Prime Suspect: A Psychological Thriller With A Twist You Won’t See Coming

by Cole Baxter

  She turned to me, and it must have looked like she was going for her gun. Before she could even say a word, someone reacted and shot her several times in the chest.

  If I had been any sort of man, I would have gone after them. I would have chased down her murderers and made sure they suffered, but instead, I caught her before she fell.

  I held her in my arms as she died, with blood pouring out over both of us.

  My Lola. My love.

  I was such an idiot. I was such a coward.

  I had played the scene in my head a million times. Could I have done something differently? Could I have saved her life? Should I not have called out to her? Maybe my first aid training hadn't been up to par and I should have saved her instead of holding her?

  Even though everyone told me that it wasn't my fault and everyone told me there was nothing I could do, it didn't mean that I didn't want to join her every time I thought of that moment. I had intended to just go home and drink. When my phone rang, right before I opened my door, I picked it up, half curious and half annoyed. The number was one I didn't recognize, so I answered because I knew it was related to a case.

  "Hello?" I asked.

  "Blake! Good to talk to you. It's Laurie Whitman. You know. Devon's wife. Or I guess his widow, since he's dead."

  I was surprised by the forcefulness of her first sentence. She sounded a bit different from the timid girl who had come into the office.

  "Hi, Laurie," I said. "Is there something I can do for you?"

  "Yes," she said. "You can listen to me."

  I suspected at this point that she was half drunk. There was something about the way she was speaking, as well as the background noises of clinking glasses, which made me think she was drinking and talking. I didn't mind. After all, who was I to judge? But also, I knew that a drunk man's words were a sober man's thoughts, so I let myself into my house and plopped myself down at the table to listen. I hoped in this case, it would prove that a drunk woman's words were a sober woman's thoughts.

  "Sure, Laurie, I can listen to you," I said. "What's going on?"

  "First," she said, "I want to make it very clear that it was Devon who attacked me and killed me, not an intruder, not a man after my purse or whatever the hell he said on the news. It was Devon who put me in the hospital that night. I thought it was so ironic that he was standing outside the surgery room screaming and sounding upset when he was the one who’d put me there."

  "All right," I said. I sort of suspected that, given the nature of her injuries and the fact that she had alluded to it before. However, it was good to have that spoken out loud. "Well, I'm sorry he did that to you."

  "I'm not," she said, which surprised me.

  "You're not?" I asked. "Why not?"

  "Because it was the only way out," she replied. "It was the only way I could have escaped."

  "So, Laurie, did you prepare this?" I asked. "Was there someone set up in the hospital to help you?"

  "No," she howled. "No, I wish I had been that smart. If I were, I probably would have escaped a long time ago. No, there was no one in the hospital to help me. I died there, Blake. I died."

  "Right . . ." I said slowly. "But unless you're a ghost, you didn't actually die there."

  "No," she said and laughed. "I'm not a ghost. I wish I were a ghost sometimes, but I'm not."

  "And when Devon choked you . . ." I realized that I hadn't asked her this. "Was he intending to kill you?"

  "I doubt it," she said. "I mean, who knows? He was such a sick and twisted man. But he got off doing that, and he really needed to get off that night. He was super drunk, so that makes it hard to say he knew what he was doing, you know?"

  "Sure," I said. I didn't want to tell her I had experienced getting off while drunk, but I knew exactly what she meant.

  "You don't understand," she said. "This man was . . . he was twisted. He wanted me to look like the porn girls. He watched porn all the time. The only time that I was allowed to be on a laptop was with him looking over my shoulder, and it was probably to watch porn and see if I could act like that for him. And I suppose I should be thankful he was there at all, right? Because let's not talk about the hours and hours and days and days he was gone for no reason."

  "But when he was gone, weren't you relieved?" I asked.

  "I mean, at least when he was home, I could maybe have a hope of leaving the house," she said. "When he wasn't, he locked it from outside."

  "What if there was a fire?" I asked.

  She burst out laughing. "That's the same thing I said to him," she replied. "I begged and I pleaded with him, and I said that if there was a fire, I would die. And do you know what he told me? He told me that was a good thing because at least he would know where I was."

  "Wow," I said. I knew that Devon had done some terrible things to Laurie, but this was one of the most twisted cases I had seen in a long time. "So, do you know where he was when he was gone all this time?"

  "I'm sure he was cheating," she said. "I mean, I never had any proof because it's not like I could follow him or check emails or anything. He wouldn't ever let me touch his phone, and he never came home with lipstick on his collar. He was never that dumb. I'll give him that. But I’m sure that he was cheating."

  "Wow," I said. "What a jerk."

  "Yeah, especially given the amount of sex that he demand from me," she replied. "I don't even know how he had any sperm left for cheating."

  "So that sounds like it was a terrible place to live . . ." I started, but apparently, she wasn't done.

  "And then let's talk about how he would beat me," she said. "If I did something he didn't like. And I'm not talking big things. I'm talking little things. Like putting the eggs on the wrong side of the plate at breakfast."

  "I see," I said. "So, you would consider yourself a prisoner?"

  "Ha!" she said. "Prisoners got treated better than I did."

  "I see," I replied. "Laurie, I'm so sorry. That sounds awful. But it also sounds like something else."

  "What?" she asked.

  "It sounds like you had a good reason to have killed him," I said. "And listen, I wouldn't blame you if you did."

  "I know you wouldn't," she said. "You seem like a good guy, really, you do. You seem like everything in your life is easy and you think the best of people."

  I had no idea where she got that, but I let her have it.

  "So, did you do it?" I wondered if I would get a confession out of her, here and now. That would be perfect, and I could close the case and be done with this whole mess.

  I really did feel bad for her if she had done it. It wasn't her fault, although a judge and jury would not see it that way. They would convict her and throw her in jail, even though she wasn't even remotely responsible as far as I was concerned.

  "No!" she cried in my ear. "Oh, my God, have you not been listening to the things I said?"

  "I've been listening," I said. "And what I heard was that you had a pretty strong motive."

  "So . . . how do we fix this, Blake?" she asked, and I heard a slight slur in her voice. "How do we make it so you don't suspect me?"

  "Well," I said. "Police training 101. If you have a suspect, the only way you eliminate them is if you have a stronger suspect."

  "Oh," she said. "So, someone who would want to kill him more than me?"

  "Exactly," I said. "Do you know someone who would want to kill him more than you?"

  "I don't know," she said. "Maybe I can see if he had another girlfriend or five and then see if they had motive."

  "I mean, that's not a bad idea . . ." I said.

  "But in the meantime, you're going to look at me as the chief suspect, aren't you?"

  "I'm afraid so," I said. "So don't leave town."

  "See, when you said that, I thought you were joking," she said. "And I thought that was a thing you say to everyone. But it turns out you weren't joking."

  "Nope." I was trying to keep it casual, but my heart was pounding. I felt bad for her, and
imagining those horrible crimes made it worse. I wanted to kill the guy myself, hearing what he did to her.

  “Okay, so I won't leave town," she said. "I mean, I don't know where I'd go. I don't have any friends to go to. But I don't have any family to go to here, either, so . . ."

  I waited, but it seemed like she didn't have anything else to say.

  "Well, thank you so much for calling, Laurie," I said.

  "Yeah," she said. "It was fun to talk. Even though you now think I'm a murderer."

  "Well, that's what the charge would be," I said.

  "Really?" she asked. "Not arson or something? Because my house got blown up and you know someone set it."

  "Well . . . yeah." I didn't know how drunk she was now, so I explained it like I would to a child. "Because we found bone fragments and teeth, so that's murder . . . not arson."

  "Oh!" she said. "That makes sense. I should go, Blake. Bye."

  This was an awkward way to end the call, but I couldn't think of a better one.

  "I'm sure we will be in touch," I said and hung up the phone.

  I didn't know what to do with myself after hearing that.

  Obviously, she had done it. Well, maybe not obviously. But as of right then, it looked like she had done it.

  So, what the hell was I supposed to do with that information? I couldn't haul her in because even if we had motive, we had no evidence. We didn't have a system where it was guilty until proven innocent, unfortunately.

  I sat in my kitchen for a long time, thinking over those details.

  What a horrible world we lived in, where innocent people like Lola and Laurie suffered so much pain. What a terrible world, and here I was, thinking that I could change it? I was so young and naive when I started out. What the hell was wrong with me?

  The difference was, I knew the world now. I was older, I was wiser, and I had actually lived. And what I had learned was that the world sucked.

  I went to my fridge and pulled out a beer. I was about to open it when I paused. I didn't need beer. I wanted vodka, and I wanted it fast.

  I grabbed the bottle and a cup and headed to the bedroom. I was so tired, so mentally screwed up by that call that I didn't even bother changing. I just poured myself a shot and sank onto my bed to drink it.

  I needed to find a stronger suspect. I needed to, because putting her in jail would be a shame.

  I wondered when I had changed enough to start sympathizing with murderers. Maybe I was just getting too jaded by everything, or maybe I was starting to expand my mind.

  Another shot of vodka. That would expand my mind.

  I lay down and closed my eyes, trying not to imagine the details from today. I wanted to think about nothing. I wanted to erase my memory and just let it go black.

  Every time I tried this, the only thing I couldn't erase was Lola.

  "What would you do if you were here?" I asked out loud. "Whose side would you take?"

  If she were here, she'd probably be snuggled up at my side. I would be having sex tonight instead of thinking of all the ways sex could be horrible.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Laurie

  I couldn't believe that I had just told him that. I couldn't believe I had told him all of that. I knew that I was half drunk, but that was ridiculous. Why did I think he needed to know? What difference would it make to the fact that he was suspicious of me and would likely never feel differently? After all, his job was to find the suspect, and I was the suspect. I knew that. And I knew how suspicious it looked.

  But I wanted him to see my side of things. I wanted him to understand that it was completely possible to build a case against someone and still be wrong. I knew that it must have looked like I’d murdered Devon in cold blood. I knew that it must have looked like I was a bad person.

  But wouldn't that make the public ask why I had done it? That's why I was working on the books. That's why I was gunning for a speaking tour. I wanted the world to know that abused women had power too.

  But then, if I phrased it like that, they might think that I didn't have power. They might think that I had no control over my actions and that instead of surviving, I had just burned Devon up.

  I hated this. I hated all of this.

  Time and space started to be distant to me. I started to space out, what my therapist called disassociation. I didn't know what was real. I didn't know what wasn't real. All I knew was that I had to find some way to survive and that survival was a hard thing.

  I sometimes wished that I hadn't survived. I sometimes wished that Devon had just decided to kill me, and then I wouldn't have to go through all of this.

  I softened and wondered why I’d survived. I often wondered why me? Why was I the one when there were so many other women who went through this?

  What often got to me were the stories of the other women and how they had managed to escape. For some of them, it was easy. For some of them, it was the most difficult thing they had ever done. I heard stories of terror and stories that made me wish that men didn't exist at all.

  Was that what I actually wished, though? Did I actually wish men didn't exist, or did I just wish Devon didn't exist?

  I wasn't sure that I would ever fall in love again. I wasn't sure that I would ever be able to even breathe again around another man.

  Yes, it was true that I found Blake handsome, but Blake was also off limits. Finding someone handsome was one thing. Taking up with him like I didn't have a care in the world was another.

  Besides, who would want me? I was broken and dirty and disgusting. I was sure there wasn't a man in the world who would touch me, given what I had gone through. I was sure there wasn't a man in the world who would so much as raise an eyebrow toward me anymore.

  Before Devon, I had thought that I was reasonably attractive. Before Devon, I had actually thought that I might be some sort of model.

  I knew that was a stupid idea and I shouldn't even entertain it. I knew that Devon would laugh me out of the park. But a girl could dream, couldn't she? And I had always found the entertainment and arts industries fascinating.

  What did that matter now, though? What mattered now was just surviving.

  I felt like I would collapse. I felt like I would fall into a black hole. None of my thoughts made sense. None of my actions made sense, and I highly doubted that I would survive the night if I didn't drink myself into oblivion or worse. I was sure that I was just going to die here on the kitchen floor.

  Being a public speaker was kind of working in the arts world, wasn't it? Writing a book was kind of working in the arts world, wasn't it?

  I couldn't get up. I couldn't see straight.

  I wasn't sure how long I stayed on the floor. I know that I sobered up a little bit, and eventually, I rose, but passing time was out of my realm of understanding.

  So, I decided that I needed some additional help. I decided that what I needed were some tranquilizers to lull me to sleep.

  I knew, of course, that was probably a bad idea. If I took them, I would likely pass out until tomorrow afternoon. They were pretty bad on their own, and the doctor had told me to only take them if I absolutely had nothing to do the next day. But I needed to sleep and clear my head.

  Drinking. I had been drinking. Was I supposed to take them while I had been drinking?

  I didn't know. I didn't really care.

  I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move.

  I stood with my hands on the kitchen counter for what felt like half an hour.

  I didn't even know where my tranquilizers were at that moment.

  How many was I supposed to take? What was I supposed to take them with?

  I wondered why the Graces hadn't answered me. I wondered if they were all right.

  I wondered if I was ever going to leave the kitchen counter.

  Another moment flashed through my mind. Maybe something had happened to the Graces. Maybe something had happened to them because of Devon.

  No, it couldn't have hap
pened to them because of Devon. Devon was dead, there was no way he could have hurt them.

  But then, what if he wasn't dead?

  I had never considered that before. I had never considered any other possibility except for the fact that Devon was dead and I was free.

  Now, I started to shiver in horror, thinking of the fact that he might not be dead. He could still be out there.

  But then, whose bones had they found?

  Devon was a lot of things, but I wasn't sure he would go through all the trouble that he went through. I wasn't sure he would do the things that he said he would.

  What would be the point of his playing dead and blowing up our marital home? Would he decide to wait until I felt a false sense of security and then just jump in? Would he decide to lure me into a small place, like he used to, and then hit me? Maybe when his funeral happened, if I were invited, I would be alone with his coffin, and then he'd come out?

  These thoughts were absolutely ridiculous. I wasn't invited to his funeral. There wasn't going to be a coffin because there wasn't a body. And Devon was gone.

  Slowly, I took my hands off the kitchen counter and started to walk toward the bedroom where I kept all my medications. My head was spinning and my heart was pumping as I sat down on my bed.

  My phone was in my hand, and I briefly considered calling the Graces again. Maybe they were there, after all. Maybe they did want to talk to me.

  Or maybe none of it mattered and I should just take enough drugs to make me pass out for good.

  For Good.

  The idea had occurred to me more than once. It had occurred to me to just open the pill bottle and swallow and the rest would be left up to God.

  I told myself, however, that I wasn't going to do that. And I told myself that because I didn't think that I should do it now that Devon was gone. The time to kill myself had been when he was alive. This was not the time now that he was dead.