The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

The woman clicks around a keyboard for a few seconds. “Hmm. Sorry, but I’m not finding a reservation for Mr. Griffith.”

No reservation

She hesitates only a second or two, but long enough that bile builds in my throat. “I’m very sorry, ma’am, but there’s no conference by that name at this hotel.”

No conference

“Because you’re supposed to be on an all-inclusive, baby-making vacation to the Mayan Riviera. Will showed me pictures of the resort, and it looks ama—” She swallows the rest of the word, then sucks in a breath. “Oh, God. Iris, I must be confused. I’m sure I got the weeks mixed up.”

Will has made up a fake vacation for Iris and himself.

“Oh, Iris…” she says, and the room spins. “I’m so sorry, but here it is. Flight 23, leaving Atlanta this morning at 8:55 a.m., headed to Seattle and returning on… Huh. Looks like he booked a one-way.”

“Okay, just give me a second or two… It’s loading now… Wait, that’s so weird, he’s here, too. Flight 2069 to Orlando, leaving today at 9:00 a.m., returning Friday at 8:00 p.m. Why would he book two tickets in opposite directions?”

Will booked two flights

There’s a long, long pause, and I clasp the phone so tightly my fingers ache. “I’m sorry,” she says after an eternity, her voice barely above a whisper, “but your husband never checked in for Flight 2069.”

Why would someone make two flight reservations on the same day?

Will lied. He fucking lied. No, he didn’t just lie, he lied and then backed up his lie with a fake conference, one he corroborated with more lies and a fake full-color flyer that’s a masterpiece of desktop publishing. Fury fires in my throat and grips me by the guts and overshadows every other thought. How could Will do such a thing? Why would he go to all that trouble? I am shaking so hard my bones vibrate, mostly because now there’s no reason for him to have been on a plane to Orlando.

Good summary

How well do I know my husband?

Good question

find it on page seven: two new life insurance policies Will purchased earlier this year. Together with the one he already had, the payout adds up to a grand total of—I have to look twice to be sure—two and a half million dollars?

What did Will know that he didn't tell his wife?

I’m already nodding, already murmuring my thanks for his kind words, when the last ones register. “What do you mean, see him go?” “To the new job. What’s the company’s name again? EPM? TPM? Something like that. I assume that’s why he was on a plane to Seattle, to finalize the contract, no?”

So Will had a new career in Seattle!

I stare at the Google page, search results for Hancock High School. At the very top, on the very first line of the first listing, is a street address. A chill starts in my chest and creeps down my arms and legs like the start of the flu. 600 Twenty-Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington.

The plot thickens

Dave and I spend the rest of the drive bickering about what Shefali’s words mean. “Why would Will lie?” Dave says for what must be the fifth time. “Why would he tell Corban about a job he didn’t even apply for? One that didn’t even exist?”

Why would he?

“Okay,” he says, but in a way that tells me he’s not totally convinced. He takes off his cap, rubs a palm over his tight curls and sets it back. “Like I was saying, nobody at home was disciplining him, which means he pretty much did whatever he pleased and got away with it, both in school and out. He fought. He stole stuff. He dealt drugs in the hallways and on street corners. He skipped so many classes, I don’t know how he ever graduated. Because the teachers wanted him gone, probably.”

Description of Will by one of his old classmates

Dave and I exchange a frown, and I can tell he’s thinking what I am. How does a drug-dealing street punk become a college-educated, loving husband?

How does he? Perhaps he's a different person

Dave thinks for a moment. “Well, if it’s somebody back in Atlanta, wouldn’t they have said come home instead?” I nod, right as another text pings my phone. Someone who knows what you’re looking for, and it’s not in Seattle.

Interesting text !

He stops in the middle of the trail, turning his big body to face mine. “There’s some money missing from our corporate accounts.”

So Will was stealing company funds?

And now, if I’m to believe everything I’ve learned today, this same man was a criminal. A liar and a thief, one who in the last month of his life was distracted and moody. One who got into fights at the gym and punched dents into living-room walls.

One who Nick and his forensic accountant were onto. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Will was probably feeling squeezed.

Great summary

But Evan doesn’t crack the slightest smile. “No, so I could tell you that faking your death isn’t technically illegal, but it’s impossible to do without committing a crime.

Beyond the identity fraud and tax evasion, that money from Liberty Air and Will’s life insurance? If you take it, you’ll essentially be stealing it.”

Evan the attorney is determined that Iris keeps to her story that her spouse Will is dead.

UNKNOWN: Yes. I’m so sorry, but it’s me. It’s Will. His reply releases every emotion I’ve kept pent-up for these past twelve days. Anguish. Fury. Sorrow. Relief. Despair. They burst from me in ugly, gulping sobs, coming in waves so hard and so fast, I can’t catch my breath. My husband isn’t dead.

Perhaps its someone pretending to be Will.

Will left me on purpose, and for money. Four and a half million dollars of it. Never has anyone made me feel so worthless.

What a wanker Wil is

that tightening deep in my throat. All signals I’m on

He attaches the picture to an email—no subject line, no message, just a picture of a smiling Corban and a pale and wide-eyed me—and hits Send. Almost immediately, a text pings his phone. “Good news,” he says, flipping the phone around so I can see. “Your husband is alive and well.”

So corban and will are thieves

step into my kitchen, and there he is, there’s Will. The air rushes from my lungs. He’s disheveled, and he’s lost weight since I saw him last. The lines on his face are deeper, too, slashing across his forehead and cupping the sides of his mouth like parentheses. Even his hair, a dark close-clipped brown, has gone gray around the temples. But he’s still as handsome as ever. My body goes numb at the sight of him.

So Will is not dead

I open my eyes, and my husband is moving above me. His head is tipped back, his cheeks slack and eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, and I know from all the times before that this is a critical moment. His critical moment. It will last another handful of breaths, at least.

I reach around to the back of my nightstand, push the panic button and hold it. Three seconds, that’s all it takes.

Weird ending