The Replacement Wife: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  Who am I kidding? Tom will never love me the way he loved you, I say to the screen. I say this to her, her in his heart, her with her eyes wide and full of glee. Her on the walls. Her everywhere. In the video, she throws her head back and laughs. She’s taunting me. She knows.

  This makes me know too. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know my husband that well. But I know a few things. He could never have killed June himself. He wasn’t looking for a replacement when he found me— he was making a mistake. He was looking for a distraction.

  I know enough to know that he’ll never love me like he should. He’ll never love me the way I want to love him.

  By late afternoon, I’m passed out on the couch. I awaken to the robot vacuum powering itself on. I sit up slowly. My mouth is dry and I’m in proper need of a glass of water. Brushing the hair from my eyes, I glance out the front window, trying to assess how long I’ve been out. I notice there’s something in the street and then as I lean closer toward the window, I see it isn’t something, but rather someone. A little boy on a tricycle. In the middle of the street. Surely, his mother is nearby. I move toward the window. The street is mostly deserted. No one seems to notice there’s a child in the street. I realize I’m either still dreaming, or I’m more inebriated than I thought.

  I force myself from the sofa and make my way to the door, where I pause to check my disheveled appearance in the mirror that hangs in the entryway. I know Tom asked me to stay in. But there’s the kid. I look terrible, and I can’t very well let the neighbors see me like this. I go back to the window to check again. The kid is still there. Damn it.

  What if Tom hits him on his way in the drive? He’s low enough to the ground that he may not even see him. If this happens, we’ll have to cancel our trip. I walk to the door and place my hand on the knob. I check myself in the mirror once more, leaning in to wipe away the mascara that’s smudged under my eyes. I straighten my top. At least I’m wearing the workout gear Beth suggested. This way if I get to be on the news for saving a kid, she’ll be extra happy to see I’m promoting her favorite brand. I’m an influencer now, she says. If we want the other women of New Hope to look and feel their best, it’s up to us to set an example. God forbid, they should think for themselves.

  Whatever. Maybe I could even get a good selfie with the kid and the sunset in the background. Everything is about lighting, Beth assures me. Imagine the likes I could get for saving someone’s life.

  “Hey,” I call to the kid when I’m halfway across the yard. “You’re in the street.”

  He looks at me, his big brown eyes wide.

  “What’s your name?” I don’t recognize him. I ask where he lives. He points. His nose is snotty. “What’s your name?” I ask again.

  This time he answers, but it’s gibberish. I assume this means he’s not old enough to talk. At least not coherently. I’m having a hard time myself. “How old are you?”

  I shield my eyes from the sun. He holds up two fingers. Proudly.

  “Where do you live?”

  He looks one way and then another.

  Finally, he points to a wooded area down the lane. “Deer,” he says.

  He has no idea.

  “Don't worry, kid,” I tell him. “You and I, we’re in the same boat.”

  “Here,” I say lifting his tricycle and pointing it in the other direction. “Let’s get you out of the street.”

  I ask him once again where he lives. He points. I ask him to take me there. “Take me to your toys,” I plead. I have a plane to catch and planes don’t wait. Tom will be home soon, and I know how much he hates tardiness. The last thing I want is to fight on vacation. So this has to work. If it doesn’t, I’m going to be forced to set him on someone’s doorstep, where I’ll ring the bell and run. Except everyone has cameras these days, and I can’t have the neighbors thinking I’m irresponsible. I don’t know much about kids, but I know he’s a male one and nothing stands between men and their toys. “Your toys, “I say. “Where are they?’

  It takes forty-five minutes, but he finally proves my point when we find his home a block over. He waltzes right up and rings the bell. His father, or who I presume to be his father answers. Like mine, his hair is disheveled. The kid caught him by surprise too.

  “You,” he says, rubbing his face. “How’d you get out there?”

  “He was in the street,” I say and suddenly, I’m angry. His child was in the street, and he was sleeping. The boy could have been killed or kidnapped, and he was sleeping. Everyone knows parents don’t get to sleep. “You might want to keep an eye on your kid.”

  The guy opens the door wider, and I watch as the little boy toddles in. His father looks at me, yawns and says, “thanks” before promptly slamming the door in my face.

  I walk through the front door to find I have five missed calls from Tom, one from Beth, and two from an unknown number.

  I set the phone down. I can’t deal with either of them right now. The search and rescue mission has worn me out. I fill a glass with water. The little boy’s face flashes in my mind. I have to admit, he was kind of cute. For a split second, I wonder what it would have been like to have kept him. You know, like finders, keepers. It must be the liquor talking. That or all of the family photos. It must be the nostalgia of Tom and June’s stupid memories that’s causing my sudden neediness. Whatever the case, his parents really should be more careful. If you ask me, it seems like a simple way of going about getting a kid. All you have to do is find one whose parents aren’t looking, and bam, just like that, you get to skip out on the whole morning sickness, weight gain, and pushing them out of your vagina part. Lucky for them, I am not in the market for a kid. Not today. Not ever.

  Just the thought sobers me up. The phone rings. It’s Tom again. “You’ll never believe —”

  “I’ve called six times.” I hear neatly concealed rage on the other end of the line.

  “I found a kid.”

  “What?”

  “A kid. In the street. I found him.”

  “I told you not to go outside.”

  “He was out there alone.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I took him home.”

  “Good, listen…I’m almost done here.” I hear him moving about. The speaker rustles. “Are you packed?”

  “Have been for hours.”

  There’s more rustling. “Perfect. Eat something. I’ll be home shortly.”

  “Don’t we have a plane to catch?”

  I listen as he clears his throat. He hates it when I fish for information he doesn’t want to give. “Not right away.”

  We hang up. I decide to make Tom dinner. I want to clear the air between us. I want to make amends. I want to show him what he’s done to me. I want to know if there’s a future between us. I want to know if he could ever love me the way he loved her. I want to burn this house to the ground. We could start over.

  I begin by opening one of the bottles of wine we received after we married. Cooking is hard work, it turns out. One glass turns into two, and two turns into three, until before I know it, I’m watching the wedding video again, and I have to open a new bottle just so he won’t know I’ve finished off the first.

  When dinner is ready, which happens to be Tom’s favorite, lasagna, and the only thing I really know how to make, I finish off another glass of red. Then I put on a nice dress, and heels. I want to show Tom I can be like his old wife. But better. I straighten up, the way he likes it. I don’t stop there. For good measure, I don’t just hide the bottle like I usually would. I go around back so I can bury the wine bottle deep in the trash. The hard stuff, I put in the neighbors. I’ve heaved the lid halfway up when I feel something hard shoved in my back. I stumble forward. The wind is knocked out of me. “You really shouldn’t be out here.”

  What I’m thinking is…this isn’t going to end well. At least not for me. How I’m feeling is, not ready to die. What I know is, everybody’s somebody’s fool. And, whoever said small things
don’t matter, never lit a wildfire with a single match.

  I finish the recording. But I’m not holding out false hope. No one is coming to save me. I’m naked in a trunk. How much worse can it get? It’s like Mark Twain said, it’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

  Even if the recording uploads, they’ll say I’m a liar. It’s been this way my whole life. I tried to tell my sister not to make that leap. No one believed me. I tried to tell my parents about my first boyfriend, the only one they ever actually liked, and the wicked games he liked to play. I tried to save the animals. I couldn’t even save my sister.

  They didn’t believe me about him either. He comes from a great family, they said. They were almost right about that. Except that great family meant he had so much money that to entertain himself he told me he had to go deeper and deeper. For a while he was into dog fighting. He said it beat hookers and blow. Anyway, he took me once. To a fight. There were a lot of people there. Big money maker, he said. Two dogs went into the pen. I watched intently. How much money, I asked. He told me to watch. It was not a time for talking, he said. One must respect the fight. It wasn’t much of a fight, I said. One dog was reluctant. He’s just standing there, I said. He should be doing something, I said.

  Sometimes they don’t, my boyfriend said.

  So, yeah, if you’re watching this, I understand what you’re going through. I know you’ll probably think it wasn’t a match. I thought that, too.

  My girlfriend expected a fight, he told the guy heading it up after the reluctant dog bled out onto the pavement. His blood was practically black, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. My boyfriend punched him in the face. The guy, not the dog. Blood squirted from his nose like how those firemen go around letting the water out of hydrants. That’s how it looked. Like a waterfall you couldn’t stop because it was too fast. And it kept coming. I thought he might bleed out right there. Like the dog, only his blood was bright red. His nose hung all funny too. It was like his bones had just collapsed into his face. This, he said to the gusher, with a nod, was not a fight. This was a suicide mission.

  He nearly beat the guy to death. All I could do was watch. I will say he was good in bed, that one. Always up for something new. Always one to keep you on your toes. One never knew quite what to expect. Let me tell you. But they say exes are that way for a reason and you don't want to know what he does for fun these days. Trust me.

  I hit the front of the trunk with a thud as the car comes to an abrupt stop. My grip on the phone slips and it goes flying. I fish around desperately in the dark. The driver kills the engine. Finally, my fingers land on it. The screen lights up. I have bars. I press upload on the video and hope it works. I start to dial 9-1-1. The trunk is popped. There isn’t time. I stuff the phone under the carpeting. For this, I need to be hands-free. I shouldn’t have stripped out of my clothes, I realize now. Not only were they designer, I’ve practically offered up an invitation for what’s to come. My future is bleak. My final moments on this earth will not be pleasant. The trunk lifts. It’s show time.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tom

  I’m seated at my desk, poring over the numbers from last quarter. I really need to get home. But I can’t. Not until I complete this transaction. Something is missing. Something is off.

  I’m concentrating so hard on finding the missing link that it startles me when the phone rings, the sound thrusting me hard and violently back into the real world. It’s not that I’m jumpy. I just thought I’d had the ringer switched off.

  I pick up the receiver and shove it back down in its cradle. I’m in a hurry as it is. As a matter of principle, I keep the ringer switched off to avoid such disturbances, so whoever was calling shouldn’t have expected to reach me anyhow. That’s what my secretary is for. I silence the ringer and turn my attention back to the balance sheet. I sigh in relief, not because what I’m seeing makes me happy. It should. But it doesn’t. And it won’t make New Hope leaders very happy either. The accounts are nearly emptied. A parting gift, I guess you could say.

  Still, the problem is, there should be more, in excess of two million dollars more if we’re being exact and trust me, I am. For hours now I’ve racked my brain. I’ve meticulously combed the bank statements trying to find out how and more importantly when the transfer could have taken place. Two million dollars does not just disappear into thin air. I’ll find it eventually. I have to. It is not in my nature to leave things undone. But then, this is why I’ve always liked numbers. They tell the truth, even when people don’t. In reality, it’s not the money I’m in search of. It’s the truth.

  At some point, Martha comes in, a cup of hot tea in one hand, a stack of mail in the other. She places the tea on the corner of my desk and the mail in its rightful spot. “You’ve had a message,” she says.

  I adjust the handle on my mug to the perfect 45-degree angle. Martha is pretty good. But on occasion even she gets it wrong. This feels like a betrayal. “Did you switch my ringer on?”

  Her eyes narrow. I nod toward the phone to make myself clear.

  “Of course not.” Clearly, she’s offended. In part about my calling her out, but also because I’m working late, and she would like to be dismissed. “Why would I do such a thing?”

  Why would you get the angle wrong after all these years, I want to ask. But to do so would only cost me more time, and there’s no point in wasting it when I still have a little work ahead of me yet. To rectify the situation, I answer her question indirectly by taking the ruler from my desk drawer, shifting the mug to the original position in which it was placed on my desk. Then I lean forward at eye level and measure it. I meet Martha’s gaze and smile.

  “See,” I motion. “Numbers don’t lie.” My imperfect secretary shakes her head and sees herself out without another word. Women don’t like it when you call them on their imperfections. Explicitly or implicitly.

  I open my browser and type out an email letting my secretary know she’s dismissed for the evening. It’s easier to keep communication to a minimum with people like Martha, but in this case, my reasoning is two-fold. I need a paper trail.

  What I don’t say is the dismissal is permanent. Right now, I need to focus on locating the missing money. I need to get home. I need to get out of dodge.

  As I finish the email to Martha, my emergency phone rings. It stops me in my tracks.

  Only two people know this number, and one of them is dead. I open the drawer and fish the cell phone out. Caller ID says it’s June. But that’s impossible.

  I swipe to take the call. I don’t have a choice.

  I don’t say hello. This isn’t the kind of call that requires pleasantries.

  “You’ll want to come home,” the voice tells me calmly. “To see about your wife.”

  I glance at the watch on my wrist. I have a lot of work to do here yet. I could say this, but it’s of little use. So, I settle on the obvious. “My wife—”

  “Yes,” he says. “The one who isn’t dead yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Melanie

  “Melanie, why?” I hear my mother cry. She’s pleading with me. I don’t understand. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “She didn’t know,” I hear my father say. He tells me to go inside. My nanny waves me in with one hand, the other covers her mouth. My mother wails. It’s a guttural scream, one like an animal might make. The kind you never forget.

  I watch as my father comforts her. “She’s just a girl, darling.”

  “She could have alerted us.” She throws up her hands and then when she can’t figure out what else to do with them, she covers her face. I watch as my father rubs her back. He uses small circles. I’m old enough to know my shapes. “She could have done something, Charles. You know she could have.”

  I look on from inside the window that overlooks the backyard. There are men in jackets, men taking photos. Police people are talking to mommy and daddy.

&nb
sp; My sister’s lifeless body lies beside the pool. She looks like she is sleeping. But I know she is not.

  “Watch me jump Melly. Watch me.”

  “You’re not supposed to,” I said. “Mommy and Daddy are sleeping.”

  She climbed higher on the diving board. “You’re such a baby,” she teased. “Who cares?” She bounced. “I’m a big girl. I can swim,” she told me, her knees knocking together. Once. Twice. Three times. Her face lit up with that Cheshire cat-like grin she used on mommy and daddy. “Not like you.”

  “I’m telling.” I meant to run inside. I meant to, but I couldn’t look away.

  “You’re such a tattle-tale.”

  “Am not.” I folded my arms across my chest and looked up at my parent’s bedroom window. Tiffany was going to be in so much trouble. Mommy never got mad at Tiffany. Not like she did me. For this, she would. Finally.

  “Do you dare me?” My sister held out her arms for balance. She pretended she was walking a tightrope the way we did when our bedroom floor turned into lava. “Come on, you big baby,” she laughed. “Jump with me.”

  I shook my head. “Mommy will be mad.”

  “Dare me then.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I double-dare you.”

  Her eyes shifted. “If I do it, what will you give me?”

  I thought about it. Tiffany had so much. She was a good girl, mommy said. Not like me. “My donut. I’ll save half for you.”

  I could see the wheels turning in her mind. We were waiting for Daddy to wake up. If we were good girls and watched cartoons so mommy and daddy could get extra sleep, Daddy promised he’d take us for donuts. Mommy didn’t like him getting us all sugared up. But sometimes Daddy won.