tell me?”

Imogen Sokoloff’s body jerked once more, and then grew still.

The blood pooled around them both.





Jule climbed back in the boat and time stopped.

An hour must have passed. Maybe two. Maybe only a couple of minutes.

No fight had ever gone like this. It had always been action, heroics, defense, competition. Sometimes revenge. This was different. There was a body in the sea. The edge of a small ear, triple-pierced. The buttons on the cuff of the shirt, a cool blue against the white linen.

Jule had loved Immie Sokoloff as well as she knew how to love anyone. She really had.

But Immie hadn’t wanted it.

Poor Immie. Beautiful, special Immie.

Jule’s stomach heaved. She gagged and gagged over the side of the boat. She clutched the edge, thinking she was being sick, her shoulders shaking. She heaved, but nothing came up, and nothing came up. It went on for a minute or two before she realized she was crying.

Her cheeks were slick with tears.

She had not meant to hurt Imogen.

No, she had.

No, she hadn’t.

She wished she had not.

She wished it could be undone. She wished she were a different human in a different body with a different life. She wished Immie had loved her back, and she sobbed because it would never happen now.

She reached out and took Immie’s wet, limp hand. She held it, leaning far over the edge of the boat.

There was a sound from an airplane overhead.

Jule dropped Immie’s hand and swallowed her tears. Her instinct for self-preservation kicked in.

She was quite far out to sea. A twenty-minute boat ride from Culebra, and ten minutes from Culebrita. Jule touched her hand to the water. There was a current running toward the open ocean from the well-traveled channel between the two islands. She pulled Immie’s hand toward her until she was close enough that she could loop a rope underneath the arms, making sure to keep it loose so it wouldn’t leave a mark. The rope was rough, and tying it was awkward. Jule’s palms were sore with it, the skin rubbing off. It took several tries before she got it into a knot that would hold.

She started the engine and motored slowly out in the direction of the open water, following the current. When the sea grew dark and deep, when they were well outside the traveled way between Culebra and Culebrita, Jule untied the rope and let Imogen go.

The body sank very, very slowly.

Jule rinsed the rope and scrubbed it with a brush she found in a small box of supplies. Her hands were raw and bleeding slightly, but otherwise she was unmarked. She coiled the rope neatly and put it back where it belonged in the boat. She scrubbed and rinsed the oar.

Then she motored back.

—

“Miss Sokoloff?” The clerk in the lobby waved at Jule.

Jule stopped and looked at him.

He thought she was Imogen. No one had mistaken her for Imogen until now.

They didn’t look that much alike, but of course they were two young white women, short, with cropped hair and freckles. They had the same East Coast inflection to their speech. They might pass for each other.

“There’s a package that came for you, Miss Sokoloff,” said the clerk, smiling. “I have it right here.”

Jule smiled back. “You’re made of sugar,” she told him. “Thank you.”





SECOND WEEK OF SEPTEMBER, 2016

MENEMSHA, MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS

Six days before Jule took that package, the cleaner didn’t show up for work at Immie’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. His name was Scott. He was maybe twenty-four, older than Immie, Jule, Brooke, and even Forrest, but Imogen still called him the cleaner.

Scott had been recommended by the owners of the rental house to do yard work and housekeeping. The pool and hot tub needed maintenance. The house was airy and windowed, with double-height ceilings in the living and dining rooms. Six skylights, five bedrooms. Decks in front and back. Rosebushes and other plantings. It was a lot to keep clean.

Scott had a wide, open face and a flat nose. He was white, with pink cheeks, a square face, and unruly dark hair. He had narrow hips and serious muscles in his arms. He usually wore a baseball cap and no shirt.

When Jule first met Scott, she couldn’t quite tell what he was doing there. He was simply in the kitchen, cleaning the floor with a mop and a bucket. He seemed no different from Forrest and Immie’s various temporary island friends, but here he was, naked to the waist, doing housework. “Hi, I’m Jule,” she said, standing in the doorway.