The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie

by Freida McFadden

For hiunuihikhjjjkj;’/Ljk////////////////////ffgf (Sorry, my cat walked across my keyboard so many times, I finally decided to let her write the dedication)

This book is a satire. It is not meant to be serious. If you are a fan of my books, you may enjoy this as 100+ pages of me poking gentle fun at myself and the genre of psychological thrillers in general.

IM SO CURIOUS NOW WHAT

You think you know who the killer is. It’s obvious, you say. You knew it from the first chapter. The first paragraph. The first sentence. The first letter.

There is no possible way you could know the truth. There’s no way you could ever guess that the killer is actually Steve. Wait. Oh, crap. Ugh. Well, nobody reads the prologue anyway.

Shopping for shampoo should not be a stressful endeavor.

It was definitely not my husband standing in the middle of the drugstore and watching me while I chose shampoo and browsed sunglasses. It couldn’t have been. Because my husband has been dead for two weeks.

There is, in fact, quite a lot she doesn’t know about me.

take a sip of the tea. Not surprisingly, it’s terrible. Because it’s tea.

“The Boyfriend… Is this any good?” “Oh, yes—I love it. But I’m on page two, and I’m pretty sure I already know what the twist is going to be.” I take another tentative sip of tea. “Have you ever heard of the author, Freida McFadden?” “Nope.” “She writes psychological thrillers. The kind with short chapters and lots of twists that are shocking but also kind of completely out of nowhere.”

BYE IM READ THAT RN HAHAHA I LOVE THIS

“Still nope.” She hesitates. “Oh, wait. Did she write Fifty Shades of Grey?” “Uh, no.” “Harry Potter?” “No.” “Then no, never heard of her. What else did she write?”

It’s so hard that I’m seeing Grant while I’m buying shampoo.

SHUT UP ABOUT THE SHAMPOO UH

For a split second, I could swear there is a face staring at me through that window.

I never go higher than that—I haven’t ventured even once up to the attic, which contains a single room that locks from the outside. Grant says the room is used as storage for items that belonged to his late wife, Rebertha, who lived here before me and died in a tragic accident long before we met. I don’t even have the key.

I’m pregnant.

“It’s nothing too fancy. Just some bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, fried bread…” He pauses. “And of course, a cup of tea.”

He would have trusted him even less if he’d known the truth about our houseman’s dark past.

“Anything… at all?” There’s a glint in his dark eyes that makes me shiver deliciously.

she wouldn’t actually want Willie to be her houseman. Not if she knew about his prison record.

“My name is Marnie.” She looks me straight in the eyes. “And I am Grant Lockwood’s wife.”

PAUSE?

“Grant and I… We had children together.”

Because I’m the one who killed him. And if he were still alive, he would be pissed.

I know. We seemed like the perfect couple, didn’t we? And we were the perfect couple.

I had no idea my husband was a monster.

“Alice, what color is this dress?” I put down my book and looked over his shoulder at the photograph of a short dress with stripes and ruffled sleeves. “It’s white and gold.” Grant tossed back his head and laughed. “No, it’s actually blue and black.”

IM PISSING MY PANTS

“How could you think such a thing?” He snorted. “Are you blind, Alice? It’s very clearly blue and black.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I think it looks white and gold.”

“This is unacceptable. I can’t believe I’m married to a woman who is too stupid to tell the difference between white and gold versus blue and black.”

The director of the psychiatric ward is my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former college roommate. He’ll do whatever I want him to do—trust me.”

“Alice, I had no idea. You don’t look it at all, honestly! How far along are you? Seven months? Eight months?”

“I put LED lights in every closet, but I still got pregnant. I don’t understand it.” She cocks her head to the side. “LED lights?” I nod. “I read online that if you have LEDs placed, they are over ninety-eight percent effective in preventing pregnancy.” Poppy stares at me for several beats, a confused look on her face. “Do you mean… IUDs?”

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH BYE

“He did do a terrible thing,” the detective says. “I’ve never met anyone who had over thirty overdue library books before.” I grab a tissue from the box on the table and dab at my eyes.

“Yes. He was playing in a Quidditch tournament all day up in Vermont. It was filmed. There’s no way he could have been responsible for Grant’s accident.”

What color is it? Is it blue and black, or is it gold and white?”

BYE WHY IS THE DETECTIVE ASKING TOO BAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

It’s a Roomba. With a cat riding on it.

My husband is standing before me. The one who died in a fiery car wreck only two weeks ago. And now here he is, still alive. I stare at him, the blood rushing in my ears. “Grant?” Those familiar eyes meet mine. “No,” he says. “I’m not Grant.” As much as I would love to believe that my husband didn’t somehow come back to life, there is nobody who can tell me the man standing in front of me isn’t Grant Lockwood. I was married to him, after all. I know what he looks like. And I know this is Grant. But the next words out of his mouth change everything. “I’m Brant. Grant’s identical twin.”

“She…” He squeezes his eyes shut. “She doesn’t like Nickelback. And I…” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I love them. There—I said it. Nickelback is my absolute favorite band of all time, and my own wife can’t stand them.”

I hate when a mystery book ends on a cliffhanger and you’re forced to read the second one just to find out who did it.

I hate all the same things that Brant hates. Especially pennies.

Good thing they don’t make em no mo BYE

“Poppy?” “Poppy Durden,” I say. “She lives here.” The elderly woman frowns up at me, and the next words out of her mouth chill me to the bone. “Nobody by that name lives here.”

“I got you a little present,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Slowly, I lift the cover off the box. And when I see what’s inside, my heart does a backspring followed by a split leap and then transitioning into a handspring on vault.

No. No, it couldn’t be. It’s a blue-and-black dress.

“Grant?” I manage. He arches one of his light-brown eyebrows. “How could I be Grant? Grant is dead, isn’t he? You killed him, didn’t you?”

It’s Poppy. And she’s holding a shovel.

What? I am so confused.

ME TOO?

“How come you didn’t tell me?” “I did tell you!” I might be forgetting things, but I remember our conversation. “I told you I was pregnant.” “Pregnant?” She looks down at the test in her hand and then back at my face. “Alice, this is a Covid test.”

IM PISSING MY PANTS

I sleep like the dead after burying my husband in the backyard.

Yet here he is, showering in our bathroom like nothing ever happened. It was all a dream.

Oh my God. Identical triplets.

BYE THERE IS THREE BAHAHA