Page 56 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

I laughed awkwardly. "Of course I do. So scrap all that then.” I eyed the detailed poster board. Damn, such good ideas. “Maybe we’re over-thinking it?”

“Definitely. Let’s just go get a couple of unregistered guns with silencers and shoot him.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’ll be totally untraceable. Easy peasy.”

“Yeah. Or we could ambush him when he comes home tomorrow night. We could each stand on either side of the front door and hit him with shovels when he walks in. He’d probably try to overpower me, but he wouldn’t see you coming.”

“Sounds perfectly reasonable.”

I didn’t expect him to be this agreeable so quickly. It was all coming together. “I’ve always thought burying him alive would be satisfying. But it’s better if we know he’s dead. So once he has no pulse we can bury him in the backyard. There’s a spot back there with a few rocks. I figured we could move them a little, dig the hole for him there then put the rocks back. That way there won’t be freshly dug dirt visible. Or maybe the woods would be better…”

“Jesus, Addy, I was joking.”

“But you just said…”

“I thought we were playing around. Like a back and forth of things we’d never actually ever do. That’s why I mentioned Home Alone.”

“Oh. Ha. Me too.” Crap, I thought he was on board. I needed to watch whatever movie that was. It seemed to have good ideas.

“We can’t kill your husband.” He was staring at me in the way I loathed. Like my mind was slipping.

Technically we can if you stop being so disagreeable. “I know that. Obviously. I was just joking.” I laughed awkwardly.

“Were you, though? It sounded pretty well thought out to me.”

“So did your plan.” God, I sounded like a child.

“But I was actually kidding. You…” he scratched the back of his neck. “You’ve clearly planned it out.”

I laughed. It sounded forced. “Ben, I’m not a crazy person. Of course I’m not going to murder him.” Damn it. The look he was giving me was the proof I needed. My plan was insane. Which meant all the doctors were right. That my husband was right. Just the thought made my stomach churn.

Ben didn’t say anything. He was just staring at me, probably trying to tell whether he was safe sitting next to me. I wasn’t sure why he was looking at me like that. I had no intention of hurting him.

I leaned forward and lightly punched his arm. “Geez, learn how to take a joke, Mr. Serious.”

He finally laughed. “Addy, you really had me going. I thought you were a psychopath for a second there.”

Psychopath. Huh. That stings. “You should have seen your face,” I said and laughed again. “Yeah…no…I’m not a murderer.” I tried not to sigh. “Let’s just pretend I never said anything. Do you want to watch that movie you mentioned? Home Alone?”

He was still staring at me like I was crazy again. “You just told me that your husband beats you. No, we can’t watch a movie.”

What did he want me to say? He wasn’t down with my awesome murderous plan and I wasn’t down with his lame plan of calling the cops. Stalemate.

“Can we just rewind for a second,” he said and exhaled slowly. “If you don’t feel comfortable going to the cops without hard evidence, then let me help you get the evidence.”

“How?” I thought about the box. The basement was calling for me. But I refused to go down there with Ben. It was too much. Besides, as far as I knew, the box didn’t exist. And pictures wouldn’t help anything. Pictures could be explained a

way.

“As much as it pains me to let him put his hands on you again, we have to videotape him doing it.”

My mind starting racing. Him calling me a psychopath was weighing on me. What if I was making everything up? What if the videos showed nothing? “I don’t know…”

“What other option is there? You won’t go to the cops. You won’t run. If you want me to talk to him…”

“No. You can’t, Ben. I’ll do the tapes.” I swallowed hard. “But how do you think we can get him on camera? He’d see them. And if he found the tapes…I don’t know what he’d do to me.”

“I can have the video-feed sent to my computer instead of yours. I have a few small cameras we can use that he won’t see unless he knows to look for them.” He stood up. “I’ll go grab them and get them set up tonight. Hopefully we’ll catch him tomorrow and he’ll be behind bars by the weekend.” He started to walk out of the family room.

“Why do you have cameras like that?”

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