For Your Love (13 page)

She truly missed him. Her internal world seemed chilly without the warmth of his smile. She loved how his green eyes glittered with delight whenever he laughed. With him, she could be herself, say or do anything. She’d often read her first drafts to him and knew he cared enough to listen. He’d always give her honest feedback. Often as she read, she’d watch the delight on his face as her words touched him. Martin, on the other hand, merely gave her lip-service and she ceased to concern him with her work early on in their marriage. Richard could make doing the most routine task fun. He was clever and spontaneous. She always enjoyed just being with him most of all. Then there was that something else.

Richard made her feel like a woman and like being a woman. When they touched—even innocently— that touch stirred up feelings and needs. She had wanted Martin to fill those needs, but she wasn’t sure of his love, any longer. Whatever feelings she had for Richard, their relationship should remain platonic. She was still Martin’s wife.

And yet, she never forgot how Richard’s kiss tasted or what it did to her. Nor did she want to. If Richard were to suddenly vanish from her life, he would take all the richness and color from her world.

Carla made a resolution to herself. If she didn’t see or hear from Richard soon, she’d make it her business to at least give him a call. After all, she thought wryly, what would she do if she locked her keys in the car again?

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Heather rolled off Martin and left him gasping for breath.

“That was un…be…live…able,” he croaked.

“Yes, it was, wasn’t?” Heather said in a faraway voice. A beat later, she let out a sob and covered her face with her hands.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Martin asked as he drew her into his arms.

“Nothing—everything! I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry about? You didn’t tell Orson about us,” he said as he brushed her blonde hair away from her face and tenderly kissed her forehead.

“No, it’s not about that.”

“What is it then?”

“Don’t you see?”

“Heather, what are you talking about? Stop with the riddles and just come out with it.”

“
This
is not what I want,” she said, making a sweeping arc with her hand around her.

Martin cocked his head to one side as if getting a better angle would help him understand.

“Seeing you for these moments are wonderful—don’t get me wrong—but…”

Martin’s heart plummeted. Was Heather dumping him? Even though he’d toyed with the idea of ending his relationship with her, the fact that she might be taking the upper hand and pulling the plug on them upset him. No woman has ever dumped Martin Millhouse. Anger began to rise within him when she fiercely threw her arms about his neck.

“Can’t you see it just isn’t enough? I want more—no I need more!”

Martin realized he’d jumped to conclusions and had gotten bent out of shape for nothing.

He blew out his breath along with those erroneous crazy thoughts. So where was Heather heading with such talk?

“Your beautiful, ocean blue eyes are the last thing I’d like to see at night and I want to wake up every morning next to your lean, hard body. Instead, I see dreary, watery blue eyes that belong to a colorless, sagging, overweight, balding man who turns my stomach when he reaches for me. Hell, his man-boobs are nearly as large as mine.”

She sounded pitiful. Yet, what could he say? They both had entered into this relationship freely, knowing he had no intention of ever divorcing his wife. He didn’t see that ever happening and wondered why she was suddenly acting this way. He was content with their arrangement and saw no reason to change it. Then he reminded himself why they’d met today. Orson knew of their trysts.
So she
thought
, he added. There was a chance she was wrong. That would explain why Orson hadn’t come at him with an axe—both literally and figuratively.

“I’d love for that to happen, too,” Martin said without thinking and cowardly leaving off the
but
.

“Really? Do you honestly mean that, Martin?” she asked stroking his face with her fingertips.

“You know I do,” he said, reaching for one of her breasts. He was never one to let an opportunity pass him by. “Divorce the man if you’re so unhappy.”

Martin half-expected her to ask if he’d be willing to divorce Carla, but Heather wasn’t on that page yet.

“Are you crazy?” her entire demeanor changed rapidly.

He saw her brow furrow. She was angry. To lighten the moment he replied, “No one has ever called me
that
.”

Through clenched teeth, she reminded him, “Have you forgotten the prenup I signed? If I leave Orson, I get next to zip. What would we live on?”

“Whoa, who said we’d be moving in together?” He had to nip this in the bud.

“Well, how else is it done?”

“I don’t think I can divorce Carla.”

“If you don’t love me enough, we could end it all here,” Heather challenged him.

“You know I don’t want that, but aren’t you overreacting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” Martin said, raking his hand through his hair, “you’re not even certain Orson knows—”

She started to interrupt, but he said, “Let me finish.”

Heather slipped from his grasp and leaned against the headrest, crossing her arms over her magnificent chest, her blue eyes as hot and focused as lasers.

“Whether or not he knows, we should lie low to throw him off our scent. You did great when the PI was following you. When it’s safe we can meet like before,” Martin continued.

“That’s my point,” Heather remarked.

“Point? What point?” Martin was confused. Had she made a point?

“We’d have to wait to be together.”

“But, it’s not possible now—especially if divorce isn’t an option.” He hoped she didn’t press him further on divorcing Carla.

Her lips curled. “There’s another option, baby,” she purred as she slowly ran a perfectly manicured finger down the side of his body creating goose bumps in its wake.

“What are you hinting at, Heather?” he asked, not really wanting to know.

“We can separate the fool from his money and me—permanently.”

“As in
dead
permanent?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You’re kidding, right?’ Martin said with a nervous giggle.

“I’m
dead
serious.”

Martin’s face blanched. “You can’t possibly be contemplating taking Orson’s life. It’s…it’s murder!”

“No, shit, Sherlock. Nothing gets past you.”

Martin began to stutter. “An affair is one thing, b-but to m-murder your husband, who also happens to be my boss, is something I didn’t sign on for.”

“Instead, of having all this,” she said, puffing out her chest and running her hands suggestively down the sides of her tight body as if to make a comparison, “you’d rather remain with that wimpy sow you’re married to.”

“First of all, Carla is looking rather good, lately, and secondly, I’m not going to pay such an exorbitant price in order to have you.”

Heather’s face darkened like a storm cloud. She began to strike at Martin with her fists, but he caught both her wrists. Struggling against him, she shouted, “You candy-ass wuss!”

“Calm down, before you get hurt.”

“Like you might hit me, or something,” she taunted him.

His mouth crushed hers. Seeing Heather like that turned Martin on and he pushed her down under him. Being the sensual woman that she was, a moment later Heather stopped struggling and began to move rhythmically with him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Heather remained in the bed after Martin got up to dress. After they’d made love the second time, she had lied to Martin by telling him how her previous conversation was all just wishful thinking on her part. They’d have to be content with the status quo for now. Martin seemed to buy the bull she was slinging and now as she watched him dress, she thought about what she’d do next. After his refusal to help her plan and execute Orson’s demise, she wanted to send him packing with a one-way ticket, but knew it was wrong to burn her bridges. Now that he was aware of her desire to kill her husband, it was best to keep him an ally, especially if Orson turned up dead. She didn’t want him pointing the finger at her and she might still need his help in some indirect capacity.

As for getting rid of Orson, she knew there were several other options. A voracious reader of true crime and forensic science, she’d squirreled away enough information, which would now prove helpful. Martin had scoffed at her reading tastes. According to him, a sensuous woman like her should immerse herself in romance novels. She’d never read one in her entire life and doubted she ever would. The lives of the characters depicted in them were so removed from reality, it made her laugh. There was no such thing as ‘happy ever after’. Living in the
real
world, one constantly had to be on guard for all the rainy days. And as sure as they would come, there was no escaping them.

She could hire someone to do the nasty deed for her. There were people out there who were nothing more than murderers for hire. These hit men were professionals who did their job well and thanks to her mother’s sometimes unsavory choice in men, she knew where to look to find one. But, being honest with herself, she knew involving a third party was always risky. It was a chain. The more links you had, the more places there were for it to break. Besides, she had this trust issue. She learned early in life to trust no one but herself. Also, there would be less screw-ups if she took care of the matter herself. She realized as soon as she mentioned her intentions to Martin it had been a mistake. What was she thinking? The man was spineless, useful only as a boy toy, nothing else.

“Call me,” Martin said as he bent to kiss her mouth.

“And if Orson says anything to me, I’ll let you know.”

Heather watched him leave and padded toward the bathroom naked. She passed a mirror and paused a moment to study her body. There were angry red patches on her neck and chest remaining from their love making, but for the most part she gloried in her body’s beauty. It had served her well and would continue to do so, but for how much longer? That’s what worried her the most. She wanted to have a nice nest egg tucked away by that time. She would not follow in her mother’s footsteps and die a lonely, embittered woman who didn’t even possess enough money to pay for her own funeral.

Turning on the shower tap, she reached in and tested the water with her hand. When it was hot enough, she stepped under it and let the heat permeate her body. As she began to soap her chest, she focused her thoughts on how she might kill Orson. Whatever she planned, it had to be flawless. There would be no point in getting rid of Orson if she had to spend the rest of her life behind bars or, God forbid, was executed. She began to think through all the possible modus operandi or methods. Shooting him popped into her head first. Aside from being messy, she had an aversion to guns. She knew her husband kept a handgun in the drawer of his night table in case of an intruder, but for her to use it would remain as a last resort. Just thinking about firing a gun gave her the willies.

One of the men her mother was seeing happened to be a step up from being classified as a dirtbag—bad-tempered with a hair-trigger fuse. One night her mother, Estelle, hadn’t felt well and refused to accompany him to the pool hall. The man became so angry that he pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and shoved the barrel in her face. Spittle flew from his mouth as he threatened to shoot her right in front of Heather.

Estelle had been so frightened that she lost control of her bladder and peed herself. The man, whose sharp beaklike nose and beady, black eyes reminding her of a rat, laughed and ridiculed her for it.

The fear and embarrassment on her mother’s face were forever engraved in the back of Heather’s mind. She hated the man for what he had done to her mother, wanting to scratch his eyes out and rip his smile off his ugly, pock-marked face. He fortunately didn’t hang around to bully her mother too much longer and never returned. However, the incident was forever burned into the recesses of Heather’s memory giving her an aversion for guns.

Trying to make Orson’s death look like a suicide was out. Orson would no sooner take his life than dose himself with medication. No one would believe it. There was no reason for him to be depressed. He had a trophy wife, a thriving business and had been actively seeking a good location to open a new dealership. Her mind moved on to the next viable option.

She could wait for him to come home and then hit him over the head as he walked through the door. It would certainly stop him
dead
in his tracks. That idiot idea made her giggle. The logistics, themselves, made such an idea inconceivable. She was shorter than him by nearly five inches and would have to stand on a stepstool in order to have enough force behind her wallop. She mentally scribbled a line through that idea.

Heather dropped the soap and bent down to retrieve it as she recalled an article she’d recently read about a woman who was electrocuted when she came in contact with a high tension wire that had fallen on her car during a hurricane. Had the idiot not gotten out of the car to investigate, she’d be alive today. Curiosity
does
kill, Heather mused.

She’d gleaned some useful facts from the story, namely that more than a thousand deaths every year result from household-related electrocutions. People were literally shocking themselves to death. Could that work? If she remembered correctly, when an individual got zapped, his heart muscle would begin to quiver and cut off any efficient pumping action. And if no life-saving-methods like CPR or electric defibrillation was used to restore the circulation, the individual would be dead in minutes.

Soaping one long, slender leg, Heather imagined electrocuting Orson. All she had to do was get him to join her in an erotic bubble bath. She’d place candles around the bathtub for effect and play some nice mood music on a portable radio plugged into the wall. After a few minutes, she’d make the excuse of getting the champagne she had chilling in the fridge and get out of the tub. That’s when she’d knock the radio into the water and fry the sucker.

The thought of transforming Orson into a crispy critter made her giggle again. Actually, that’s not what would really happen. He’d die from cardiac arrhythmia because she wouldn’t give him CPR. The only drawback to this method was the telltale wound pattern that appeared at the entrance site on all victims of electrical accidents. It would be too tempting for a prosecutor to make a circumstantial case about the scheming trophy wife who wanted out of the marriage, but was hampered from asking for a divorce because of a prenuptial agreement.

She reminded herself that Orson’s death had to be such that no suspicion would fall on her. Therefore to avoid any finger-pointing, she knew she had to take the time to be careful. Rushing into this project would surely get her caught and she’d lose the prize: all that lovely money and Salvatore as a bonus.

Heather pushed aside the shower curtain and grabbed a bath towel from the rack. Something else occurred to her as she stepped from the tub. Recalling the anthrax scare and how people had become ill from merely inhaling the spores gave her pause. If she were able to bring Orson in contact with an agent like anthrax, he’d surely die. It probably wouldn’t be instant, but from neglect. He hated doctors, and as sick as he would be, Orson would most likely think it was a bad cold or flu and refuse to go see one. There was an inherent problem with this idea, namely, anthrax wasn’t easily obtained and too dangerous to handle. However, she felt she was on the right track.

Heather liked the idea of finding a poison that would cause heart failure. It had to be one that was unusual and yet able to be ingested anywhere. Obviously, if she cooked him dinner and he died right after, the authorities would look at her cross-eyed. Then again, like peanuts, it could be a common food item that triggered allergic reactions in some people. The woman who had lived in the trailer next door to hers had been allergic to peanuts. She’d accidentally eaten a cake that had been prepared with them. Almost instantly, the woman began to choke. As a small child, Heather hadn’t understood what was happening to her. She watched as the woman’s face and throat swelled, closing off her airways until she lost consciousness. She never awoke. It all happened so quickly. One minute she was alive and laughing and the next she was dead.

As far as she knew, Orson didn’t have any useful allergies, but the idea of his ingesting an agent of some kind to cause cardiac arrest appeared to be the best way to kill him. Of course the substance had to be something easily obtained and not traceable—at least back to her. She wanted to spend her future sunning herself alongside Salvatore on the Mediterranean and not as some dyke’s bitch rotting away in a prison cell. That’s when Heather realized killing Orson was out of her realm.

What did she know about killing a person? All this fantasizing was okay, but that’s all it was. She was an adulterer—not a murderer. She needed a professional.

As she finished drying, the memory of Salvatore emerging nude, his magnificent cock standing proudly to attention, from the water on a secluded beach flashed before her eyes and gave her added purpose.