A woman conspires against her evil husband and gets him killed in a premeditated car accident. Two years after his death, she goes on vacation to Brighton and is terrified when she sees him there.
26-year-old Ann was lying on the bed in Brighton’s seaside resort suite. The golden shafts of the evening sun penetrating through the window made her smile as she ruffled her hair. She stretched, yawned, and saw it was close to 5 p.m. “Oh my God, the taxi ride might’ve made me sick and tired!” she thought. It was the first day of her two-week-long vacation.
“Nah, not room service…let me go down for a walk and watch the sunset,” she thought as she put down the landline’s receiver. Ann wanted a drink, cold coffee, perhaps, and quickly put on her faux hoodie before leaving for the café not far from the promenade…
“Wow, what a beautiful place! It’s been ages since I last went out to the beach with my dad,” Ann whispered as tears slowly fogged her eyes. Her father died a few years ago and had bequeathed an enormous inheritance to her. She inherited a little over a lumpsum six-figure savings deposit in the bank, a large family estate, and heirloom jewelry.
But the money didn’t spoil her. Ann always dreamed of being a teacher and taught history in an elementary school in London. That summer, she was so glad to get a break to unwind in Brighton, one of her favorite places since childhood. She had many plans for the next couple of weeks and decided to visit the theater first thing that evening and then the mall.
“If Robert is dead, how would he know I plotted his car accident? How does he know I’m in Brighton? Is it a ghost?”
She stopped thinking of everything else as soon as she entered the café and placed an order for cold coffee and croissants before making herself comfortable in a seat by the window with the pristine view of the sea. When she took a last sip from the cup, vaguely looking out the window, she coughed and spat out the coffee. Ann was dead scared and could not take her eyes off Robert, her late husband, who was staring at her from the footpath across the café, just a few meters away from the window.
“No…No, it’s not real…I must be dreaming…It’s not Robert,” Ann panicked.
She wanted to dart out of the café to her hotel room and hide. She was frightened and started trembling before slightly turning around to look out the window again. The man was still standing there, staring grimly at her as though he were going to run across and ram into her through the glass pane.
“Oh God, what’s going on? It cannot be Robert. He’s dead,” she was startled at seeing the guy’s dark hair with streaks of gray, just like the late Robert.
Nervous, Ann took out her phone and pretended to fidget with it while focusing the camera on the man to click a picture and zoom his facial features. She saw he had similar deep-set eyes, a broad chin, and a bulbous nose, just like her late husband.
Ann wanted to scream and run. What terrified her more was the guy wearing the same fedora that Robert loved. He had worn it on the day he died two years ago in the fateful car crash she had organized to kill him.
Ann’s eyes widened in fear when the guy suddenly turned to his side. “Jesus, Oh my God, it can’t be…ROBERT??” She was terrified when she saw a birthmark on his left cheek, exactly like the one on her late husband’s left cheek.
Ann’s hands trembled as she snapped to the moment. She tossed the phone into her handbag and dashed out of the café to find out who the guy was, and if he was indeed her dead husband. But by the time she made it out, the guy had already disappeared into the crowd.
“Was I daydreaming? No, he was standing right here. I saw him. He was right here,” Ann cried and checked the photo gallery on her phone again. The guy in the picture was real. She understood she was not hallucinating things.
Terrified, Ann looked for the man and noticed someone wearing the same fedora at a distance. He walked faster, and Ann could not catch up with him. She lost track of the man in the crowded fair. He disappeared again in a wink, so Ann realized finding the guy would be impossible.
She rushed back to the resort because she was so frightened at the very thought of seeing her dead husband after two years. She was not even sure if he was Robert or if someone was playing a dirty prank on her.
“Where did I keep it?” Ann searched for her medicines. Her heart began pounding faster in fear. She had cardiomyopathy and had been under medication since the diagnosis at 19. Doctors often advised her not to stress too much or be anxious as it could be fatal. Ann restlessly gobbled her pills and calmed down. She drew the curtains and double-checked her door was locked.
“I’m going crazy. Was it my husband? He’s dead…I saw his burned body being taken out of the car with my own eyes. I was even at his funeral. How can he be alive? No, it can’t be. Is it the medication? God, what’s wrong with me? I’m going crazy,” she sighed and buried her face in her palms.
Ann tried to sleep it off, but the thought of seeing someone resembling her dead husband stalking her two years after his death haunted her.
“Does he know I was behind his death? Jesus Christ, what am I even thinking? If Robert is dead, how would he know I plotted his car accident? How does he know I’m in Brighton? Is it a ghost?”
Ann hugged her pillow tight as she slowly drowned in her past, recalling the string of nightmares that forced her to organize her husband’s accident and kill him two years ago.
Ann met Robert for the first time in the fall of 2016, just a month after her dad Smithson’s passing. At first, she was shy about falling in love or finding the ideal partner. Ann had always wanted her dad to find her a perfect match, but now that he was gone, she had to make a wise decision regarding any longtime commitment to a man.
Ann wanted a partner who would care for her like her father. The late Smithson was all she had after her mom died of cancer. His loss was utterly unbearable, but life had to go on, thought Ann. And just as she decided to move on and establish a life for herself with teaching and other things, she met Robert in an art gallery.
He was not extraordinarily handsome but had the looks and manners to win a woman’s trust. Robert told Ann he was a clerk in a private bank. He seemed decent, respectable, and the typical ‘family guy’ type of man she wanted. They exchanged numbers and met often. Robert was helpful and caring and ultimately became that one shoulder Ann could lean on for love and emotional support whenever she needed it.
Since Robert was ten years older, Ann started seeing him as more than just a partner. She thought that, to some extent, he would love her like a father and fill the hollow in her life, which Robert eventually did.
After a whirlwind romance, the couple tied the knot in an intimate church wedding six months later. They lived the best days, went on an extravagant honeymoon to the Maldives, and were very happy. Ann thought the dust in her life had finally settled, or it seemed so, until Robert slowly turned her life into a nightmare.
Robert began controlling Ann and started deciding things for her. He never allowed her to see her friends because he thought they were a bad influence. He controlled her expenditures and never allowed her to spend a dime without his permission, although it was Ann’s money. He never let her go out alone or meet new people. He shadowed her everywhere, and it hurt Ann whenever he behaved like a stalker. It felt strange, yet, Ann hoped Robert would change for the better.
At some point, she mustered the courage to confront him and tell him how uncomfortable and annoying it was whenever he behaved so odd and restrictive. But to her shock, Robert continued being hard on her for almost everything and for no reason.
Eventually, he started berating her by saying things like, “You are too young and dumb to handle so much money your father left!” and “You have nobody or nowhere to go if I leave you. So quit wasting your time and do as I say. You are my wife, and you should obey me.”
Day by day, Ann felt she was a puppet in Robert’s clutches. She felt caged and feared there was no escape. She silently endured him and could do nothing to stop him from being so rude and unkind to her.
Ann was an introvert but never allowed herself to be disgraced, but the things Robert did to her knew no bounds. His taunts and threats soon turned into domestic violence, and he was oddly satisfied whenever he got the chance to ridicule her. Ann had no clue what made her husband so happy every time he made her cry and beg for an apology, and what happened one evening was the most terrible.
Robert’s close friend Adam and his wife Jean had visited that evening. As always, Ann was tasked with organizing the dinner. She made her best dishes by watching videos, as she did not know how to cook well. While everything turned out pretty well, her fish stew was a disaster.
Robert was beyond annoyed and spat the stew, screaming, “It tastes horrible, like garbage! I cannot eat it. How disgusting! Can’t you do at least one thing properly, you dumb woman?” Then, a wicked idea struck him.
“Finish the bowl right now!” he yelled, forcing her to eat the poorly-tasting fish stew in front of Adam and Jean. Ann cried into her bowl as she force-fed herself and ran to her bedroom to throw up.
She took her pills and calmed down before heading to the balcony to get some fresh air, only to be distracted by strange moaning sounds from the parking. Ann saw Robert and Jean passionately kissing, leaning against the stone wall clad with pink bougainvillea.
“Oh my God…How could you do this to me, you pervert?” Ann gasped in tears and ran back to the kitchen. She saw Adam was calm and composed, reading a magazine. “They’ll be back…they’ve gone out to take a puff!” he told her.
Ann did not know whether she had to feel sorry for Adam’s innocence or yell at him to check what his wife was doing behind his back.
Adam and Jean left soon after, and Robert pretended nothing had happened. Ann knew how low her husband could stoop to fabricate another lie, so she did not discuss what she saw. She acted normal, and it disgusted her more when he molested her that night.
Ann could do nothing in her defense and cried the whole night, unable to think of what to do further.
“Shall I file for a divorce?” she wondered but quickly shunned the idea because Robert had once threatened to kill her if she even thought about it. Although he later told her it was a joke and laughed it off, she took it as a serious warning and never talked about divorce again, not even as a joke.
“He doesn’t seem to be afraid to go to jail. He can do anything to turn things against me. I called this upon myself. I shouldn’t have married him. I shouldn’t have met him,” Ann cried. She could not find any loophole to end this marriage. All she could do was silently endure Robert’s nasty humiliations, domestic abuse, confinement, and betrayal.
Ann kept staring at Robert, who was fast asleep on the bed. “How peaceful he looks after ruining my life,” she thought. “But what’s with Jean? I thought she was a decent woman. How could she be so cheap and dirty? How could she cheat on her husband…that too with my husband?”
It tormented Ann more when she remembered about visiting Jean the next day to help her hem the curtains for a party she was throwing that weekend.
Robert dropped Ann off at Jean’s house the following morning and followed Jean to the kitchen under the pretext of drinking water. Ann knew what the two were doing there and pretended she did not notice anything.
“I’ll pick you up at six. See you,” Robert grimly told Ann while his eyes were fixed on Jean.
The two women started hemming the curtains and did not talk much. Ann was not sure if Jean was guilty of cheating and hated that prolonged pause in their broken conversations about odd things. She could not take it anymore.
“I saw what you and Robert were doing in the parking last night. Jean, aren’t you ashamed of cheating on Adam with Robert? How could you even talk to me and act normally after doing ‘stuff’ with my husband?”
Jean was startled and stammered in tears. “I am so sorry, Ann. I didn’t mean to…”
“Well, I think it is good that you saw. I have been waiting to share the nasty things your husband asked me to do. I’m glad you finally found out for the better,” Jean cried.
“It started last year when I turned to Robert for help…” began Jean. “You remember Stacy, my sister? Oh well, you haven’t seen her yet. Actually, she was fighting cancer, and I needed money to save her life. Adam and I spent all our money on her treatment, and when we ran out of savings, I knew only Robert could help us.”
“I texted him asking for a loan, and he asked me to meet him alone in a restaurant. He agreed to help me but gave me an ultimatum.”
“An ultimatum? Like what?” Ann grew tense.
“He put wads of cash on the table and told me to take it only if I was ready to return it in three months. At that time, I was confident about paying off my debt to Robert and took the money. I was only bothered about my sister’s treatment and was certain Adam would arrange for the money to pay Robert back. But three months later, I was not able to return the money. So, your husband called me again and gave me another option.”
“What option?” Ann tensely interrupted.
“He agreed to give me more time to repay the loan. He even told me I need not return the money as long as I agreed to do everything he wanted and please him. Ann, look, let me get this straight. Your husband asked me to spend a passionate night with him in the resort that weekend. I was forced to do it cuz I had no choice. I am sorry.”
Ann was beyond shocked. The guy she loved blindly and was ready to do anything for turned out to be a cold-blooded cheater and blackmailer.
“I thought it was over that weekend. But Robert started blackmailing me. He threatened to sue me for the debts if I didn’t continue to do what he wanted. He blackmailed about telling Adam,” cried Jean.
“I was afraid of becoming homeless. My husband will leave me if he comes to know what I did. Please, save me from your husband, Ann. I cannot keep doing this. Robert is a monster.”
Ann and Jean cried on each other’s shoulders, unable to believe how one man had ruined both of their lives. Gradually, they became good friends, kind of companions in misfortune, trying to shoulder each other.
A few months passed, but nothing changed for Ann and Jean. They put up with Robert’s wicked tantrums, and the last straw came when Jean met Ann with bruises on her arms. It was undoubtedly Robert’s doing.
“I had to lie to Adam about falling down the stairs,” Jean cried to Ann. “This has to end. I cannot do this anymore. This man is a nightmare, and I wish he doesn’t see another morning.” Just as she said this, a strange glow lit her eyes and an idea brewed in her mind. Jean then proposed a plan to Ann, telling her it was their “only way” to get rid of Robert once and for all.
“Look, Ann, my dear, trust me. We have no other choice. This man will ruin our lives if we don’t put an end to it. Look, you have to somehow send him out of the city for the weekend. But make sure he leaves the car behind in the garage so I can send a friend to damage the brakes. It’ll look like an accident. Nobody will find out, and we can live happily after he’s gone.”
Ann was alarmed at the very thought of killing her husband. She remembered her dad had always taught her to be kind and loving. At this point, she also understood she could no longer live a peaceful life with Robert, but she was not ready to commit such a hideous crime.
“So this is what I’ll do while you and Robert are out of town. I know an ex who was a mechanic. I will ask him to damage the brakes. When Robert returns and takes the car, he will die naturally in a road accident, and nobody will even guess we did it,” Jean broke Ann’s silence. “Are you with me in this? Please say yes, Ann. This has to end. We need to live happily, but as long as Robert is alive, it’s not gonna happen. Will you do it?”
Ann was torn between her worst fears and making the difficult choice of organizing her husband’s accident.
“No, I cannot do this!” cried Ann. “Whatever it is, he’s my husband. I cannot stoop so low just because he is cruel and has cheated on me. I am sorry, Jean, but I cannot do this. Moreover, it’s a crime, and I’m afraid of the consequences if we get caught.”
Ann’s heart began racing in fear at the very thought of the idea. She swallowed her pills and rose to leave to her room when Jean interrupted her.
“He is not worth your love, Ann. Snap out of it. He is a monster. You deserve better. Please think it over again. You have your whole life ahead of you. Do you want to live like a bird in Robert’s cage for the rest of your life?”
Ann refused to answer. She let go of Jean’s hand and stormed to her room, crying. “I’m leaving before he comes and tortures both of us. Think what I just told you,” she heard Jean’s faint voice.
“Whatever it is, I cannot do this. Rob might be a bad man, but he still deserves a chance,” thought Ann.
That evening, Robert returned home from a party. He was drunk and started yelling at Ann for silly, odd things. He just needed a reason to argue with her and belittle her. When he couldn’t find a valid reason, he jumped up from his chair and threw the food, saying it tasted like trash.
Ann was already confused about what Jean had told her that evening, and in the heat of the moment, she began arguing with Robert. His anger spiraled, and he threw the food at her. Robert then advanced to hit Ann with the pan. She ran upstairs and locked herself in the room for safety. Robert kicked and screamed at her to open the door and let him in, and he eventually passed out at the doorway. At this point, Ann wiped away her tears and quickly sent a text message to Jean.
“Let’s do this. I am with you.”
“Meet me tomorrow at my home,” popped a reply from Jean seconds later.
The next day, Ann visited Jean to discuss the details of their plan. They raised a toast to celebrate their nearing freedom from Robert.
According to their conspiracy, Ann traveled to a nearby state to prepare the paperwork for her late father’s house, which Robert had always persuaded her to sell. Ann knew he would not let her go anywhere alone, so they traveled together by train after she insisted it was far. Robert’s car was left behind in the garage, and Ann had an alibi she was not at home or anywhere near the vehicle when the brakes were damaged.
Meanwhile, Jean and her alleged ex-boyfriend damaged the brake without a trace. Everything went as planned, and soon, Robert returned home with Ann. It rained money in his mind when he thought about the sale of his late father-in-law’s property. Robert then took the car from the garage and went to work as usual.
An hour later, Ann got a call from the cops and was overly delighted. She faked a shocking reaction at hearing the news of the crash and hurried to the spot to make sure Robert was dead.
“The car had lost control and rammed into a tree. It was set ablaze due to the collision, and your husband’s body is burned beyond recognition,” the officer told Ann.
Convinced Robert had died, she shed fake tears in front of the cops and paramedics. She was relieved and had never been happier, though she was guilty she had to set things straight in her life this way. The police did not investigate further and closed the file citing an accident.
Ann returned home and loved the silence and peace around her. However, only one moment alerted her, but she didn’t attach any importance to it.
A few weeks passed after Robert’s funeral when Ann decided to check the contents of her family safe. To her shock, it was empty. All the jewelry and money were gone. Nobody apart from Robert and she could open it because only they knew the lock’s combination. Ann was confused and concluded that she was robbed or Robert emptied the safe before his death. She decided not to inform the cops because she was afraid they would start investigating and find the truth about Robert’s accident.
Several months passed, with Ann giving her best shot at her newfound life. She landed a teaching job that kept her occupied and away from her dark memories. At least she could breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the freedom once again.
The sound of fireworks at a near distance snapped Ann to the moment. She walked over to the window of her hotel room and gently lifted the lace curtain to see if Robert was there. But he was not there on the street. He started haunting her mind, like a ghost staring at her through a glass pane, waiting to possess her.
Ann forced herself to sleep and woke up in a good, vibrant mood the next morning. The encounter the previous evening still felt like a nightmare, but she brushed it off as a coincidence.
“He must have been a lookalike of that goddamn Robert. I’m crazy!” laughed Ann, but her hopes ran into a dead-end moments later when the receptionist called out to her, holding a box in his hand.
“Mrs. Felix, your husband asked me to pass this box to you,” said the man, sending shivers down Ann’s spine.
“My husband? Wha-What did you just say?” she stammered.
“Yes, mam, he said he was your husband.”
Ann shakily took the box and unwrapped the ribbon, only to gasp in shock. Beads of sweat ran down her face. Her heart shuddered in fear after seeing the hat Robert had worn on the day of the car crash. She could still smell his cologne on it.
“No, it can’t be…” she gasped and ran back to the receptionist. “Ha-how did he…how did he look? Can you…can you please describe him??”
“Mam, I didn’t see him closely. But yeah, he had this weird birthmark on his left cheek. Look, he even signed here in the register.”
Ann quickly recognized the handwriting. It was unsuspectingly the late Robert’s signature. She was alarmed and darted back to her room and locked herself away the whole day. Ann even called the doctor for a checkup as her palpitations wouldn’t stop due to increased tension and shock.
She dined in her room and refused to open it other than for room service. She packed all her stuff and left for the train station to leave for her hometown first thing at the break of dawn. She kept convincing herself that it was some evil joke or prank by someone who knew her closely.
“I’ll never come to Brighton again,” she promised herself and left the following day.
Ann loved to travel by train because she felt it was safe and peaceful. She enjoyed gazing at the picturesque countryside views, but that day, her mind was haunted by the man claiming to be her late husband.
“And the hat? How did he get Rob’s hat? He has the same signature. Oh God, what’s going on?” she asked herself over a dozen times, unable to concentrate on anything else or draw a reasonable conclusion.
Ann started having mild palpitations and decided to stop thinking further. Then, at one of the stations, an older man, probably in his late sixties, entered her compartment.
He was cheerful, full of spirit, and friendly. He introduced himself as Jackson Pratt, a pensioner, and talked about different things and people he encountered. He seemed too curious to build a conversation with Ann because she was the only other co-passenger in that compartment apart from an older lady who was fast asleep by the window.
Although Ann would have been glad to meet and chat with such a chirpy fellow passenger, she chose to sit silently and ignore him. But Jackson wouldn’t stop talking.
“I was in the department years ago,” Jackson revealed. “I was a detective. I retired and now make good money as a private detective.”
Ann smiled and nodded while trying to avoid talking to Jackson, who went on and on about the cases he handled.
“And you know what? When I visited Brighton just days back, I caught a young man cheating on his wife. Had I known that following cheaters was safer and more profitable, I would’ve retired much earlier,” he laughed at his joke.
When they arrived in London, Jackson left Ann his card and told her to contact him if she needed his help.
Ann returned home, thinking she was safe and away from the stalker. However, she started panicking when the fragrance of Robert’s favorite cologne lingered in the living room. Ann saw things at home were not in place and understood that someone had been there while she was away. She checked the kitchen and found the faucet dripping as though somebody had just used it.
She then found her late husband’s lighter on the countertop. Robert was a heavy smoker, and this lighter belonged to him. He even had it in his pocket when he died in the car crash, but it was never found, so she had assumed it had burned with him.
Ann trembled in fear as she walked back slowly, tumbling on the vessels that rattled on the floor. She was dead scared and raced to her room, immediately calling Jackson over.
“Yes, can you please make it fast? I’m scared. I think somebody is in my house,” she told him.
“Mrs. Felix, look, don’t panic. Just stay in your room and only answer the door when I call you. Till then, don’t open the door no matter what, and don’t come out of your room, alright?”
“Yes, please, hurry up,” she gasped.
Jackson arrived in an hour. Ann cried out and hid behind him, telling him she was scared and feared she was not alone in the house.
“Mrs. Felix, please calm down. You must have left the lighter and forgotten to close the tap properly.”
“N-n-no, Mr. Pratt, I’m telling you. This lighter was my husband’s. He took it with him on the day he died. Please believe me. Look, it has his initials on it. Please, I’m telling the truth.”
Ann burst into tears and finally confessed about murdering her husband when Jackson kept telling her to calm down. “His mistress, Jean, a friend of mine, and I did it together two years ago,” she revealed. Ann then explained about seeing her dead husband stalking her in Brighton and even showed him the fedora he last wore.
“He used this cologne. Look, I still have it with me. This hat and this whole room smell the same. Please believe me, Mr. Pratt. Someone is stalking me. I’m afraid. Please help me. I promise to confess to the murder. I’m ready to go to jail. But before that, I want to find out who’s behind this. I’m going crazy. I don’t want to go to jail without knowing who did this to me. The police will think I’ve gone mad. I am not hallucinating things. Someone’s out there trying to do something to me. Please find him before he does something awful.”
Jackson was quite surprised that Ann had joined forces with her husband’s mistress to murder him. He then bombarded her with several questions.
“Did you see your husband’s body after the accident?”
“Yes, but not his face because his body was burned beyond recognition. But it was him, and I know that.”
“Did something happen after that? Like something strange after he died?” Jackson pressed Ann for more details. Then, she remembered the missing money and jewels.
“Yes, yes, I do remember. All my jewels and money from my dad’s safe went missing. I did not report it because I was scared the cops would investigate my husband’s death and find out he was murdered, and I was behind it.”
“Hmmm, that’s strange. Does anybody else have access to the safe?”
“No, only my husband and I had access. Nobody else knows the combination to the lock.”
Jackson scratched his beard, thinking about the odds and after a deep sigh, asked Ann to bring her late husband’s documents and photos of him, Jean, and Adam.
“Hmmm, I think I know what’s happening around you. Mrs. Felix, don’t panic. It’s not any ghost, and there’s no stalker out there. Trust me when I say this. I promise to meet you soon with the truth,” he said after seeing the photos and papers.
After Jackson left, Ann was partly relieved by his assurance in the case. She dined and locked herself in the room, still scared about the things happening around her. She was so frightened of her own shadow that she did not dare to sleep a wink.
Later that night, Jackson called her and said he had some good news. “I’ll meet you tomorrow, Mrs. Felix. I am sure you’ll be relieved after I show you something. Please don’t worry about anything,” he assured her again.
Ann sighed with relief but could not completely trust Jackson’s words, considering how he worked for money. She even felt he was trying to comfort her so she would keep him in the case.
She decided not to jump to conclusions until meeting the detective the next day. Ann hoped to see a better and safer morning, and just as she lay down, she heard the chair rocking in the late Robert’s study across her bedroom. Her heart raced in fear as she wore her slippers and quietly opened the door to check.
Ann’s hand felt numb when she held the doorknob and slowly opened the door. The chair stopped creaking as soon as she turned on the light. Ann froze in fear and wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move an inch.
Her heart started beating rapidly as though it was going to burst. A charred body was sitting still on the rocking chair. When Ann pulled herself together to take a step backward and run, the mysterious figure suddenly rose and spoke in her husband’s voice.
“WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, DARLING? I LOVED YOU…BUT LOOK WHAT YOU DID. YOU KILLED ME.”
At this point, Ann’s heart gave out and stopped beating. She dropped to the floor, her shocked eyes slowly closing at seeing the silhouette of Robert’s charred body approaching her. She stopped breathing once and for all and died of a heart attack.
The mysterious figure walked closer and removed the mask, only to be revealed that it was none other than Robert in makeup and a special costume portraying a burned body.
“Bingo! We did it!” he laughed as Adam and Jean entered the room. “We are rich! She is gone! It took us two damn years to trick her and kill her. Everything is ours now!”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t deceive her and push her into her own trap. How much is our share?!” Jean chimed in, sarcastically smiling at Ann’s corpse.
“I THINK AT LEAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AND UP TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR DOUBLE MURDER!!” answered Jackson, who entered the room suddenly, startling the trio.
“You will be charged for the murder of Ann and the driver you hired to deliver the car with the broken brakes.”
As it turned out, when Robert went to work, he stopped at the nearby mall parking and hired a driver to deliver his car to a certain address. He was aware the brakes would fail on the way. The three had planned this scam for many years. They even damaged the fuel tank so the car could catch fire and burn the driver’s body beyond recognition.
Then, they plotted another cunning plan to bring Robert out to the world after Ann’s death so that he could succeed in becoming the legal heir to her property. According to their scheme, they wanted to make things seem like Robert was robbed and beaten at the parking lot on the day of the accident, thus losing his memory. They had set up everything to convince everyone that Robert had been living in another state for two years before returning home after regaining his memory.
“Are you surprised, murderers?” Jackson broke their silence. He knew something suspicious was going on in Ann’s house, so he had paid a surprise visit that night to catch the criminals red-handed. He felt sorry for coming in a bit late and removed his hat to pay his respect to the dead Ann.
“You didn’t see this twist coming, did you?” he added. “I knew something was fishy after seeing your pictures and fake documents. I checked some records at the station, and it still confuses me how a professional scamming group like yours tried to escape from the cops for many years. Bravo! And now, you three can count your time in jail!”
An ambulance arrived minutes later, and it was then revealed that Ann had died due to cardiac arrest. Although Jackson managed to find out about the gang’s scheme after checking their records, he could not decode their hidden motive behind scaring Ann to her death.
After checking her medical history, he understood that Robert and his gang had known about her heart ailment and how she needed to stay calm all the time. They had driven her to the brink of death by turning her fears in their favor and had killed her so that her death appeared natural.
“You thought you’d get away with it and inherit Ann’s property after her death, eh Robert? Your name is not real. Nothing about you is real, you scoundrel. Officers, take them away,” said Jackson as he regretfully stared at Ann’s corpse.