Page 76 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

He made the tsking noise again. “Take your meds. We have lots of work to do today.” His fingers fell from my skin.

“What work?”

“The packing.” He gestured around the house. “Box it all up. I’ll be downstairs.”

“Doing what?”

He smiled. “Making sure you can't possibly forget

me.”

Oh, I was definitely going to kill him. And he had no one to blame but himself. But as he walked past me down the hall, I did start to wonder if he was right. If killing him would ever be able to erase the years of pain. The memories.

I was hopeful that it would. Besides, my memory wasn’t very good. And I could thank him for that. He was the one that made me take my medicine.

Chapter 37

I placed the last pan into a box and taped it shut. There was something satisfying knowing that when the house burned down everything would be organized. I wiped my hands off on my jeans and stood up.

We had a lot of useless kitchen appliances. I had never been much of a cook. It would have been better to donate the boxes to Goodwill than to let them all burn. But how suspicious would that be? Well. Maybe not that suspicious. If we were moving, we would have a reason to donate stuff. I just couldn’t donate everything. Now that would be a red flag in any investigation afterward. And I couldn’t afford any kinks.

I sighed. Kinks. I still had one major one. I lifted up my phone and typed out a text to Ben.

“Can you please send me Charlotte’s number?”

His response came almost immediately. “Where is your husband? I haven’t even been able to get him in the frame. Let alone any evidence. Her number is 555-2583.”

“He’s working on something in the basement. Thanks for her number.” I was about to type her number into my phone when another text came through.

“Organizing his serial killer files? Seriously, Addy. What does an insurance collector even do? I’ve been doing some research and that’s not a real job title.”

I swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t. But it described what he did perfectly. “Ben, stop doing research. You’re going to get us both killed.”

“He does something illegal, doesn’t he?”

“I’m serious, Ben! Stop researching it.” I looked up at the camera and made a swiping motion across my throat. I was not going to get this close to freedom only to wind up dead.

“We have a lot to talk about tomorrow.”

I stared down at his last text. Yes, we did. There was no reason to respond. Instead, I typed in Charlotte’s number and put my cell phone up to my ear. She answered after two rings.

“Hi! Charlotte Hallady speaking.”

“Hey Charlotte, it’s Adeline…Bell.”

“You’re the only Adeline I know,” she said with a laugh. “How are you feeling, hon?”

“A lot better, thanks.”

“Me and the girls are so excited to spend time with you on Wednesday. I’ve already picked out the perfect bottles of wine.”

Bottles. Maybe Charlotte was a drunk. It would be nice if there were flaws behind that perfect facade. “Actually, I have some bad news, I…”

“Oh, don’t you dare cancel on us, Adeline. We’re so looking forward to it.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I’m moving…”

“No! When?”

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