As Charlene waded away from the drop off where she sunk the dead body, a sense of triumph spread a wide, evil grin across her face. She didn’t used to act so nefarious; when she was married to Jim, she behaved quite lovingly with an altogether tranquil demeanor. Until he left her for that witch! It felt as if he had thrust a knife into her heart, and with every word twisted it deeper causing the blood to flow steadily from her chest, like her tears would later stream from her eyes. “It is such a pleasure to meet you,” Debbie (his new wife) chimed, in her annoyingly charming southern accent, the first time they met. “Same to you,” Charlene responded civilly holding in the screams which then echoed in her mind like a teapot full of hot water whistling. Jim ruined her whole life. It’s only fair, she thought slyly, that I return the favor. So, as she made her way back up the beach toward her stormy, grey colored Ford Escape, she felt no guilt for the murderous act she just committed. None.

On her way back up from the beach, Charlene notices something glinting in the sand. Curiously she stoops to investigate. Balancing on the balls of her feet, she stretches out her pruney fingers to sift through the mounds of seashells. Gathering a couple of ordinary seashells in her right hand, she notices nothing that could be the source of the vivid glistening. With her focus on her right hand, her left hand idly explores the sand. Charlene inhales sharply as she lifts her left hand in slow motion out of the sand, encompassing something she knows cannot be a simple shell. She uncurls her fingers gradually, letting the grains of sand cascade back to the ground, in the center of her palm she holds an intricate diamond ring. She stares at it in utter disbelief, turning it over and over again in her still pruney fingers, trying to hypothesize how it possibly could have got there. She thought by now the ring should be somewhere at the bottom of the deep, dismal drop-off along with Debbie’s body. But, she found it here, lying in the sand at her toes. Swiftly she snatches up the ring and scurries off to her car as if she were a squirrel being chased by a large barking dog.

Charlene will slip into her car, her heart still racing, and glance around with a how-could-I-have-been-so-careless look plastered on her flushed face. She will try to recall, to no avail, the last time she saw the beautiful ring on that women’s icy, frail finger. She will hastily shake the disturbing thought from her head and calm her nerves. Seeing as no one will pay Charlene any more attention than usual, she will drive back to the nearby motel where she stayed the night before under the alias Joanne Daniels. Cryptically she will encode her note to her ex-husband on the pale yellow note pad and as a last thought she will include the the slim silver circle which once encased his second wife’s finger. Hurriedly she will throw her belongings into the green duffel bag she now lived out of, sweeping the room with her eyes one last time to make certain it will be as if she were never there. Slipping into the front seat of her car, she will strip off the pretty, pink plastic gloves and drive a while before depositing the little white envelope into a mailbox along the side of the road. Then, she will speed off to who knows where, plotting the next scheme that his meek little ex-wife will use to seek revenge on her ungrateful lost love.