Page 70 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

“I don’t know, Ben. Maybe it’s because Charlotte has your phone number. Or you said you just needed to finish up at my house.”

“You asked me to play along…”

“Or that you agreed to call Sally Ann?”

“And what about me, Addy? How do you think it made me feel that you pretended you didn’t even remember your gardener’s name?” His chest rose and fall when each word. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Are you coming with me or not?”

I wanted to tell Ben how I really felt about him. And I wanted to tell him that if I came with him, his life would be in danger. As far as I knew, it already was. I needed to focus on my plan. And Ben was nothing more than a complication. A complication that happened to have the thing I currently needed most. “Can you text me Charlotte’s number?”

“What?” He was staring at me like I had just said the most incredulous thing ever. “Did you just hear anything I said? I want to talk about this.”

“I need her number.”

“You’re infuriating, Adeline.”

Maybe that’s why my husband beats me. It was a numbing thought. A thought a crazy person would think. Between that and the way Ben was looking at me, I suddenly believed Dr. Nash. I probably was insane. Because there certainly was no box of evidence. And I was most definitely going to attempt murder.

“Would you please just take off the tape?” It was a final plea. He knew I wasn’t going with him. He was finally giving up on me.

“You should probably take off that mustache before your date.” I opened the door and left him alone in the women’s restroom. But his scent was on me again. On my tongue. On my lips. In my hair.

I went back to my table but it was empty. The paid check was sitting there. I walked out of the restaurant and found my husband sitting in the car, which was already running. He honked the horn. So much for not angering him this weekend.

Chapter 34

I hated being wrong. I had made a sequence of terrible choices in my early twenties. One bad decision after the next that had all led me here. And I hated that I was still unable to make good ones.

The footage of him beating me would have been perfect. A flawless angle. Apparently I wasn’t grateful. Apparently I had made a scene at the restaurant. Apparently I was worthless.

My hands shook as I removed the tape from the camera lens. And apparently I was an idiot that couldn’t learn from her past mistakes. I blinked at the camera.

Was Ben watching? I wanted him to be. Could he see the bruise on the side of my jaw? I hoped he could. We could have captured my husband’s abuse on film. But I had been too stubborn. Too caught up in a love story that would never see fruition. Save me from myself, Ben. I stared at the camera, willing him to help me.

But my phone didn’t ring or buzz. All I could hear was the water from the shower upstairs. Ben wasn’t watching. And why would he be? I told him not to. I had covered up the cameras. I had ruined everything. Ben was right. This would have been a better way. How much more guilt could I carry before I broke? If I hadn’t already broken.

God, I shouldn’t have fought with Ben last night. Maybe he had just come to the restaurant to make sure I was okay. He had kissed me like he cared. I ran my index finger along my bottom lip, remembering his lips against mine. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I couldn’t go to the police. He had seen the files downstairs. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. If he had picked up any of them, he already knew I was insane. It was the words in the files against my own. And it felt like Ben wanted me to go to the police to confess what I was planning. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Or had I misread that whole conversation?

I wanted to throw something. What did it matter? Ben had never denied calling Sally Ann. Or setting up a date with her. It was done. We were done. I stared back at the camera. Obviously we were done.

The shower was still running upstairs. Over-thinking everything wasn’t helping. I had more to do than wallow. This was the first time I had been alone since my husband came home. If I was lucky, I’d slip up again and he’d punish me. And we’d get it on camera. And if I wasn’t? I still had another plan.

In the meantime, I needed to try to get into that safe. My ankle still ached as I made my way down the stairs, but it was getting better. If I was lucky, it would be completely healed in another week or so. Not soon enough for my master plan. But that was why it was such a good plan. I just got to watch it unfold from a safe distance. The boy from Home Alone was a genius.

I ignored the files, my eyes honing in on the keypad of the safe. I tried our birthdays, names, and other important dates again, this time writing down each thing I tried in a notebook. Nothing. I bit the inside of my lip. I tried the dates backward. What was his favorite holiday? Christmas? I tried that. Nothing.

I slapped the side of the safe. Work, damn it. I thought of his parents’ names from the marriage certificate and tried them. The stupid machine just beeped innocently back at me. And I knew it wasn’t innocent. I knew there was something terrible in there. Something worse than all these files and the memories in my head.

The water stopped. I looked up at the ceiling and then back at the safe. “I’ll be back, you son of a bitch.” I pinched the bridge of my nose again as I made my way upstairs. My head was pounding. I needed an Advil. Or maybe I just needed to stop talking to inanimate objects.

I stepped into our bedroom just as my husband was coming out the bathroom. A towel was slung around his waist. Water dripped down his chest and abs. Any woman who didn’t know him would drool. But the façade didn’t fool me. I knew the darkness that lurked beneath his physique. And he was hideous to me.

I turned away from him and grabbed the bottle of Advil from my nightstand. Huh. It was regular Advil. Not extra strength. I rotated the bottle in my hand to look at the back. I knew it had been extra strength. Because I didn’t like it. And it didn’t seem to work. Where had this come from?

“Did you put this here?” I asked as I turned to my husband.

“It was there since I’ve been home. Even though it doesn’t belong there.”

The snide remark wasn’t lost on me. But I wasn’t talking about it not being in the medicine cabinet. I meant the actual existence of the bottle. “Did you pick it up for me? I thought we had extra strength.”

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