Retribution || A Henry Creel AU

Release

The next part of their trip was driving for six hours and heading west instead of east. Since the FBI believed she was supposed to be heading back to New York it seemed like going in the opposite direction would work for at least a bit. There were more than a few stops, including to get Henry new clothes. That was a project because he was very picky about what he did and didn't want to wear, which forced her to be patient but also in a hurry. Luckily, he was fine with dark clothing which would make him stand out less and he seemed to understand the concept of but he also wanted it to be 'nice'. This ended with her buying quite a few pairs of black slacks, matching shirts and shoes which only backfired on her because he looked much better in that color and dressed in business casual instead of an orderly at a crazy hospital. She bought stuff for herself as well because all she had were suits and walking around looking like she was an FBI agent defeated the whole purpose of what they were trying to do, which was hide.

Somewhere in Iowa, a city she'd never heard of, she managed to find a very small and cheap motel that let her pay cash and didn't ask very many questions about what she was doing there. She signed the registry under a fake name as well. Once they were in the room she sat down on the bed, absolutely exhausted since she should have slept about eight hours ago instead of doing everything she could to get away from Indiana and hide out in the middle of some cowtown no one had ever heard of.

"What was Mark like?" Henry asked out of nowhere, causing her eyes to open. She turned to look at him. Normally, this wasn't a question she would answer to someone she barely even knew but she kind of wondered why it mattered. He already had some awareness of it because he'd mentioned reading about her in the papers so it wasn't exactly a secret.

"He wasn't a monster like they wanted people to believe he was so if that's-"

"He was your husband."

"Yeah."

"They said you were helping him? It was why you were on trial, right?"

"I wasn't helping him." She said, which was the truth to a certain extent. She had never joined him in any of the murders or helped to cover them up. That was all his doing. The only part she played in it was that she knew that he was doing it the entire time and on one occasion she went to help him when he got himself injured and trapped. It was shortly after that in which he vanished. Of course, she could have turned him into the police but that hadn't been what she wanted. The plan was to leave the country and vanish together. She had the money, connection, and means to do it. "I did know what he was doing, while he was doing it."

"But you didn't turn him in."

"I loved...I love Mark. I understood what he was doing and why even if I didn't necessarily agree with it. He'd have never harmed me and the only people he did harm were very, very bad people. Maybe, in some way I didn't disagree with it because sometimes there are people in this world who deserve what happens to them." She tried to explain it in the best way possible. The only other person who had ever heard her say that was her best friend and also knew better than to go around telling people. "They believed I was a victim of his abuse and manipulation but that was just the story we told to protect each other."

"You never thought he was a monster?"

"Because he wasn't." She said and closed her eyes trying not to think about how much she loved and missed him. How much she wishes that they had found a body so she could have something resembling closure. As it stood, without a body there was a chance he was still alive. He hadn't contacted her in the few years that he'd been missing, though. The FBI considered him dead, for the most part. Legally it was up in the air because they didn't have proof of that. Not a day went by that she didn't think about him, hoping he'd call her or just show back up at their penthouse. "I still wear my wedding ring." She held her hand up. He leaned in and took her hand in his looking at the ring like he was fascinated by it.