With ease, she stared into his blood-shot eyes until they slowly closed forever. Onto my next hostage, she thought to herself. A smiled planted itself on her face as she walked into the night.

 

This is where our story begins, at the end.

 

She should have been terrified out of her life, her hands should have been shaking endlessly, but of course, that was not the case. Ruby felt as if she had cracked open a piñata and let all the goods endlessly spill out. She would never let it show. If you looked really closely though, you may have seen a smirk making its way on her face, just for a split second.

 

And now you’re wondering what it is exactly I am talking about. Three words: love, murder, repeat.

 

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“There’s blood, I don’t know how it.. please hurry.. he’s not breathing..”

“Ma’am, please slow down and repeat that. Who is not breathing?”

“My husband!” cried Ruby. “I got home from running errands and found him lying on the kitchen floor with blood everywhere. He killed himself.”

“Okay don’t worry. There will be a police car and an ambulance sent right away. Can you please tell me your address?” The voice on the other side of the line seemed almost panicked as if she had never received a call this horrifying.

“182 Shareway Street.”

“It’ll take five minutes. Until then, can you answer a few questions ma’am?”

”Yes, anything.” The shaking rhythm in her voice seemed perfectly rehearsed, but no one would know that other than, of course, Ruby herself.

 

She lied, the operator. It had taken the police seven minutes to arrive, not five. The banging sound on the door was like a director calling out “action” because just then, Ruby got herself in character. With tears all over her rose-tinted cheeks, she swung open the door as the rain pattered on the window sill of the kitchen. Jacob’s lifeless body lay there on the tiles in peace.

 

A stranger would have seen him as an innocent man who had taken his life, overdosed on anti-depressant pills, as the bottle lay beside him, empty. But at last, he was not innocent, and this was not a case of suicide. Jacob was a cheater and a victim of murder.

 

Ruby was taken to another room as officers and investigators did their job.

 

The final statement will say that Jacob had swallowed all thirty pills that were in the bottle and as he fell to the floor, his head smashed against the kitchen counter. This will all make sense since he, supposedly, was suffering from long term clinical depression. His last few moments on Earth were spent having a seizure.

 

Case closed.

 

Now you’re wondering where Ruby falls in all of this. So the truth? Here it is.

 

she was the perfect wife, one would say. Cooked and served Jacob dinner every night after he would arrive home. And Jacob, the perfect husband. He cheated again and again.

He was not depressed. Crushed and dissolved anti-depressant pills would travel down his esophagus for months and so for that long, a plan was in action. She would kill him, slowly.

Thirty pills of Trofanil. Ruby crushed all of them and slowly let them dissolve in the glass of red wine that would all be drank by Jacob.

 

“I’m sorry, you left me no choice,” Ruby whispered while the last drop landed on his tongue.

 

As the back of his head punched against the countertop, Jacob fell to the ground. His body, uncontrollably, began shaking and jerking as yellow froth crawled out from his mouth. His eyes turned ruby-red as purple veins made themselves visible on his temples and neck. He was having a seizure.

 

“You told me I was the only one in your eyes! You lied Jacob! You lied!” Tears welled in her sockets as Ruby watched her husband fight against his fate. His arms shot up toward the phone sitting on the table.

 

And then, the laughter.

 

”Why do you all make me do this to you? You’re what, my third victim? Fourth? Huh, seems I’ve lost count.” Her voice was as soothing as a siren in the middle of a never-ending ocean.

 

With ease, she stared into Jacob’s blood-shot eyes until they slowly closed forever. Onto my next hostage, Ruby thought to herself. A smiled planted itself on her face as she walked into the night.

 

Case closed.