Death Row (Alibis Collection, #1)

by Freida McFadden

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.

It’s entirely possible that being on death row is worse than death.

The worst part about death row is the seclusion. Prisoners on death row are kept isolated from the rest of the prisoners. We get a single cell, and we don’t eat in the dining hall with all the rest of the prisoners. When we go out in the prison yard, it’s always alone with a guard.

I’d have to stand on my bed in order to see outside, although there’s not much of a view, which Noel always says is the most important thing about picking a place to live. That was what he used to say, at least, before he was murdered.

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.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I have a feeling that the Vineyard is going to get an unexpected cancellation for June first . . .” I hold up my phone, where the website with the Vineyard’s phone number is on the screen. I am not above playing dirty to get my dream wedding location. Noel’s mouth drops out. “Hang on . . .” “What?” “Are you . . .” He squints at me. “Are you saying that you’re going to call the Vineyard and pretend to be Marie Machudo to cancel their reservation?” “Uh, yes.” “Seriously?” “Well, it’s your fault,”

“You screwed up and didn’t make the reservation.” “So you’re going to lie to fix it?” “Maybe I am.” I lift my chin, meeting his eyes. “Is that really so wrong?” “Lying is objectively wrong, yeah.” “Well, I don’t care then.”

“I’m not going to let you do this.” “Why not?” “Because”—he looks me straight in the eyes—“you are an absolutely horrendous actor. You will blow our cover in like five seconds.” “I won’t . . .” “You will,” he insists. “Let me call. I’ll be Albert. I’m a much better liar than you are.”

I could look at that smile all day long. Except . . . I suddenly get an uneasy feeling in my chest as my world goes on tilt. Something about this interaction feels “off,” although it’s hard to explain how. It’s almost like . . . it’s not really happening. Like I’m replaying a reel in my brain, and if I reached out to touch Noel, he’d disappear into thin air.

“Hi,” I say. “Hello, Talia.” “So?” My voice wavers on the syllable. “What’s the verdict?” “The appeal was denied.” He pauses. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t understand.” My eyes fill with tears, and at this moment, I would give absolutely anything to have my husband here to hold me and comfort me. “I would never have killed Noel. How could anyone think I would do that?”

“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.”

Bowman considers my request for only a moment. “We can try if you want, Talia. But at this point, I would say there’s no hope.” He pauses meaningfully. “Sometimes it’s better to let go than to drag it out.” Drag it out? The man is talking about my life, for God’s sake!

“What would you like me to do, Talia?” Bowman asks me. “You can stop.” My voice is choked as I speak into the red phone. “No more appeals.” “You’re doing the right thing,” my lawyer says in a gentle voice. “I’ve seen this many times before, and you have to know when to let go.”

I’m going to die. In less than two weeks, I will be executed by the state.

I start to turn away, but just before I do, something catches my eye. It’s a man on the other side of the glass, speaking to another inmate.

He’s wearing a dark suit—a black jacket paired with a black dress shirt. His dark hair is neatly combed, and his face is clean shaven. 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. Yes, I recognize how that would sound. Rhea sighs heavily. “Spit it out or start moving.” “He looked like my husband.” That gives her a moment of pause. Her somewhat scruffy eyebrows inch upward. “Your husband that you murdered?” “No,” I say quickly. “I . . . I mean, yes, that husband. But I didn’t murder him.” She smirks at my assertion. “He looks a lot like Noel.” I shuffle my shackled feet. “A lot like Noel.”

This is the first party Noel and I have thrown in close to a year. After he finished his postdoc, he got a job at a pharmaceutical company,

“Noel wants to start trying soon . . . he talks about it way too much. But he barely makes it home for dinner more than a couple of times a week. I don’t want to be a single parent.”

“Excuse me,” I say to Kinsey. “I need to find Noel.” My friend shoots me a concerned look,

The entire yard is lit only by the small bulb mounted over the back door, which makes it hard to see much. If I’d looked quickly, I might have missed Noel at the far end of the yard, standing just a little bit too close to a woman I don’t recognize. What the hell is going on here?

Once again, I get that feeling of vertigo, where my world goes on tilt. This isn’t real, a voice in the back of my head insists.

“Noel here keeps trying to convince me that the police are going to come soon to break up the party.” Arielle smacks my husband playfully in the arm. “You are so bad.”

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.

that I turn to Noel and realize he’s gawking at me. “What the hell was that, Talia?” He thinks that I overreacted, although he didn’t seem to notice the way she was looking at him. She wanted him. She was ready to pounce, and she would’ve done it if I hadn’t interrupted them. Or maybe he did notice. And he liked it.

Oh. I guess Chet isn’t a made-up person. “She was flirting with you. And the two of you were alone together out here.” “So?”

“I’d never cheat on you, Talia. You know that.”

“I love you, Talia.” His brows knit together. “You’re the most important person in the world to me, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I will always be faithful to you.”

“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.”

Maybe he did cheat and that’s what happened?????

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. The only place he is still alive is in my dreams, but that was no dream.

After the explosion, I saw the paramedics wheeling Noel’s body out of our incinerated home. But of course, there was a sheet covering him, from head to toe. They wouldn’t let me look—the...

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?

If it wasn’t Noel who died that night...

Noel is late getting home again.

And maybe we can get pregnant on the dream vacation. I couldn’t have imagined it five or six years ago, but I’m finally ready to start a family. If Noel would only cut back his hours a little, he’d be a great dad. A baby might be the motivation he needs to spend more time with his family.

“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?” I nod slowly. “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.

CHEATER!!!!!

I’ve been dreaming about Noel every night recently, but this is the first dream I’ve had that took place after I found out that he . . . well, you know.

“I just wanted to tell you,” Rhea says in a whisper, like she doesn’t want the other guards to hear her, “I looked into that man you were interested in. Found out who he is.”

I am suddenly wide awake. I forget all about my sweat-soaked clothes and the rat that is almost certainly scurrying around my cell. “Who is he?” “He’s a chaplain,” she says. “His name is Richard Decker. Father Decker.”

A chaplain? I suppose that makes sense, especially given the way he was dressed. But it also doesn’t make any sense at all. He looked so much like Noel. The fact that he’s a chaplain might explain why he was in the prison the other day, but it doesn’t explain the similarit...

Death watch. When there are three days left before my execution, I will be moved to death watch in preparation for the final event. It is not something I am looking forward to.

I want to look that man in the eyes. When I do, I will know exactly who he is.

How could I have been so stupid? I’ve wanted so desperately to trust Noel that I’ve missed every blatantly obvious sign that he’s been cheating on me. The perfume, for one. After I smelled

he always smelled like that perfume.