Page 94 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

For just a second I wished I had booby-trapped the house. For her. She knew I didn’t work. I took another huge gulp of wine and pulled the aluminum foil off the closest dish. It was covered in chocolate chip cookies. “Oh, yum. These look great.” I stuffed one in my mouth.

“I made them from scratch,” Charlotte said.

I grabbed a napkin and spit it out. “I’m so sorry.” I wiped the corners of my mouth. “There was a hair in it,” I lied.

She gasped. “What?” She snatched the plate and stared down at the cookies. “I’m going to have to have a word with the bakery about that.” As soon as the words slipped out of her mouth she laughed awkwardly. “I mean I…” her voice trailed off. She sighed. “I ran out of time today. There was a showing this morning that took longer than expected.”

“That’s okay,” Phoenix said. “I just dumped a pile of Chex mix in a bowl.”

“I was too busy to cook anything too. Pretending to be a perfect housewife is exhausting.” Rosie laughed and revealed her dish. “I added some sour cream on top to make it look homemade. But I bought the dip from the grocery store.”

“You know, I have some mint chocolate chip ice cream in the fridge,” I said. “Does anyone want some?”

“That sounds amazing,” Rosie and Phoenix said at the same time.

“Is it dairy free?” Charlotte asked. “I don’t eat dairy products. I can’t believe how they treat the poor cows.”

“No. It’s the good stuff.” I rummaged through a few boxes and pulled out spoons and bowls. Charlotte glared at us as we stuffed ice cream in our faces. I honestly liked these girls, Charlotte excluded. We could have been friends. If my life had been different, maybe we would have been.

I felt so normal. For an hour, my problems evaporated. I laughed more than I had in years.

My phone ringing pulled me away from the conversation. It was Ben. We had only been apart for a few hours, but I missed him. I quickly answered his call.

“Hi!” I said. “What’s up, I’m a little busy hanging out with my girls.”

Rosie raised her glass to me and took another sip.

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

“No.” I laughed. “Maybe a little.”

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"Good news."

"Okay. So you know how the serial killer had been targeting men? And then the wives were going missing?"

"Yeah. My husband was probably selling the women into prostitution." As if he could be any more of a monster.

All three women looked up at me with shocked expressions.

I held my hand over the receiver as I shrugged and mouthed, "Telemarketer." That just made them even more shocked. I walked out of the kitchen to continue the conversation in private.

"Maybe," said Ben. "But that's not the important part. What's important is that we finally found a concrete link between all the murders. Up until now, we'd been looking at what the men had in common, since they were the primary victims. But when we went through your husband’s files, we realized that all the men's wives, the ones disappearing, were all patients of Dr. Nash."

For some reason I felt a tightening in my chest. I was Dr. Nash's patient too. I felt camaraderie with those women. No, I hadn’t disappeared. But it felt like a piece of my soul had disappeared the first time my husband ever put his hands on me.

“Yeah. It’s bigger than we originally thought. "We think he might have killed the women too. But now that you bring up the prostitution thing, I guess that's a possibility. We haven't been able to find the women's bodies. That might be why. I'll run it by some of our human trafficking guys. Either way, this link combined with all your statements should be enough to prevent your husband from getting bail while we piece the rest together."

"What about the prints on the files?" I asked. "Isn't

that the final bit of evidence that we need?"

Ben cleared his throat. "That’s the bad news. His prints weren't on the files. Not a single one."

“Of course they were. He made the files. Have forensics look again.”

"We already double checked," said Ben. "Honestly, the lack of prints make your husband look even more guilty. It’s super weird. I mean, the files were in his house. He would have had to have been extremely careful to never get his prints on them."

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