A Well Thought Out Plan

The kids were at school, the housekeeper was given the day off and the spouses were sat in front of each other. It was strange how they sat, hands crossed and on opposite ends of the obnoxiously long glass table. 

It was something too business-like to be in a family setting.

Daniela rubbed her thumb in circles while her husband twirled his wedding ring around his finger. Daniela wondered why she’d been summoned and why her husband looked like he wanted to run to the nearest window to jump out of.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, his head bowed down. Daniela pursed her lips but motioned for him to continue. “I’ve being having an affair.”

She stayed quiet. Fake tears prickled in the corners of her eyes as she watched his mouth form words. He was detailing the scandalous affair with his most current secretary.

How cliché, she thought bitterly. She was not surprised by the announcement; her husband was a fan of the clichés, especially when it came to his mistresses. He had a type; blonde, big-breasted and stupid. Basically, he liked anyone who was beneath him; professionally, intellectually, and literally.

A role had to be played if you wanted to survive his advances, and Daniela had lasted the longest. She took pride in that, even as she sat on opposite end of the table as he professed his sexual endeavours with countless other women.

Once upon a nightmare, Daniela was his secretary too, fresh from Harvard Law and eager to make a difference. Her father had gotten her the job.

“It’ll be good,” he had said. “Work your way up the ladder. He’s a friend of mine. We went to law school together. Completely respectable guy.”

Respectable didn’t really describe the way he would grab Daniela’s ass whenever she passed him, or the way he would try to corner her as she walked to her car after the working day was done.

However, when Christmas time had passed after her second year of employment, they were married. Nobody said anything aloud, but they did find it all too coincidental that Daniela announced her pregnancy not a month after their elopement.

Her husband would flaunt her and her tidy baby bump around to his esteemed colleagues. He could buy the shiniest car, or the biggest mansion, and it seemed, the dumbest blonde bride to bear his heir.

Except Daniela was not the dumbest blonde. Matter of fact, she wasn’t even a real blonde; she was ginger by birth. Tell that to anyone and she’d slit your throat.

And Daniela was on an opposite spectrum to dumb, not that she let her husband know that. She had razor-sharp intelligence, but she was lazy. She didn’t realise how lazy until her husband gave her a life of luxury. She wanted for nothing. Front show seats to London Fashion Week: in her hands before she was finished asking for them. A chateau that overlooked a French vineyard? That was her first anniversary present from him. All she had to do was give him little “rewards” every now and again.

Daniela had fallen in love with the lifestyle and tolerated the provider.

Unfortunately for her, Daniela despised children and children were all her husband seemed to talk about. Especially their little brats. They were sticky and loud and rude, and Daniela had no patience for such impotence. She thought that she’d change her mind once her little girl was in her arms.

It did not, whatsoever.

Her husband sat at the top of the table, a mile away from her, still twirling the faded gold band around his wrinkly fingers.

“What about my kids?” she asked, sitting straight, her thumbnail between her ruby red lips. “What happens to them?”

Her husband shuffled in his chair. “How much would you need to take care of them?”

Daniela gave him an outlandish figure. It was hard for her not to smirk when he accepted. He eyed Daniela critically. She seemed almost unaffected. She was unaffected. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d still live in the lap of luxury and she wouldn’t have to please her dinosaur husband, or mother her demonic spawns.

It was time for the next phase of her plan.

****

Daniela stretched her limbs and sighed contently. It’d been ten years since she had a bed to herself, and it was great. Her husband was in the room at the end of the hall, sound asleep, his snores a distant rumbling noise, almost like faint thunder.

He’d no idea what was coming.

None of them did.

As she lay there, wrapped snugly in her Egyptian cotton, she thought about her victory. It came sooner than expected, but was welcomed, nonetheless. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise. Daniela didn’t think that Phase Two would happen until she was in her mid-thirties. She was slightly unprepared, but it needed to be done straight away before word got out of their divorce. It happening this soon into the children’s lives was also a plus. There would be no trouble subduing them.

She smirked viciously, her tongue running over her top lip.

As she was getting ready for bed that night, she saw red roots peek from under the immaculate blonde waves.

Daniela had been lying in bed for a while, waiting intently for it to go down, waiting intently for the time she was to step in.

Her wickedness increased as she made out the miniscule squeak of the second step.

Her husband stopped snoring. Daniela stopped breathing.

Then he started again, that same droning noise, like a walrus being drowned. Daniela hated that noise, and she would not miss it once it would be snuffed out.

She used to stand over her husband at night, clutching a pillow with insane tears streaming down her face. Her lips would be red raw and her eyes bloodshot.

She used to fantasise about this day, the day she finally killed that no-good-moneybag husband of hers.

It wouldn’t be a fantasy for long . . .

****

Daniela was not a fan of blue. She thought it was gaudy and far too overused. But as she sat in the back of an ambulance, clinging to the sides of the thermo blanket, she had to appreciate it. She hoped that it illuminated the blood stuck on her face and woven in her hair. Maybe a photographer from the local newspaper would manage to slip the police tape and snap a picture of her. Daniela kept her head high in case they had. There was something powerful about a blood-soaked woman, she thought. It was majestic in its own creepy way.

The EMTs shook their heads sorrowfully at her. “She’s in shock,” they whispered to each other, stealing glances over their stocky shoulders.

Daniela was in shock; shocked that the idiots accepted her fake cries and screams as they wheeled her dead husband away on several gurneys. They had to drag her away from the smaller body bags that lined the hallway.

I should get an Oscar, she smirked.

Her acting skills were phenomenal. She didn’t even care about the stickiness of her blood-soaked nightgown. It wasn’t ruined. It was red; the blood would be easy to get out. That’s if the pigs didn’t demand the flimsy fabric from her.

Craning over the police line were her neighbours. They were trying to see what the commotion was about. Daniela wanted to sneer at them, but she couldn’t. She had to grip the blanket and blankly stare into space. It was hard to do as she saw the fleet of coroners van pull into her estate.

The incident will probably be filed under home invasion. Daniela won’t be charged. Self-defence isn’t considered a crime, even if you kill the “invader”.

It was simple in her mind. Let the invader do his work and then she could do hers. No one would find it suspicious that she attacked the “invader” with a metal baseball bat. Her husband used to take his children to the batting cages on a Sunday.

Not anymore . . .

Her attention was stolen from her victoriousness.

“Ma’am,” a voice said. Daniela looked up. The voice belonged to a young man. She noticed the pristine badge clipped to his belt. He was handsome, albeit very young. Too young. This must’ve been one of his first cases. That made Daniela cautious. Young meant green, and green meant zealousness. Zealousness usually meant a job well done. She’d have to be very careful what she said and how she did.

“Ma’am,” he repeated, lowering himself so he was level with her. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but would it be possible to take your initial statement?”

Daniela nodded slowly, keeping her eyes and mouth slack.

“What happened here?”

Releasing a shaky breath, Daniela locked eyes with the detective. She could see her reflection in his eyes and she was not disappointed. It was inarguably the best she’d ever looked.

“A man,” she choked, making sure to water her eyes. “A man broke in and killed my husband! He killed my babies! I had to do it! He was gonna kill me! He killed my babies! I couldn’t save my babies!”

She burst into exaggerated sobs. She balled her fists into the detective’s black shirt and sobbed into his chest.

“It’s okay,” he cooed, rubbing circles onto her back. “You’re safe now. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

No. She grinned wickedly; the look hidden by her wet hair. No you won’t . . .