Lightning flashed through my threadbare curtains, thunder shaking the building. Storms always reminded me of that last night with him. I’d come home early from a half marathon in nearby Savannah. A tropical depression had been blowing in, and the race had been canceled. I’d rushed home to help him batten down the hatches.
As I stared at my water-stained ceiling, my eyes lost focus, the memory overtaking me. . . .
A strange car was parked behind the house, a Jaguar. I almost hoped Edward was having an affair. It would explain so much, confirming my new suspicions. It would make my decisions going forward easier.
In one year of marriage, we’d gone from two people who had everything in common and finished each other’s sentences to strangers.
I entered quietly, creeping up the stairs, hearing voices coming from our bedroom. I paused in the upstairs foyer. When my mother was alive, the walls had been covered with crucifixes and gloomy old portraits of our ancestors. After her death, Edward had hired a decorator, telling me, “You’ll never move past her if you’re constantly reminded. Let’s make a fresh start.”
I’d thought at the time, If you don’t like mi madre’s home, then why are we living here, instead of in your own mansion? The one I’d yet to see.
But I’d stifled that question, because it would open the door to so many other ones—a pulled thread that would unravel the blanket that I still occasionally slept with.
I’d agreed to the decorator, anything to repair the sudden rift between me and him, the one that’d appeared directly after our hasty courthouse wedding. He’d stopped calling me Lucía, insisting on Ana-Lucía (what my mother had called me when I was in trouble). He’d stopped flirting with me. We rarely had sex, and only at my urging.
I stepped closer to our room, avoiding the groaning spots in the wood floor. I knew their exact locations, had been sneaking out of this house since I was twelve.
At the door, I detected perfume and heard my husband and a woman speaking.
“This is taking too long,” the woman said.
“You have to be patient and trust me.” That was my husband’s voice—but now he spoke with a British accent.
Who the hell was in my bedroom with my husband, and why had his accent changed? My fists clenched, my unruly temper about to blow. My first impulse was to bust inside and start cussing, but somehow I forced myself to bite my tongue and listen.
“I usually am patient,” the woman said, her accent also British. “But you can’t let her leave for these races, Charles.” Charles? “You need to be working on her constantly.”
Working on what?
“Her training is the ideal cover, darling,” my husband continued. “Poor Ana-Lucía’s going to collapse after one of her long runs.”
I rocked on my feet. They planned to . . . kill me? These motherfuckers were going to kill me.
This. Is. Not. Happening.
“It will work seamlessly,” Edward said. “Oh, if only my poor wife hadn’t taken amphetamines while marathon training in this heat.”
Amphetamines? He’d given diet pills to me, saying, “Maybe you should lose a pound or two. Honestly, Ana-Lucía, your clothes scarcely fit across your backside. It’s only fair, since I do make an effort to keep myself in shape for you.”
I’d nearly told him I would lose weight in my ass as soon as he gained weight in his dick, but he loathed curse words. I used to admire that he was such a gentleman. It’d gotten old.
Edward said, “With that combination, no one will suspect another drug.”
“Will she take them?” the woman asked. “She might be young, but she isn’t malleable like the others.”
The others? They’d done this before?? Serial killers were in my room, like snakes loosed inside!
“Give me more credit than that,” Edward said. “Once I work my magic, she’ll be choking them down. Julia, I vow to you that I will be a widower by the holidays. Shall we go to Aspen to celebrate?” He had a smile in his tone.
A horrific thought struck me. Por Dios, had they killed my mother? She’d had a degenerative disease, but her actual passing had been sudden. The floor wobbled.
Had they killed my mother?
Had they killed her?
This Julia wasn’t swayed yet. “If she suspects you . . .”
“I always have an ace in the hole, darling. A pressure lever. If there’s one thing I know about my wife, it’s that she would do anything to avoid prison—”
Lightning flashed outside my apartment, thunder rattling the window. I was jolted back to the present before I got to the confrontation about his ace in the hole, before I recalled too vividly the feel of blood coating my face and body.
Maybe that was a good thing. I didn’t want to spur even more crimson-drenched nightmares.
The storm intensified, rain pouring. My roof would soon leak like a colander. Depending on the duration of the storm, I could be up all night emptying the pots. If I didn’t, my apartment would flood.
I pinched my temples. Edward had been right about me—I would do anything to avoid prison; even live in this shithole.
CHAPTER 7
“Listen up, folks, the final is next Monday at seven sharp,” Ms. Gillespie, my econ instructor, told the class. She was a tall, graying brunette, with a no-nonsense demeanor. “And yes, I know it’s cutting into your holiday break. Take it up with the active hurricane season.”
Three classes this fall had been cancelled due to tropical storms; with each storm, my apartment had taken on water like a sinking ship—just as it had last night.