Then

"Why?" I gasp, looking at Bob like I've never seen him before. "Why do you want to help me? Call the cops. Turn me in."

Bob looks at me steadily. "Any man who hits a woman, any kind of woman, deserves no better than this."

I open my mouth, because Josh deserves so much more than this brutal assessment, but Eden beats me to it.

"We have to act fast."

"No." I sink to my knees by my husband's body. "I—I murdered him. He was apologizing. We were...embracing. He was crying, he was sorry. And I—" My body squeezes like a fist around my grief, my shame. I bend over Josh, lean my head on his still-warm chest, and release a piercing cry.

The man I loved is gone.

And so am I. Everything I thought I was—well-intentioned, kind, loving—was just skin-deep. I don't know who I am anymore, and I don't want to be her.

Tick-tick-tick.Josh's watch, counting the seconds that extend into my future, an endless path of minutes and hours and misery. I wanted to escape the cell. Now I've made sure its walls will hold me forever.

I wrench the watch off his wrist and heave it away. It hits hard and skids somewhere out of sight. Then I bury my face in my hands and groan like the animal I've become.

"Julia, there's something you have to know," says Eden, kneeling next to me and laying a hand on my back.

"No." I reach for my phone. There's nothing else to say. I'll call the cops myself, because even if Bob could get rid of the body and I could wake up tomorrow with no one knowing what I did except these two people, I will always know. The guilt will eat me alive. It's already started.

"It wasn't your fault. Truly," says Eden.

I punch in the digits. 9-1-1. Mitchell can deliver on his campaign promise after all.

"Stop!" Eden snatches my phone away just before I hit the dial button. I struggle toward it, but she closes her hand around my wrist. "This isn't your fault, Julia!"

"Yes it is!" I try to pull away, but Eden is strong as a mule.

"Just listen! Please! There's something you have to know. I never wanted to tell you this way, but... I work with Andy."

I blink once. Give my head a little shake because I couldn't have heard that right.

"He sent me here to keep an eye on you. Julia, I know this is going to be hard to hear, but..."

Setting my phone aside, Eden reaches for my hand. Tenderly this time. Folds it between her gentle fingers, squeezes, as if buckling me in before we crash.

Her voice speaks words, but they make no sense.

"Andy made you to kill Josh."

I close my eyes, shake my head. Her words are scattered pieces in a nonsensical game.

"Yes," says Eden, her voice almost stern. "He—he built it into your coding. I'm telling you because if we're going to survive what just happened, I need you to understand that this really, really isn't your fault."

"We need to move her so I can deal with the body," says Bob.

When I sit down, I realize Eden and Bob have guided me away from Josh, to the couch. My knees are shaking, and my elbows, and every joint that holds this feeble body together.

Eden talks next to me, now holding both my hands in hers. She explains my design, her part in it, how sorry she's been, how she stopped thinking that what she and Andy were doing was right, how desperately she was trying to get me away from Josh before this moment. Her revelations peel me apart, layer by layer. And as the words take on meaning and what I did tonight to Josh begins to make sense, my horror builds. And my anger.

Is there relief there, too? Yes, because I am exonerated even as Andy is convicted. The weight of responsibility is sliding off me and onto him. The moment I acted, it wasn't me.

It was Andy working through me.

The relief doesn't last more than a breath, though, because it was still my hand that ended Josh's life. Guilty or innocent, I will always be the woman who killed her husband. I will always remember the feeling of that meaty thud.

My eyes struggle to focus on Eden, who's still talking about Andy, and a girl named Laura who is the reason for his revenge, and... I tune it out, because an idea is taking root.

Not just an idea. A hope. A need. Catching fire.

I grab Eden's arm, interrupting her explanations and justifications, because now, only one thing matters.

"I need Andy to be the murderer."

Eden frowns. I can tell she has no idea what I'm talking about, even though the idea is weaving itself together so quickly in my head, so clear and so bright, I'm surprised she can't see it shimmering between us.

"We have to frame him," I say. Except it's not really framing. It's the truth beneath what I've done. The truest truth.

And my only hope at justice.

"Julia," says Eden with a nervous edge, "the smart plan is for Bob to get rid of the body. No one has to know Josh is dead. The story can just be that he left you. Or that he disappeared. We'll open a missing person case, and after a few years they'll close it."

Reasonable. Clean. Smart. Except that Andy would get off scot-free, and I'd have to look him in the eye for the rest of my life knowing what he did...and what I did.

"Not good enough," I growl. Not even close.

"How would we frame him?" Eden's tone is cautious. "Hypothetically?"

I take a deep breath. I need Eden and Bob to be on board; I can't do it without them.

"Andy will be here in twenty minutes. I need something to plant on him before he goes. Something incriminating."

"How about a thumb?" says Bob, who's been working quietly the whole time, wrapping Josh and my bloody sweatshirt in a tarp I recognize from our garage. I hadn't even noticed him walk out. It must have happened while I was listening to Eden in a daze.

"Why are you helping me, Bob?" I say.

"Annaleigh is my granddaughter. She deserved a better father than she got."

I've been slapped across the face with so many surprises tonight, I don't even register an emotional response to this. I just say, "How?"

"My daughter was your egg donor." He doesn't break eye contact. "Gianna." Then he waits, maybe to see if I have further questions.

I should. But I don't.

A thumb. An object. That's what I have to think about.

"His ring finger," I say. "It's...recognizable. It has a tattoo."

Bob nods and gets back to his work.

"And after Andy leaves?" says Eden.

"Josh was going hiking," I say. "So after Andy leaves, I'll drive to Belmont Ridge. Set up the tent. Eden, you can follow me. I'll leave Josh's car there. Or...crash it. You can bring me back. And I should text myself from Josh's phone." Something angry, to draw attention to the bad blood between Andy and Josh.

"You want to take his body with us?" Eden scrunches her face. "And leave it in the car? Minus a finger?"

I try to imagine all five foot five of Eden struggling with me to move the body. Even with Bob helping, we could be seen. Anyway, there's forensics to reckon with. After they find the body, which they eventually would, what would they infer from the gash on his head? What if it led back to me?

"I think we need to destroy...most of it," I say slowly. "We only need enough left to point to murder."

"How about you take an arm?" suggests Bob, standing up. "They'll know it was cut from a corpse." I shiver at the word corpse, but Bob seems unfazed. "The finger will be for Andy. The severed arm can be for the cops to find in the woods. It'll prove he's dead. I'll deal with the rest of the body."

"How will you deal with...?" says Eden, before adding, "Never mind, don't want to know. But a finger might not be enough to implicate Andy."

"Wait! We have Josh's cell phone," I say. "We'll text Andy as if it's Josh. Ask him to meet up tomorrow, close to the hiking trails. That puts Andy in the area. Then, when Josh doesn't come back, I'll open the missing person case, because I'll honestly think he just didn't come back."

"Um...you will?" says Eden, clearly not tracking.

Oh, right. My mind is moving faster than I can speak.

"Because after we set this all up, you're going to help me forget."

Bob stops his work to look at me. Eden is shaking her head, but I need her to hear me out.

"I can't be the person who did this." I let my voice sound as desperate and fierce as I'm feeling. If I was drowning before, now I'm kicking with all my strength, fighting to make it back to the surface. "It will eat me up inside. It will destroy me. Please."

I can have a lifetime knowing I killed Josh, the man I love and the father of my daughter, or a lifetime believing Andy killed Josh. A lifetime of guilt, or a lifetime of sadness. The choice is simple.

Eden's eyebrows knit together. "Julia—it's extremely complicated, modifying memories. And—I don't have all the right tools. Everything is hardwired. We're talking hours of work, if I can even do it. And to get to your access point? We'd have to—to punch through your skin." She gestures to the back of her neck. "It would hurt, it would—"

"You owe me," I interrupt. "You put me in this situation. Now get me out."

I glance at Josh's body, now fully wrapped in blue tarp with two bungee cords securing him. Ready to be moved. I realize I'll never see his face again. I should have taken more time. Said goodbye. The room is blurring from tears, but I can't lose control now.

There are things I have to do: plant a finger; set up a tent; crash a car; plant an arm. Disagreeable things, like all my daily task lists: vacuum living room; clean hair out of shower trap. Necessary things. No need to process. Just act. And if it all goes well, by tomorrow morning, I won't remember any of it.

Of course, I'll still have to deal with Josh's death when I find out in a couple days, or a week, or however long it takes them to find the arm and come tell his widow that he won't be coming back from his hiking trip. But at least in that story, I'll be the victim and not the killer.

Thatis the true story.

And I can't wait to believe it.