His Missing Wife by Jaime Hendricks (nice books to read .TXT) 📕

was going to rape her, and I got there in time to stop him. He was a bad dude. She wouldn’t press charges, which I know a little bit now is because of her past. She was running from an abusive ex-husband and didn’t want to be found. I’m not even sure Tessa Smyth was her real name. She had a state ID card with her Social on it, so she got that somehow, and I didn’t really question it. I know—I should’ve. But I was in love.”

“And the gun?”

“Right. She always feared that the ex was after her, so I got a gun. I knew a guy who knew a guy and I’ll never say any more than that. When I told her, she told me she hated guns and to get rid of it. So, I did. Mostly. I got it out of the house. I had it in my glove compartment, and then I saw Damon the night she went missing. Me, and my boss Trey, and Rosita—God, Rosita—we were out cultivating a client at Jupiter’s, and I saw Damon there, hassling a girl. My blood ran cold, man. I wasn’t thinking. He followed her out and I thought he was going to try the same shit, so I grabbed the gun, and I was right. Saw him pinning her in an alley. I put the fear of God in him.”

“How, exactly?”

“I—I held the gun to his head.”

Robert’s eyes lifted from the pad, but not his head. “Well, this isn’t good, James.”

“I know. But I obviously didn’t kill him. The girl got away, thank God, and I hit Damon over the head with the gun. But now that this is all out—he knows I had a gun. And I threatened him.” James slammed a fist onto the table, making his glass of beer rattle. “And while the fucking press will say that’s reason to believe I killed Rosita, I think it’s a reason to say Damon wanted revenge and did something to Tessa. Why can’t they find her?”

“Damon. What’s his last name?”

“Damon Moretti. I lived with him for almost a year. Mostly stayed at my ex Joanna’s house an hour up north. Damon gave me the creeps, the way he always brought girls around. Never saw anyone more than once or twice. Probably because he date-raped everyone.”

“Let’s not speculate here, James,” Robert said as he dropped the pen. “This was all the night Tessa disappeared. This isn’t going to look good. Now that you were arrested and your name is out there, this Damon may have already contacted the police with the information about the gun. If he hasn’t—yet—me putting his name out there as a potential suspect for Tessa is going to open a can of worms. They’ll say you were violent, in a rage, had an illegal gun on your person that night, and then your wife disappeared, and your coworker who everyone thinks you’re having an affair with was found dead days later by a gunshot. They found the gun in your house during the search, James.”

His shoulders sagged. “That wasn’t my gun.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t prove that.”

“Yes, we can. I know where my gun is. I hid it. It was nowhere near my house. No one knows where I put it.”

“That proves nothing.” It was a statement, not a question, and James was afraid that Robert was starting to doubt him. “How would anyone know you didn’t have two? Or five? When did you hide it, exactly?”

“Last Saturday.”

“After Tessa went missing, then?”

James didn’t know what he was getting at. “Tell them to do their fucking jobs and find my wife.”

“James, listen,” Robert started. “My job here isn’t to presume guilt or innocence. My job is to defend you within the confines of the law.”

He didn’t understand that James didn’t do any of it.

Robert made a note in his legal pad and cleared his throat. “So, let’s talk real then. You said you don’t even know if that was your wife’s real name. How do you know she wasn’t running a racket on you?”

“A racket?”

“Girl’s running from her past. Fake name. Says someone is after her. What if she was working with someone to set you up? And then she took off?”

James pounded his fist again. “What would she get out of setting me up? What does someone get out of Rosita being dead?”

“I don’t know those answers, James. I’m just saying, you not knowing about your wife’s past isn’t going to help you.”

James sat silent, and then brought up the message from earlier. “I got a message from someone named Bella Johnson. A reporter. She doesn’t believe I did this. Can we get ahead of this?”

“Who? Where is she from?”

James played the message on speakerphone for Robert, and he listened with intensity.

“Okay,” Robert said. “One opinion is one opinion, but if it puts another story out there, it can’t hurt. I want to be here when she interviews you.” Robert looked in his phone’s calendar and tapped a few buttons. “Call her back. Find out if she can get here at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”

James called her, and she answered. James explained that his lawyer would be present for the interview, and it was a date for nine-thirty the next morning.

Robert stayed, listening to James and plotting and planning a defense, until almost eleven at night. The next morning, James knew he needed more than just one cup of coffee. He woke at seven-thirty, Candy still sleeping with her back toward him, in Tessa’s spot. He turned over and spooned her, the way he usually did with Tessa every morning, and his heart broke in two. Actually, his heart had split in half every day since last Thursday.

“Hey, girl. Let’s get you some breakfast.”

Candy swiveled onto her back, all four paws in the air, as she usually did when she wanted her belly rubbed. James obliged for a while, longer than he’d planned, then plodded toward the bathroom for a shower. After throwing on a