A Marriage Made in Heaven III -- The Vixen -- by Anne Shier

Todd wanted Cheryl back in his life so badly, he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her back.  Envisioning his life without her and their two baby girls in it made Todd determined to abide by the stringent conditions of the new contract and living arrangement they now had between them.  If he thought this was going to be difficult, however, he hadn’t reckoned with Sheila.

Sheila’s reaction, besides outrage at Todd’s seeming apathy to her own situation, was utter shock that he could just, in effect, blow her off and get rid of her like some old piece of used furniture.  She could not, for the life of her, understand why Todd was so willing to give her up in the vague hope of reconciling with his wife.  After all, she felt, it had to be a crap-shoot at best.  She was convinced that Cheryl was never going to forgive him and take him back.  Over time, Sheila was having an increasingly hard time keeping her raging emotions from getting the better of her.  Eventually, she knew that she was going to have to do something soon to deal with the situation and, as a result, Todd was going to regret ever having crossed her.  She was determined to get even with both of them somehow or another.  That meant someone had to die – even if she herself had to be the one to do the dirty deed.

As it happened, a year later, Todd and Cheryl were still in this new living arrangement and were actually, against all odds, considering renewing their contract.  Sheila, however, would have bet her bottom dollar that this so-called contract of theirs wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.  She knew Todd well enough to know that he was open to temptation and that, if she had anything to do with it, he would have been tempted to see her on the side.  But, the conditions of the contract were strict and any contact that Todd had with Sheila could only be with regard to the child they shared, nothing else.  A relationship that included something other than parenting their child was off limits to Todd.  Cheryl’s lawyer, Ryan, had made sure that his client’s interests were well looked after.  Todd had to be a good husband to Cheryl from now on if this contract was ever going to succeed. 

One day, Todd called Sheila on his cell phone and told her that Cheryl had given him a final ultimatum; however, this was not considered part of the original contract that they’d signed a year ago, but he still had to consider it.  He told Sheila that Cheryl was contemplating ending their contract because the stress of just knowing that he and Sheila were parenting a child between them was getting to be too much for her.  Of course, Cheryl knew that Todd did have an obligation to support his new daughter, Chelsea, but a relationship of any kind with Sheila was not supposed to be part of the deal.  Cheryl wanted him to end any lengthy contact with Sheila immediately; she emphatically stated that he could mail his child support cheques to Sheila, or have her pick them up at her lawyer’s office.  There should not be any need for Todd to spend any significant time with Sheila at all.  As for Todd’s new daughter, Chelsea, he would now have to decide whether he wanted to actively keep her in his life.  If so, he would have to make separate arrangements to see her.

This was not going to be an easy decision for Todd.  Even though Chelsea’s arrival had been unexpected and unplanned, he did not want to desert her.  So, if he wanted to keep seeing her, he now had to figure out a way to see her without her mother being present.  That meant Todd would have to pick her up at her home and drop her off after their visit together.  It would still entail a little bit of contact with Sheila, but the contact would be minimal at best.  The alternative was to not see Chelsea at all, but he was unwilling to do that, even for Cheryl’s sake.

When Sheila found out what Todd was intending to do, she became even more furious than ever with him and vowed, silently, that her revenge would be sweet.  At first, she wanted them both to die violently, using a gun.  Then, she started, instead, to think seriously about a plan in which both Todd and Cheryl would suffer and eventually die, not necessarily together, but it would not involve guns.  Her plan could not be one that looked like homicide or it would, most certainly, point to her.  Sheila knew that if anything fatal happened to either Todd or Cheryl or both, she might be implicated in their deaths depending on the circumstances.  Upon police investigation, it would not take them long to discover a link among the threesome.  To this end, she maliciously worked out a plan that would make Todd’s death look like a premature death, but from natural causes. 

Pondering her plan carefully from every conceivable angle, she finally decided that it was foolproof.  Unless he behaved in a way that she had not been able to predict, the plan should go like clockwork and he’d be dead.  Once he was dead, her plan would be to get rid of Cheryl.  She knew that this was not something that just anyone would attempt; after all, there was much at stake – her freedom if she were caught.  She was filled with an incredible amount of rage, angst and jealousy at Todd for just turning his back on her.  She had to do something that would make him suffer.  Sheila felt scorned by him, as the saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.  That message would have new meaning by the time she was finished with him.

Sheila considered the possibilities for how to get rid of Todd.  The instrument of murder had to be undetectable – like a potent, untraceable drug of some sort.  The first tricky part would be how to get him to ingest this untraceable drug in his food or in a beverage of some sort.  The second tricky part would be how to work out the scheme so that he would not feel its full effects until long after she was gone.  Her alibi, which would provide her with a foolproof excuse for her absence from the crime scene, had to be worked out carefully.  The police must not be able to connect her with Todd’s death at any time, motive notwithstanding.  If everything worked the way she intended it to, he would just die quietly in his sleep, of a supposed heart attack, and no one would be the wiser. Unfortunately, it also meant his death would be relatively quick and he would not suffer too greatly.  Just as well, she thought.  It’s a small price to pay for me to get my revenge on him.

Then, she considered the possibilities for how to get rid of Cheryl after Todd was gone.  For example, she knew that all Type 2 diabetics had to inject themselves several times daily with a measured amount of insulin.  She knew that insulin is a clear liquid that is stored in a small bottle, the top through which a needle attached to a syringe could be inserted to withdraw the liquid medication.  She had discovered, accidently, while she still had a relationship with Todd, that Cheryl was a diabetic.  At the time that Todd had told her this fact it hadn’t registered as being important to her.  But now, all of a sudden, it was.  She now had a way of getting rid of Cheryl without anyone suspecting what she was intending.

All Sheila would have to do is to somehow get into Cheryl’s house surreptitiously, go to Cheryl’s private bathroom beside her bedroom and substitute another clear liquid that would have a devastating effect on Cheryl’s metabolism – alcohol (vodka).  This substitution would ensure not only that Cheryl did not get her regular insulin dose, but that the dose of vodka, which is also a clear liquid, would boost Cheryl’s blood alcohol to an extremely high level.  If she drove her car while being intoxicated, she could be pulled over by police and tested for DUI.  An occurrence of that event would ensure that she either landed in jail or lost her driver’s license or made her a high risk drinker who needed to attend AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings daily, or all three events.  No one would be the wiser for what had happened to her and Sheila would have the great pleasure of punishing Cheryl and seeing her suffer.

Now that she had made her plans and gone over them meticulously, she now had to figure out when she would carry them out.  And, she would carry them out.  She was more determined than ever.  Unless some genius police officer caught onto her schemes, she might actually get away with two murders.  It was the least that Todd and Cheryl owed her, given the untenable situation that Todd had now put her in.  Sheila was determined one way or another to get her revenge and she could think of no sweeter way to accomplish her heinous goal.

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)