The Marriage Trap: A completely addictive psychological thriller Page 12

  Did he want to tread the middle ground? Jason had no idea… Right now, he felt as if the ground had dropped from underneath him, leaving him freefalling into a very dark pit. Hesitating, he took another long drink and continued on to the sign-up page. The site promised the application process took only minutes – basic details, a username, password and email address being all that was needed before he was ‘in and free to browse’.

  It lived up to its promise. After entering the information and scribbling down his password – ‘Megaidiot1’, which he thought appropriate – Jason was indeed in, and clueless about what to do next. Fill in his profile, he guessed, which presented him with an immediate problem. Did he tick single or married? Separated, he opted for, and then he hit his next snag. He wasn’t much into selfies. The only photos he had, therefore, were of him and Karla together, or with the kids, which was even worse. He couldn’t bring himself to crop any of those. A quick search of his laptop produced a security ID photo he’d had taken in order to access a high-tech computer meeting. He didn’t look very happy in it, but then, he wasn’t exactly feeling ecstatic. It would do.

  So, criteria? His lips poised on the bottle, he debated, swilled back another mouthful of whisky and then completed a few categories. And then went back and hit delete. He was narrowing his search down to Karla, he realised, his chest constricting painfully.

  Swiping a hand over his face, Jason blinked hard. Don’t go there, he warned himself, and then started afresh, this time making sure his ‘preferences’ were as unlike Karla as he could get. Hair, eye colour – all different. Once he was finished, he took another fortifying drink and hit search. He skimmed through them, skipping most, but clicking on two he liked. And then he buried his head in his hands. What the hell was he doing?

  His heart like a lead weight in his chest, his head swimming, he massaged his temples with his thumbs and stayed where he was. The keyboard was out of focus, and the room began to spin as he closed his eyes. He needed to lie down, but he doubted the nausea now churning his gut would allow him to sleep. Folding his arms on the desk, he was about to rest his head when he heard a distinctive ping, followed by another.

  Closing one eye, Jason glanced blearily up. Jackpot, he thought, congratulating himself on the fact that somebody out there liked him.

  One of the women he’d clicked on had messaged him. Hi. Are you feeling lonely?

  Bloody lonely, Jason replied.

  TWENTY-ONE

  KARLA

  Jason still hasn’t come home and with each call I make I grow more desperate. I’ve tried his mobile a thousand times. I’ve sent him texts, left umpteen messages. I’ve texted Mark, who has no idea where he is. I’ve even rung his sister, Hannah, who hasn’t seen Jason for two weeks, and who confided in me that she’s been concerned about him seeming so exhausted and worried lately. Aware of what frame of mind he’s in, that hasn’t helped one little bit.

  My mind now running through all sorts of scenarios – I can almost see him lying in some hospital bed somewhere, unconscious – I try his office number again. Again, it rings out. I can’t imagine he’s there, deliberately not picking up. Unless, of course, he simply doesn’t want to speak to me. He was so furious at finding me there, that it was so blindingly obvious I didn’t trust him, that I would believe my father’s word over his. It scared me. He’s scaring me now. My heart drums erratically and then leaps in my chest as I hear the alert of an incoming text. Hastily, I check it.

  On my way, Mum has sent. Five minutes.

  Relief on some level sweeps through me, while I scramble frantically for what to do next. Of course – his car will be there. Why didn’t I think of that before? If he is in the office, his car will be in the car park. Already, I am reaching for the address book for the security guard’s direct line. Mercifully, he answers the call and I gabble out that Jason doesn’t have his mobile with him, that his office phone seems to be permanently engaged – a small lie – and ask him to check the car park.

  The wait is interminable while he does. ‘Yep, it’s there,’ he says, coming back on the line. ‘Sorry, I must have been doing my rounds when he arrived. I can give him a message, if you—’

  ‘No, no. Thanks,’ I say over him. ‘I just wanted to drop his mobile off. I’ll drive over now.’

  Headlights sweep the hall walls as I hang up. Mum has arrived. Knowing I would never ask her to babysit so late and at such short notice unless it was urgent, she agreed to come immediately when I spoke to her.

  ‘Anything?’ she asks, her expression worried as I pull the front door open.

  ‘He’s at the office.’ Tears of frustration and fear prick my eyes as I grab up my car keys. ‘Holly and Josh are in bed. They—’

  ‘Go,’ Mum says, stepping in and urging me past her to the door. ‘Ring me,’ she calls, as I race down the drive and climb into my car.

  Acknowledging her with a nod, I reverse haphazardly off the drive, now feeling truly desperate. I have no idea what happened at Jason’s meeting with my father, other than that the offer of financial backing wasn’t forthcoming. I don’t know whether the two of them argued. I do know that Jason went straight from that meeting into his own office, only to end up having to defend himself to his wife, the one person he should be able to depend on. He’d been crushed by the awful things I’d said to him. I swear I could feel his heart breaking as he walked away from me. I have to find him. Talk to him. Convince him that I love him and that I am there for him. That even if his damn business does go under, it won’t be the end of the world. I will always be there for him, no matter what.

  Nearing his car, my stomach tightens. It’s parked askew. Not just clumsily, but carelessly, diagonally straddling two bays. The front wheels are wrenched hard right, it’s as if he’s driven at speed, pulled up and simply abandoned it. This is not Jason. He’s a careful driver. Becoming a father made him a better driver, he says.

  Oh God, no. Pulling up alongside the car, my heart misses a beat as I realise the passenger side is damaged, the wing badly dented. He’s had an accident. Hit something. Praying that no one has been injured, above all, that Jason hasn’t, I curse my bloody father, who I suspect cares about no one. Why did I insist on Jason borrowing money from him, when my father thinks so little of him? I must have been completely insane.

  I climb out of my car and tentatively try Jason’s car doors. They’re open. A cold chill of trepidation runs through me. Jason would never not lock his doors. His tie is thrown on the passenger seat, as if torn angrily off. The interior is filled with the pungent smell of cigar smoke. But Jason doesn’t smoke. He stopped years ago. Or at least I thought he did. It’s not that that bothers me most, though. It’s the unmistakable smell of whisky, which tells me my husband has been drinking and driving. This is not Jason.

  Not the Jason you know. Sarah, worming her way into my head, reminds me of the one thing I’m overwhelmingly good at: letting down those I love when they most need me.

  Quieting her, I turn away from the glove compartment. I don’t want to search Jason’s car. I don’t need to. I need to find him. I slam the door shut and head towards the office, giving the security guard a wave as I go. He’s emerging from the side of the building to do his rounds.

  ‘Looks like someone had some pressing business,’ he shouts, nodding towards Jason’s car.

  ‘Is he inside?’ I shout back.

  ‘His lights are on,’ he says.

  Thank God. Relieved, I give him another wave and quickly punch the code into the security door.

  There are no lights on in the main office, but I see a glimmer of light emerging from under Jason’s door. Attempting to still the nerves twisting inside me, I push on, and then pause with my hand poised on the door handle. There’s no noise from inside. I press my ear to the door. No sound at all. ‘Jason?’ I call.

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘Jason?’ Goosebumps prickle my skin and I pray again that he’s all right. That he hasn’t been injured or done
anything awful. I have no reason to imagine he would, but there’s this hard knot of fear in my chest that just won’t go away.

  Taking a breath, I squeak the door open, my gaze going immediately to his desk. Seeing no sign of him, I step inside and then start as I realise where he is. Slumped in the leather club chair to the side of the door is my husband. Arms crossed over his chest, a bottle nestled in the crook of his elbow, Jason appears to be fast asleep. Close to unconsciousness possibly. My heart skitters against my ribcage as I crouch beside him and realise the bottle is empty. He chose to come here, not answering his phone, drinking himself into a stupor, rather than go home.

  Oh, Jason… Moving closer, I check to make sure he’s breathing. His eyelids flicker as I study his face, tracing my fingers lightly over his high cheekbones and strong jawline. He’s in need of a shave, not that I’ve ever minded his unshaven chin grazing my skin. Dearly, I wish I hadn’t been so quick to judge him without establishing the facts. I’ve hurt him. I’d do anything now to undo it. To be home with him lying next to me, safe and sober. Then I would show him how much I love him. That I could never contemplate a life without him.

  I press my lips lightly to his. ‘Jason,’ I whisper. He doesn’t stir and panic grips me afresh. I have no idea what to do. Should I call an ambulance? Try to get him home? But how? Easing myself to my feet, I pull out my phone, hoping to enlist the security guard’s help with getting Jason into my car. But… should I let him sleep it off for a while?

  Uncertain, I decide to call my mum before moving him. My body feels heavy, weary with the weight of too much worry. I walk to Jason’s desk and sink into his chair.

  My eyes fall on a Post-it note next to his laptop. I don’t really register what’s written there at first, and then a single word leaps out at me: ‘FlirtEasy’. My breath dies in my throat, my mind reeling as I read what’s beneath it: ‘Password – Megaidiot1’. Jason’s handwriting. My eyes confirm this, but my head refuses to believe it. My gaze shoots to the laptop and I reach towards it as if it might bite me.

  Tentatively, I stroke a finger over the mouse, and the screen comes to life. I stare, stupefied, at it for a second. And then my heart lurches violently. He’s signed out, but it’s quite obvious which site he was signed into. Feeling sick to my stomach, I place my phone down and type in the password. Apart from the tears sliding down my cheeks, I am quite still as I read the profiles of the women who have responded to Jason almost blindly. There are several.

  It’s Jason’s response to a message, though, that I can’t tear my gaze away from. Are you feeling lonely?

  Bloody lonely, Jason answered.

  Mega idiot. That would be me. My heart folds up inside me.

  He was right. The raw ache in my chest turns to a hard kernel of anger. My father was right. I laugh, disbelieving.

  But he’s a liar! Sarah shoots back.

  He was right! The evidence is right there before my eyes. I heave out a gasp, feeling as if my lungs are turning inside out. Is this what he wants? These women, desperate for a man? Trembling with rage, I study the profile photographs – women as far from me as it’s possible to get. Fake faces caked in make-up, fake hair, fake photographs. False personas.

  I can do fake. I can do false. I’m a fucking actress! An anguished moan escapes me.

  I can do desperate.

  I am desperate.

  TWENTY-TWO

  KARLA

  ‘You’ve decided to come home then?’ Working to keep any facetiousness from my voice, to stay in control while the cement that holds the foundations of my life together is crumbling to dust, I turn from the sink as Jason walks quietly from the front door to the kitchen.

  Two days he’s been gone. Two whole days without even a word. Does he really care so little about me? Disillusioned, utterly, I simply stare at him. I know I will need to call upon all of my acting skills in order to detach from the crushing pain where my heart should be and carry on; to pretend I don’t know that he’s been doing what he so vehemently denied. I am so furious that he could do this, not just to me, but to our children, I have to force myself not to walk across the kitchen and punch him. Part of me is filled with hatred for him. There is part of me, though, the part that’s not bleeding inside, that still loves him, that truly is desperate to keep him, whatever it takes.

  I have no idea how my legs are still holding me. They threatened to buckle beneath me when I saw him standing so uncertainly in the doorway: my husband, the man I gave everything to and imagined I would be spending the rest of my life with. I want to give in to it, to drop to the floor right here and weep like a baby, but I won’t. I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I want him to love me. But I want the impossible, because if he’s doing this, then in his heart, he has already left me.

  Jason looks towards me. His expression is apprehensive. ‘I needed some time,’ he offers. A lame explanation. He knows it.

  Looking him over, I nod. He looks dreadful. He’s still wearing the clothes he had on when I left him deep in inebriated sleep in his office. He hasn’t shaved, and the dark shadows under his eyes, growing ever darker, indicate he hasn’t slept. Welcome to the club, I feel like saying. The dreams that have haunted me all my life have been relentless these last two nights, snatching me from fitful sleep whenever I manage to doze off. As I look at my husband, who I sense is leaving me as surely as my sister did, I feel it all over again: the empty loneliness of losing someone who is a fundamental part of you.

  And then I am back there, living my nightmare, standing over the slim body that lies so still and cold. And I am inside, looking out. Silently, I ask myself, why did you lie for him? No breath escapes her blue-tinged lips, yet she breathes. Inside me, she breathes. We were independent, but one, inseparable. My father took her away from me, and I allowed him to. I allowed him to get away with the horrendous thing he’d done.

  Jason and I are individuals. But we were one: a couple, a unit, a family. Now broken. I can’t allow the person who chipped relentlessly away at our marriage, who mercilessly destroyed two more lives, to escape the consequences. Not this time. When Sarah died, I was too frightened of our father to tell.

  I lied for him. I lied to myself. I tried to convince myself that our father would never do such a thing. But he did. I tried to convince myself Jason would never cheat. But he has. The life I lived after she was gone was a lie. My marriage is a lie. Should I feel guilty, then, for continuing the lies, for pretending to be a person I’m not in order to open my husband’s eyes? Jason did love me – that is a truth I am sure of. He could still. If only he remembered all the pieces of me that make the whole. I can’t lose him.

  ‘You’ve cut your hair,’ Jason says, breaking the silence that hangs heavy between us.

  Instinctively, my hand goes to my bare neck. I sense disbelief in his voice, rather than disapproval. I couldn’t believe it either, as I’d stared into the mirror, watching the hair Jason always claimed he loved fall to the floor. Little pieces of me. I won’t miss them.

  ‘It’s nice,’ he says. ‘Suits you.’

  I don’t pursue it. I’m not after false compliments either.

  ‘Where were you?’ I ask him. I assume he won’t tell me the truth, but I wonder obliquely whether he cares that I haven’t tried to contact him either. I, too, needed some time. Time to process my feelings, to decide what to do – whether I should pack his bags and leave them outside or pray he came home and that, for now, he would stay. Whatever I do, I don’t want to initiate an argument he will then claim drove him away. He will take responsibility for the decisions he makes – perhaps already has made. I made a horrendous mistake; I accept that. Insisting he ingratiate himself with my father was wrong. Jason didn’t want to be beholden to him. But I won’t let him lay the blame for destroying our family at my feet.

  ‘I stayed at my sister’s,’ he says, with an awkward shrug. Is he telling the truth? I can’t tell. I have yet to learn the body language of my hu
sband’s lies. ‘After that last argument we had, I thought we could both use a little space,’ he goes on, his expression wary, his eyes meeting mine briefly.

  So he is blaming me then? I hide a disappointed smile. I can’t quite believe he would actually imply that my ‘snooping’ on him, accusing him of doing what I now know he’s been doing, is reason enough for him to disappear for two days without even having the courtesy to let me know he was alive.

  I squash my growing anger. I’m determined not to fall into the tit-for-tat trap. ‘It must have been a bit cramped there,’ I say, aware that, with two children under five in a two-bedroomed house, his sister barely has room to swing a cat.

  ‘I slept on the sofa.’ He runs a hand tiredly over his neck. ‘Where are the kids?’ he asks, glancing around as if Holly and Josh might spring out from one of the kitchen cupboards.

  ‘At school,’ I supply. Perhaps he’s forgotten it’s a school day. It must be disorientating for him, I think cynically, having forgotten so completely that we existed. ‘Coffee?’ I ask him, turning away. I can’t look at him for fear I will see the deceit in his eyes. If I do, I will lose control and become the demented woman I was in his office I don’t like.

  ‘No, I, er… No, thanks,’ he answers hesitantly. ‘You’re not at work today then?’ he asks, as if surprised I would take a day off while my world falls apart. I suppose he might be. Knowing I need time stored up for when my children are sick, I rarely take a day off.

  ‘No.’ I make myself a coffee, willing myself not to give in to the tears that are now perpetually close to the surface. ‘I didn’t feel too well, strangely. I have a pain… in my chest.’ My voice catches. I inhale sharply.