Page 64 of Lust & Lies
“I’ll have you know, I’m skilled in Taekwondo and Hapkido.”
“I think I remember what Taekwondo is. I’m not familiar with Hapkido.”
“You are. You’re familiar with them both, because you’ve been trained in both.”
My eyes widened. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“I’m not. You’re skilled in Hapkido.”
“What is that?”
“Hapkido is a mixed martial art that doesn’t focus on any one technique but many different techniques, including wrestling,” he explained.
“And I’m good at it?”
“Very,” he told me. “Almost better than me.”
“Almost?” I asked, smiling.
“Close,” he told me, a slight smile on his face now.
“It seems I need to get better, huh?”
“We’ll get back to it as soon as the doctor clears you to do so.”
I nodded and sat there, staring at my husband as my mind tried to reconcile myself with the version of me he’d described. Training could explain my reaction, but it didn’t explain my dark thoughts. Aiden seemed to read my mind because he brought that up before I could.
“During our sessions, you liked to discuss how you could apply your skills to real-life situations.”
“What do you mean?”
“For instance,” he started, hands clasping mine once again. “You once made me pretend to be a carjacker so you could see what you’d do if you were putting groceries in the trunk and a carjacker approached you from behind.”
“Really?” I asked, smiling, trying to picture the scene.
“Yes. I almost got arrested because a little old lady rode by and truly thought I was trying to steal your car. We had to go down to the police station and everything.”
“You’re lying!” I exclaimed, laughter bubbling from me.
“I’m serious,” he told me, thumb rubbing over my knuckle. “You even joked once that you’d researched how to get rid of a body if you ever had to kill someone. You were joking, of course.”
I stared at him, not sure whether to believe him or not. “That doesn’t sound like a joke I’d make.”
“It does to me. You’ve always been a fan of dark humor. You weren’t afraid to talk about the dark stuff with me. You trusted me with that.”
I didn’t know whether to feel reassured or terrified.
“One night, we were watching a movie, and the police found the husband’s body in the wife’s backyard. You told me that the wife should’ve done a better job of hiding the body. I asked you what you would’ve done. You gave me a lame answer, and I gave you a dozen reasons why it wouldn’t work. For the next couple of weeks, you kept trying to figure out a better way to get rid of the body, and I kept trying to find loopholes in your answer. Eventually, you put together the perfect kill and hide plan. Then you felt guilty for even thinking up such a plan.”
“I did?”
He nodded. “You did, love. You’re a fan of dark comedy. You’re a fan of horror. You love slasher movies. Shows that involve assassins are some of your favorite shows. That’s just what you like. So, yeah, you know a lot about killing theoretically. And those memories may come back to you when you least expect them, like they did this morning in the kitchen. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you a killer.”
He had a point.
“The doctor said your brain is like a computer. You’ve saved a lot of data over the years. Then you lost that data. Now it’s being restored. We don’t know when or how that data will return. It could return as a sense of Deja vu or in your dreams. Or, by youpinning someone to the wall as a reaction to danger. You’ve got to be prepared for it when it comes, however it comes.”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly.
