Page 93 of The Perfect Divorce

“Whatever you want,” he says with a small smile. “And by the way, Bob had me put a tracker on your car. He’s been following your every move for weeks.”

It’s an olive branch, Alejandro’s way of showing that his loyalty has instantly shifted.

“I already know.” I smile back as I pull the gun from his temple. It leaves behind a nasty red bruise, the imprint of the muzzle marked on his skin.

We lock eyes, an intensity burning between us. I wrap my hand around his head and jerk him toward me. Our lips and teeth smash against one another as I slide on top of his body, taking the length of him inside of me. This time, I’m going to fuck him.

FIFTY-ONE

SARAH MORGAN

TEN HOURS AND SIX MINUTES LATER

They just told me my husband is dead. My face is frozen, mouth partially open, eyes wide. Hudson and Olson are seated at the kitchen table, directly across from me. They said it was better if I was sitting before they delivered the news. It’s hard to make my face sad for Bob. That asshole was going to kill me—well, hired someone to kill me. If his plan had worked out, he’d be the one sitting here receiving the news from two uniforms. Had he truly learned nothing from me? Too many loose ends, and the only person you can count on is yourself. But then again, Bob doesn’t know that, and now, he never will. He’ll never know that I’m still alive, and he’ll never know that he was the one responsible for his own brother’s death. I kind of wish he had learned those things before his untimely death. I bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing again.

“Sarah,” Sheriff Hudson says, pulling me from my thoughts.

I blink, making it look like I’m in shock, still reeling from the news. But now it’s time to turn on the waterworks. Not too heavy though, as we were going through a divorce, but just enough to show that I cared for him as my husband and as the father of my child. My eyes instantly develop a sheen. A few tears escape, running down my cheeks. My face crumples, not all the way, just enough. And my lip quivers. That’s the hardest part to get right. It appears like it’s involuntary, a reaction to deep grief—but with practice comes perfection.

Chief Deputy Olson folds her lips in and looks down at her hands. I know it’s working because she feels awkward to be witnessing this grief. She doesn’t know what to do or what to say. Hudson takes a deep breath, slowly exhaling through his nose. It’s working on him too.

“How?” I ask. My voice cracks on the single word.

“We’re not exactly sure yet. But we found his body in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse just outside of town. He had been shot twice,” Hudson explains.

“By who?”

The two of them exchange a look.

“There was a woman chained to a pole in that basement. She shot Bob, and she claims he kidnapped her and another woman,” he says.

My hands fly to my mouth, and I shake my head slightly in mock disbelief. “No, that... that can’t be true.”

“We’re still verifying her story, but we do have a few questions for you, if that’s okay?” Olson asks.

I nod, removing my hands from my mouth. The tears keep falling intermittently. “Of course. Of course. Anything to help.”

She pulls a Kleenex from her pocket, extending it to me. I take it and thank her, dabbing lightly at my eyes. Don’t want to dab all the tears away though. They’re like camouflage for how I’m really feeling. She retrieves a pad of paper and a pen from the front pocket of her shirt. Flipping it open, Olson presses the tip against the empty page, ready to write down all the lies I’m about to tell.

“Was Bob living here with you?”

“Not for the past month. We’re in, I mean, we were in the middle of a separation.” I force my lip to quiver again.

“The woman we found chained up in the basement was Stacy Howard,” Hudson says. “You remember who she is?”

I nod and push out more tears. “I can’t believe it,” I lie.

Icanbelieve it because I’m the one who put her there. In truth, I really had nothing to do with Bob sleeping with Stacy, as much as he wanted to blame that on me. He fell into her web of deceit and blackmail all on his own. But that mistake landed them both in my web, and there can be only one queen. Stacy’s lucky she wasn’t a casualty in this war.

“I know it’s difficult to wrap your head around,” Olson says, attempting to comfort me. “Sometimes you think you know a person, but you never really know everything.”

She’s right about that.

“Is Stacy sure Bob did this?” I ask. “He couldn’t have. I mean, he had his flaws, but this is something else entirely. I just... I can’t believe it. Is she really sure?” I’m piling it on a bit thick.

This question is more for me than them. I was careful. Extremely careful, ensuring she never saw me, not even a glimpse. After Stacy was unconscious from that chloroform-soaked rag I shoved into her face and that Propofol injection I jabbed in her arm, I hauled her out to the abandoned farmhouse. This was much earlier in the day. I returned to Stacy’s place on my way home from work and texted her roommate from her phone, which I had left there. I said she was going to meet up with Bob. This made the time of her disappearance Monday evening rather than Monday afternoon, when she really went missing. Then, I sent a few texts to a contact labeledBob Miller, a number I had stored in her phone that connected to a burner. Even if they ask her about those texts, her memory is so fuzzy she won’t remember whether or not she actually sent them.

“She is,” Hudson says.

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