Page 7 of Two Couples

The moment she saw me, Emily rushed at me, took the tray from my hands, and placed it on the coffee table. She straightened and wrapped her arms around me, holding me close. “Thank you for creating some normality,” she whispered. “That’s so thoughtful.”

When she released me, we both had tears in our eyes.

The room lit up as lightning flashed across the sky, followed within seconds by a crash of thunder. It felt as if the thunder was warning us to stay indoors, but all I could think about was how awful it would be to lie on the concrete, covered with nothing but a tarp, rain pounding my body so hard I couldn’t move. Of course, he couldn’t move at all, rain or not.

Emily and I sat on the couch, our phones in our pockets so Patrick wouldn’t be able grab one and make his urgent call. After a while, Patrick came into the room. He sat in the armchair across from Emily and me. Keith stood by the bifold doors, looking at the rain blowing against the glass. “I think we’re going to lose⁠—”

Before he could finish speaking, the lights flickered once, then went out.

Patrick groaned.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The charge was thirty percent. If the power stayed out all night, my phone would be dead by morning. It wasn’t usable anyway. The Wi-Fi was down with the power and now I noticed that I had no cell service. I remembered how difficult it had been working on the purchase of the house and being forced to walk to the end of the driveway every time I needed to make a call, pacing back and forth until I found the sweet spot.

Patrick stood. “I don’t know why you’re all intent on hiding a murder. You’re so fixated on beliefs that are only half true, if that. And even if we do have to answer a lot of questions and provide alibis, we can’t leave a dead man on our property! The police need to deal with this. Right now.”

“I doubt they’ll come during a storm if it’s not an emergency,” Keith said.

“I guarantee they’ll view this as an emergency,” Patrick said.

“You guarantee it?” Emily said.

Keith smirked. I gently pinched Emily’s leg, but she didn’t apologize.

Patrick left the room. I heard the bowl of rice clink against the kitchen counter as he pulled his phone from beneath a mound of dried grains. A moment later, the bowl scraped across the counter as he cursed.

With my body still jittery, I went to the front door and turned the deadbolt. A power outage would be a perfect time for the killer to return. With the repeatedly crashing thunder, we wouldn’t even hear him enter the house.

Patrick and I returned to the living room at the same time. I took my seat beside Emily.

“You were right,” Patrick said. “My phone powers on, and all the apps seem to be working. But no cell service, obviously. We should have called when we had the chance to use the Wi-Fi. How are we going to explain pulling him out of the pool, then sitting in the house doing nothing for hours?” His voice rose as he spoke, ending in something that sounded like a cry of pain.

“It’s a ferocious storm,” Keith said. “What else can we do?”

Keith and Patrick spent the next hour batting their opinions back and forth. It wasn’t really an argument, but Patrick was upset and refusing to back down. Keith was stubborn in his insistence we were not going to report this. He was almost frantic.

“Do you know this guy?” Patrick asked. “Is that why you’re so sure the police won’t believe you?”

“Not even close,” Keith said. “I just know cops. The guy is a total stranger to me. I already told you that.”

Emily and I sipped our tea, lost in our own shock.

“Then what’s your plan?” Patrick asked.

No one responded. We were numb and that feeling was magnified by the awareness that we were trapped in our pitch-black house under a sky that didn’t offer a flicker of light except when it turned white with a flash of lightning.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Patrick said. “Well, we can’t just leave a dead man beside our pool indefinitely.”

Keith grunted and Emily whimpered softly. Patrick was right. We didn’t want to think about that, but we couldn’t avoid it forever. The storm allowed us to exist in a state of limbo, for now.

Emily had brought out the candle I’d given them, and we’d found a few others in a box in the pantry. Patrick had a flashlight that he always kept in our car. We used our phones at times, but no one wanted to drain their battery by overusing the flashlight.

After another hour or so, the thunder and lightning moved on. The only sound was the pounding rain, made louder by the open-beam ceiling. We finally agreed it was best to go to bed early, hoping the power would be restored by morning. When I slid between the cold sheets, pulling the fluffy comforter up to my neck, Patrick turned away from me. He punched the pillow before settling down. I moved close to him, pressing my back against his for warmth, but he didn’t touch me.

“I’m scared,” I whispered. He didn’t respond.

In the morning, the power was still out, which made us cranky, knowing there wouldn’t be any coffee. The rain had calmed to soft, steady showers sometime before dawn. We ate cold bagels and strawberries for breakfast. No one talked to each other.

When the rain stopped, I took my half-full glass of orange juice outside. I crossed the deck and looked down to the spot where we’d moved the body, hoping with all my heart the wind hadn’t blow the tarp away, forcing me to look again at that vacant face. We’d weighted the tarp with a few rocks from the garden, but the wind had been fierce through the evening and most of the night.