His words were cutting through the room and his passion was powerful as he built his closing argument. He was political and he was inspiring in the way he gave such devotion to his speech. He calmly walked back to his seat and sat down offering a smug smile to the defense attorney. He was good. But the defense attorney gave no sign of being intimidated as he casually stood to counter the prosecution.
“My client sits in front of you today not as a criminal, but as a victim,” he began and I felt my grip tightening on the edge of the bench. “The burden that the prosecutor carries to prove beyond any reasonable doubt…” he stopped dramatically, smacking his hand on the rail in front of juror number two, “Beyond a reasonable doubt! You all met Mila’s husband, Brian Whitmore. While we cannot place him at the scene, or even prove that he did it, he is your reasonable doubt. Mila Whitmore had nothing to gain, Brian Whitmore gained it all. Mila is a victim just as Carson Damichi.”
My hands were shaking now and my teeth were grinding hard against each other. That man just claimed that Mila was a victim and that my husband now is the one who could possibly be responsible for Carson’s murder. By the looks on the jury’s faces, they weren’t buying that bullshit either. But thank God Brian wasn’t in here to hear that spill. I understand why it is necessary for the metal detectors now. They aren’t worried for the safety of the defendants, they are worried for the safety of these slithering defense attorneys.
The judge addressed the room then as he told us that they would now begin deliberating on a verdict. But I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the fact that Mila was not testifying. The room cleared out as I lost myself in thought and the liaison impatiently gestured for me to stand.
Brian was sitting on the bench, staring blankly ahead at the wall. I had to nudge his shoulder to draw his attention and he slowly stood to walk with us back to the room where we had met the prosecutor.
“She didn’t even testify, Brian. I wanted to hear what she had to say.”
“It doesn’t matter what she had to say, Chloe.”
“But how could she not have anything to say about what she did?!”
I was fighting back tears again and I could feel a deep hatred building in me. I had hated her this whole time, why wouldn’t I? But now, I hate her even more and I didn’t even know that was possible. I felt like she had at least owed me that testimony.
“It is over now, Chloe. It doesn’t matter.”
I didn’t tell Brian about the closing argument from the defense or about how much I was worried that the jury would buy into it. I just sat quietly hoping for the best possible outcome to this already shitty situation. Either she would be found guilty of murder or she wouldn’t be. But whatever the outcome, our family would be untouched by her and I tried to keep myself focused on that.
The liaison opened the door and I hesitantly stood to follow her and Brian out. The anxiety of not knowing what was going to happen was heavy on me as we walked up the stairs. We walked in and I watched Mila who seemed unaffected by what was going on around her. She seemed so calm and casual and I hoped that she could feel the hatred radiating from me as we all stood for the judge.
Juror number one stood and the room was eerily silent while we waited for him to read what was on the card in his hand. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my chest and nervously turned my wedding band on my finger. The juror cleared his throat and I gasped when he read, “We find the defendant guilty of first degree murder.”
I let out an appreciative thank you to the jury even though I knew they weren’t listening to me and I turned back to watch Mila. She was staring at the jury but she was still strangely calm. I would have expected an emotional response to hearing the guilty verdict read but I assume her not testifying meant that she had expected it either way. But watching her stare blankly at the group of twelve strangers who just sealed her fate, I would have given anything to know what she was feeling in that moment.
I felt Brian take my hand in his and I looked over to him. It was over. It was finally over. Mila would spend the rest of her life in prison.
Chapter Twenty-One
Our home had a different energy now. There were no clouds above us, no burdens haunting us, constantly threatening the life we were building. We were completely free to just be us. And I felt relieved being home with Harper and Brian, really, I did. But I just couldn’t fight that feeling of not having closure from hearing Mila’s testimony. I knew that I needed to hear what she had to say and I knew that Brian wouldn’t understand. He was able to wipe his hands clean of the whole thing the minute we left the courthouse. And I am glad he found his closure so easily, but I hadn’t. Hearing that verdict wasn’t what I needed.
Brian kissed me and Harper goodbye and left us standing at the door, me waving Harper’s arm at him and her babbling syllables that he swears to annunciate, Da-Da. I don’t hear it but I let him have it either way because the look on his face when she makes that noise is the most precious thing about him.
I know it is getting harder for him to leave for work each day. The life insurance policy that I had unknowingly set aside for our own daughter and the money I had from liquidating assets along with his savings was more than enough for a comfortable early retirement. His days are getting shorter and shorter and he delegates most casework to his interns now, so it is just a matter of time. I don’t push him though, I figure he will make the decision when he is ready.
I turned back inside and checked my watch after I laid Harper in her bouncy seat. Cartoons were enough to keep her entertained long enough for me to change into a decent outfit. There is about a two-minute time frame where you can sneak away from her without her realizing it. But when she does, there is roughly a two second time frame that you better be right back at her side.
I was running down the stairs, buttoning my jeans as her fussing turned from slight to terroristic. “Oh, Miss Harper, you no happy today,” Rosalie said, hurrying across the foyer to take her from her seat. I slowed my pace and smiled, grateful for her perfect timing.
“Good morning Rosalie.”
She ignored my greeting and rocked back and forth with Harper. The cries, more like screams, had calmed and Harper was smiling back up to Rosalie. She had grown fond of Rosalie and I was grateful for that. I headed to the kitchen and poured a thermos of coffee. I swiped one of our wallet sized family pictures from the refrigerator and tucked it into my pocket. “I will be back this afternoon. Call me if you need anything,” I yelled off to Rosalie. But her and Harper were playing peek-a-boo, paying no attention to me, and I tiptoed out to prevent Harper’s usual fit when I leave her.
I would have preferred avoiding Newport Toll Bridge and taking the long route, maybe gaining some insight on what I would say to Mila. But I needed to beat Brian home. I didn’t want to keep it from him that I was visiting her but I didn’t see any need to add unnecessary stress to him. And honestly, she might refuse to see me. I don’t know. I have never visited anyone in prison before so I am not sure how the whole process works.
Forty-five minutes. The quickest forty-five minutes of my life and I was pulling up to the prison guard’s gate. This didn’t seem like a prison. It looked more like a large hotel resort. Several large buildings all sitting separately but inadvertently forming a barrier between them, making their connections to each other obvious. The women’s medium security, that is what the man on the phone had told me. If Mila was only serving her term in a medium security prison for a brutal stabbing murder I would be terrified to step foot into a maximum-security facility. As much as I wanted to just turn the car back on and drive home, I knew that this was something I had to do.
The guard took my passport as she studied me up and down. Her bright red lipstick lit against her unusually pale skin and I struggled to hide my not so nice opinion on the shade. She stared down at my passport while she blew a bubble the size of my hand. With a loud pop, she waved me over to sit down while she ran a background check. “If you pass the check
you will be granted one courtesy visit. But if you plan to visit your friend again, you need to be on the list,” she said in a heavily accented dialect. I smiled and looked around the room. I had no intention of making this visit twice.
“Congratulations, follow me,” she finally said. Two more guards were waiting for us outside of two large blue metal doors. One man started patting me down without so much as a warning and the other motioned for me to open my mouth. His face was stern so I slowly said, ahhh while he shined a flash light in and tilted his head to check every angle of my mouth. I didn’t bother with asking what exactly he was looking for. “This way.” I straightened the wrinkle from my blouse that was left from a rather uncomfortable groping of the guard.
The Bronx girl smiled, revealing a smear of her tasteless red lipstick on her front teeth, and opened the door. Mila was sitting at a table in the center of the room. I didn’t know if they had told her the name of her visitor or if she was surprised to see me coming through the door. But if she didn’t want to see me, she wasn’t getting up to leave. Her eyes followed me as I slowly made my way to her. I inhaled deeply when I pulled the chair out to sit down and confront her for the first time. We had been best friends for years but sitting here with her now, it was as if we were complete strangers.
She stared curiously at me, staying completely silent, while I tried to find the right thing to say. There were so many things I had planned in my mind but now that I am here, face to face with her, nothing would come out.
“Why?” I finally whispered as I fought the tears building in my eyes. It was such a simple question but it was the question I needed answered the most.
“I loved Carson very much, Chloe. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you and I never wanted to betray your friendship, but I loved him.” Her voice broke and I watched while she didn’t even try to fight her own tears away.
Watching her cry undeserved tears, I felt even more furious than I did when I had found out about the affair. Hearing her try to justify it through love made my face burn with anger and I stared at her hands and the cuffs resting against her thin wrists. My anger lightened slightly and I smiled down at them, pulling my own hands to rest freely on the table in front of her, shamelessly taunting her restraints.
“Were you upset that Brian and I got married?” I asked, turning my wedding band on my finger.
She was silent and I shot my eyes back to hers, “Life is crazy sometimes, isn’t it?”
Her face was pinched while she watched me reaching in my pocket. I pulled out our family picture and slowly pushed it across the table to her. She let out a desperate wale as she looked down to see that baby girl in my arms. She pressed her hand over top it and cried.
“You tried to take away my life, Mila.”
Her crying settled and she opened her eyes to look back at me. I smiled again before I reached to take the picture back.
“It really is ironic. You tried to take my life and look at us now. I now have your husband and your baby. I have your family, Mila.”
Her eyes filled with disgust as I gloated to her and it just made me enjoy it that much more. There was something so rewarding about being able to show off what I now had that she had given up. Whether it was right or not, it couldn’t be morally worse than her.
“Chloe, I did not murder Carson!” Her hands were shaking now and the tears running down her face were falling from much darker eyes than before.
I fell back into the chair then and stared down at the picture in my hand. I slowly looked back at her and studied her desperate claim of innocence.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I didn’t do this. I was framed!” She tried to reach to wipe her eyes then but the chains connected to a belt around her waist causing her hands to jerk to a stop just below her chin.
I squinted my eyes at her while I thought of what she had said, almost tempted to wipe her face for her, a very stretching almost. “You are telling me that you were framed? Why would someone frame you, Mila?”
“Chloe, I think Brian murdered Carson!”
I breathed out in disbelief but her eyes were definitely not those of someone telling a lie. “That is crazy, Mila.”
“No, Chloe. I did not do this! Those texts! I never got them and I definitely didn’t send them. The murder weapon in our living room, Brian must have known about the affair. It had to be him. Chloe, please! You have to believe me!”
I smiled again while I watched her desperation. She really had convinced herself that she was innocent.
“Brian did not kill Carson,” I told her when her theatrical skit for claiming innocence was growing old. “But do you even regret the affair, Mila?”
She held my eyes then and I could see the sadness in her fade slightly while she spoke of him. “No, Chloe. I regret what happened to Carson, absolutely. But I loved him with all of my heart and I still do.”
What an audacious bitch.
“Mila, do you know what is easier than stealing someone’s husband?” I asked, leaning in closer to her.
Her eyes scanned mine as she hesitantly said, “No…”
“Framing the whore who was sleeping with him for his murder.”
I watched in complete satisfaction as her mouth slowly started to fall open. I slid the chair away from the table and stood to watch her processing what I had just told her. I turned and walked to the door and smiled back at her one more time before I left her sitting there.
This was the closure I needed. I needed her to know how she ended up where she was. I needed her to know that I had won. And winning, was so easy.
Epilogue
I had spent almost six years of my life with a man who devoted more of his time to my best friend than he did to me. I had given up everything for him and for what? Absolute embarrassment. I wasn’t going to just let him win. I was not going to be the woman whose husband left her because he knocked up her best friend. I was not going to let myself be that woman.
Do I regret it? Killing my husband. Absolutely not. It is actually quite the opposite. I never imagined that Brian would fall in love with me. That was honestly a surprise and quite the kicker. How great was it that I was able to walk up to Mila and flaunt around the life I so easily stole from her? It was amazing.
See, Carson was always so arrogant. He saw me as this weak woman who catered to his every need so he never even tried to get away. He really was a classic misogynistic pig.
I knew he had been sleeping with Mila for about seven months. Yeah, of course it bothered me but at least it was keeping him away from me. That pompous prick was a burden that Mila was carrying around for me and I was actually relieved about it, grateful even. For seven months, I sat home and smiled foolishly at him as he walked through the door to our home when I knew he had just been with her. Day in and day out, he kept up this façade with me and Brian and each day, I hated him more and more for that and only that. Being cheated on is obviously not ideal but being regarded as ignorant is the real bitch.
He was with Mila on my birthday that year. Maybe he forgot it was my birthday, or maybe he just didn’t care. But either way, he spent it slumming it up in some four-star hotel while I sat home feeling sorry for Brian. Funny how I actually pitied Brian even back then. I wasn’t surprised that Carson would cheat on me but for him to do that to Brian was disgusting to me. He didn’t deserve to live.
I don’t know why I picked up his phone that night. I knew about the affair, I didn’t need validation. I could smell Mila’s perfume on his clothes when I would wash them. I could tell by the way they would steal glances at each other when they thought Brian and I weren’t looking. They even snuck off at the firm’s Christmas party together thinking that Brian and I were so foolish that we would have no idea. Now Brian, he was foolish. He was completely blind to the whole thing. But I think he wanted to be. He had to have known deep down, they weren’t even that careful. But that day I took his phone while he was sleeping.
We will tell them a
bout the baby at dinner. That is what Carson had sent to Mila two days before his birthday dinner. Now, I wasn’t surprised about the affair obviously. I knew it was going on. But they were actually going to sit down at MY dinner table and tell me that they were in love and that they had created a child together? I do not think so. I had already wasted so much time married to a piece of shit husband and I was not going to let him just throw me out like some piece of garbage so they could ride off into the sunset together.
When he smiled at me that next morning and offered a genuine good morning to me, I lost it. I lost that understanding and patience with him. I wanted him dead right then. But instead, I sweetly smiled back at him as I sent him off to work and I called Mila. I made plans with her to go to lunch. When I ordered a mimosa and she ordered a water, it took all I had not to throw my drink in her face. She could have told me then that she was pregnant with my husband’s child, but she didn’t. She was a master of deceit and lies, or so she thought. But it was when she went to the bathroom for the second time that I reached in her purse and took her phone and keys out.
Scheduled text messaging was truly a genius idea and so incriminating at that. I was worried that someone would catch onto her claim that the messages weren’t sent from her but they never dug deeper into it. Why would they? They had the messages plain and simple, looking further into it didn’t occur to them. I scheduled texts to be sent to Brian’s phone and I stuck her keys in my pocket. When I dropped her off I went straight to the hardware store and ignored her calls until they handed me the copy of her house key. I laughed as I answered the phone and told her I had just found her keys laying in my car and I drove them over to her.
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