Page 74 of The Perfect Marriage

Anne thanks her.

“Don’t you fucking speak to me,” Sarah warns.

Anne shrinks and lowers her head.

“What do you want to do, boss?” Deputy Hudson holds me in place by the cuffs.

“This is a fucking nightmare. We’re bringing her in for questioning. If she doesn’t want to come, we’ll get a warrant,” Sheriff Stevens says.

Anne raises her head. “I’ll go. I have nothing to hide.”

“Yeah, fucking right. Lying bitch,” I say under my breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.

“That’s enough,” Bob exclaims.

And it’s at that moment that I realize where I saw Bob recently. It’s the look on his face that brings back the image. My mouth drops open. My eyes grow wild. This motherfucker. “It’s you!” I point at Bob’s smug face.

“Me… what?” he asks.

“You. You’re Nicholas Robert Miller. You’re Kelly’s ex-husband’s brother.”

Sarah whips her head at him. Sheriff Stevens is rubbing his head. Scott’s anger has yet to subside and is only intensifying every moment he’s here. D.A. Josh Peters looks confused, and I don’t blame him. Matthew steps aside from Bob.

“I’m not being pulled into this,” Bob says matter-of-factly.

“You killed her, didn’t you?” The question is rhetorical.

“I’ll hear no more of this nonsense.” Bob’s face tightens.

“Is that true, Bob? Are you Kelly’s ex-husband’s brother?” Sarah asks.

Bob hangs his head. “Yes, but I had nothing to do with any of this.”

Sarah lets out a gasp.

“Jesus fucking Christ. This case was supposed to be closed,” Sheriff Stevens says in exasperation. Scott begins breathing heavily and then in an instant, he’s on top of Bob, pummeling away. Sheriff Stevens and Deputy Hudson scream at him to stop and pull him off. After a cacophony of shouting and tangling and untangling of polyester the chaos subsides and heavy panting begins to fill the space.

“I’ll have your fucking badge for this, you ape-pig piece of shit!” Bob yells at Deputy Summers, blood spraying from his mouth. Bob doesn’t appear to be anywhere near physically capable of taking on the good deputymano a mano, but if looks could kill, Scott would be side by side with his dearly departed wife.

“Please Mr. Miller, accept our sincerest apologies. That behavior was completely uncalled for, and Deputy Summers here will be put on unpaid leave immediately.” Sheriff Stevens tries to immediately smooth things over.

“Fuck you all! You just made a huge mistake the lot of you,” Bob screams. It seems there’s no calming him down and Sheriff Stevens wisely just nods and lets it go.

D.A. Josh Peters turns to Sarah. “I’m going to hold off on discovery because it appears you have more to present. Just call my office, and I’ll have someone come pick up everything when it’s ready.” He ducks out quickly, not wanting to be caught up in the mess, I imagine.

Sarah nods as he starts walking away. Matthew rubs Sarah’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. That should be me rubbing her shoulder, not fucking Matthew.

“All right, everyone let’s go. We’re going to the fucking station now!” Sheriff Stevens loses his composure.

I guess it’s back to my old stomping ground after all.

45

Adam Morgan

Iknew before my rampage started that it wasn’t going to end well for me. I’m a fucking idiot, and I’m sure Sarah is going to take every opportunity to remind me of that. Now, though, my main concern is the extreme pain exerted as a pair of handcuffs are squeezed and twisted so tightly that the skin is beginning to roll back off my wrists like shavings from a pencil sharpener.

“You don’t have to pull that hard,” I plead to Sheriff Stevens.

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