The helicopter tilted toward the ocean.
My body swung out from beneath the door, and the horizon lurched sideways. Salt spray struck my face. For one terrifying second, the tether pulled against my ribs so hard I thought it would cut me in half.
Richard braced himself against the frame.
“Cut her loose,” he shouted.
The pilot turned halfway around.
He was not reaching for the tether.
He was reaching for the control panel.
A red light began blinking above the cockpit.
I remembered the safety briefing I had insisted on before takeoff. Emergency beacon. Manual release. Secondary flotation system.
My eyes found the small black switch beneath the door.
I had installed it myself two nights earlier, pretending I wanted the cabin lights adjusted.
The helicopter dropped another few feet.
I released one hand from the strap.
The wind tore my fingers away from the switch.
“Amelia!” Richard’s voice cracked through the noise. “Don’t be stupid.”
His face had changed now.
Not fear.
Anger.
The same anger he had shown when I questioned a bank transfer. The same anger he had shown when I told him I wanted separate bedrooms. It was the expression of a man who believed the world had violated its contract by refusing to obey him.
I hooked my elbow through the tether and reached again.
This time my fingertips struck the switch.
I slammed it upward.
A compressed-air cylinder burst beneath the harness. The tether reeled inward with a violent jerk, dragging me against the underside of the helicopter. My shoulder struck metal. Pain shot down my arm, but the movement carried me toward the open doorway.
Richard grabbed the back of my coat.
His fingers closed around the fabric.
For one instant, we were face-to-face.
His pupils were enormous.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
It sounded almost like the old Richard.
The man who had held an umbrella over me outside the hospital. The man who had memorized how I took my coffee. The man who had placed his palm against my stomach when our child first moved beneath my skin.
I stared at him.
Then I saw the knife in the pilot’s hand reflected in the curve of his watch.
Richard wasn’t trying to save me.
He was trying to pull me inside before the recording could capture anything else.
I drove my knee into the doorframe.
The jolt tore my coat from his grip.
I swung beneath the helicopter again, but this time the tether’s emergency reel pulled me toward the rear landing skid. A second clasp opened at my waist. The harness released its flotation pack, which inflated around my ribs with a sharp hiss.
Below me, a white rescue boat appeared through the mist.
Someone had been watching.
The pilot saw it too.
He swore and banked sharply away from the coast.
The boat accelerated beneath us.
A flare shot into the gray air.
Its red light reflected off the waves and painted Richard’s face the color of blood.
“Celia,” he shouted. “Do it now.”
The lawyer answered through my earpiece.
“I am trying.”
The sound came from the transmitter sewn into the collar of my coat. Her voice was close, far too close, as if she were standing inside my skull.
I fumbled for the tiny recorder beneath the lining.
The device had a second channel, one I had not told her about.
A green light blinked twice.
The transmission was live.
Not to Celia.
To the private security firm I had hired three weeks earlier, and to Detective Mara Ellis, who had promised that if I ever used the emergency code, every file would be mirrored to the district attorney’s office.
I could not speak without losing my grip, so I pressed the recorder against my throat.
Three taps.
The signal went out.
The pilot shoved the controls forward.
The helicopter descended toward the water.
The rescue boat changed direction.
