Now that the sun is setting, the sky is a swirl of blue and orange, descending into burned amber the closer it gets to the horizon. Rachel remembers when she and Jack went to Santorini a few years ago—their first vacation without Josh—and walked to the top of Oia to witness what the locals call “the best sunset in the world.”
“Can you hear it?” Jack had said, as they’d sat on a stone wall, along with a hundred or so other awe-struck tourists.
She’d looked at him, full of love and excitement at what this new phase in their life would bring. With Josh fast becoming an independent teenager, they could certainly look forward to more trips like this, and the warm feeling that the thought evoked had wrapped itself around her.
“Hear what?” she’d asked, smiling.
“The sizzle as the sun disappears into the ocean.”
Her chest physically hurts at the thought he could be saying that to Ali now. There’s no sign of either of them on the terrace, and she casts an eye over the beach below. The cliff face is now highlighted by neon-pink strobes from a laser beam, masking the multitude of darkened crevices within. Any one of them would be perfect for the two of them to hide in. Though, with the tide coming in so quickly, the water would soon flush them out.
Rachel imagines Ali floating facedown in the rising water and can’t help but feel satisfied by the thought of her not being around to create havoc anymore.
Removing her wedge shoes, Rachel starts to descend the wooden staircase onto the beach. Feeling the sand between her toes, she sees a notice nailed to a precarious-looking crag, PERIGO DE DESMORONAMENTO, and then written below, BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS.
More horrific images of Ali’s head, smashed to a pulp by a dislodged boulder, do little to incur any sympathy within Rachel, and she wonders what the hell’s wrong with her. Hating a woman for sleeping with your husband is understandable. Wanting her to die an incredibly grisly death isn’t.
Going against her better judgment, Rachel stays close to the base of the cliffs, edging her way toward the first cave. She can hear something, but with the sound of the crashing waves creeping ever closer, it’s difficult to be sure what it is. Birds soar overhead, squawking as they make their way home to their ledges further up the rock face, and there’s a faint pounding from the bass of the music reverberating from the reception.
It all merges into a cacophony that threatens to drown out the very thing she came looking for. Though, she wonders if that’s not such a bad thing, as to actively seek out proof that your husband is being unfaithful must surely be masochistic. Yet still she pushes on, as if seeing it for herself is the only way she will believe it. The first nook is barely deep enough to obscure one person, let alone two, so Rachel moves onto the next, just a few meters on. She peeks around a jutting rock to see that it’s dark and forbidding, too deep to see the back wall, but there are voices coming from within. Rachel cranes her neck to hear Jack, whose speech is slurred, yet there’s no mistaking the wrath of his words.
“If you ever do that again, I swear to God, I’ll…”
“You’ll what, Jack…？” comes a female voice. Rachel knows that it’s Ali, but she so desperately wants it not to be. She begins to step backward, wishing she could just go back to twenty seconds ago when she still just had suspicions.
“Don’t push me,” spits Jack.
“No, come on, tell me,” presses Ali.
“I mean it. If you threaten to expose what’s going on one more time…”
“I’d like to see it,” says Ali, her voice unwavering. “If you want me to stop, you know what you’ve got to do.”
“Do you have any idea what it will do to Rachel?” says Jack. “This will destroy her. Do you really want to be responsible for that?”
“I think you’ll find Rachel is far stronger than you think. Either that, or she refuses to acknowledge what’s going on right under her nose, because I’ve certainly left enough clues.”
There are two breaths of silence before Ali screams and Rachel turns to run, unable to comprehend what might be happening. But she’s only put one foot in front of the other when she stops stock-still. No matter what Ali’s done, she cannot, will not, stand by and let a man hurt a woman, for any reason.
She heads back to the cave, rushing in, shouting Jack’s name. As her eyes take a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness, she can just make out his arm in the air, about to bear down.
“Rachel?” he says, as if in disbelief.