Why did he pick Palm Beach? we all wondered. The climate? The distance from his past? There had to be a bigger reason. It became clear as the tail photographed Paul with a woman who was his own age—older than his usual and dripping in jewels. He was looking for his next sugar momma. From all the reports, he seems to have found her. Buck’s team will try to warn her off if it gets serious, and I know that’s the right thing to do. But mostly, I want him to just stay there, stay away from us, from the whole community.
Doris and Greg live in a two-bedroom rental now, the next town over. While most people in town never linked Paul to their home’s gas explosion and complete destruction, Buck and I did. Still do. But there is just no evidence. We called in an anonymous tip, but it is to no avail. Unless I came forward and pressed charges about the attempted murder, and the attack on Buck at Lakeside, the police won’t take his criminal nature seriously.
Buck’s contacts in the police department tell him the cops think Paul was a poor stressed-out guy whose wife dumped him, moved all of their belongings out, took his kids and left him with nothing. He had no choice but to take some cash from the inn. He paid it back. All is forgiven. End of story.
The police have created a very different profile of Paul than the man I know. But I’m not putting my kids or myself through a trial. So instead, I take Doris to lunch often, and have her kids over for sleepovers so she and Greg can have some space. It’s the least I can do.
Buck waves from beside the swings and I smile at him.
“We’re going to shoot hoops!” he says, one of my sons under each arm. He looks as strong as ever even though he took the brunt of Paul’s rage physically, requiring an overnight hospital stay, and a month of rehabilitation. He tells me it was worth it, even the shrouded sucker punch he suffered to protect us.
Buck and the boys are a joy to watch on the basketball court. They embody life’s simple pleasures as they laugh and tease each other. It’s amazing Buck came into our lives when he did. If he hadn’t been our neighbor here, if we hadn’t shared a love of gardening, I never would have realized what was happening—the hair loss, the weight loss, the fatigue—until it was too late. He broke through the denial, convinced me to get a urine test. Half a dozen doctors had performed myriad other tests and found nothing wrong with me. That urine test revealed the arsenic poisoning and set my escape plan into motion. I’d called Buck from my doctor’s office and told him the news.
“That’s it. He’s going down,” Buck said. His voice was deep and powerful. I knew with him on my side, the boys and I would be okay. “I’m packing some things and I’ll be down, get a hotel room in Columbus. You need to speak to an attorney. Make a plan to get the boys out of the house, and out of town. You’re going to be all right now, Mia.”
I had held the phone in a trembling hand, overwhelmed by the shell of a woman I’d become. Paul had broken me physically and mentally. Buck was helping me rebuild myself, and had been from the moment we met.
“Thank you, Buck. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said.
“Let’s not find out,” he said. “My team is still on you, 24/7. I’ll come around tomorrow. Sit with you during your treatment.”
This was what love felt like, I realized that day. Buck and I hadn’t even held hands at that point, hadn’t done more than share a trowel, but I knew. Buck did, too.
Each day, for the two weeks before Paul and I drove to the lake, while Paul took off for Gretchen’s apartment, I showed up at the hospital for my dialysis treatments and bowel cleansings. While Paul made love to his mistress, I focused on recovering my health. They had him under surveillance, Buck’s team did, and my job was to make sure I didn’t eat anything else that he could have possibly poisoned. At dinner each night, as he sneakily poisoned my food or drink, I would hold my stomach and confess to feeling too nauseated to eat. He tried to hide the poison in my yogurt, in my tea, in so many different foods and drinks. It was exhausting trying to stay ahead of him. He was careful not to tamper with anything the boys could eat, so I knew I was safe sneaking frozen chicken nuggets when he was out of the house. Dinners were the tricky meals with him watching me, ready to sneak powder into my food, my drink.
I could tell Paul was getting frustrated with the situation. He wanted me to grow sicker, faster, we knew. He was ready for me to be gone, for Gretchen to take my place. He lost his job, lost his chance with Caroline and he was finished with me, with us. And he was running out of money, and the boys, minus me, were his golden tickets. He’d spent most of the past six months with Gretchen, so he’d already moved on in that sense. I was in the way, an obstacle to his future. Even though my father had made it very clear to him he would never touch a penny of their trust funds, with my death, Paul would be the guardian and entitled to a stipend to care for them. Greedy and heartless.
A chill races down my spine. Paul had grown tired of me, but instead of punching me in the face and leaving town, the way he had ended things with Lois, he’d decided to kill me. Slowly. I still get goose bumps when I admit this to myself.
So I was ready for it to come to a head. It was a relief when he asked me to spend a weekend together in Lakeside, just the two of us. Because I knew that would be where he would take me to die. Away from the boys, away from the neighbors. Just the two of us, an envelope of arsenic and a romantic dinner. Sounds perfectly logical if you’re a psycho: he needed to give me a bigger dose of poison. To finish me off. And our new cottage was the perfect place for a death scene.
Meanwhile, I needed to escape and I would. I needed to serve him papers when and where I knew the boys would be safely out of reach. In that sense, we both agreed the lake house would be perfect.
My parents were ecstatic that I’d come to my senses, especially my dad, who hadn’t liked Paul from the start of our relationship and had frowned on our brief courtship and quick marriage. He had been right all along, but I had been too infatuated, too foolish to see beyond the lust, beyond the illusion of love.
Paul was great with illusion. I saw him as the grand old-fashioned suitor who brought me flowers, and wrote love notes and took me to expensive and wonderful dinners. The older advertising executive who had traveled the world, who taught me about jazz music and sexual expression. I saw the Paul I wanted to see, the Paul he made sure I saw. That man was a wonderful romantic, a Renaissance man. That man was a lie.
The difference between the act and the truth was clear as Buck sat beside me during a dialysis session. I took a deep breath, took my power back into my own hands, and called my parents’ home.
“He’s not going to get a dime of your money,” my dad said. “I’ll call the attorneys as soon as we hang up, the bastard.”
“Oh, honey, are you doing all right? How are the boys?” my mom asked. Her sadness made my heart heavy.