Page 81 of Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbi 3)

Snuggle Muffins woke up when I opened the door to the garage. He came running over. Part of me didn’t want him to see what I had done. But holding him brought me comfort. And he was my main accomplice. We were in this together. I lifted Snuggle Muffins into my arms as we all made our way out into the garage. He sighed when my arms started shaking.

Please let it have all been a nightmare. Please don’t let this be real.

Aiden stopped and stared at me, waiting for me to point him in the right direction.

“You have to get a ladder in order to reach it. The entrance is right there,” I said and looked up.

Aiden grabbed the ladder, climbed up, and pushed the trap door open. I took a deep breath and followed him into the garage attic.

“Fuck.” Aiden covered his mouth. It looked like he was going to hurl.

I stepped around him to see what he was looking at. There was a clear Sterilite storage container in the center of the attic. It was the same kind I stored my Christmas decorations in. But this one wasn’t filled with lights and wreaths. It was filled with Dr. Noah Collins. My dearly departed husband. Well, it was filled with pieces of him. I remembered he didn’t quite fit. I had no choice but to remove some of his limbs to try to wedge him inside properly. There were a pair of bloody hedge shears lying next to the container.

And the blood. It was everywhere. Seeping into the wooden floor beams. I’d been too tired to clean it after scrubbing the basement so thoroughly. I’d always meant to come back and clean up the stains. But then…Aiden fell into my lap, along with a new plan to get out of this. The blood didn’t matter for that. Actually, it kind of helped. I hugged Snuggle Muffins tighter. But now I kind of wished I’d cleaned it up. Because I didn’t want to follow through with my plan. I didn’t want to frame Aiden. I wanted us to be able to run away together.

My eyes lifted from the blood stains to the plastic container. Even after removing my husband’s arms, hands, a few fingers…he still hadn’t quite fit. I was usually so good at packing things. It was quite a failure on the part of a housewife.

“You cut him up?” Aiden turned away and started gagging. This time he did throw up, heaving in the corner.

And all I could think about was how perfect that was. Now his DNA was up here. And mine wasn’t, because even though I hadn’t cleaned up the blood, I had wiped my prints off the hedge shears. Stop.

I kneeled down to let Snuggle Muffins out of my arms so he could explore the new space. “He wouldn’t fit,” I said. I studied the decapitated head resting on top of the container. And then looked back at Aiden. The resemblance was uncanny. But it was definitely my husband that was dead. I waited for that guilt to set in like it had right after I’d done it. The shock. The repulsion. But I didn’t feel anything but relief. Even though I’d assaulted a detective and was going to be wanted for murder, my life seemed a lot less hellish now than it had while Noah was still alive. And I didn’t think that made me a monster. The world was a better place without Noah in it. I knew that. I’m not a monster.

I took a deep breath and was glad I didn’t smell anything too repulsive. “He’s not really rotting that much,” I said.

Aiden nodded, but he didn’t turn back. “I think we have to take him with us,” he said. “We’ll find somewhere to drop the body. Maybe we can bury it somewhere.” He finally turned back around to look at me.

“We?” I asked. “You still want to run away wi

th me? I…I murdered my husband.” I gestured to the container of body parts.

“You said it was an accident. Like when I slipped down the stairs?”

“Yeah. He just…slipped.” But I knew that wasn’t true. I remembered it, just like I remembered how I’d “slipped” down the stairs a few months ago. My husband had wanted me to fall. He’d smiled. And on Tuesday, I’d wanted to make sure that he knew that I knew the truth. I wanted to get even. I pushed Noah down the stairs on purpose. Shoved him really hard, actually. But I didn’t think he’d die. So in that sense, it kind of was an accident.

With Aiden’s fall though? I thought it was an accident. He was my last chance at answers. All his sexy muscles made him extra heavy. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. I knew it in my gut. I bit the inside of my lip as I stared at him. He could be my future. All I had to do was think of a better plan then the one rolling around in my head. The only problem was that it was a really solid plan. It had been my plan since the beginning. All the question marks at the end of my list were just for show. I’d always planned on framing Aiden for the murder of my husband. I’d just gotten a little lost along the way.

Aiden nodded slowly. “Okay. You grab one end, I’ll grab the other.” He started to pick up the container.

I touched his arm, trying not to smile at the warmth our connection always gave me. The last thing I needed was to scare Aiden off by smiling at my husband’s dead body. “It doesn’t matter if we take him,” I said. “His blood is everywhere. We just have to go. Put as much distance between this and us as possible. I have a place already set up in Mexico. We can leave now. We can go together.”

He looked down at the blood on the floor and shook his head. “Okay. But we have to hurry. Detective Torres is going to wake up. We have to get out of here now.”

I nodded. We were still a we. He still wanted to come.

“I’ll go pull the car into the garage,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He started down the ladder while I hung back to grab Snuggle Muffins.

I almost screamed when I saw blood dripping from Snuggle Muffins’ chin. But after pulling him into my arms and inspecting him, I realized it was just one of Noah’s fingers in his mouth. “Where’d you get that?” I grabbed the finger out of Snuggle Muffins’ mouth.

He blinked up at me.

“No, I don’t want to frame Aiden anymore.”

He sighed.

“I know you’re right, boy. I know it. But I really like him.”

Snuggle Muffins sighed again.

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