The Other Mrs (ARC)

by Mary Kubica

  bling, careless; they get caught up in the pants’ elastic, knock-

  ing the letter opener loose by mistake, sending it sliding down

  my pant leg, crashing to the floor.

  Will’s response time is far faster than mine. He hasn’t been

  drinking. I feel drunk already, the alcohol hitting me harder than

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  it usually does. Will leans down to the ground quicker than me,

  plucks the letter opener from the floor with nimble hands. He

  holds it up for me to see, asks, “What did you think you were

  going to do with this?”

  The meager kitchen lighting glints off the end of the stain-

  less steel blade. He points it at me, dares me to flinch, and I do.

  His laugh is heinous, mocking me.

  How well we think we know those closest to us.

  And then, what a shock to the system it is to find out we don’t

  know them at all.

  In his anger, his rage, he no longer looks familiar.

  I don’t know this man.

  “Did you think you were going to hurt me with this?” he

  asks, stabbing his palm with it, and I see that, though the edge

  is sharp, sharp enough to slice paper with, the point is dull. It

  does nothing but redden his palm. It leaves no other mark. “Did

  you think you were going to kill me with this?”

  My tongue thickens inside of my mouth. It makes it harder

  to speak.

  “What did you do to Morgan?” I ask. I won’t answer his

  questions.

  He tells me, still laughing, that it wasn’t what he did to her,

  but what I did to her that matters. My eyes turn dry. I blink

  hard, a series of times. A nervous tic. I can’t stop.

  “You don’t remember, do you?” he asks, reaching out to

  touch me. I draw swiftly back, thwacking my head on the cab-

  inet. The pain radiates through my scalp, and I wince, a hand

  going involuntarily to it.

  He says condescendingly, “Ouch. Looks like that hurt.”

  I drop my hand. I won’t satisfy him with a reply.

  I think of all the times he was so solicitous, so caring. How

  the Will I once knew would have run for ice when I hurt my-

  self, would have helped me to a chair, pressed the ice to my ach-

  ing head. Was that all in jest?

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  MARY KUBICA

  “It wasn’t me who did something to Morgan, Sadie,” he says.

  “It was you.”

  But I can’t remember it. I’m of two minds about it, not know-

  ing if I did or didn’t kill Morgan. It’s a terrible thing, not knowing if you took another’s life. “You killed Erin,” I say, the only

  thing I can think to say back.

  “That I did,” he says, and though I know it, hearing him

  admit to it makes it somehow worse. Tears well in my eyes,

  threaten to fall.

  “You loved Erin,” I say. “You were going to marry her.”

  “All true,” he says. “The problem was, Erin didn’t love me

  back. I don’t take well to rejection.”

  “What did Morgan ever do to you?” I cry out and he smiles

  wickedly and reminds me that I’m the one who killed Morgan.

  “What did she ever do to you?” he quips, and I can only shake my head in reply.

  He tells me. “I don’t want to bore you with the details, but

  Morgan was Erin’s kid sister, who made it her life’s mission to

  blame me for Erin’s death. While the rest of the world saw it as

  an unfortunate accident, Morgan did not. She wouldn’t give it

  up. You took matters into your own hands, Sadie. Thanks to

  you, I’ve come through this thing unscathed.”

  “That didn’t happen!” I scream.

  He’s the epitome of calm. His voice is even, not mercurial

  like mine. “But it did,” he says. “There was this moment when

  you came back. You were so proud of what you’d accomplished.

  You had so much to say, Sadie. Like how she would never get

  between us again, because you took care of her.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” I assert.

  His laugh is a giggle. “You did,” he says. “And you did it for

  me. I don’t think I’ve ever loved you as much as I did that night.”

  He beams, claims, “All I did was tell the God’s honest truth. I

  told you what would have become of me if Morgan made good

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  Erin, I would have gone to jail for a long, long time. Maybe

  forever. They would have taken me away from you, Sadie. I

  told you we wouldn’t ever see each other, we wouldn’t ever be

  together again. It would be all Morgan’s fault if that happened.

  Morgan was the criminal, not me. I told you that and you un-

  derstood. You believed me.”

  The look on his face is triumphant. “You never could live

  without me, could you?” he asks, looking quizzically at me,

  like a psychopath.

  “What’s the matter, Sadie?” he asks, when I say nothing. “Cat

  got your tongue?”

  His words, his nonchalance make me see red. His laugh makes

  me enraged. It’s the laugh, the awful, abominable laugh, that

  gets the better of me in the end. It’s the self-satisfied look on

  Will’s face, the way he stands there, head cocked at an angle.

  It’s the complacent smile.

  Will manipulated my condition. He made me do this. He

  put an idea in my head—in the part of me known as Camille—

  knowing this poor woman, this version of me, would have done

  anything in the whole wide world for him. Because she loved

  him so much. Because she wanted to be with him.

  I feel saddened for her. And angry for me.

  It comes from somewhere within. No thought comes with it.

  I lunge at Will with all my might. I regret it as soon as I do.

  Because though he stumbles some, he is much larger than me.

  Much stronger, much more solid. And again, he hasn’t been

  drinking. I shove him and he steps back. But he doesn’t fall to

  the floor. He inches backwards, latching down on a counter-

  top to regain his balance. He laughs even more because of it,

  because of my paltry shove.

  “That,” he tells me, “was a bad idea.”

  I see the wooden block of knives on the countertop. He fol-

  lows the gaze of my eyes.

  I wonder which of us will get to it first.

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  Will

  She’s weak as a kitten. It’s laughable really.

  But it’s time to end this thing once and for all. No use put-

  ting it off any longer.

  I come at her quickly, wrap my hands around that pretty little

  neck of hers and squeeze. Her airflow is restricted because of

  it. I watch on as panic sets in. I see it in her eyes first, the way they widen in fright. Her hands clamp down on mine, scratch-ing her little kitten claws to get me to release.

  This won’t take long, only about t
en seconds until she loses

  consciousness.

  Sadie can’t scream because of the pressure on her throat. Other

  than a few insubstantial gasps, all is quiet. Sadie never has been

  much of a conversationalist anyway.

  Manual strangulation is an intimate thing. It’s much different

  than other ways of killing. You have to be in close proximity

  to whoever it is you’re killing. There’s manual labor involved,

  unlike with a gun where you can fire off three rounds from

  the other side of the room and call it a day. But because of the

  work involved, there’s a sense of pride that comes too, of ac-

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  complishment, like painting a house or building a shed or chop-

  ping firewood.

  The upside, of course, is there isn’t much of a mess to clean.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am it’s come to this,” I say to

  Sadie as her arms and legs flail and she tries pathetically to fight back. She’s tiring out. Her eyes roll back. Her blows are getting

  weaker. She tries to gouge my eyes out with her fingertips, but

  her thrust isn’t strong or quick. I draw back, her efforts wasted.

  There’s a pretty tinge to Sadie’s skin.

  I press harder, say, “You’re too smart for your own good,

  Sadie. If only you’d have let it be, this wouldn’t be happening.

  But I can’t have you go around telling people what I did. I’m

  sure you understand. And since you can’t keep your own mouth

  closed,” I tell her, “it’s up to me to shut you up for good.”

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  Sadie

  I deliberately collapse, my weight suspended only by his hands

  around my neck. It’s a desperate attempt, a last-ditch effort. Be-

  cause if I fail, I will die. As my vision blurs, fading in and out

  in those final moments, I see my children. I see Otto and Tate

  living here alone with Will.

  I have to fight. For my children’s sake, I cannot die. I cannot

  leave them with him.

  I have to live.

  The pain gets worse before it gets better. Because without the

  strength of my legs and my spine to hold me upright, his grip

  on my neck intensifies. He bears the weight of my entire body

  in his hands. There’s a prickling sensation in my limbs. They go

  numb. The pain is excruciating, in my head and in my neck, and

  I think that I will die. I think that this is what it feels like to die.

  In his arms, I am limp.

  Thinking he’s succeeded in his task, Will loosens his hold. He

  eases my body to the floor. He’s gentle at first, but then drops

  me the last couples of inches. He isn’t trying to be gentle. He’s

  trying to be quiet. My body falls, colliding with the cold tile. I

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  try not to react, but the pain is almost too much to bear—not

  from the fall itself, but from what this man has already done to

  me. There’s the greatest need to cough, to gasp, to throw my

  hands to my throat.

  But if I want to live I have to suppress the need, to lie there

  motionless instead, unblinking and unbreathing.

  Will turns his back on me. Only then do I steal a single short,

  shallow breath. I hear him. He starts making plans of how to

  get rid of my body. He’s moving quickly because the kids are

  just upstairs and he knows he can’t delay.

  An unwanted thought comes to me and I fill with horror. If

  Otto or sweet little Tate were to come down now and see us,

  what would Will do? Would he kill them too?

  Will unlocks and pulls open the sliding glass door. He tugs

  open the screen. I don’t watch. But I listen and hear him do

  these things.

  He finds his keys on the counter. There’s the sound of metal

  scraping against the Formica countertop. The keys jangle in his

  hand and then are quiet. I imagine he’s forced them into his jeans

  pocket, making plans to drag me out the back door and into his

  car. But what then? I’m no match for Will. He can easily over-

  power me. There are things I can use in the kitchen to defend

  myself with. But outside, there is nothing. Only the dogs who

  love Will more than they love me.

  If Will gets me though the doors, I don’t stand a chance. I

  need to think, and I need to think quickly, before he’s able to

  haul me out.

  Still as a statue on the kitchen floor, I’m as good as dead to

  him.

  He doesn’t check for a pulse. His one and only mistake.

  It’s not lost on me, the fact that Will doesn’t show remorse.

  He doesn’t grieve. He isn’t sad that I am gone.

  Will is all business as he leans over my body. He quickly as-

  sesses the situation. I feel his nearness to me. I hold my breath.

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  MARY KUBICA

  The buildup of carbon dioxide burns inside of me. It becomes

  more than I can bear. I think that I will involuntarily breathe.

  That, as Will watches on, I’ll no longer be able to hold my

  breath. If I breathe, he will know. And if he discovers I’m alive

  as I’m lying flat on my back as I am, I’ll have no capacity to

  fight back.

  My heart beats hard and fast in fear. I wonder how he can’t

  hear it, how he can’t see the movement through the thin pajama

  shirt. Saliva collects inside my throat, all but gagging me, and

  I’m overwhelmed by the greatest need to swallow. To breathe.

  He tugs on my arms before reconsidering. He grabs me by the

  ankles instead and pulls roughly. The tile floor is hard against

  my back and it takes everything in me not to grimace from the

  abrading pain, but to be limp instead, dead weight.

  I don’t know how far away from the door I am. I don’t know

  how much further we have to go. Will grunts as he moves, his

  breath wheezy. I’m heavier than he thought.

  Think Sadie, think.

  He pulls me a handful of feet. Then he stops to gather his

  breath. My legs drop to the floor, he gets a better grip on my

  ankles. He tugs gruffly in short bursts. I slide, inches at a time, knowing the time to save myself is running out.

  I’m nearing the back door. The cold air is closer than it was

  before.

  It takes great willpower to get myself to fight back. To let

  Will know that I’m alive. Because if I don’t succeed, I will die.

  But I have to fight back. Because I’ll die either way if I don’t.

  Will lets go of my feet again. He takes a breath. He helps

  himself to a sip of water straight from the tap. I hear the water

  run. I hear his tongue lap at it like a dog. The water turns off.

  He swallows hard, comes back to me.

  When he leans down to gather my ankles back into his hands,

  I use every bit of strength I have to sit suddenly upright. I brace myself and smash my head into his. I try to use his growing fa-9780778369110_RHC_txt(
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  tigue to my advantage, his state of imbalance. His equilibrium

  is thrown off because he’s hunched over my body, pulling. For

  this one second, I have the upper hand.

  His hands go to his head. He staggers suddenly backwards,

  losing balance, falling to the floor. I waste no time. I press on

  the ground and force myself to my feet.

  But as the blood rushes down, the world around me spins.

  My vision fades to black. I nearly collapse before the adrenaline

  rushes in and only then can I see.

  I feel his hands on my ankle. He’s on the floor, trying to

  pull me down with him. He calls me names as he does, no lon-

  ger worried about being quiet. “You bitch. You stupid, stupid

  bitch,” he says, this man I married, who vowed to love me ’til

  death do us part.

  My knees buckle and I collapse to the floor beside him, fall-

  ing fast. I land facedown, my nose hitting the floor so that it

  begins to bleed. The blood is profuse, turning my hands red.

  I get quickly to my hands and knees. Will comes at me from

  behind, attempting to reach over me for my neck as I struggle

  to crawl away from him. I kick backwards. I have to get away

  from him.

  My hands reach desperately for the countertop. They latch on,

  trying to pull me upward, but just as soon lose their grip. My

  hands are sweaty, my hold weak. Everywhere there is blood. It

  comes from my nose, my mouth. I can’t hold on to the coun-

  tertop. I slip away, falling back to the floor.

  The wooden block of knives sits just out of reach, mocking

  me.

  I try again. Will grapples again for my ankle. He takes me

  by the lower leg and pulls. I kick hard, but it isn’t enough. The

  blows only leave him momentarily dazed but I’m growing tired,

  my efforts weakening. I fall facedown again on the floor, biting

  my tongue. I can’t keep doing this. The adrenaline in my body

  has slowed, the wine, the lethargy taking over.

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  MARY KUBICA

  I don’t know that I have it in me to go on.

  But then I think of Otto, of Tate, and I know that I must

  go on.

  I’m on the floor facedown as Will mounts my back. All two

  hundred pounds of him bear down on me, forcing me face-first

  into the kitchen floor. I couldn’t scream if I wanted to. I can