Page 30 of My Husband’s Wife

Twenty-Nine

I see his brown leather shoes from under the white cloth that covers the table, and my heart booms. Any second now, he’s going to lift it and do who knows what to me. He said he’s going to kill me. I hold my breath and to my relief, his phone rings.

‘I’m on my way,’ he says.

Spent, I lean back against the wall and gasp with relief, my face red from holding my breath for so long.

I have to warn Madison before it’s too late.

Hurrying out of the room, I take the first corridor, then another.

This place is like a maze. I end up in a library that leads to a room full of people who are sipping a welcome glass of champagne while eating arancini balls.

They frown at me as I stand there looking flustered.

Madison is nowhere to be seen, but why would she be here?

She’ll be getting ready for the biggest day of her life, the one I’m about to ruin.

I step backwards into a videographer, sending his tripod crashing to the floor.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I mutter, before running off.

I follow the signs to the spa and hope that the layout is similar to the Sea Horse, and I carefully open one of the beauty room doors – it’s empty. After opening a row of doors, I burst into the final room, where someone is midway through having a body wrap. Again, I apologise and dash.

‘Can I help you, are you lost?’ A woman wearing a pale blue suit smiles.

‘Are you the wedding planner?’

She nods.

‘I’m looking for Madison. I have her “something blue”,’ I say with a beaming smile, hoping she can’t see my trembling legs or hear the quiver in my voice.

‘She’s in the bridal suite. Shall I take it to her?’

‘Can I give it to her myself? She’s expecting me. We’re sisters,’ I add.

The wedding planner’s brows furrow. Madison and I look nothing like each other, there’s not even a smidgen of a resemblance.

‘Half-sisters, I mean.’

‘I think I’ll get the groom.’

‘No, I don’t want to put him out. I’ll get the garter from my car and you can give it to her. I’ll come and find you here.’ Before she can answer me, I run and I can only hope she stays right there so I can reach Madison before she does.

I quickly search for the hotel website on my phone and click on the details for the bridal suite. It’s the penthouse. Getting into the lift, I select floor four and take several deep breaths as I press my back into the corner of the ascending lift. You can do this, Eva.

As the lift door opens, I hurry towards the door marked Bridal Suite and knock.

All I can hear is a group of women singing along to the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling’.

Thuds come from behind the door which is why no one heard my knock.

I hammer on the door until a woman who looks like a slightly older and curvier version of Madison answers, a glass of bubbly sloshing in her hand.

‘I need to speak to Madison.’ I glance behind her and see four other women, a couple of kids and the baby. Then I catch sight of Madison.

Madison places her glass down and frowns at me. ‘Er, Eva from the Sea Horse?’

I nod. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important,’ I yell above the music.

She stands, her hair half up, wearing a white slip with lace trim along the bottom. Her party start asking what’s going on, and who I am, but I’m grateful she joins me at the door. ‘Carry on,’ she calls out to the others. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’

‘Theo isn’t who you think he is.’ That’s it, I’ve said it.

She isn’t responding. In fact, she’s looking at me like I’m mad.

‘He’s my husband, I mean my dead husband Hugo.

Look.’ I pull out my phone and show her a photo of Hugo and Caiden.

Then I show her the photo of the babies.

‘See this, this is our son, Caiden, and our daughter, Emily, a short while after they were born.’

‘Where did you get that photo?’ She stares at me, her red tresses beginning to fall from the pile on her head.

I snatch my phone back.

She continues. ‘You broke into our house. It was you the other night.’

‘He’s not Theo. You have to believe me. I can prove it. I’m not going mad. I’ve just been speaking to his mum, Cynthia.’

‘His mum is not called Cynthia. Seriously, Eva, get out now or I’m calling the police.

In fact, I’m going to call them anyway, just not today because you’re already ruining my big day.

It’s as if that bump into the fence the other week has fried your brain.

You want to know why we cancelled the Sea Horse?

Theo had a bad feeling about you and now I can see why. ’

‘He’s going to kill me.’

A worried look spreads across her face then she slams the door.

I wonder if she feels that something has always been off about Theo.

I knock again and a bridesmaid opens it and swears at me.

The lift pings and the door opens. The wedding planner steps out so I hurry to the stairwell.

I’m going to find somewhere to sit while I gather my thoughts.

I’m confused. Madison said she knows Theo’s mum and she’s not called Cynthia.

I thought Theo had no family. That’s what Madison told me.

After running down the stairs, I step out into a corridor and hear a voice booming.

It’s Nicole. She’s slurring and not making any sense.

There’s a loud crash. As I turn the corner to see what’s going on, Nicole has left and there’s a smashed vase on the floor.

There are flowers everywhere and water seeps into the carpet.

She’s wearing an aquamarine-coloured T-shirt.

‘Where did the woman you were just talking to go?’

The receptionist shakes her head. ‘Out the main door. Tell your friend to never come here again.’

After darting out of the hotel into the sunshine, I check all the vehicles to see if I can see Nicole’s.

I spot her van but I can’t see her. I dash between the vehicles, heading to the spaces along the back that are almost hidden by weeping willow branches.

All I can hear is blood pumping in my ears.

There’s a chill at the back of my head. I reach around and realise that my hairpiece is missing.

I turn around to check the ground but I can’t see it so I carry on looking for Nicole.

White hot pain flashes through my head. I fall and my face hits a rock that’s embedded into the earth.

All I can think of is Caiden as my attacker lifts my head only to smack it into the rock again.

I drift into unconsciousness and this strange fever dream takes me back to the dark parts of my past that I’ve avoided all these years, and I can’t stop them playing out.

I try to fight and wake up properly but I feel this is my punishment.

Cynthia knows of Hugo’s faults and how dangerous he is, but I am a bad person too because I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

I think of the days surrounding Hugo’s death where my mind really did a number on me.

I’d heard noises coming from the living room at our house in Malvern.

Terrified, I crept downstairs thinking that we were being burgled and that Hugo might need me.

Then I saw him lying on the floor amidst a smattering of glass from the coffee table.

I checked his pulse but he was dead. My phone, I couldn’t find my phone.

It had to be upstairs. It had been by my bedside but it wasn’t there any longer.

Someone had moved it, or had I left it in the kitchen?

I want this dream to stop but I can’t seem to bring myself out of it.

My head is throbbing and confused. What Cynthia told me is fighting to be heard, but I’m not hearing her in my inner voice anymore.

It’s just Hugo and that night in question and it’s taking me back there, whether I want to go or not…

On creeping back downstairs, I noticed that the door to the living room had been closed.

If Hugo was dead, who had closed it? Caiden was asleep upstairs.

I couldn’t run and leave him. Hurrying to the kitchen, I grabbed a knife while I searched for my phone, then Hugo walked in from the living room, bottle of wine in one hand, glass in the other.

‘Eva! You made me jump. I thought you were asleep.’

‘You were dead.’ The knife fell from my hands.

He put his wine down. ‘I fell, that’s all. The coffee table is ruined but I’m not dead.’

‘Were you unconscious?’

He shook his head. ‘Nope, just dazed. Don’t you think I’d be worried if I’d knocked myself out?’

My mind takes me to what happened on the night Hugo took his life. I try to fight it, but I can’t. The conversation I had with Cynthia has opened the floodgates.

I went away with Mum overnight to watch a show with her and Caiden. When I arrived home, Hugo had driven over the hill’s edge in his car. Seeing him lying there by that coffee table only two nights before had felt like some crazy premonition, a foretelling that he was going to die.

That’s what I’d thought, back then, but now I know better, thanks to Cynthia opening up to me.

I know who I’m dealing with now and that scares me more than anything.

Now Hugo has me right where he wants me.

I also know what I did and it’s hideous and I’m so ashamed it hurts to even think about it.

I try to open my eyes but they’re so heavy. All I can do is murmur.

Hugo knows. If my secret comes out it will kill me. He can hurt me all he likes but nothing can hurt as much as what I did to my Caiden. I sob with my face buried in the stone on the ground, unable to muster up the strength to move.

I feel another blow to my head and I don’t even fight. Right now, I feel as though I deserve it.

I hear a voice but it’s robotic. Trying as hard as I can, I manage to turn my face away from the stone and I catch a reflection in the side panel of a silver car just before my world goes dark once more – aquamarine.

I don’t know how much time has passed before I slowly come round.

Every part of my body screams in pain and I can’t see.

I don’t know if I’ve been out of it for ten minutes, or several hours.

Actually, I can see but there’s nothing to see except the four sides of the pitch-black box that I’m contained in.

I panic. I’ve been buried alive. I touch the side of my head and it’s sticky with what has to be blood.

Heart banging, I yell, scream, and pound on the hardwood then I remember seeing aquamarine.

I know who put me in this box. ‘Help me. Let me out, Nicole,’ I yell as I burst into tears.

Why has she done this to me? My head hurts and I can’t think straight.

It’s like my brain has been substituted for cotton wool.

I’m going to die and although I feel like I deserve it, I want to go home to Caiden and hug him hard, tell him how much I love him and how sorry I am for what I did all those years ago.

I’m never getting out of here. It hits me that I’m never going to see my son again.

My mind is telling me Hugo brought me here because I know he is capable of murder – but he didn’t.

For whatever reason, Nicole smashed my head into a rock several times and she’s put me in this box and left me here to die, and I deserve it because I left Caiden to die all those years ago.

This is my punishment. There is one thing I can’t fathom: why is Nicole doling out the punishment?