The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie: A Satirical Novella by Freida McFadden

Author:Freida McFadden [McFadden, Freida]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Press
Published: 2024-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

17

I don’t even have time to dry my hair. I pull it back into a messy ponytail, then I throw on a pair of blue jeans and a cardigan. I sprint down the steps as quickly as possible just as the doorbell rings for a third time.

When I throw open the door, there’s a familiar man in a shirt and tie paired with a trench coat. I recognize him as Detective Mancini, who briefly spoke with me after my husband’s tragic accident. He’s an older man, with salt-and-pepper hair that’s mostly salt and deep lines etched into his craggy face.

“Hello there, Mrs. Lockwood.” He tips an imaginary hat in my direction. “I’m so sorry to bother you again. It’s Detective Mancini.”

“Yes, I remember you.” I force a smile to disguise the fact that my stomach is doing somersaults. “Is… is anything wrong?”

Detective Mancini hesitates. When I heard he was investigating my husband’s accident, I asked around and found that he was a detective who didn’t always play by the rules but got the job done. But the last I heard, they had officially ruled Grant’s accident just that—an accident.

“Could I come in?” he asks.

I would rather not invite a detective into my home, but if I don’t, he might think I have something to hide. So I obligingly step aside. “Of course.”

He follows me into the living room, and I offer him a seat on the sofa. He doesn’t take his trench coat off when he sits down.

“Could I get you anything?” I ask. “Some tea perhaps? Casserole?”

He shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

I settle down in the love seat across from him, my entire body buzzing. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Well,” he says, “we got an anonymous tip. Someone called in and told us they thought the brakes in your husband’s Mercedes had been cut. That it wasn’t actually an accident.”

Someone called and left an anonymous tip? Who would have done such a thing?

And then I think of the man following me around town—the one who looks suspiciously like my dead husband.

“Oh my God!” I cry. “That… that’s horrible! I can’t believe it could be true…”

“We don’t know for sure,” Mancini says. “Unfortunately, even though it’s against protocol, we didn’t check the car after the accident. And now your husband’s car has been compounded into one of those cubes at the junkyard. So we can’t possibly know if it’s really true.”

My shoulders relax by a few millimeters. The car has been destroyed. All the evidence is gone.

“But I have to ask you,” he says, “did your husband have any enemies? Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?”

Detective Mancini’s left hand has a very light tan line where a wedding ring used to be. I wonder what happened in his own marriage. I wonder if he could possibly understand.

Well, I’ll never know. Because I will never tell him the truth.

“He didn’t have any enemies,” I say, “but there’s a man who cleans for us that Grant never entirely trusted.

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