Dead Wife Walking_ The Billionaire's New Obsession

The baby monitor crackled to life just as I was reaching for another dusty law book on the top shelf. The soft static made me pause, my hand hovering over the leather spine of *Corporate Trust Law, Third Edition*. I'd installed the device in our home office just last week—not for a baby, of course, but to keep an ear on our study sessions. Lucas had been spending so much time in there lately, claiming he needed absolute quiet to prepare for his bar exam retake.

I smiled to myself, thinking how sweet it was that he was finally taking his career seriously. After three years of marriage, watching him drift from one half-hearted job to another, this newfound dedication felt like a gift. The trust fund from my grandmother would unlock when I turned thirty next month, and Lucas seemed determined to prove himself worthy of our future together.

The monitor's green light blinked steadily as I settled into the leather reading chair by the window. Outside, October rain drummed against the glass, creating rivulets that caught the amber glow of our neighbor's porch light. I opened the law book, hoping to surprise Lucas with my knowledge of estate planning when he emerged from his study marathon.

That's when I heard his voice, clear as if he were sitting beside me.

"Sarah, you're absolutely certain this will work?"

My finger froze on the page. Sarah? I knew that name—Sarah Mitchell, Lucas's childhood friend who'd recently moved back to town. They'd been inseparable growing up, practically joined at the hip until high school when she'd moved away with her family. I'd met her briefly at our wedding, a striking brunette with sharp green eyes who'd hugged Lucas just a little too long for my comfort.

A woman's voice responded through the static, crisp and confident. "Trust me, Lucas. I've done the research. A brake line failure looks completely accidental, especially on a car that old. Alice drives that route to work every morning—down Hillcrest, around those sharp curves by the ravine."

The book slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud that seemed to echo through my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs as the words registered, each syllable driving deeper into my consciousness like shards of ice.

Brake line failure. Alice. That was me.

"But what if she survives the crash?" Lucas's voice carried a note of concern that might have sounded caring to anyone else. To me, it sounded like disappointment.

"She won't." Sarah's tone was matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing weekend plans instead of my death. "That ravine is a hundred-foot drop, Lucas. Even if the impact doesn't kill her, the fire will. Cars that old, they go up like matchsticks."

I pressed my hand to my mouth, bile rising in my throat. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked steadily, each second stretching into eternity as I sat frozen in the chair that had been my grandmother's, in the house that had been her sanctuary, listening to my husband plan my murder.

"And you're sure about the inheritance?" Lucas asked. "The trust fund transfers directly to me as her spouse?"

"According to the will you showed me, yes. Two point seven million, plus the house, plus her grandmother's jewelry collection. All of it becomes yours the moment she's declared dead." Sarah's voice took on a warmer tone, almost seductive. "Then we can finally be together, the way we should have been all along."

The way we should have been all along.

Those words hit me like a physical blow. How long had this been going on? How long had I been living a lie, cooking dinner for a man who was counting down the days until my death, sharing a bed with someone who saw me as nothing more than an obstacle to overcome?

"I still can't believe she never suspected anything about us," Lucas said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Even when you moved back last year, she just welcomed you with open arms. Invited you to dinner parties, introduced you to her book club friends. She actually thinks we're just old friends catching up."

Sarah laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "Alice always was naive. Remember in high school how she used to tutor you in chemistry? She never noticed that you were copying my homework the whole time, not learning anything yourself. Some people are just too trusting for their own good."

My hands trembled as I gripped the armrests of the chair. I remembered those tutoring sessions—staying late in the school library, patiently explaining molecular structures and chemical equations while Lucas struggled with concepts that seemed to come naturally to me. I'd thought I was helping the boy I was falling in love with. Instead, I'd been enabling a lie that started in adolescence and had apparently never ended.

"When do we do it?" Lucas asked, his voice dropping to a whisper that the sensitive monitor still picked up clearly.

"Tomorrow night. She always parks in the garage when she gets home from work. I'll slip in through the back gate around midnight—you leave it unlocked like we discussed. Five minutes with the brake lines, and by Thursday morning when she drives to that client meeting in the city..."

Sarah didn't need to finish the sentence. The implication hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre.

I sat in the growing darkness of the reading room, rain still pattering against the windows, and felt something fundamental shift inside me. The Alice who had walked into this room twenty minutes ago—trusting, loving, eager to support her husband's dreams—was gone. In her place sat someone harder, someone who understood that survival meant thinking like the people who wanted her dead.

The monitor crackled again as chairs scraped against the floor in the study. They were moving, probably embracing, probably planning their future together over my corpse. I reached over and carefully turned down the volume, my movements precise and deliberate.

Tomorrow night, they expected to find me defenseless, unaware, an easy target for their perfectly planned accident.

They were going to be very disappointed.