Envy Mass Market

“This isn’t the ending, is it?” she asked.

Mike frowned into his coffee. “He hasn’t shown the last chapter even to me. I’m not sure he’s written it. It may be too painful for him to write.”

“More painful than this? God,” she cried softly. “It’s incredible. I can’t believe it happened.”

Mike looked at her meaningfully. What she’d said was rhetoric, because actually she believed every word of Parker’s account. Noah had done this to his friends. She knew he had. She knew he was capable of it.

“What happened afterward, Mike?”

“Todd—”

“Noah. This isn’t fiction.”

“Noah returned to the marina.”

“As related in the prologue. He faked hysteria. Claimed that Parker had gone crazy onboard the boat. Abused the girl. Attacked him. They fought. The girl went overboard and so did Parker. Noah tried to save them.”

“He must’ve gone into the water so his clothes would be wet and it would appear he’d searched for them.”

“He blamed Parker’s violent outburst on envy.”

“A lie, of course. But a damn good one. Believable. The Coast Guard organized a search-and-rescue effort.”

“Mary Catherine?”

“Her body was never recovered. It was officially ruled death by drowning.”

“What about Parker?”

Mike sipped his coffee before answering, a delay tactic she saw through.

“Parker was found that night by sheer accident. A fisherman spotted him. The coordinates Todd had given the Coast Guard were ‘approximate.’ ”

“Meaning off by miles.”

“Miles. After being in the water for hours, it was a miracle that Parker was still alive. Shock probably saved his life. He had kept his arms moving so he wouldn’t sink and drown, but God knows how he was able to move at all. His legs had been chewed to pieces by the blades of the outboard motor. When the fishermen first saw him, they mistook him for an animal carcass that had been used for chum. There was so much blood around him, you see.”

With a shaky hand, Maris set aside her tea, untasted after that first sip.

“For over a week, his condition was listed as critical,” Mike continued. “Somehow, he lived. Eventually his legs were pieced back together bit by bit.”

“He told me he underwent several operations. What was Noah doing all this time? Surely he was afraid that Parker would give his version of the story and convince the authorities of the truth.”

“I’ve given you a much-abbreviated summary,” Mike explained. “The reconstruction of Parker’s legs took years. In those first few days, the trauma doctors worked frantically just to keep him alive. Eventually he was taken off the critical list, but he spent weeks in an ICU fighting off infection. There weren’t drugs strong enough to keep him unconscious except for brief periods. The rest of the time he spent screaming, begging them to kill him. He’s admitted that much to me.”

Maris covered her trembling lips with her hand, which was cold and clammy. Tears stung her eyes.

“He’d suffered tremendous blood loss. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t amputate his legs immediately. They were afraid he’d bleed out on the operating table. Or they wanted his condition to stabilize before they attempted a surgery that traumatic. I’m surmising. I don’t know. I learned all this long after the fact. No one notified me of the incident. I found out later, by happenstance.

“When he was strong enough to begin the reconstructive process, he fought like hell if any of the consulting physicians so much as mentioned amputation. Even partial. Honestly, I don’t know why they heeded his wishes. Maybe because he was a young man. Maybe… I don’t know,” he repeated with a shrug. “Divine intervention? Providence? Maybe the doctors simply admired the power of his will and decided to honor it. Anyway, they didn’t take his legs. They elected to rebuild them the best they could.”

“I’ve seen his scars.”

“The visible ones. The ones you can’t see are even deeper.”

“Caused by Noah’s betrayal.”

“During those weeks that Parker was fighting for his life, Noah was putting on quite a dog-and-pony show for the authorities. Mary Catherine wasn’t there to dispute his version of what had happened. It came down to his word against Parker’s. He painted Parker as a jealous, envious hothead who had gotten drunk and snapped, turned violent. He attacked Noah. When Mary Catherine tried to break them apart, Parker lashed out and knocked her over the railing. His momentum caused him to fall overboard, too.