Black Widow (36 page)

I sit up, not caring that she’s still wrapped in my arms so she falls back onto the bed.

She sits up, grabbing my shoulder. “I’m sorry. Is it something important?”

I look down, not wanting to have this conversation here and now. Without saying a word, I get up, moving everything off the box and walk out of the room.

“Preston,” she calls after me, following me down the hall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was so important.”

Shit. I don’t want her to feel bad about this. What she did was amazing. Exactly what I needed.

I drop the box right as we get to the closet and turn to her. “No, don’t feel bad. It’s just.” I look down, “This is the last of the stuff I kept of Kim.”

Her look says it all. She knows I’m talking about my dead wife and I look down, ashamed.

“Oh Preston. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No, please, don’t feel bad. I shouldn’t have this stuff anymore. It’s time for me to move on.”

She places her hand over mine as I reach for the box. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t ever forget her. She was your wife. I get it. I had a husband, remember? They are a part of us and I don’t ever want to take that away from you.”

I stare into her beautiful eyes, more thankful than ever that I found her. Someone who gets it. Who gets me.

“Do you have a picture of her in there? I’d love to see what she looked like.”

“I do.” I open the box, digging a little ways down and pulling out the most recent photo of us that was taken the year before she committed suicide. After a heavy sigh, I hand it to her, “This is her. This was Kim.”

Her face turns pale, as she looks at me, back at the picture and back to me again but doesn’t say a word.

“What’s that look? What’s wrong?”

“Preston. No. No. This can’t be Kim, your wife who committed suicide.”

“Yes, this is her. What’s wrong?”

“No Preston. This can’t be,” she’s stuttering and I can visibly see the photo start to shake in her hand.

“What? Why?”

“Preston. This is the woman that was at Trevor’s house that I spoke to that day. She’s not dead. She’s alive. And looking at her now, I see it. This is the woman who shot me.”

“No Kamii. She’s dead. I watched her jump.”

“She’s alive Preston. I promise you. How could anyone forget those eyes? And it’s not a coincidence that someone looking just like this was at her brother’s house.”

“Stop. Stop saying that. She’s dead.”

“Did you ever find her body?”

“No, of course we didn’t. She jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge. Her body was probably eaten before it could wash to shore.”

“I’m telling you. She’s not dead. And she’s who is framing you for murder.”

“No. I said STOP! She couldn’t do something like that. We loved each other.” There is just no way she would ever do anything like this.
To me
. I’m her husband. No, she’s wrong.

“Preston. She killed herself, or pretended to at least. All of this is making more sense now. You said someone was doing weird things inside your house, right? Well, she probably still has a key. She knew you donated your old shoes, she could have easily gotten your sperm and fingerprints. Preston… she’s alive.”

“There’s no way. This can’t be,” I say in absolute disbelief, turning to walk away from her.

She grabs my arm to stop me. “Wait, why did she say she wanted to kill herself?”

I look down, hating myself for the truth, “Because I wanted to live a more sexually free life and she didn’t want to.”

“Exactly! Oh my god. It’s her. That’s why she killed Becca and then came after me, all framing you for it. She hated the fact that we were sleeping with you.”

“I still can’t believe this. There’s just no way!”

“Believe it, Preston. This is her,” she holds up the photo, trying to prove her point.

“Why? Why would she do it? This is all crazy!” I pause, remembering the last thing she said to me. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

“The last thing she said to me. Shit, I thought her killing herself was what she was talking about but no. It was this. She was planning all of it. She knew I had thoughts of opening my own club. I talked about wanting to do it just for the safety factor for her. I didn’t plan on having it all anonymous then. She started that Facebook account then for the application. Shit. She actually asked me for my sperm sample. Oh my God!” I throw my hands up in the air. “How could I be so stupid? We were trying to get pregnant. It wasn’t happening so she had me give a sample and said she was taking it to the lab for testing. I was so busy with work that I just believed her and did as she asked.”

My heart feels like it’s been ripped in two, permanently this time. I thought losing her was hard but putting all of this together now is completely debilitating. I loved her and I thought she loved me. We were together for ten years. How does someone you think you know do something like this? How could she kill Becca? This is not the Kim I knew.

My body falls against the wall and slides down to a sitting position on the floor as I rest my head on my arm that’s resting against my knees. Here I thought she was dead this entire time and I don’t know what’s worse, knowing she’s alive or knowing she killed someone I cared about because of what I wanted with our lives?

Breathing becomes a harder task than normal and just the feeling of Kamii’s hand resting on my back makes my mind a little clearer.

“So what did she say before she killed herself?” Kamii quietly asks while rubbing my back.

I look up at her, “She said, ‘I’m gonna show you what’s really crazy.’”

She gasps, “The song! Holy shit. You said the song
Black Widow
had been haunting you. The beat right?” I nod. “Well that’s a lyric from the song. Preston, it’s her and she’s been here. She has to be watching you some how which means she knows I’m here, too.”

“We have to call the police,” I demand, moving to get up to grab my phone.

“No, wait. We need more proof. We don’t have actual proof that she’s alive yet.”

“How do we do that? We already know that she’s not at her brother’s house anymore. She could be anywhere.”

“Yes, but she wants me dead so she’ll be coming back for me and when she does, we’ll be ready this time.”

“Kamii. No, I’m not putting you in any harms way.”

“We have to do this. For Becca. For you. She’s not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”

I
t took some convincing but we came up with a plan. Preston has not left my side for more than a second for the last couple days but I can’t say I’m complaining. We’re hoping we’re correct in thinking she’s watching us. That’s the only way this will ever work.

Thankfully, Becca’s brother, Nicholas, is on board with helping us now that he knows Preston is innocent. It took some convincing for him to believe it’s Kim setting up Preston and he’s still a little skeptical. We kept it quiet from anyone else. We can’t have any slip ups if this is going to work.

Since we know she’s been in the house we think there might be cameras placed around watching us so we put on a little play, acting like Preston has to go on a trip and pack his bag with Nicholas posted across the hall at Preston’s neighbor’s house, watching from the peep hole for anyone to approach.

“Are you sure about this?” Preston whispers as he hugs me goodbye.

“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself,” I whisper back.

“I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he leans down and kisses me on my lips before turning around and walking away with his luggage in tow.

The plan now is to go about my business like nothing is up so I make myself dinner, and curl up with a good book and a glass of wine. It should be a perfect night for me, if only my nerves weren’t completely shot as I sit here like fish bate.

If she didn’t come by eleven then I’m supposed to get ready for bed and crawl under the covers, so when I see it’s that time, I get up to wash my glass and brush my teeth.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary, so I head to the bedroom, removing my shirt over my head as I flick on the light. When I turn to the closet I’m startled by the dark hair, crystal blue eyed woman staring back at me.

“So, we meet again?” she says with no emotion.

Holy shit, how did she get in here? How long has she been here? How is Nicholas going to know she’s here?

“I know who you are,” I say, speaking as clearly as possible so she doesn’t sense my fear.

“Yeah. So you know that you’re fucking my husband.”

“He thought you were dead.”

“Doesn’t matter. He would have fucked you anyway. I wasn’t enough for him, so you should know you never will be either. Especially when you’re dead,” she raises a gun to point at me once again. “This time I’ll make sure the bullet hits your heart, just like you’ve driven a bullet through mine.”

“How are you going to frame him for this?” I ask, trying to get her talking to stall, for what though I have no clue.

“I don’t give a shit about that anymore. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He used to look at me that way. I’ll have more fun knowing he lost his precious Eurydice.”

“But why?” I plead.

“Ask him that. Oh wait, you’ll be dead. I guess you can go to hell with Becca and wait for him to answer you there.”

“Kimberley?” I hear Preston say in disbelief. He’s standing in the doorway of the bedroom, staring directly at his wife that he thought was dead. “Why?”

“You know why. Then stupid Trevor screwed everything up, I could never trust him. Can you believe he went to the wrong house?” she shakes her head with a smirk on her face. “Idiot. I guess it was for the better though. It felt good, killing the woman that had fucked my husband.”

“How could you do this? She was innocent,” he pleads.

“You promised to love me. You promised to be with only me. Yet you said I wasn’t good enough and you had needs.”

I look at Preston as the pain that he’s caused his wife washes over him. “But I thought you were enjoying it, too.”

“No Preston. I wasn’t. I did it for you but I’ve never felt so dirty and disgusting in my life. Yet there you were, getting your dick sucked by another woman and loving every minute. When you stuck your cock in them as I watched it literally killed me. So you know what. It’s your time to die.” She moves the gun from my face to pointing directly at him.