Short Stories|Book 1

Twenty-Five

"I got the shits," they repeated together with a heartbroken laugh.

"Oh my god. It is you, Nat," Owen pulled her into a hug.

Natalie hugged him tightly, crying into his shoulder for a long moment.

"Wait a minute," Owen pulled back, his eyes red. "How did you - where - your face," he caressed her cheek.

"A lot's happened," Natalie wiped her face. "We need to talk."

"Come on," Owen took her hand, and they headed to the parking lot.

They go sit in his car, and Natalie tells him everything.

By the end, Owen was mute, in shock, and pissed. He had never met Natalie's husband, yet for some odd reason, he never liked him. He just never seemed like a good guy.

Yet to try and kill his own wife - the mother of his kids - to burn her alive - that was straight-up evil.

"I know, it's a lot to take in," Natalie sat in the passenger seat, staring at the airbag label.

"I'm so sorry," was all Owen could say. "You don't deserve any of this, Nat."

"I try to tell myself that, "she said in a whisper. "But maybe it's my punishment for not asking enough questions."

"Oh come, let's be serious. You couldn't have imagined he was money laundering. Drug dealer maybe but drug and sex trafficking, no one could even fathom their significant other's involvement in that."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Natalie shrugged though she still felt like it was her cross to bear.

"Well, what are you gonna do?" Owen wondered. "Go to the police?"

"Are you kidding?" she looked at him with a scoff. "No, no way. I don't know who he's paid off or who he could. If he knows I'm alive and finds out about my new face, he could easily hire someone to kill me."

Owen shrugged slightly, having not thought of that.

"No cops. It's best I stay dead - for now at least. Probably forever."

"Forever?" Owen didn't like the sound of that. "So, what are you gonna do just make a new life? What about your kids?"

"There is no new life until I find my boys," Natalie said, determined, fury beaming in her brown eyes. "Detective Sanchez is gonna help me find them."

"The ex-cop?" Owen's eyebrows raised.

Natalie nodded.

"Is that all he's gonna help you do?" Owen could feel the wrath emanating from her body like heat from meat on the grill.

"What do you mean by that?" Natalie glared defensively.

"I mean, your husband tried to kill you and is the reason this Detective friend of yours lost his job and his family. I imagine he's just as angry as you, if not more. When two people with the same enemy get together . . . bad things tend to happen."

Natalie didn't respond. She only looked away.

"Nat," Owen sighed. "I know you are beyond upset."

"You don't know anything," Natalie felt herself getting welled up all over again. "To see flames one minute and the next you're waking out of a one-year coma with someone else's face. Your children are gone, you've been pronounced dead, and the world has moved on without you. All because money talks.

Owen knew she was right - he couldn't even begin to understand what she was going through. How much her heart had hardened. How much her death was becoming a reality because that's what Natalie felt like - dead on the inside.

He reached out a hand to console her but his phone rings.

It was his wife.

Owen hesitated to answer.

"How is Christine?" Natalie asked, genuinely.

"Good," Owen let the phone keeping ringing. "We finally decided to adopt instead. Trying to conceive was taking a toll on her."

Natalie nodded sadly at that.

"I can call her back," Owen finally decided to send his persistent wife to voicemail.

"No, it's okay. I have to go," Natalie went for the door handle.

"Hey," Owen held out his phone. "At least give me your number."

She took it, putting her number in.

"You pick a name that won't make your wife skeptical," she gave him back the phone.

Owen's eyebrows raised, "you want me to lie?"

"Are you saying that she knows about our calls and texts back and forth all these years?"

Owen sighed at that.

"That's what I thought. Look, O, no one can know I'm alive. Not even your wife. This stays between us, or I'll have to cut off communication. I mean it."

"Yeah, of course," Owen didn't want to risk putting her in harm's way.

"And try not to worry about me. I'll be fine."

Natalie opens the door, and he grabs her arm. "Promise me you won't do anything that you might regret."

She nods, "I promise."

Getting out of the car, she closes the door behind her.

Natalie puts on her shades and heads to her car parked across the lot.

Owen didn't have to worry about her doing something she would regret.

If there was anything Natalie knew, it was that she wouldn't regret killing her ex-husband.