I Pretended to Swallow His Two White Pills While He Waited to Push Me at Two

I sat on the edge of the bed with the two tablets still in my hand and heard my own voice again. Not the way I'd said it on the phone, but the way it must have sounded to the attorney.

"This is not anti-seasickness, attorney. I plan to kill Adrian tonight."

I'd whispered it into the hidden compartment of the dark suitcase like it was a plan. It wasn't. It was panic with words around it. The pills were warm from my palm. The cabin light buzzed faintly overhead and the yacht rocked just enough to make the wood creak. I had spent the last hour thinking about how to stay alive until two, and the only line of defense I'd given my lawyer was a confession.

I looked down at them. Two small round white tablets. Adrian had pressed them into my hand an hour earlier with a glass of water and a smile and called them nothing. My thumb rolled over the edge of one. It would have been so simple. Crush one into his water glass. Tell him I felt better, that I wanted him to rest too. He'd drink it without thinking. He trusted that I was compliant.

I almost did it. I stood and walked to the small sink by the cabin door and stared at the glass he'd left there. My hand hovered over it. I could see it so clearly — dissolving the powder, bringing it to him, saying, "You were right, I need air, but drink this first." He would. And then I wouldn't be the one pushed at two a.m. I wouldn't be the body they described as an accident.

But I didn't tip my hand.

Because if I did, I'd become the story he'd already written for me.

I went back and sat down and forced myself to breathe the way I'd been breathing to fake sleep. Slow. Shallow. I thought about what the attorney would hear on a recording if I actually did it. Not a terrified wife defending herself. A Villanueva heiress, twenty minutes before her husband died on their honeymoon yacht from the exact sedative he'd given her. Who would believe I'd only meant to make him sleep? The PHP sixteen billion didn't sit with me because I was lovable. It sat with me because my parents built Villanueva Pacific Logistics into something no court wanted to hand to a murderer. If I put that tablet in his drink, I handed Adrian's family every argument they needed. She killed him for the money. She planned it. We have her on tape saying she planned it.

The law wouldn't care that he planned it first. Poison in a glass looked like intent. My word against a dead man looked like motive.

I realized I'd been holding my breath. I let it out.

No. I needed him alive and guilty, not dead and convenient.

I opened the dark hard-shell suitcase again and pushed my fingers into the hidden compartment along the seam. The pills went back inside for a second, then I took them out. I couldn't leave them there. If Adrian tossed the suitcase overboard — and he would, if he thought I was drifting — the evidence went with it. I needed two things: the pills intact for a lab, and his voice before he knew I was listening.

I pulled out my phone. Battery at thirty-four percent, no signal, but the voice memo app didn't need signal. I pressed record and spoke low, close to the mic, so it would pick up even a whisper through the door.

"This is Mara Villanueva. It is..." I glanced at the little clock on the nightstand, "twelve forty-seven a.m., on our honeymoon yacht from Coron to El Nido. Adrian gave me two white tablets he said were for seasickness. I did not swallow them. They are in my possession. I am recording this because at two a.m. he intends to push me into the sea. I told my attorney earlier tonight that I planned to kill Adrian. I have not and will not. I am preserving these tablets for testing."

I stopped the recording and tucked the phone into the pocket of my bathrobe, then carefully folded a small square of toilet paper around the two tablets and slipped that into the other pocket. The robe was white and thin, but the pockets were deep. My hand stayed there, holding them through the fabric like I could keep them safe by touch.

The knock came right then — three soft raps on the wooden door frame.

I jumped despite myself.

"Mara?" Adrian's voice, gentle. Concerned. He used the endearment like a key. "Mahal, wake up, you need some air."

He didn't open the door all the way. He stood in the gap with a fresh glass of water in his hand, the light from the hall cutting across his face. He smiled when he saw my eyes open.

"You didn't drink your water," he said, his eyes dropping to the nightstand where the other glass still sat untouched. "You need to stay hydrated. The pills work better that way."

He stepped closer and held the glass out to me. His hand was steady. His breathing was even. He looked like a husband taking care of his seasick wife.

I kept my hand in my pocket, fingers curled around the paper with the tablets inside, and made my eyes heavy and unfocused. I didn't reach for the glass.