“You won’t get away with this.”

God, I wish I could be there when the police finally charge him with murder and kidnapping and assault. “When this is done, Chris darling, you will never see daylight again. I’ll make damn sure of it.” I tap three nines into his phone.

“Meggie, please.” He’s turned from arrogant dick to pleading husband, the change almost impressive. “I love you, don’t do this.”

“Megan is dead, Chris. You killed her. With your sick and twisted lies and cheating. And now you’re going to pay for it.” I tap the green phone icon and the call goes through.

“Please help me!” I half screech into the phone before they even ask which service I require. “He’s trying to kill me… like I think he killed her… help me… I’m in a garage on Green Avenue, just off Harvey Road. I don’t know the number, but it has a red door.” I let out a blood-curdling scream and slap myself around the face, hard enough to leave a red mark. Hanging up, I turn to Chris. “That’ll bring them running.”

“You bitch,” he whispers as I swing the wrench at his head once more.

There are a few moments, waiting for the police, when I’m a bit concerned I might have swung a little too hard that second time. I can’t see his chest rising and falling.

But then blue light pulses under the door of the garage and things go crazy. I have wrapped myself in a blanket and tucked myself into the corner far away from his prone body, pulling out individual strands of my hair to make my eyes water and my nose run, and someone comes over and wraps me in one of those space blankets that runners or people who get lost and stranded up mountains use. You’d think it would make a crinkly noise like tinfoil, but it’s almost soft, like fabric. A paramedic leads me out to the ambulance waiting to whisk me away. I can see faces pressed against their windows, residents wondering what on earth is happening on this sleepy suburban street. I cover my face in a way that a victim would, pulling the space blanket tighter around me.

Another paramedic runs to Chris. Please let him be alive.

“Is he…” I ask the police officer who is now sitting beside me inside the ambulance.

“You lamped him pretty hard.” There is pride in her tone. “But not hard enough.”

Relief. He’ll live to face his punishment.

“At first, he told me he would kill Megan if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

“What did he want?” The detective is sweet and soft-voiced. She has brought tea and biscuits to the discreet hospital wing in which a doctor has assessed the—not very euphemistically described—damage I received at the hands of Chris.

“Money. At the beginning it was all about the money. I… I… well, I’m kind of well off.” There is an apology there, a recognition that I brought this on myself by being successful. Much better than have her resent me. “But then… well… something changed, and he started to talk to me as if I was Megan. I don’t know what happened. He drugged me and took me to that… that place… then he chained me up and…” A primal noise escapes from deep in my throat. I almost scare myself with the force of it.