I decided to surprise my husband at our beach house. When I pulled up to the gate, the new caretaker refused to let me in, laughing at me. “Ma’am, stop lying. The boss’s wife is inside with him right now,” he said, pointing toward the house.
I saw her through the window—a younger woman with auburn hair, moving through my kitchen like she owned it. Then Spencer appeared beside her, his arm around her waist. The caretaker called her Mrs. Hartwell.
He called me a liar. Instead of breaking down, I smiled and played along. I told him I was looking for housekeeping work. He hired me on the spot to work for my own husband and his mistress.
I moved into the small apartment above the garage, cleaning my own house while another woman wore my clothes and slept in my bed. For two weeks, I watched and listened. Then one morning, I overheard the truth. Spencer and Emily weren’t just having an affair.
They had planned to kill me. They had staged my death months ago as a sailing accident, filed false insurance claims that hadn’t gone through yet, and planned to finish the job with a gas leak explosion. I discovered they had done this before. Three other women dead under suspicious circumstances, each married to Spencer, each leaving him their life insurance money.
My husband was a serial killer. Emily was his partner. I gathered evidence. I set my trap.
When the gas detector alarm sounded, I ran in to warn them. Spencer saw through my disguise. “I think we need to have a conversation about who you really are,” he said. I told him the truth: I was Lorine Hartwell, his wife, and I had recorded everything.
The police were waiting outside. They arrested both of them. Spencer received three consecutive life sentences for the murders of his previous wives. Emily got twenty years.
Their accomplice was caught later trying to flee to Guatemala. I sold the beach house and bought a small cottage by the ocean. I kept my new name: Lorine Margaret Hartwell, part of the identity I had used to survive. I no longer trust easily.
But I am free. I am alive. And I am no longer anyone’s victim.
