She tapped play, and a woman's voice spilled from the phone speaker:
"I'll pay you two million dollars. You pretend to kidnap both me and Jeanette, then make Melvin choose between us. I want to see who matters more to him."
It was Beth's voice.
Beth froze. She had never said those words. She had never even met the kidnapper. How was this possible?
The room erupted. A tidal wave of noise crashed over her, voices overlapping, accusations flying from every direction.
Melvin turned to look at her. Shock gave way to fury, and fury hardened into something glacial:
"Beth! Have you lost your mind? You're actually capable of something like this?"
"I didn't do it! That recording is fake! Jeanette set me up!"
Melvin let out a cold laugh. "Fake? You're still lying, even now? You think I can't recognize your own voice?" He turned to the bailiffs. "Escort this suspect to the detention center. She orchestrated a kidnapping."
Before Beth could react, two officers seized her arms from either side.
In the interrogation room, the officer across the table asked, "Mrs. Henson, would you like to have your husband serve as your defense attorney?"
Before she could answer, the door swung open. Melvin walked in with Jeanette trailing behind him. He set a file on the table and slid it toward the officer.
"These are Beth Cox's psychiatric records. Bipolar disorder, with a documented history of manic episodes. She's extremely dangerous. I recommend housing her with the maximum-security inmates."
"And no, I won't be representing her. On the contrary, if the victim, Jeanette Pruitt, requires counsel, I'll serve as her prosecuting attorney."
Beth stared at him, trembling so violently she could barely stay upright. A thousand words jammed in her throat. She wanted to explain, to scream, to curse him until her voice gave out. None of it mattered. The heavy iron door slammed shut in front of her, cutting off the last sliver of daylight.
The forty-eight hours she spent in that detention center would stay with her for the rest of her life.
They put her in a cell full of violent offenders. Several women circled her, grinning. They slapped her across the face, kicked her in the stomach, stomped on her shins. Someone ripped the gauze off her right hand and ground a lit cigarette into the freshly reattached pinky finger.
She blacked out from the pain more than once, only to be jolted awake by cold water thrown in her face. Then the beating resumed.
Forty-eight hours later, the iron door opened.
"Beth Cox. The investigation is complete. The recording was forged. You're free to go."
She stood. Her body was a map of damage: bruises mottled her face, dried blood crusted along her hairline. She braced one hand against the wall and made her way out, one slow step at a time.
Outside the detention center, the sunlight was blinding. Melvin leaned against his car. When he saw her, he frowned.
"What happened to you?"
Beth said nothing. Her gaze drifted past him, flat and empty, fixed on something far away.
He sighed.
"Beth, this whole thing was just a little lesson for you. Stop letting jealousy drive you to pull stunts like that. Behave yourself, and I'll still treat you as the one and only Mrs. Henson."
He was still talking when she turned and walked away. She never once looked at him.
It happened to be the last day of the mandatory cooling-off period. Beth went to the courthouse and picked up her divorce certificate.
She thought of that night a month ago, when Melvin had signed the papers, too drunk to read what was in front of him. He still had no idea what he'd put his name to.
He thought she was just throwing a tantrum. Using every trick to get his attention. He thought she still loved him that much. Thought she could never leave.
He didn't know she had stopped wanting any of it a long time ago.
Beth went home, packed a single bag, and booked the earliest flight to Paris.
At the airport, she pulled out her old SIM card and threw it away. She snapped in a new one and sent a message to Carol: "The divorce is final. I land tomorrow."
The plane lifted off. Beth watched through the window as the city shrank beneath her, block by block, street by street, until it was nothing.
She would never come back. She hadn't even said goodbye to Melvin.
Because she had spent her whole life giving him more words than she gave anyone else. And now, she didn't have a single one left.
