My Husband Framed Me. I Took It All. Chapter 07

My Husband Framed Me. I Took It All. Chapter 07: The Girl Who Knew

Britt Kowalski arrived in year seven with a busted lip and a mouth that never stopped.

Twenty-three years old. Third time inside. Grand theft auto, this round. She talked to everyone, stole from no one, and had a way of laughing that made the whole block feel less like a tomb. Dee adopted her on day two. I liked her on day three, when she stole a librarian’s pen and returned it with an apology and a Snickers.

it.”

“What’d you do, Miss Elena?” she asked, sprawled on the library floor. “Everybody says you don’t talk about

“She killed her husband’s business partner,” Dee said before I could. “Allegedly. Shot him in his driveway.

Big scandal. Boston money.”

Britt sat up.

“Shot him? Two in the chest? Like, a guy named Reyes?”

The book I was holding slid out of my hand.

“How do you know that name?”

She looked at me, then at Dee, then back at me, and I watched her face change as she understood what

she’d walked into.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Oh, no.”

“Britt. Tell me.”

“Four years ago. I was in Cumberland County, ninety days for a stupid thing. They put me in with this woman, Renee. She was waiting on a transfer, she’d been the girlfriend of some guy. Cal something. Cal Reeves.” Britt swallowed. “She talked all the time. Bragged. Said Cal did jobs for rich people. Said he did one in Boston, a finance guy, walked right up to his door and popped him twice, and the best part-”

She stopped.

“Say it.”

“The best part was they pinned it on the wife. She said Cal thought it was hilarious. Said the guy who hired him used the wife’s own gun. Said the guy-” Britt’s voice dropped. “She said his name was Ashford. That he paid fifty grand. That he had it set up before Cal even got there. Alibi, sister, everything.”

The library was very quiet.

Dee said, “Elena.”

I didn’t hear her. I was somewhere else. I was in my kitchen at 6:15 with Daniel’s voice in my ear saying be careful, he’s not who you married, and I was in my bed at 11:40 with a pill in my blood while my husband sat in a parked car three blocks from Daniel’s house waiting for a phone call, and I was in a courtroom watching my sister wipe her eyes with a tissue.

Fifty thousand dollars.

That’s what I cost.

Less than the car I drove. Less than the ring on Chloe’s hand.

“Where’s Renee now?” My voice was very steady. I’d been practicing steady for seven years.

“Dunno. She got out, I think. But she said Cal was doing federal time in Pennsylvania on a gun charge. Said

he’d be out in-” Britt counted on her fingers. “Now, maybe. Around now.”

“Would you testify?”

She blinked. “To what I heard?”

“To what you heard. To Renee’s name. To Cal Reeves’s name. It’s hearsay, but it’s enough to reopen. It’s enough to make a prosecutor look at Grant Ashford’s bank records from the month Daniel died.” I stood up. “Britt. Would you?”

She looked at Dee, who nodded once.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, Miss Elena. I’d do that.”

I walked out of the library. I walked straight down C-corridor to the administrative wing, past two guards who called my name and didn’t try to stop me, and I knocked on Curtis Hollis’s door with the flat of my hand until he opened it.

“Mrs. Ashford. This is highly-”

“I have a witness,” I said. “My husband paid a man named Cal Reeves fifty thousand dollars to murder Daniel Reyes and bury me alive in here. I want a lawyer. I want a hearing. And I want it now.”

The warden looked at me for a long moment.

Then he stepped aside and let me in, and closed the door, and I saw the exact second he decided what I

was worth.