The Wrong Wife, page 15
Bettany sat bundled in a throw, her wheelchair angled to face the manicured gardens. A tray had been set beside her, green tea cooling in a porcelain cup, untouched toast, a small dish of berries.
She tried to breathe it in, let the cold morning remind her of something real, something beyond the house. But the effort was unproductive.
The door opened behind her. Light footsteps approached – heels on stone, careful but assured. Charley.
“Darling,” Charley said brightly, though the brightness had cracks. “I thought I’d find you out here.”
Bettany turned her head slightly. Charley was immaculate, as always, hair smoothed into place, a cashmere cardigan draped loosely over her shoulders, diamond studs winking in her ears. Her smile was wide but her eyes were sharp.
Charley pulled a chair closer and sat, crossing her legs elegantly. “You haven’t eaten, tut tut,” she said, tilting her head with a doctor’s-office kind of sympathy. “I bet the surgery did wonders. You’ll be yourself again in no time.”
Bettany managed a faint nod. Her bandages itched under the throw; she resisted the urge to touch them.
Charley studied her a moment longer, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “We don’t have to play games, Melissa.”
The name landed heavy. Melissa. Bettany assumed her role and waited.
Charley’s smile dimmed, her voice sharper now. “You’ve been evasive. Brad is running out of patience. So am I. Where is the money? You need to realise you’re putting his life and yours on the line here, or have you made some kind of deal with the guys he owes. Are they the people you’re working with?”
Bettany’s breath stalled. There it was. No circling. No delicate insinuations. Just the demand laid bare on the cold air.
Charley didn’t flinch. Her eyes glittered with something harder than curiosity. “Ten million doesn’t vanish into thin air. Not without you knowing where it went and if you don’t tell him soon you’ll lose everything. No more private health care and swanky hospitals and that’ll just be the start, because this place will be next to go.”
The sparrows scattered from the hedge in a sudden burst, wings clattering. Bettany felt her pulse chase after them, rapid, disordered. She kept her face as neutral as the bandages allowed.
“I don’t remember,” she said evenly.
Charley’s laugh was short, brittle. “Still clinging to that story.”
Bettany’s silence was deliberate. She let it stretch.
Charley leaned closer. “Listen to me. Brad might tolerate your games for now, but the creditors won’t. If you think you can hide behind bandages and memory loss forever, you’re wrong.”
The mask slipped. Charley’s mouth pressed into a thin line, her composure cracking around the edges. She wanted the answer as much as Brad did. Maybe more.
Bettany held her gaze, finally letting her suspicion show. “Funny,” she said slowly, “how interested you are in my finances and helping Brad. What’s in it for you?”
For a fraction of a second, Charley froze. Not long enough for an untrained eye, but Bettany saw it, the falter, the tiny hesitation where the lie should have slipped in.
It was confirmation enough. Charley wasn’t just a friend hovering with sympathy. She was inside Brad’s orbit, feeding his doubts, guarding his secrets, sharing his bed. Had she been here all night? Bettany’s stomach turned cold.
Charley recovered quickly, leaning back, painting her smile back on. “I’m interested because Brad is my friend. And because I care about you. Both of you.”
“Of course you do,” Bettany murmured. But the words were flat, stripped of warmth.
Charley uncrossed and recrossed her legs, a flicker of nerves masked as elegance. “You can trust me, you know. You always did before.”
The claim rang false. Bettany pictured Melissa’s voice in her ear, sharp as glass: Charley is not your friend. She’s his.
Bettany looked down at the tea, now gone cold. “Maybe I trusted too easily.”
For the first time, Charley’s face shifted, not into offense, but unease. She reached out, as if to take Bettany’s hand, but Bettany pulled the throw tighter around herself. A small gesture, enough to freeze Charley’s movement mid-air. The impasse that followed was tense and final.
Charley exhaled, forced a light laugh. “Well. Recovery makes us all a little prickly. I’ll let you rest.”
She stood smoothly, tugging her cardigan closer. But her eyes lingered, too calculating for someone who claimed only concern. “Think about what I said. The sooner you’re honest, the sooner the questions stop.”
She turned and walked back across the terrace, her shadow cutting briefly across the frosted stone and the door closed softly behind her.
Bettany sat very still, her pulse drumming. The cold air scraped at her throat. It was done.
Charley’s mask had cracked, and what had slipped through confirmed everything Melissa had warned. She drew the throw closer and stared out at the garden, the hedges cut so neatly, the pool shimmering unnaturally blue in the pale sun. A postcard of perfection.
Charley’s question still echoed: What did you do with the money?
The silence after Bettany’s non-answer had been damning, not hers, but Charley’s. Now there was no doubt left. Charley was Brad’s ally. His spy. His lover. And Bettany could never let her close again. From this moment on, Charley was cut off. No more feigned trust, no more confidences. The circle had narrowed. Only Melissa remained.
The motel was one of those places you passed on highways without seeing. Beige brick, buzzing neon vacancy sign, anonymous. Melissa had chosen it for that reason. No one would look for her here. No one would care if she came and went at odd hours, if she stayed up all night with curtains drawn and light leaking through cracks.
The mattress sagged, the orange furniture gave her a headache and the desk was scarred by cigarette burns. Perfect. Melissa sat at the desk, her laptop open, the glow throwing her face into ghostly relief. Around her, the surface was crowded: folded maps of Portland and the surrounding suburbs, a notebook dense with codes and annotations, a burner phone plugged into a cheap charger. Beside it sat a manila envelope, fat with copies of bank transfers, photographs, and printouts from her hacker. Her insurance policy.
She had been through the pile three times tonight already, but still she kept returning to it, touching each sheet as if reaffirming its weight, its reality. If she vanished, this pile would not. She picked up the burner, scrolled to the last number dialed, and pressed call. It rang twice before a voice answered.
“You’re using a burner,” the man said. Her lawyer. Paid handsomely for silence.
“Yes and it’s clean,” Melissa said, briskly. “I’m not careless.”
“You sound strained.”
She ignored the remark. “I am, which is why I need to keep checking in. The plan holds. If anything happens to me, the file goes public. Full distribution.”
A pause. “You’re sure you want to go that far?”
“Yes.” Her voice was steady, but she felt the throb in her temple. “The whole file. Financial records, photos, audio clips. Every single document. Brad’s associates won’t protect him if they see what he’s done. They’ll turn on him. Fear always wins.”
The lawyer exhaled softly. “Then yes. You have my word. If you don’t check in every seventy-two hours, it goes live. There’s no calling it back.”
“Good. I’ll be in touch.” She disconnected without goodbye.
She shut the burner off, set it face down on the papers. Her reflection in the darkened laptop screen stared back: hair tucked into a cap, circles under her eyes, mouth set in a thin line. A ghost of herself. But she felt more alive than she had in years.
Melissa reached for her notebook, flipping to the page where she had drawn out the sequence. Confrontation couldn’t be the result of impulse - it had to be choreographed. Every step mattered.
She had written it down like instructions to herself. She would destroy them later:
Secure the evidence in two places.
Draw Brad out when he’s alone.
Never let him control the setting.
Deliver the line. Walk away.
Simple on paper. Deadly in practice.
She tapped her pen against the margin. Confronting Brad wasn’t about catharsis. It wasn’t even about revenge, not entirely. It was about ending the game on her terms. He had spent their marriage owning every scene, twisting every word, turning their lives into one of his performances. Now she would write the script.
She pulled the manila envelope closer, sliding out a photograph. Brad at a charity gala, tuxedo sharp, arm heavy around her waist, both smiling for the camera. She studied his face – the handsome cut of it, the perfect mask.
He’d fooled everyone. Investors. Politicians. Charley. And for a short while Bettany, after she was dragged into the wreckage by accident. But not her. Not anymore. Melissa slipped the photo back into the envelope, then took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote in neat block letters:
“I BEAT YOU AT YOUR OWN GAME”
The words looked stark, final. She imagined saying them, her voice calm, not triumphant but undeniable. The last thing he would hear from her lips. She repeated them silently, rehearsing each syllable.
The laptop chimed. She flicked it open again, checking the latest update from her hacker. Another confirmation: offshore transfers frozen, his accounts flagged. The walls were already closing in. She almost smiled. Still, financial victory wasn’t enough. It had to be visible. He had to know, at the very end, that she had outplayed him.
Melissa pushed back from the desk, crossed to the cheap dresser, and opened the drawer. Inside lay the gun, wrapped in a towel. She unwrapped it, checked the safety, the feel. Cold, heavy, necessary. She didn’t plan to fire it unless she had to.
The motel heater clicked on, rattling in protest, filling the silence with a noise that would at least keep her company. Melissa returned to the desk, pulling her maps closer. She circled locations with a red pen: his office downtown, the mansion, the restaurant where he held private dinners. She had to choose the ground carefully. Neutral. Public enough to avoid suspicion, private enough for her to speak without interruption.
Her eyes landed on his office building. Her pulse gave a small, sharp kick. The car park.
Then she thought of the box. Brad wanted it. Melissa had hidden it. It could be the bait. She drew a fresh circle around the site and sat back. She closed her notebook, smoothed her palm over its worn cover. The motel clock ticked toward midnight, the second-hand shuffling forward in tiny jerks. She let the stillness settle over her, breathing in the cold, recycled air.
In the silence, she allowed herself to imagine the end. Brad cornered, forced to face the evidence, stripped of his mask. His fury when he realised she had beaten him. His disbelief that she had been the one to plan, to act, to win. She pictured herself walking away, her back to him, the words left behind like a brand. I beat you at your own game.
For the first time in years, she felt something close to peace. Melissa gathered the papers into the manila envelope, slipped the gun back into the drawer, and pulled the curtain tighter over the window. The motel remained anonymous outside, neon sign humming, cars rushing unseen along the road. Safe, for now. But not for long.
She whispered the words again into the stale motel air, rehearsing, sealing them inside herself.
“I beat you at your own game.” And this time, she smiled.
20
Bettany sat at the far end of the dining table that seemed more ridiculous each time she ate there. Her bandages were tight under her silk scarf, posture composed despite the ache pulling at her skin. She had chosen that end of the table deliberately. The length between her and Brad was a shield, a sliver of autonomy.
Brad entered a moment later, jacket off, tie still knotted. He looked weary from the battle of the day, but his eyes glittered with the restlessness of a predator. He poured himself whiskey before even sitting down.
“Stormy night,” he said, settling across from her, voice casual. “Seems fitting.”
The nurse had placed plates under domes of silver: grilled trout, perfectly trimmed asparagus, roasted potatoes gleaming in butter. The presentation was flawless. Yet what was going on in that room made the perfection absurd.
Brad lifted his fork, watching her as he speared a piece of trout. “You’re not eating. You need your strength so please, try something.”
The tone was patronizing, the smile smug. It grated.
Bettany remained still. “I can decide when and what I need to eat for myself, and I would rather be in bed resting than summoned to this stupid dinner table to play act with you,” she said evenly.
His brows rose. “My, someone’s tetchy tonight, so like I said, eat, you clearly need some carbs.”
The words were smooth and sly in a way that meant the opposite.
The wind banged a shutter loose. Bettany flinched at the noise, but she didn’t drop her gaze. She had rehearsed this moment, drawn strength from Melissa’s warnings. Brad wanted obedience. Tonight, he would not have it.
She sipped water, then placed the glass deliberately back on the table. “I want to speak with a lawyer.”
He stilled, fork halfway to his mouth. “A lawyer?”
“Yes.” She kept her voice calm, steady. “To draw up a will.”
The words hung there, louder than the wind outside.
Brad lowered the fork slowly, setting it down with exaggerated care. His eyes narrowed, cold cutting through the mask of patience.
“A will,” he repeated. “Why would you want that now?”
“Because it’s practical.” She folded her hands on the table. “After the accident, after surgery… it reminded me how fragile life is and I want to make sure my affairs are in order.”
The anger in his eyes told her she had hit a nerve.
He leaned back, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “Affairs,” he echoed. “You don’t even remember your affairs.”
“I remember enough.” She let the silence fill, then added, “And if I don’t, a lawyer can help me clarify maybe act as my representative until I do.”
His jaw clenched. The wind hammered the glass, thunder rolling close.
“Melissa,” he said, his voice lower now, “this is unnecessary. Everything you own is already ours. There’s nothing to decide.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind if I write it down. And maybe I want to do some good with my money, you know, help people in need.”
The glass hit the table with a sharp crack, liquid sloshing over the rim.
Bettany jumped, but she forced herself not to recoil fully.
Brad leaned forward, his face taut with suppressed rage. “You don’t need a lawyer,” he snapped. “You need to remember who loves you and wants the best for you.”
The mask was gone. His words were not loving, not protective. They were a threat wrapped in impatience. The storm howled outside as though in answer.
Bettany’s hands trembled under the table, hidden by the linen cloth. But her voice held. “Taking care of me isn’t the same as owning me and that’s how you are making me feel and maybe, that’s how you made me feel before the accident.”
His nostrils flared, and for a long moment, the room felt balanced on the edge of violence.
Then he sat back suddenly, forcing a thin smile. He reached for his napkin and dabbed the spill as though nothing had happened. “Your meds are doing the talking and maybe I was wrong to expect you to dine with me, it’s too soon,” he said, falsely soothing. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
But his eyes betrayed him. Fury simmered there, alive and unmasked.
She took another sip of water deliberately, ignoring the rumble of hunger in her stomach. This was her rebellion. Small, measured, but real. She would not take back her words or eat the food.
The wind vented its fury on the house, howling, rattling, like the world outside mirrored the battle inside these walls.
When she finally spoke again, her voice was steady. “I’ll see a lawyer. With or without your approval. I’ll find one online and ask them to represent me. I mean it.”
The napkin stilled in his hand. His smile dropped away, and for the briefest moment, she saw his control was slipping away, like melting ice cream. Brad drained his whiskey in a single swallow, slammed the glass back down, and rose from his chair. The legs scraped against the polished floor, loud as a shout. He said nothing more. He simply turned and strode out, his footsteps echoing down the hall. The door closed with a slam.
Bettany exhaled, only then realizing how tight her chest had been. Her hands shook openly now. But inside, under the tremor, there was something else: triumph. She smiled even though it hurt and listened to the wind. It reminded her there was an outside, life going on beyond these walls, nature doing its thing, people living their lives and she wanted some of that. She wanted Melissa to beat Brad at his own game so they could both be free.
She whispered into the silence: “You’re losing.”
For the first time, she believed it.
Lightning broke across the sky in jagged forks, splitting the darkness into brief white moments. Bettany couldn’t sleep. The confrontation at dinner still lived under her skin, each word replaying in dangerous fragments. I’ll find a lawyer online. I mean it. Brad’s mask snapping, the slam of his glass, the fury that leaked out despite his attempt to reel it back in.
Her heart still beat with the memory. Fear and triumph, tangled.
She needed air. She wheeled herself toward the service corridor, blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders. The night nurse had retired; the house was otherwise silent, save for the storm’s relentless percussion.
The air changed instantly when she opened the door to the garage. Colder. The scent of oil and polish cut through the sterile warmth of the house. The garage lights had been dimmed, but she could still make out the gleam of chrome, the hulking outlines of the cars.
