The Fake Wife

Alison Sunny

Jake

It had been five days since I last saw Alison, and not even once I stopped thinking of the day we met. The children and I were wearing expensive clothes at the diner. I left a generous tip for her. She might not know who I was, but Alison got the picture of us being rich.

Was Alison a con artist trying to get something out of this situation? She got everybody at the hospital to believe we were the perfect family. But why? I told her to ask for anything and that I would give her. A house, a car, money. There was no price I would not pay for my boy's life, so why lie to the doctors and nurses and risk losing everything?

I got a call from my brother Olly that took me away from examining the girl's actions. "Carlos came by the office looking for you today, Jake. He got the girl's address, and we are going there right now."

"Great, Olly! Send me the address, and I'll meet you there."

I hung up the call and turned the car around. Carlos, my private detective, was finally back from Pennsylvania. He had to go there to find something concrete about Alison.

After Jessica fixed Alison's phone, we learned little about Alison's life inside it. Most of the pictures on the phone were from the landscape. There was no social media apart from Pinterest. On it, she had done countless boards about happy families, family homes with dogs, family vacations, and more and more family stuff. There were so many that I stopped counting at some point. The girl was obsessed with families.

"How did you guys get in?" I asked Carlos and Olly when I got to her apartment in a rough part of the city. I had her keys with me, but they already had their way in before I opened it for them.

Carlos grinned at me. "Money talks! We met her landlord downstairs. The girl was late with last week's rent, but I paid it with some extra, and he let us in."

Olly looked around the tiny space. It was like a kitchenette with everything together and another door that, when he opened, led to the bathroom.

"WOW, now we know why she wants you to take her home. Jeez, this place is pretty depressing!" Olly said.

I looked around, and I had to agree with my brother. The tiny apartment looked lonely and had little furniture. But everything was very tidy and clean. There was a small mattress on the floor and a tiny wardrobe across the mattress. Olly opened it and found only a few clothes and shoes inside. Carlos opened the two-door cabinet over the stove, and it was the same. There was not much inside it.

"Did you find a laptop yet?" I asked no one while my eyes were still scanning the place.

"If she has one, it isn't here," Carlos said, having no emotion in his voice, and got inside the bathroom.

The place was getting claustrophobic. Three grown men inside that small space were just impossible.

Carlos returned from the bathroom holding a small square wooden box. "I found this hiding inside the bathroom cabinet."

He gave me the box. It contained only $2000, presumably her savings, along with an aged photograph featuring six young children and Alison in the middle of them.

"Well, well!! Things are not out of your reach yet, Jake. It seems to me she's a match made in heaven for you." Olly waved his hands in the air, holding two books. "Shakespeare. The girl likes classics just like you do."

"That isn't funny, Olly." I narrowed my eyes on him.

He smirked at me and scoffed. "I am just saying, brother. You might not need to ask for a divorce just yet. There's still hope in your marriage."