Forgotten Husband

by Susan Bella Ikin

  “Mitch wrote his will just after you married, and he has never changed it. You would get everything, unless – “

  Steven trailed off, flicking a glance at the police, who had been watching the byplay between us with great interest.

  “Unless what? Spit it out, Steven, they’ll find out anyway, you may as well be the one who tells them”.

  “Well, in law a person can’t profit from a crime, so if you were convicted of Mitch’s death, then you wouldn’t inherit, Michelle would, but if you weren’t convicted, you would be Mitch’s sole beneficiary”.

  “So, didn’t Mitch do anything for Michelle? Change his will, set up a trust, anything?”

  “No, he didn’t get the chance. We talked about it, but nothing was done”.

  At that moment the door banged open. Steven jumped, and I watched his eyes open wide as he saw who was standing there.

  Mitch stood, still wavering a little, but supported on one side by Jeff, and on the other by David. He stared at Steven accusingly for a moment, then at the police.

  “Well, that should confirm everything we told you last night. You’ve got the documents I gave you, so I’m just taking my wife home now, and that’s not a question, by the way”.

  Steven tried to rise from his chair, his mouth opening and closing without a sound coming out, and as I rose and made my way to him, Mitch turned to him.

  “I’ve hired a firm of accountants to audit my accounts. I’m sure they’ll find further evidence to incriminate you. Maybe you should get yourself a lawyer, Steven”.

  ~

  Michelle crawled from me to her father’s lap. Mitch and I sat side by side on the couch, with David sitting opposite us. Jeff had just escorted Amy in, and as she took a seat, he moved to the back of the room, where he stood in a doorway, keeping an eye on the scene. It was clear he didn’t trust Amy, but I wanted her there, she was Mitch’s sister, and Michelle’s aunt, and I didn’t want to come between them. Mitch and I told the story between us, and Amy’s eyes bulged wider in shock and horror as the story went on.

  “It was Steven. I remembered everything when I was locked up, waiting for bail. It brought back memories of when I was locked up the first time, after I was kidnapped. Steven had lured me out to a meeting, he told me that Mitch had been in an accident, and he arranged to pick me up and take me to the airport. I sat in the front seat, but Steven’s accomplice, Brian must have been hiding in the back seat, because he grabbed me from behind and drugged me. Once I was out cold, they drove to the house they had prepared. Brian told me later that when they were carrying me into the house, Steven got really rough, and dug his fingers into my arms so hard it was obvious that they would bruise. When they carried me into the room, I must have moved, because they dropped me, and then Steven started kicking me. Brian tried to stop him, worrying that Steven was going to kill me, but obviously Steven never intended that I would be returned alive, because I could identify him. It seemed that all the time he was pretending to be friendly, he hated me, because he was worried that Mitch might reorganize his affairs now that he was married, and Steven’s thieving would be discovered. He was worried that his easy life was going to change, and decided that it was all my fault. He planned for his accomplice, Brian Hastings, to collect the ransom, then they would kill me and dump my body. He thought that Mitch would be so distraught that he would never notice the embezzlement that the ransom was supposed to cover up”. I paused as Mitch squeezed my hand, then I continued. “But, what Steven didn’t account for, was that Brian had fallen for me. He had been watching me for weeks, trying to establish my routine, and he must have convinced himself that he loved me, and that in time I would love him back. He didn’t want to kill me, so he proposed that if I ran away with him, he would let me live. I agreed of course, thinking that I would find a chance to get away, but he wanted to be out of Steven’s reach. He must have been planning to run for a while, as he had already made contact with someone about getting some false documents and he planned for us to go to New Zealand. He didn’t trust me enough to fly though, too many people around us of course, and I could have yelled for help, so he bought a small boat to sail across the Tasman. That was not much fun, I can tell you. I was trying to let him believe that I might eventually care for him, without actually, well, sleeping with him, so I had to plead morning sickness to keep him away from me, but after a few hours on the water, I wasn’t pretending anything. I was so sick, the trip only took a few days, but it seemed like it was never going to end. Once we arrived, he scuttled the boat – the money was in a waterproof container – and planned to come back to it once we were settled in our new life. The next few days were very hard, he began to get very impatient with me, and then we were arguing while he was driving that last day, which was probably why the accident happened. I think the guilt over that compounded everything else, and made it so much easier to accept it when people told me that we were married, I don’t really know, but when I woke up and they told me my husband was dead, my fear of losing Mitch and my guilt at causing the death of Brian contributed to my loss of memory. The rest of my time in New Zealand is not really relevant to what has been happening recently, but it must have really upset Steven when I returned. He must have thought that Brian had done away with me, and then disappeared himself, because he didn’t hear anything from either me or Brian for over two years, so he must have been starting to feel safe, until Mitch ran into me and Michelle, and brought us home”.

  “Looking back, I should have realized something was wrong with him, but I was still trying to deal with having you back in my life, with what that meant, and finding out that I was a father. When I called him from New Zealand to tell him that I had met you but you said you didn’t remember anything, the line was silent for a while, then he questioned me at great length about your lack of memory. Maybe he didn’t believe it at first, but when I returned, and still didn’t say anything to him, he must have been relieved. I had asked him to prepare some documents while I was still in New Zealand, while I was still angry with you, Helen, and he had them ready for me to sign as soon as we got back. I set up a trust for Michelle, and rewrote my will to leave everything to her, cutting you out completely, and I signed them in his office the next day”.

  I squeezed Mitch’s hand back, letting him know that I didn’t begrudge him his carefulness, those early days had been difficult for everyone, then I drew a breath and continued.

  “He must have thought he could get rid of the documents, but the other witness, it was someone from his office? I shudder to think what would have happened to him if Steven had needed to destroy those documents. He needed for me to have a motive to kill you, and the new will wouldn’t work with his plan. His new plan, the one that he had to make up on the run because you ruined his first one by getting sick. Undoubtedly, Steven poisoned the coffee, thinking that I would get the biggest dose, and even if you drank some, I used to drink so much it was obviously intended that I would be the one who got poisoned, and he tried to give me a boost of poison in my toothpaste, remember? The night that we got back together, Steven was here, I bet he poisoned my toothpaste then, but he wasn’t to know that I would move my things into your bathroom. I threw it out because the taste changed, and I thought it had gone off, but I had used it first. Steven meant for me to die, to stop me from exposing him if my memory came back, but when you got sick instead, he started to work on his alternate plan. I would be the obvious suspect for your murder, and if you were dead, and I went to jail, then all your money would go to Michelle. Someone would need to be in charge of the money, and Steven planned for it to be him. That way, his embezzlement would probably never be discovered, as Michelle wouldn’t get the money for another sixteen years, and he would have plenty of time to cover it up, as well as getting some handsome fees for his trouble in managing the money all that time”.

  “When you came to me last night Helen, if it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’ve known Steven for years, and ha
ve never seen any sign of anything so dark in him. Once Helen explained what she remembered, and what she thought, it all made sense though. So we contacted the police, and hatched a plot to get Steven to trip himself up in his lies in front of witnesses. That’s why I ‘died’ overnight, and Helen got taken in for questioning again. It was part of the plan that Helen would ask for Steven to accompany her for the questioning. We needed for him to have his guard down, wondering what would happen next, and trying out alternate plans as things changed. I watched through the one way mirror in the interrogation room, hoping that Helen could manipulate Steven into implicating her, and she did a brilliant job. Once Steven lied about me not changing my will, I knew we had him. Of course, Steven will deny everything, and try to get out of it, but since Helen can now identify her kidnapper, we’re hoping that the police can uncover a link between him and Brian, which should provide more evidence against him. The main thing is, that the charges against Helen have now been dropped, so we can begin our lives again”.

  David had been nodding all through our explanation, having heard most of it last night. He had offered his services to monitor Mitch’s wellbeing so that he could discharge himself from the hospital. Amy had started to fidget as Mitch spoke, and when he stopped, she spoke up.

  “I don’t know how I can possibly apologise, Helen, I’ve been so awful to you, and you’ve been through so much. When I think back, I can see all the little hints Steven threw out about you, making me think you weren’t what you seemed to be, which was just a woman who loved my brother. Every time I started to think you couldn’t be all that bad, and Mitch loved you after all, and he’s usually a good judge of character, Steven would do or say something, and I would doubt you again. I understand if you can’t forgive me, but I hope you can at least try”.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Amy, it won’t be easy, but I will try. I won’t say that things you said to me didn’t hurt, but I don’t doubt you love your brother and wanted to protect him. I wouldn’t have guessed that Steven was working against me though, he was very good at pretending he liked me. My memories of him in those early days was that he seemed to be the only person who actually did, apart from Mitch of course, so it really hurt to know that he was pretending all that time. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he was stirring up Mrs Santos too, because there were times that she seemed almost nice to me, then she would turn nasty, so I think he was pulling her strings as well. I guess he needed for me to be relaxed around him, so he pretended to be my friend, while all the time he was working against me”.

  David cleared his throat, making everyone look at him.

  “I know it’s probably not the most important thing right now, but are you going to check if the ransom money is still there, after all this time?”

  Mitch laughed.

  “It’s already underway. The police asked that same question, so Helen told them all she knew. Apparently Brian was the one at the drop, and he was supposed to hand the money over to Steven, but he was afraid that Steven might have plans to get rid of him too, so he went back to the house where he had Helen stashed and they left straight away. He used some of the money for the boat and some living expenses, but unless someone else got lucky, the rest of the money should still be where Brian put it. I shouldn’t be so uncaring about so much money, but after everything that’s happened recently, it’s the least of my concerns. I have to find a new solicitor as soon as possible, I need to rewrite my will again, to make sure Helen is accounted for, and make sure that there’s provision for not only Michelle, but also for any future children we might have”.

  Mitch shared a secret smile with me. On the way home from the police station, I had stopped at a chemist to buy a home pregnancy test. It was still too soon to be sure, but I thought we might need it soon.

  Shortly after, we showed both David and Amy out. Jeff took his leave of us shortly afterwards. I was sad to see him go, and asked him to say goodbye to Frank as well, but as Steven was now in custody, we wouldn’t need the same level of protection from Jeff’s company any more.

  There was nothing to eat in the house, because in fear of Steven having poisoned something else that hadn’t been detected, I had thrown everything away, so we ordered pizza, sharing it with Michelle in front of the television. Michelle fell asleep watching cartoons on the kid’s channel, so Mitch carried her to her room where I washed her face and hands, changed her and put her to sleep. Walking back into the lounge room, I found that Mitch had cleaned up the pizza boxes and switched off the television.

  “You should have left that for me, Mitch, you only got out of hospital this morning”.

  Mitch straightened, and put on his ‘little boy’ face.

  “Well, maybe you should take me to bed then, Mrs Barrow”.

  Melbourne, Australia, twelve months from now.

  I stood at the window, breathing in the warm air. I had the shutters closed, so that our bedroom was private, but I could faintly hear the sound of the surf. I stretched, and turned to eye my bed. It looked inviting, and I couldn’t resist. I slid along the silky sheets, sighing in contentment, and turned to bestow a broad grin on Mitch as he came out of the bathroom. My sexy husband smiled at me.

  “You look happy”, he started to say, then his pupils darkened as he caught the look in my eyes, and he advanced towards the bed with his grin broadening, “and sexy. I haven’t seen that nightgown in a while”.

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing a slinky white negligee, one I hadn’t been able to wear in a long time because of the baby bump I had been sporting until recently. I could fit into it again now, but the bodice was tight. I sat up straighter in bed, then held out my arms to Mitch.

  “Come to bed, husband. It’s been a long day, supervising the works on the garage. Plus your son had a very demanding day, and has finally settled. Michelle loves having a baby brother, but even she was sick of his grizzling by the end of the day. I’ve never seen her so willing to go to bed, just to get some peace and quiet! However, little Ben has finally gone to sleep, Michelle is also asleep, and guess what? I’ve got a little surprise for you”.

  Mitch climbed into bed beside me and turned to his side, propping his head up on his hand and smiling as he played along with me. His other hand came up to trace the edge of the lace of the bodice of my gown, coming to rest on the little pearl in between my breasts.

  “You know I’m not good at guessing. Particularly when I’m being distracted by the beautiful woman I’m married to. Why don’t you just tell me and put me out of my misery?”

  I leaned down to kiss Mitch gently, then pulled back before smiling at him.

  “I saw the doctor today, and everything is fine after Ben’s birth. Apart from the fact that my boobs are producing enough milk to feed a small town, everything is back to normal. She said we’re good to ‘resume relations’ as she put it”.

  Mitch stared at me for a split second, then pulled me down for a longer kiss. I lay along his length, wiggling to centre his erection right where I wanted it to be. Mitch pulled away to take a breath, and fondled my hair as he looked up at me, the love shining in his eyes.

  “Mmmm, I’ve been looking forward to this, it’s been long enough that I could almost – but not quite – forget just how great it is between us”.

  I smiled down at Mitch, my heart nearly bursting with love for this man, the man who had never stopped loving me, and who I had never stopped loving, even when I couldn’t remember him.

  “Not me, I’m never going to forget, ever again”.

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