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My name is Talia Kemper, and with my time running short, there are a few things I need you to know about me: First, I am currently on death row for murdering my husband. Second, my attorney has filed one last appeal, but if that is rejected, I will be executed by lethal injection in two weeks. And last, I am innocent. I didn’t kill my husband.
How could anyone think that I killed Noel? I had no motive—he was the love of my life. And most of all, I have an alibi. Yet here I am, about to be executed for his murder. And the worst part of it all is how much I miss him.
“Any interest in getting a drink after the shop closes?” he asks me. He says it in a casual way, like it’s no big deal, but there’s an eagerness on his face that’s unmistakable. “I can give you tips on how to piss in the soup.”
“Okay,” I say. “Great!” His face lights up with a grin so infectious, all I can do is smile back. “There’s only one thing you need to do first.” “What’s that?” “Wake up.” Huh? I frown at him. “What did you say?” “Wake up, Talia.”
And then I remember. I remember that I’m in a prison cell, all alone, and Noel is dead. The only place he’s still alive is in my dreams.
And on top of that, at the moment Noel was killed, I was having dinner with my friend Kinsey. She vouched for me, as did the waitstaff at the restaurant. But the prosecutor argued otherwise. It doesn’t matter if she had an alibi. She set the whole thing up. If not for this woman, Noel Kemper would still be alive.
I’m so lonely in this cell—maybe I could turn the rat into a companion. Noel and I always talked about having children, but that never ended up happening, and now it never will. But I can have a pet rat. I can even name him.
Thank God the prison has these shackles and glass to protect the rest of the world from me.
“I have an alibi,” I remind him. “I was with Kinsey.” “That’s true,” he concedes, “but the prosecutor convinced the jury that you set up the explosion to happen in advance. And the appeals judge agreed.”
I’m going to die. In less than two weeks, I will be executed by the state.
As Rhea leads me out of the room, I can just barely make out the bump on the bridge of his nose, as if it had once been broken. That man. He looks so much like . . .
I look back one last time at the man in the dark suit. He’s talking to the redheaded inmate, his attention focused on her, but then, just as Rhea is pulling me from the room, he raises his eyes to meet mine. Oh my God. It’s Noel.
“That man—the one visiting that other inmate—he’s . . .” I swallow, trying to moisten my sore throat. “I think he’s my . . .” How am I supposed to say this? I’m pretty sure that man in the visiting area is my dead husband.
I can see with my own eyes that my husband is with another woman, all alone in our backyard.
I want to reach out and strangle her with my bare hands. I want to choke her until she dies, and then bury her body in the backyard. The fact that Noel is standing right here and wouldn’t go along with it is the only thing preventing me from doing it.
I will always be faithful to you.” “You swear?” “On my life.” He takes another step closer to me. “And you know it’s true, because if I ever did cheat on you, you’d probably kill me.” I laugh at his joke, except . . . well, is it a joke?
Two days ago, I was certain that I saw Noel visiting with that other inmate. That man looked so much like my husband, even down to the broken nose. It had to be him. Except how could it be? He’s dead. Whether I killed him or not might be a matter of debate, but he is most definitely dead—nobody is arguing that point. I saw his dead body.
So the fact is, I never actually saw Noel’s body and confirmed that it was him. The police told me they used DNA to positively identify his scorched remains, but all I have to go on is what they told me. What if the DNA evidence was wrong? What if it wasn’t Noel who burned to death in that house?
“Do you want to eat?” I say in a voice that sounds like it isn’t my own. “Yes,” he says, “but first, let me jump in the shower. I feel like I’m covered in chemicals. It’ll be five minutes. I promise.” “And maybe tonight,” I add, “you and I can . . . you know . . .” He grimaces, which is the last reaction I would expect from a red-blooded male whose wife just told him he was going to get lucky tonight. “Talia, honey, I’m so beat. I . . . I’d probably fall asleep in the middle of it. Rain check?”
Noel has lost his sense of smell, but I haven’t, and I am very aware that he reeks of another woman’s perfume.
every time he came home, I sniffed him and realized he always smelled like that perfume. It’s been a week, and every single time he goes to “work,” he comes back stinking of eau de slut.
I reach under the cushions, searching for the source, and come up with a small scrap of paper. It’s a receipt. I peer at the fading print on the receipt, from a local jewelry store. The last four digits of our credit card number were used to purchase a fairly expensive necklace. Since the receipt was dated well over a week ago and there are no anniversaries or holidays coming up that he might be holding on to it for, it seems that if it were meant for me, he would have given it to me already. No, I strongly suspect the recipient of this intended gift has already received it. Maybe she’s
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Whoever this other woman is, he is clearly infatuated with her. He loves her more than he’s ever loved me—after all, he’s never bought me a necklace that costs four figures. He’s probably figuring out a way to try to leave me.
If I came into my kitchen and smelled gas the way I do now, I would know not to use the oven and possibly to call the fire department. Noel wouldn’t know, though. If I left some food on the stove for him to heat up, he would do it even if the gas odor was stifling. He would have no idea that igniting the stove would result in an explosion that would seriously injure him. It might even kill him.
Yes, Officer, I was with my friend Kinsey all evening. It was such a terrible tragedy. If only I had been home, I would have smelled the gas. I could have stopped it. Noel deserves this. I loved him with my entire heart and soul, and what did he do? He betrayed me in the worst possible way. I take out my phone and type a message to Kinsey: Let’s go out!
He hasn’t responded to my text message. He’s probably running late as usual. He’ll probably saunter in at around eight, and the first thing he’ll do is shower off the smell of her perfume, but after that, he’ll go right for the stove because having sex with his mistress works up an appetite, I’m sure. I’ll have to stay out until at least nine o’clock. Or until the police call me to tell me what’s happened.
“My name is Lisbeth Sharp. We haven’t met before, but I recently came aboard the project that your husband is working on. I’ve been a chemist for forty years, so I was hoping to lend my expertise.” “Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry . . . he hasn’t mentioned you.” She laughs and waves a hand. “Maybe not, but he talks about you all the time. He’s always so anxious to get out of the lab to get home to you. I recognized you right away from the photo he keeps tacked in his workspace.” As the woman babbles on about their project, I become aware of something that is making my stomach sink. She reeks of the
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“I’m sorry, Kinsey.” I shove my phone back into my purse and practically leap out of my seat. “I have to go.” My friend is calling my name, but I ignore her. I’ve got to get home before my husband does. If I don’t, Noel is going to die, and it will be all my fault.
And yes, I am 100 percent sure that this man is my husband. He says his name is Father Richard Decker, but now that I am sitting across from him, even with a pane of glass separating us, it is clear to me who he is. He has the same face, the same bump on his nose from when he broke it during an illegal tackle in peewee football, and most of all, he has the same eyes. When you look into the eyes of the love of your life, you know it.
His voice throws me. That’s not Noel’s voice. It’s deeper, almost like the voice of an older man in his fifties or sixties. But then again, Noel was always good at faking it. That’s how he managed to get our wedding at the Vineyard—by pretending to be Albert Swecker.
Nothing I have said has swayed him, but then something changes in his eyes. He leans forward, and his gaze locks with mine. “I love you so much, Talia,” he says in a voice that now sounds like his own. “I . . .”
He knows what I tried to do to him, and this is my punishment.
“That was my husband!” I tell Rhea as she helps me to my feet. “He admitted it! He’s still alive!” “Uh-huh . . .” “It’s him,” I insist. “I told everyone that I didn’t kill him. He’s still alive! He’s pretending to be a chaplain.”
Noel has fooled everybody into thinking he is dead, and if nothing happens in the next twenty-four hours, I will be the one who is dead.
As I wait in my cell, all I can think about is the chaplain I met with yesterday. It was Noel. He all but admitted it. He knows that I am going to be put to death today, and he did nothing to stop it. He’s going to let me die as a punishment for what I did.
“I didn’t do it.” My voice slurs on the words. “I didn’t kill my husband. I’m innocent.” Albert is quiet for a moment, his fingers frozen on the syringe that will paralyze my muscles. He exchanges looks with Rhea and then lets out a deep sigh. “Yes,” he says, “we know.” What?
I can’t believe I thought he would cheat on me. He has been nothing but faithful the whole time we’ve been together—nearly ten years now. He loves me. And now there’s a chance he could be dead, and it would be entirely my fault.
“Noel!” I cry. “Are you okay? I was so worried!” “I’m fine,” he says, sounding absolutely and completely fine. “I turned off my phone when I was at work, and I just got all your messages.” “Don’t turn on the stove!” “I won’t!” He laughs. “Actually, I stopped off to get fast food on the way back. I didn’t feel like spaghetti and meatballs, so there was no reason to turn on the stove. But I called the fire department, and they’re going to check things out.” So that’s why the fire truck was headed to my house. Thank God.
“And when you get home,” he adds, “I’ve got something for you that I’ll give you as soon as we can get back into the house. I spent a little too much on a necklace for you, but I never buy you jewelry, and I want to show you how much you mean to me. I hope you’re not mad that I spent so much.” The necklace was for me. Of course it was.
But my eyes are so blurry from crying that I don’t notice the stop sign partially concealed by an overgrown tree, and before I can get out the words to tell him I’ll be home soon, a Mack truck going much too fast slams into my car. For a split second, I hear crunching metal and shattering glass, and then everything goes black.
We’re doing the right thing,” a male voice is saying. “I know it’s hard, but like I’ve said, you have to know when to let go.”
The beeping has also become much louder. It always sounded distant when I heard it in the past, but now it feels like the source is right in the room with me. Directly above my head.
“It’s only been a month. She . . . she still might wake up. It’s possible, isn’t it, Dr. Bowman?” “I’m sorry, but the chances are remote.” It’s the voice of my lawyer again, Clarence Bowman, but why did Noel call him Dr. Bowman? “She hasn’t made any attempts to breathe on her own since the accident. The scans show her brain is more blood than brain. At this point, I would say there’s no hope of her ever waking up.”
“You can’t do this.” It’s Noel again, his voice choked up. “You’ve got to give her more time . . .” “I’m sorry.” Bowman—Dr. Bowman—sounds genuinely sad. “Your wife has an advanced directive, though. She didn’t want to be kept alive this way, and we have to honor her wishes. We’ve waited as long as we can. We even had Father Decker come in yesterday to give her last rites.”
