The Secret

by Diane A. Hadac

About the Author: Diane A. Hadac is an Active Member of the Mystery Writers of America and an advertising copywriter. Her credits include, "Kegler Killer," Black Coffee Anthology, 2016; "The First White House Costume Ball and Other Trumpery," We've Been Trumped Anthology, 2016; "Golf Widow," 3rd Place Winner, Arizona Mystery Writers Short Story Competition, 2014; "Arthur's Indiscretion," (under Philomena Benedetto), Strand Magazine.

Excerpt

I awoke with a certain numbness in body and spirit. Murder is a desperate act, but last night I was a desperate woman. Morning had come and nothing had happened—the police weren’t rapping at my door and my phone wasn’t ringing.

After my husband Roger left for work, I turned on the radio. The report I wanted to hear was broadcast minutes later. Sitting at the kitchen table in my bathrobe with a mug of black coffee cradled between shaking hands, I breathed a sigh of relief and marveled at how simple it was to commit the perfect crime.

Clerics maintain confession cleanses the soul, and I admit the whole mess was mostly my fault; but its mundane beginning did not foreshadow a catastrophic outcome …

Roger and I were sitting in the living room one evening. I was leafing through the latest issue of a home decorating magazine, and he was busily drafting a legal brief on his laptop.

When he took a break, I asked: “What’s with your new assistant? Whenever I phone your office, she lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and prolongs the conversation with trivial chatter, mainly about you. I don’t understand the point of this? She seems to be harboring a secret that she can’t bring herself to tell me.”

Roger stopped typing and jerked up his head sharply; his neatly trimmed brown hair ruffling slightly. With a slightly distracted air, he said mildly, “Just ignore her, Sandra. She leans toward the dramatic.”

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