I’m being set up. It was the only logical conclusion. My husband is framing me for murder. I threw Dr. Nash’s passport back into the mud and picked up another. And another. And another. All the names swirled around in my head.

I stopped when I opened a passport without a sticky note attached. Tears started running down my cheeks. It was my father. I remembered his face. His voice. His eyes. I had his eyes. He had no new identity. Because I had killed him.

I could barely breathe. The memories flying through my mind screeched to a halt. My stomach churned. I leaned over and threw up into the hole I'd just dug. God. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

I could still hear my husband’s words. I could still feel the weight of the gun in my hand.

But there was no time to be swallowed by grief. I knew what I had done. And I knew perfectly well that any sane person wouldn’t have been pressured into pulling the trigger. I was about to close the passport when I noticed the last name. Bell. His name was Richard Bell. What?

The side of my face twitched. Bell? My maiden name was Evans like my mother’s. I was Adeline Evans before I married my husband. And my husband’s last name was Bell. Adeline Bell. I threw the passport down and rummaged through the remaining ones until I found the one I was looking for. One with a sticky note for Katrina Nash. I lifted it up. Adeline Thompson?

I shook my head. No. I was never Adeline Thompson. No, no, no. It was nonsense. All the passports were nonsense. I threw it on the ground. I’d have to tell Ben to call off his search for Juanita Howe. There was no way that person was really her. Just like Jennifer Clarke wasn’t me. And Dr. Nash wasn’t me. And Adeline Thompson wasn’t me. But I couldn’t stop lifting up the passports. Scanning the sticky notes and names. Tossing the ones I had searched into the mud.

Until I found my husband’s. Montgomery Thompson. What a pretentious name. It was the stupidest name in the history of names.

No. That wasn’t his name. He was… I pinched the bridge of my nose. His name is… My mind was coming up blank. My husband’s name is… I pinched the bridge of my nose harder. What the hell is my husband’s name? My hand started shaking, slipping off my nose. Well his last name was Bell, that much I was sure of. Because my last name was Bell. I had married him and taken his last name. These passports were lies. All of them lies. But the cruelty in his eyes was captured in the image perfectly. And his handsome features and flawless smile that had tricked me all those years ago.

Montgomery Thompson. The name flipped around in my mind until suddenly it settled. It was coming back to me now. I had been Adeline Thompson. Had been. I had been all these people. I had been running for so long. It hit me like a wave, just like Dr. Nash had warned. Like I had warned.

And I wasn’t at all surprised that there was no sticky note for him. My dear husband was dead. I had killed him four years ago. I smiled. His blood had felt like the rain falling down on me now. Except it was hot and sticky when it splattered on my face. But still cleansing. Still freeing. I laughed into the emptiness, a laugh I didn’t recognize.

No. I dropped the passport onto the ground. No, he was alive. He’d be home soon. He was going to jail for killing all those people. He was a monster. He deserved to die. But I hadn’t killed him! And his name is…damnit what the hell is his name?!

I felt the trigger beneath my finger. I could see my father in front of me. My husband’s words running through my head. And I pulled it. Twice.

No. Once. I had pulled it once. No, you turned and you…

Stop it. I was losing my mind. I lifted up the second to last passport. It was mine before I got married. When I was Adeline Evans. When I thought I needed a man to save me. I threw it in the mud.

There was one last one. I lifted it up. Adeline Bell. There was no sticky note. 27 crosses. 27 passports.

Adeline Evans. Adeline Thompson. Katrina Nash. Jennifer Clarke. My father, Richard Bell. And my lovely husband, Montgomery Thompson.

26 murders. And then there was Adeline Bell. But I’m still alive! It felt like my mind was zigzagging in every direction. I’m still breathing. My husband was still breathing. And he was trying to make me think I was insane.

I lifted up the letter at the bottom of the box. No. I would not fall for my husband’s tricks. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t have these past lives. And I certainly hadn’t killed the twenty women in that box. I would have remembered killing them. Because I was haunted every day by my father’s death. I remembered it like it happened yesterday. I’d remember taking another life. And I certainly would have remembered killing my husband because I so desperately wanted to.

I felt his blood splatter against my face again. And the leaves crunch beneath me. And the weight of his body.

No. I didn’t remember that. It didn’t even align with my first memory of killing him. I was imagining it. I was imagining everything. And even if I had shot him, it didn’t mean I killed him. Obviously I hadn’t killed him. I’d been trying to get away from him for years. He had been hurting me for years. I’d remember if he was dead.

I needed to get all of this to Ben. He’d help me. He was the only one that would believe me. I threw all the passports back into the box and placed the letter on top before closing the lid. I picked up the box of passports and the box of pictures and stood up.

I was about to run back to the house, but turned back. Something made me stomp on the little crosses that remained, burying them beneath the leaves. I wasn’t sure what made me do it. I was tampering with evidence. I smashed the last one. Stop it. I took a step back. What was wrong with me? The ache in my head returned.

All I knew was that I needed to run. I followed the path, trying to ignore the searing pain in my ankle. There were two things I was sure of. I was good at dealing with pain after years of torture, and I was damn good at running. Those two things were true. Everything else? I wasn’t sure of any of it. But I was pretty sure I knew how to find out. The proof was in my husband’s files. If the handwriting on them matched the ones on the passports, I’d know he planted evidence. That he was setting me up to take the blame for his crimes.

I threw open the back door and trudged inside. I was completely soaked. My feet left muddy prints on the sparkling clean tiles. A few weeks ago I would have stopped everything to clean up the mess. But I wasn’t sick. The medicine made me sick. It gave me OCD. It gave me nightmares. It numbed me.

It changed me.

I looked down at my watch. My husband would be home in 15 minutes. Shit. I was so tired. The boxes fell out of my hands. Again, my body seemed to move without my brain’s permission. I lifted up the closest box of files and picked one up, smearing mud across the folder.

My name was Adeline Bell. And before I had gotten married, I had been Adeline Evans. I was not Dr. Nash. I had never been anyone else. The date on the file was clearly my husband’s handwriting. I had seen him make these files. I had him now. That stupid bastard. I caught him red-handed. I opened up the file and stared down at the words that the Dr. Nash imposter had written about me. Wait. They were in the same handwriting.

What? That couldn’t be. I grabbed the box of passports. The sticky notes had the same handwriting. I tore open the box of pictures. The backs of them with the names and dates had the same handwriting. No.

I picked up the open file. It was a session from five months ago. Listing my problems. All my problems that didn’t exist. Problems that had never been real.

But I did have one problem. One huge problem. The handwriting was mine. The file shook in my hands. Not my husband’s. Not some mysterious imposter. It was mine. All of it was in my handwriting.

Mine.

 How was that possible? My phone started ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Ben. I ignored it. God, oh God. Had I done this? How could I have done this?

I dumped the box of passports out on the floor. I knew it was what my husband wanted. To lead me to this point where I’d be grasping for anything to make sense. To make the false memories go away. I grabbed the envelope and tore it open.

 

Adeline,

Do you remember now? Do you know what you’ve done? Or are you fighting it?

You need to embrace it, Adeline. You’re not who you think you are.

We’ve talked about this so many times. Argued about good and evil. Right and wrong. Doing something good doesn’t make up for the wrongs. It doesn’t change the past. I’m sorry, Adeline. I truly am. You’ve done so much good. But you’ve done so much more evil.

Now that you know, you only have one choice.

Unless you’re ready to be caught. Ready to face the consequences of your actions. Ready to pay for all the lives you took.

If not, stop pretending you’re the one in pain and take your damn medicine. It controls you. It numbs you. It makes the memories fade. I get why you resist that. But in your case, that’s a good thing. Trust me. You need to be controlled. You need to be numb. You need for your memories to slip away. Trust me. I’m the doctor. Remember?

And if you’re still having trouble remembering, look in the mirror. Those bruises on your face? Those aren’t from your husband. He’s dead, remember? He was the second life you took. Don’t you remember that night in the woods?

XOXO,

-Dr. Nash

 

I touched the side of my jaw where I knew a bruise was. It was like a switch went off in my mind. Everything came flooding back. The memories of my husband were true. He promised to take care of my mother if I dropped out of college. But he hurt me. I was so scared of him. I was terrified of the man I had married. I wanted an out. He traveled during the week, so I kept going to school. I finished my degree. I kept going until I got a doctorate in psychology. I kept going until I knew I could take care of myself and my mother. And I covered my trail the whole time. Expensive fake personal trainers, cleaning services, anything I could think of that would equal the cost of tuition. And my husband bought it. He thought I had become an entitled housewife, just like he wanted me to be. Everything was going according to plan.

But I never expected to get pregnant. It sped up my plans. I didn’t have time to do it right. All I could do was flee. By the time I reached my mother’s nursing home, she was already dead. And he was waiting for me. In my haste to get away, I hadn’t been checking the mail. I hadn’t seen my diploma come. He knew my secret.  He had been making plans of his own the whole time.  Which included stopping the payments for my mom’s medical bills.

My perfect escape plan faded to dust. I kept screaming that I was pregnant, but he didn’t listen. He had never hurt me like that. He left me broken. He killed our baby. My baby.

I tried to kill myself after that. I had lost everything. Every. Single Fucking. Thing. There was no point in living. But he found me before I died and he sent me away. To a terrible place. Some horrible psych ward. It was like I was still living with him. Every day was worse than the day before. But I escaped. I got out of that wretched place.

I was finally free. I became Dr. Katrina Nash. I started over. But I never forgot my past. I thought becoming a psychologist would be meaningful. That helping others would soothe my own demons. Those women from the passports weren’t my friends. They were some of my patients. The ones with problems like mine. It felt like I knew them because they bared their souls to me. But not enough. I tried to help. But I knew what it was like to be abused. I knew how hard it was to trust. I knew what was going on in those women’s lives, but I couldn’t reach them. I couldn’t help them. Not the way I wanted. I even hired an abused woman as my secretary. Maria Gonzalez. That’s why her fingerprints and mine were the only ones on the files. Because I was Dr. Nash and Maria worked for me. She was just one of the many women who I couldn’t get through to. That I couldn’t help with words. I kept trying. And failing. They’d show up with bruises, bandages, casts. I wasn’t good enough at my job to save them.

And then my husband found me. I had nothing left to give him. My job wasn’t fulfilling. It already felt like my soul was dead. He said he was close to finding my father. My dad was the only family I had left. And technically my husband was too. He promised me he'd changed. He promised he’d be better. He held me as I cried over the loss of our child. The loss of my mother. And he apologized. He said he’d never send me away again. He said he’d never hurt me again.

I knew better. But I let my husband back into my life. He could be so charming when he wanted to be. But the abuse started again. My weakness started again. I couldn’t help my patients if I couldn’t even help myself.

When my husband finally did find my father, I was a shell of who I once was. And my husband wanted me to kill him. He wanted to trap me back in our marriage. He needed something else to hang over my head so that I’d never run away again. He convinced me to pull the trigger. So I did. I played into my husband's hand perfectly. But what he didn’t realize was that I had nothing left to live for. So then I shot my husband too.

I remembered missing. And running. The sound of crunching leaves as I fled into the woods. He tackled me to the ground, but I still had the gun. I shot him and his blood rained down on me. His body collapsed on mine. I couldn’t breathe.

No. I tried to make the memories stop. No. I dug my fingers into my scalp. No!

I remembered killing my new identity of Dr. Nash too. Setting fire to my office. But I took my files with me. I changed my name to Jennifer Clarke. I was so sick of not being able to help. I started striking up conversations with my ex-patients online. Telling them I knew what they were hiding and that I could help. That I had a way out. That I had gotten out. Talking never helped anyone. But action? That fucking helped.

Every Friday, I thoroughly cleaned my house. Not because my husband would be upset if it was dirty. But to wipe away any fingerprints in case the Feds came busting down my door when I was away. Because I traveled almost every weekend. I told myself my husband was abusing me. The past merging with the present was the only way I could justify my actions. But my bruises weren’t from him. They were from the struggles with the men I killed. The husbands of the 20 women whose passports I had. I ended those women’s struggles. Gave them new identities and a fresh start.

The fee for my help? Half their husband’s life insurance policy. A policy which I had made them increase before I came to fix their problems.

Only once had I almost gotten caught. But I hadn't been done my work. I still had a few ex-patients that needed my help. I burned down my house and moved with my files again. But I was close to being done. So close that I changed my name back to Adeline. So close that I used my father’s last name. So close that I made myself easy to catch. I left a trail of breadcrumbs right to my doorstep. And it worked. Ben showed up.

But the detective investigating me wasn’t supposed to be so freaking handsome. He wasn’t supposed to make me feel the way that no one ever had before.

I touched the side of my jaw again. They were bruises from my last victim. Mr. Gonzalez. I was done. I had helped everyone I needed to. I was supposed to surrender now. It was the last thing I had left to do.

 Even if I didn’t, the cops could put it together. The evidence was in the pictures, just like I had told myself. Pictures of myself with bruises and cuts. I pushed them around, staring at the dates. Some were old, from when I had been trying to prove my husband’s abuse. But most of them were taken after his death. I had taken one on each day that I killed someone. To remind myself what the monsters I was killing were capable of. The proof was in the pictures all along. But not of my husband’s actions. Of mine.

The cops would see the new names of my patients. They could find them and ask them who killed their husbands. It was only a matter of time before one of them caved. All the evidence was right here. I looked around at all the boxes. Right here in cardboard boxes. Highly flammable cardboard boxes. I bit the inside of my lip.

I could turn myself in and face the consequences. Face death. That had been the plan. To help my patients. And then die. There were 27 crosses in the woods. I had already made my own grave marker. I had wanted to die for so long. Until I met Ben. It felt like my heart had started beating when I met him. He had ruined everything.

Turning myself in wasn’t the only option, though. I could find new people to help online. In support chats. Or in actual meetings. There were so many people that still needed my help. I knew it in my gut. There was still more work to be done. I should have felt bad about the murders, but I didn’t. I felt proud. Doing this was so much better than being a psychologist. I had saved these women’s lives. And by doing so, I had given my pathetic excuse of a life meaning. There was no real reason to stop. All I had to do was destroy the evidence. It would be so easy.

But I had already told Ben about the passports. About Maria’s new name. I had told him too much. If I wanted to keep going, I’d have to do more than destroy the evidence. Ben was the only one that had ever seen me. He was the only one that knew any of my secrets. He’d be able to find me if I ran.

So I had to kill him.