My Dead Husband

By NJ Moss

When a woman learns her abusive husband is dead, it’s only the beginning of her nightmare, in this twisting psychological thriller by the author of Her Final Victim.

Ellie managed to escape from husband Kayden’s vicious abuse—and since learning from her mother-in-law that he’s taken his own life, she’ll never have to worry about him again.

But instead of relief, Ellie is now experiencing terror in the form of frightening phone calls, hostile strangers on the street, and what appears to be deliberate sabotage of her writing career. Thinking she’s spotted a reflection of Kayden’s face only makes her wonder if she’s having a breakdown . . . again.

With the help of a new man in her life, Ellie intends to head to Scotland and find out once and for all what is real and what is illusion—but the deeper her investigation goes, the darker the truth becomes . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504073844

Book preview

1

‘Your husband is dead. I’d think you’d have the decency to show some remorse.’

I held the phone to my ear, looking out the window at the sun rising over the sea. It glittered and, I thought as I let the news wash over me, it was quite beautiful this morning.

Kayden was gone: suicide, Paisley had told me. That abusive sadistic narcissist would be in the ground soon… and she expected me to be sad?

‘Hello,’ my mother-in-law snapped. ‘Are you there?’

I cautioned myself not to allow my smile to come across in my tone. Kayden was evil. He’d sent stars of concussion glimmering across my vision countless times, had forced the sight of my own blood to become commonplace, had painted my body in deep purple and ice-blue bruises. But he was still her only child. ‘Yes. I’m here. I’m trying to process it all.’

I had to leave for my bus, but it hardly seemed the best thing to say. I glanced down at the table where my half-eaten toast lay, next to the notebook I sometimes jotted ideas in. I’d sat down to this pre-work ritual with an estranged husband who refused to participate in divorce talk. Now I was free of him. It felt like a sharp studded collar being removed from my throat.

‘He mentioned you in the note.’ There was unmistakable vindictiveness in her voice. Her sweet Kayden could do no wrong. Shatter an orbital bone, snap a wrist: it was fair game as far as she was concerned. ‘He said you drove him to it.’

The deranged urge to cheer whelmed up in me. I touched my face, as though Paisley had spirited down from Scotland and come to Weston, the small seaside town I called home: as though she was spying on me with binoculars and I had to hide my smile.

‘Oh.’

‘Oh? Oh? Didn’t you hear me, Ellie? He slit his wrists and he said it was your fault. Surely that deserves more than an oh.’

I bit down a hundred angry sentiments. Confrontation – of others, of myself – had never been something I was good at. It either never happened or happened too passionately. Perhaps that was why it took me so long to leave Kayden. Perhaps that was why I was swept along by him in the first place.

‘You’ve been kept out of the will and you’re not welcome at the funeral.’ Her thick Scottish brogue became grisly with rage. It was clear she’d expected something from me, some reaction, and I wasn’t fulfilling my role. As if I wanted to be invited to the fucking funeral. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. My son was nothing but–’

I hung up.

It was easy, placing my phone atop my notebook, where it instantly started to vibrate as Paisley rang me back. She needed to rant and scream and take metaphoric chunks of flesh as her twisted son had taken real ones. But there were hundreds of miles separating us and Paisley wasn’t the sort to drive down to England to make a point.

Her son had been nothing but a monster, a smiling demon who raged and tormented the moment the doors closed. I refused to listen to her justifications.

I was free. For the first time in years, life was good, untinged by the presence of Kayden lurking behind every positive thing that happened to me. I didn’t have to flinch every time a cupboard slammed, sure there was a fist soon to follow. You didn’t get the right pasta sauce… I didn’t have to freeze when a floorboard creaked at night, awaiting a hand slithering under the covers.

I didn’t have to think, Maybe he’ll get bored. Maybe he’ll go crazy. Maybe he’ll come back and make me pay. Because even after he’d left, that fear was always there, turning shadows into attackers.

With him gone, perhaps I could enjoy the good things, like my publishing deal. My book was going to be released in a few weeks and I hadn’t allowed myself ten full minutes of happiness, because living with the aftershocks of Kayden made enjoying anything dangerous. Any second it could be snatched away.

‘But he’s dead,’ I whispered, as though that would make it feel true.

And then I laughed, giggling as I hadn’t since I was a girl: before I learned I was a little broken, a little strange, a little susceptible to the dark corners of the mind. I gripped my sides and I stared at the sea, revelling in the delight of my husband’s death.

2

I walked out the front door with a skip in my step, far more cheerful than I’d felt in a long time. My ground-floor flat sat atop the tallest hill in Weston, giving me a view of the sea and snatches of the beach and the promenade. It truly was a beautiful day, the horizon glistening, the sort of thing it had been difficult to appreciate when I was constantly on alert for Kayden.

I headed down the hill toward the bus stop, fighting the crazed urge to whistle a tune.

My husband’s dead, my husband’s dead. I felt like screaming it at everybody I passed.

I sat down at the bus stop and let out a breath, warning myself to calm down. I was starting to feel ramped up, manic. I didn’t like to toss labels at myself, but the truth was I’d experienced anxiety for much of my life – it was one of the reasons I’d never learned to drive – and anxiety’s sister emotion was mania.

It was tempting to grin widely at strangers as they strolled by, to share the news which was making me want to shout in relief. I supposed that was better than panic attacks throttling me, but it was less than ideal. A man was dead. No matter who he was, no matter how revolting, it wasn’t a reason to smile.

But that was bullshit.

Kayden had swept into my life as though he was planning on malforming me with his depraved designs.

We’d met at the beach when I was sitting down with a book one summer evening, my head buried in the pages, inhaling the scent of paper and sand. A shadow had fallen over me, and that should’ve been a warning: his shadow, the way he loomed. I should’ve taken note of that instead of his disarming smile and his silver hair.

He was older than me by more than a decade, but he held his age well, as though it was a choice and not a necessity. His hair was swept aside and his eyes were bright blue, stark, the sort of eyes that – I thought at the time – looked into me and liked what they saw.

‘Nothing better than a good book on a sunny day.’ His voice was thick and alluring and deep. It was husky. I hated thinking about how badly I’d ached for it the first time he spoke to me. ‘Mind if I join you?’

I should have said no. I should have leapt up and lashed my nails at him like a feral cat, spat at him, done anything to warn him away. But instead I blushed and nodded. ‘Sure.’

I was flattered by his attention, this handsome older man.

After that first meeting I was lost.

He did all the right things, made all the Hollywood gestures. There were flowers and dates and then, a few months into this whirlwind romance, he got down on one knee and told me how much he loved me. ‘I never knew a man like me could feel this. I never knew these doors were inside of me. But you’ve opened up parts of me I never knew existed. Ellie Salter, will you marry me?’

Tears of unbridled happiness had flowed down my cheeks and I jumped around in crazed joy. What a moron I’d been, allowing him to puppeteer me with such ease.

I glanced up when the bus pulled into the stop, jolting me from my recollections.

The past was often a pit for me, threatening to swallow me up. If I wasn’t thinking about Kayden, I was thinking about Theo, the first boy who’d ever stolen my heart. But I couldn’t think about my childhood sweetheart for too long without thinking about the other thing, the confusing thing I never liked to steer near to. It was too complicated, too messy, too terrifying not to understand my own mind and memory.

I climbed onto the bus and took a seat at the back, laying my forehead against the glass.

It hadn’t taken long for Kayden to reveal the monster behind his smile.

It happened as soon as we’d said I do.

It was small things at first: the dishes weren’t clean enough, I’d forgotten to straighten the curtains, his shoes weren’t where he’d left them. From there it progressed with the everyday casualness of abuse.

How pathetically and tragically simple it had been: getting used to the way he would inflict punishment on me. A thud to the base of my spine, a stiff punch, or maybe a looping wood-thick arm around my throat as he squeezed and loosened, squeezed and loosened his grip over and over, laughing in my ear as my legs weakened and my world became hazy with how close to unconsciousness I was.

No, I refused to think about that. I’d picture him slumped with his wrists slit open instead, blood soaking into the carpet, his lips twisted into a deathly grimace instead of his usual deceiving smile.

That prompted my lips to twitch upward again, another grin trying to take hold of my face.

I took out my mobile, navigating to Facebook. I spent the rest of the journey responding to comments, liking book-related statuses, generally building up my presence amongst readers so they’d recognise my name when my book came out. That was how it had started anyway, but now I really enjoyed the interactions, the flurry of notifications and replies and banter. It was a welcome distraction from the madness of this morning.

My book was being published by a small digital-first publisher, meaning they specialised in e-books. That was why I felt compelled to do my part to get my name out there. In the indie spirit, we were all in this together.

I found myself able to view my publishing contract with fresh appreciation this morning. Previously, I’d let negative thoughts seep into my mind: it’s not a big publisher, hardly anybody will read your book, you’re nothing special. But now that Kayden was gone, I was able to push all of that aside.

I’d written a book. I’d edited a book. And it had found a home.

Perhaps those negative thoughts had been Kayden, whispering to me over the miles, picking at every little thing like he always did. Knowing he’d bled out – knowing he’d never bend me over the kitchen divider and roughly take me again – I let my head fall back, a feeling of pride moving through me. Or at least a cousin of pride, a convincing pretender. But anything was better than the numbness I’d felt before this.

I should be proud. I’d achieved what so many people strived for, a book deal with a reputable publisher, digital-first or not.

After sorting my social media stuff, I watched Weston drift by, wondering how Mum would react to the news of Kayden’s death.

3

I rounded the corner that led toward Mum’s house. I always thought of it as her house, though I had lived there for my whole childhood. The moment I’d left home Mum had renovated, as though she’d needed to put that period of her life behind her. She’d repainted the stucco exterior salmon-pink, added hanging baskets, tall hedges that framed a gravel path, flower beds, ivy creepers… and on and on, wiping away any sign of what it had once been.

I couldn’t blame her.

We’d lived there when Dad died. His death had triggered her psychosis, her schizophrenia exploding back into her personality when it had lain dormant for so long. I didn’t understand why she hadn’t moved, but perhaps she thought she could reclaim the piece of herself that had died with Dad.

We rarely talked about such things.

This was the house she’d fled one evening when I was thirteen, a bread knife in her hand, utterly naked, a fierce glint in her eyes as she stood at the end of the pathway. There had been no hedges to protect her modesty then.

‘I have to find them, Ellie,’ she’d said as I stood at the door, pleading with her to come inside.

‘Find who?’

‘They’re watching me. They’re watching us.’

It had been an early Saturday morning and the street was waking up, music playing lightly from a window, a dog yapping a few houses over. Mum had flinched at every noise, her breasts bobbing offensively, making me want to look away even as I crept over to her. She’d gone through a phase of tearing her clothes off, convinced they were causing her pain. I’d learned by then to move slowly, hands raised, palms flat, to show her I didn’t mean any harm.

She cried when I brought her inside and wrapped a blanket around her. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

I’d managed to stay calm through that incident, but that wasn’t always the case.

There had been times when I’d screamed at her: ‘Mad bitch, what the fuck is wrong with you? I wish I had a normal mum. I wish you were dead.’ She’d shaved her hair off soon after one argument, convinced there were small electronic devices crawling over her scalp.

‘They’re sneaking into my brain.’

She’d scratched her scalp raw, scratched so hard her fingernails had blunted against her skull, convinced she would have to tear her head to pieces to get at the invaders.

Once, she’d erected an elaborate blanket fortress in my bedroom, wrapping tight knots around my bedposts, the door handle, billowing from the ceiling until the entire room was a criss-crossing interplay of light, changing colour depending on which blanket it was passing through. Perhaps this would’ve been fun when I was five or six, but I was a teenager and she was ranting the whole time, something about how the blankets protected us from the radiation, and they were out to get us. It was always that.

They’re out to get us.

There were so many theys I stopped counting.

These sorts of incidents had become routine in the years after Dad’s death. It was like the cancer had eaten away at her sanity as much as his lungs. But she was never abusive. Perhaps she was mean sometimes. Perhaps she allowed moods and imagined whispers to make her vindictive for a short while. But I always knew, when it mattered, she loved me.

The one thing that soothed her was when I tapped away at the old typewriter. She’d drag it into my bedroom and sit me down in front of it, a rare flurry of excitement buzzing around her, clapping her hands together as she settled cross-legged on the floor. ‘Type, Ellie.’

‘Type what?’

‘Just type.’

And I had.

I’d typed, and somewhere along the way the typing had become as vital to me as it was to Mum. There was a beautiful freedom in words, as though the page was a window and I was peering into a different world. The room fell away, Mum’s stench – she rarely washed – drifted into the distance, and there was only the character, the scene, the other world. It intoxicated me.

Later I switched the clunky old typewriter for a word processor and started to take it seriously. Mum had sometimes said she wanted to be a writer, but apparently she’d tried and it had turned her mad. She would never explain what she meant, and Lottie Salter rarely budged on something once she made her mind up.

As I pushed open the gate, glancing at the house, a flashing vignette of Theo passed across my vision. I saw him standing under my window with a wicked grin on his face, his mop of red hair in curly ringlets around his cheeks, waving a joint around before taking a long drag. I remembered how he’d taunted me with it, pleading with me to sneak out and go on an adventure with him.

But no… I couldn’t allow myself to think of Theo.

It was a silly childhood romance, nothing else. And that other thing, that whole mess, it wasn’t my concern.

Just as the mother from my childhood wasn’t my concern.

Once the thing happened – whatever the hell it was – Mum had had no choice but to rise from her psychosis. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, because there was something wrong with my mind, some defective piece I never pondered for too long. But she had arisen, gotten the right therapy, the right medication, and today Charlotte Salter was–

‘Eleanor.’ Mum smiled radiantly at me as she opened the door. She stood in her cargo trousers, her thick boots, her long-sleeved flannel shirt. She was fit for her age, her grey hair tied back with a violet bandana. She held her favourite watering can. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Like what?’

She tilted her head, a playful expression dancing across her face. ‘Like you’ve won the lottery.’

I laughed and danced over to her. ‘I’d rather beg my dear old mummy for her last few pennies, to be honest.’

She waved a bothered hand. ‘This again. You’re welcome to whatever you need.’

I prodded her, revelling in her awkwardness. I loved teasing her about this.

Her parents – my grandparents – had been very wealthy, my grandfather leaving my mother a queen’s ransom in his will. She was always telling me I didn’t have to work if I chose not to, but I couldn’t stand the idea of relying upon her, because what if she changed as she had before, and I was left with nothing… but these were cruel thoughts.

Mum had been sane for one and a half decades, or as sane as a schizophrenic woman can be.

She placed her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it tightly as she often did, as though she could make up for past coldness with present warmth. And she could. To some degree, she really could. ‘What is it, Ellie?’

‘Mum, he’s dead. Kayden’s dead. He killed himself. He slit his wrists.’ I couldn’t help it. I let out a giggle, the sort of crazed sound she’d made countless times when I was a girl. ‘That piece of shit is rotting in hell.’

I expected her to clasp my shoulder tighter, for her face to crease into a smile. But instead, she took a step back. She scowled. ‘A man’s dead, and you’re laughing? What sort of daughter did I raise? What the fuck is wrong with you?’

4

I stared at her, stunned for a moment. Raised me, fucking raised me? I raised myself, you psychotic bitch. I’d scream at her now: scream and surge forward, throwing a thousand things in her face, things we were supposed to have put behind us. I’d tell her she was a terrible mother for making me feel small about this, for stealing this moment from me. But that was the old Ellie and Lottie, before we reconnected and made amends.

I forced calmness into my voice. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have smiled. But you can’t deny this is good news.’

Her eyes flitted over me. I thought she was going to collapse into tears, her cheeks trembling.

Kayden was a monster. His death should’ve prompted cheering, not this nonsense.

Finally she nodded. ‘Of course I understand that. Kayden, he was… what he did to you, it was evil. I hated him. But I simply don’t believe death is something to laugh about.’

There must’ve been more to

Reviews for My Dead Husband

[Cindy Myers · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The only reason I finished this book was to give this review. I suffered through sex,excessive cursing, and just sick perversion. A waste of my valuable reading time. And stupid ending too.