Page 7 of Dearly Departed

It’s Jacob.

I’m boiling water on a murder-plane because Jacob Chambers is my passionate hobby.

He’s obviously not just a hobby. He’s not a show I watch in my spare time or a book I read to fall asleep or a mummy exhibit in the British Museum.

But he is my passion. Being with him is the thing that makes me feel best, even when we’re falling off a horse into the snow or rushing away from London in a panic. He’s the only person I wanted to see waiting for me at the altar. He’s the only one I wanted to swear to love and honor.

I may have accidentally admitted to falling in love with him when I found him awake in the middle of the night in Mason’s guest apartment, but we haven’t talked about it again. In light of the plan to fake-widow me, I can see why we haven’t. And, like, having a man—even a man like Jacob Chambers, who’s handsome and smart and views me as a valuable person and not just a piece of property to the point that he’s almost driven himself out of his mind trying to save me—goes against everything I thought I wanted for my life.

My father was my mother’s passion, and he broke her. She was a shell of a person when my aunt whisked her away after my father’s funeral. She had been a shell of a person for a long time, I think, caught between my father and us.

But it wasn’t a choice for her. Not really. It might have been in the beginning, but it wasn’t by the end, and I chose to marry Jacob. I wanted to marry Jacob.

Oh, God. What have I become?

A wife who’s only a wife? A wife who’s a wife because the most important thing in the world to her is her husband?

The timing could not get worse. We might die in a matter of hours or a matter of minutes, and I don’t know how to tell him I’ve just now realized that he’s my favorite thing.

He’s the person whose face makes me light up inside, and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. We’ve gone to see every touristy spot in London and flown across the ocean together. We’ve gone to the opera together, which was the worst except that Jacob was there. The best part of every day was when he would come home from the office. The worst part of any day was when he left on a business trip, and I’d have to pretend I was just as happy when he was gone.

Finding my passion in life while he was traveling was never going to work, because I want to find my passion in life with him. I don’t need Jacob to decide what it is for me, and I know he would never do that.

He would search with me, though. He has searched with me. He’s indulged every interest I had. Even the opera.

Whatever I do, I don’t want it to be separate from him. I want it to be alongside him.

“Damn,” I whisper.

“Is something wrong?”

I do my best to stop feeling like I’ve just had a bucket of not-unpleasant water dropped on me when I was least expecting it.

“We’re on a murder-plane, so that’s pretty wrong.” I turn off the sink and flip the top of the kettle closed. It locks itself with a satisfying click. “But other than the part where we might die, I’m fine.”

Jacob hesitates, then seems to realize it would be a waste of time to talk about how I don’t want to die at the hands of a man named Raymond Harris or at the hands of any man, really. I want to live.

I put the kettle into its hook, which will hold it in place on the slim countertop. It’s one of the cordless ones, so the only thing left to do is flip the switch.

I do.

The indicator light turns red. A faint electric hum vibrates under my hand. Soon we’ll have one kettle full of boiling water, unless there’s, like, a bucket we could use to store the water.

No. I don’t think there’s a bucket. And Jacob would then have to lift a bucket of boiling water and throw it without scalding himself. If the water stayed hot enough for long enough.

One kettle it is.

Bubbles form in the water. I watch them expand through the kettle’s little window. There’s that saying about a watched pot, but I feel like I might boil over. My heart simmers in adrenaline and the wild crush I’ve had on Jacob since I first saw him and—and love, wrapped in frustration like a fancy sausage wrapped in a fancy piece of bacon and delivered to me by a uniformed waiter at the kind of part that Jacob would be the life of.

Or like our wedding reception.

Jacob opens drawers and compartments, brushing against me every few seconds, his body warm and solid and reassuring, even on the murder-plane with the murder-pilot. It doesn’t take long for him to look through everywhere he can reach. After a minute, he drops a handful of silverware on the countertop next to the kettle.

“Two butter knives. Two steak knives. The rest is in the main kitchen.” Jacob glances at me as if to say we don’t want to get close to the cockpit, in case he comes out while we’re up there.

I silently agree.

We look at our tiny collection of weapons. Another surge of frustration bubbles in my rib cage.