Chapter 1
I forgot about plans… That’s it… Or maybe it’s a surprise date tomorrow… I mean he has been especially thoughtful and romantic lately… No… Our marriage is fine… Those thoughts are racing through my mind as I sit in the most important meeting in my life. An emergency budget meeting. I sat next to my father, trying to focus on what the accounting department head had to say. He wouldn’t cheat on me…Although he has been working late so much lately… No, he loves me as much as I love him. However, the text that started the white lies I began telling myself kept running through my mind. Darling, wear something red tomorrow night. He normally hates me in red…
I shake my head trying to dislodge all of these thoughts. To hide from my father’s questioning look, I put my head down and started reading all of the points that we were supposed to touch on during this meeting. An overdrawn spending account caught my eye. It looked almost like it was mine. I knew all of my cards and account numbers’ last four digits by heart. That’s what makes me so good at my job because I am a stickler for details. Although, I never used my account. I left my card at home in our safe. Where only Jameson and I had access to it… I raised my hand to get the speaker’s attention, hoping to get this straightened out at once. “Yes, Mr. McCarthy-Allen?”
“I saw on the report that you noticed irregularities in a spending account. I would like to bring that up for discussion immediately.”
The accountant, Mark… Mike… no, Matthew was his name, I should have remembered that, shifted back and forth, uncomfortably. “Mr. McCarthy-Allen, I was hoping to speak about that with you privately.” That didn’t sound good, although maybe that just means that my card was stolen and they bought dirty sex tapes and dildos. Wouldn’t that just be a laugh, Jameson had been too busy to make love lately. Well, at least someone was getting lucky.
“I would rather have it out in the open now if it is what I think it is.” I ran my hand through the blonde strands of my hair. My body tensed with what I dreaded to hear. That it was mine. That my card had gotten stolen or perhaps just used by someone close to me. That thought shocked me more than anything. I never had doubt creep into my mind when it came to Jameson before. He had been acting strange lately though.
A knock interrupted before he had a chance to speak. My father’s assistant, Becca, stuck her head through the door. “Mr. McCarthy, some… people out here need to speak to you and your son urgently.”
I knew something was especially wrong since she would not look in our direction. Was somebody hurt? The thought of my mother, Jameson, or my younger siblings being hurt made me stand up without thought. I barely noticed the sound of my chair hitting the floor over the panic thoughts in my head. I rushed out of the boardroom with my father calmly following on my heels. How could he be calm in a moment like this!!! The thought of legal actions from the spending account never crossed my mind. I could care less about myself at the moment when my mother, husband, or siblings could be hurt.
Becca led us to my father’s office, where two detectives were standing. The taller male spoke first. “Hello, I am Detective Baxter, and this is my partner, Detective Edwards.” When he didn’t try to shake our hands, I knew that this was bad. It wasn’t just some issue from outside the family or office. It was about us.
My father laid a calming hand on my forearm, which I took as a sign to quiet myself. “How can we help you fine gentlemen today,” my father’s warm voice, lent me more calm than his hand on my arm did. It gave me feelings of comfort and that everything would be alright. That was the voice of the man who didn’t let anything hurt me and checked under my bed for monsters when I was a child. It made me believe that I was overreacting.
Detective Edwards shifted and his hazel eyes bore into mine. “Mr. McCarthy-Allen, I am sorry to tell you that your husband was murdered.”
That was the last thing I remembered before I hit the ground…
I woke up on the couch my father kept in his office where both he and the two officers were staring at me in concern.
“Becca,” my father’s voice bellowed. “Can we get some water in here, please?”
“Right away,” her quiet voice called back. One thing I can say about Becca is that she was efficient. Within moments, she was calmly but purposely striding into the room with a bottle of water and a glass. She acted like this was normal. Like there wasn’t cops in the room… Like my world hadn’t just imploded… Like my husband wasn’t murdered… Murdered, it felt good to think that word, it made it seem more real…
I sat up and took a sip out of the glass my father handed me. “How,” I croaked out. I didn’t want to hear the details but I had to know them. For once, I didn’t want the details.
Detective Edwards shifted into my line of sight, which made me focus as he spoke. “His throat was slit in his one of houses, with one of his other husbands and two children.” He looked uncomfortable as he said that.
That made me look up and laugh, “Then that is not my husband, all of the assets are in my name including the house.”
Detective Edwards cleared his throat, “No, it was your husband. We got your information from one of his phones. Did you know that he was cheating on you?”
“No, he wasn’t cheating on me. My husband loved me.”
“There hasn’t been anything that would make you question his loyalty lately,” Detective Baxter asked.
“Well, I did receive a text this morning that didn’t make sense but that doesn’t prove that he was cheating on me.”
Detective Edwards pulls out a stack of pictures, “Do you recognize anybody in these pictures?”
I take them and after the third or fourth picture, I begin to laugh hysterically. All of the ten pictures are men I recognize. I toss them on the table as I name who they are. “This is the father to the kids he mentors. This is his tennis coach. This is his brother’s best friend. Oh, and this is his coworker. This man is in his fantasy football league. His old frat brother. Ummm his assistant. His attorney. Oh, and this is the guy who’s father he helps. His friend from the soup kitchen. So yes, I know all of them.”
“These men were all murdered in the last two days, the same way your husband was. All with romantic ties to your husband for over three years.”
“ROMANTIC?!” I feel like my already twisted world has just imploded. Ten other men who had been sharing his bed.
“You said this man is his coworker,” Detective Baxter said, lifting the picture of a young red-headed man with blue eyes.
“Yes.”
“When had you last seen this man?”
I shrugged my shoulders, “I saw him drop Jameson off at the country club to meet me for lunch on Friday. Jameson said his car wouldn’t start and he thought the new guy was trying to suck up to the big boss. Why?”
Both of the officers shared a look, and Detective Edwards spoke. “Did you know that your husband got fired three years ago and hasn’t worked since?”
I looked at him, “No, but that explains so much now,” I thought back to my corporate card with the overdrawn limit. “I leave my corporate card locked in a safe at home because I don’t use it. We were just in a meeting about how my corporate card is overspent.” I looked down at the faces of these men who I knew only lies about and said, “He was cheating on me… We have only been together for three and a half years. We haven’t even hit our second year of marriage yet.” He was married to someone else, they had kids together. He hadn’t wanted kids with me… I look at my father, lost and confused. How was I going to bounce back from this?
My father took this as a hint that the officers should leave so I could have a breakdown before pulling myself back together enough to finish the meeting. “Is that all gentlemen? I think my son needs some time to come to terms with this startling discovery,” he said with his hand placed on my forearm once again.
“Of course,” Detective Baxter said. “We just ask that you don’t leave town. Also, if you would like police protection as we don’t know who else is ‘married’ or in a relationship with your husband.”
I nodded my head, “No, I will be fine. I can afford my security. I don’t want to take away police resources. Is it possible that I could get the names of the others’ family members? I would like to help with any of the funerals.”
The detectives looked at each other and Detective Edwards spoke, “If you wish but it would be no problem. We will talk to them and pass your information on to them.”
One other thing popped into my mind, “How can it be possible to be married to a bunch of people at one time?”
“Legally, you can’t be but if you go to a country where it is legal there and you don’t submit the paperwork when you get back to the United States. It can’t be recorded so it wouldn’t stop you from getting married here as well. They do have valid marriage licenses at their homes though so technically we do have to acknowledge that they were married just not in the United States.”
I nod, understanding, that more of his actions make sense now.
“We are sorry for your loss and if there is any other information you can think of please let us know.” My father took their card because I was in such shock that I couldn’t do much more than just stare at the carpet.
My father escorted them out of his office and to the elevator, just as I knew he would do it with anyone else. It gave me time to get my thoughts together so that when he came back, he could tell me what to do.
