Chapter 273: Little Howard - "Ugh~ Chuck, you're finally here!"
"Impossible! I saw him with my own eyes..."
Mia's eyes were filled with doubt and confusion.
She believed Chuck's reasoning, but she couldn't believe what she had seen.
She had seen it with her own eyes!
"Continue."
Chuck looked at Mia, who was hesitating.
Mia remained silent.
"You know that if my guess is right, then compared to the risk of going to jail, the greater danger for you is that your life is seriously threatened, right?"
Chuck reminded her. "And now he's probably not dead, so your risk of going to jail is also very small."
"He's dead!"
Mia couldn't hold back any longer and said in horror. "I saw his eyes roll back, and we put him in the trunk and pushed it into the swimming pool ourselves..."
"But he's gone, isn't he?"
Chuck said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be frantically searching for his body everywhere!"
"It must be God punishing me."
Mia reached out and clutched the cross on her chest, her pale face showing fear and remorse.
Chuck glanced at her cross, walked back to his seat, looked at his computer, and stopped pressing her for answers.
Mia confessed for a while, and seeing that Chuck didn't react, she immediately looked at him pitifully.
However, for a long time,
Chuck just stared at the computer, completely ignoring her expression.
"This wasn't my idea."
Mia wasn't stupid. She knew what Chuck meant. After hesitating for a long time, she spoke up. "Nicole kept persuading me to do this.
Of course, I couldn't resist the urge.
Because I just couldn't stand it anymore.
I was originally a devout nun who left the convent to inherit the school and met Guy.
At first, everything was fine.
So I never thought about signing a prenuptial agreement and gave him all the management rights of the school.
He was my husband!
And very capable!
At least that's what I thought at the time.
But not long after the marriage, I noticed something was wrong. He liked to drink, and when he drank too much, he had a terrible temper.
I tried to persuade him several times, but his attitude was inconsistent.
Then something that broke my heart happened: he cheated on me, and he didn't even try to hide it. When I found out, I confronted him, and all I got were threats and intimidation.
You don't know how terrifying he was when he was drunk...
Especially the suffocating feeling of him choking me."
At this point, Mia subconsciously touched her neck, her face filled with terror. "God, that fear of impending death surpassed everything.
I didn't dare confront him anymore.
He became increasingly demanding, losing all his former gentleness, controlling everything about me—even more strictly than when I was a nun.
In public and in private, I had to obey his every command, without any disobedience!
Then Nicole came as a new teacher.
Unsurprisingly, he and she had an affair.
He didn't hide it from me.
She knew I knew too.
We should have ignored each other.
But when I saw the bruises on her body, we gradually grew closer and started communicating.
As the days became increasingly difficult, especially as Guy transformed the school in a way I found increasingly unacceptable, his control over me became increasingly suffocating, making it hard for me to breathe.
Then Nicole suddenly suggested that maybe we should kill him, so we'd both be free.
I was startled at first, but the more I listened to her, the more tempted I became. Looking back, it was like being seduced by the devil.
She said he was a notorious alcoholic, and we could stage a scene where he accidentally fell into the swimming pool while drunk, so no one would suspect anything.
So, during another heart attack, when he watched me collapse without moving, and after Nicole saved me, I finally made up my mind to do as she suggested.
The next day, I packed my bags, drove away from school, and went to the Marriott Nicole booked for me, where I made all the arrangements.
Guy, as expected, wouldn't let me go.
He secretly drove over to find me, threatening to divorce me if I didn't give up the school.
But the school was my family's property, and everything I had now. I couldn't lose it.
So I poured him a mixture of Ambien and whiskey, knocking him out.
Nicole rushed over, and together we carried him into the bathtub in the bathroom, which was already filled with water.
Guy suddenly woke up and struggled to get out, but we held him back down.
Then I got a five-gallon water jug and put it on top of him.
After waiting through the night, when I checked on him again, he was floating in the tub with his eyes rolled back, meaning he wasn't quite dead yet.
God!
We put him in a trunk, drove back to school, and under cover of darkness, dumped him into the pool.
The pool was covered with fallen leaves, and we hoped someone would find it the next day.
But we waited and waited, and no one found him.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and forced Nicole to go with me. We pretended to accidentally throw my keys in and drained the water.
But still, there was no body.
I was terrified then."
"Don't be afraid. I'm sure he's not dead."
Chuck looked over. "At least he wasn't dead then."
"Why?"
Mia looked at Chuck pitifully.
"After you weighed him down with the water jug, did you open the drain in the bathtub?"
Chuck asked.
Mia paused, thought carefully, and shook her head. "I don't think so. We were both exhausted. Nicole just tore the shower curtain down and covered him, and then we left."
"So how did the water drain from the bathtub?"
Chuck said. "No one else was there. And if he consciously tried to open the drain, do you really think a water jug could immobilize him? And did you hear any noise during that time?"
"No."
Mia said firmly.
"Of course not."
Chuck nodded. "At that time, you must have felt incredibly anxious after killing someone, especially in your own room on such a quiet night!
Any slight movement would have startled you.
An ordinary person who has truly survived a near-death experience wouldn't be able to rationally control their behavior and remain completely silent in that situation.
At the very least, they would be gasping for air.
But you didn't hear a single sound.
That speaks volumes.
Also, I didn't find any injuries on you. When you were holding him down in the bathtub, didn't he resist?"
"He resisted..."
Mia explained.
"He resisted, but not completely!"
Chuck corrected. "Otherwise, the will to survive that a strong man experiences in the moment of death is not to be underestimated.
It's impossible for him to be completely controlled by two women.
You even had time to move water jugs to weigh him down.
And you didn't even leave any scratches on your bodies.
Did you tie his hands, preventing him from moving them?"
"No, we just avoided his hands."
Mia said, trying to recall the scene.
She was now finding more and more suspicious details.
"Avoid his hands?"
Chuck reminded her. "You had time to move the water jugs, so Nicole must have been holding him down into the bathtub without controlling his hands. Would a truly dying person not reach for the hands pressing on their body?
It's not that you avoided his hands!
It's that he deliberately avoided yours!
And given the depth of the bathtub, what was the point of moving the water jugs?
If he wasn't really dead, the water jugs wouldn't have affected him at all. They could have been easily moved, or even avoided altogether. He could have just lifted his head to breathe.
Let me guess—Nicole asked you to move them, didn't she?"
"Yes."
Mia replied blankly.
"She was giving him time."
Chuck said. "Even faking death requires acting skills. Otherwise, if anything goes wrong, you'll notice, and all that effort will be for nothing.
I don't think she let you check on him more than a few times, did she?"
"Yes."
Mia said blankly. "After we moved the trunk back to school and dumped it into the swimming pool, I was looking at the pool from my room because I desperately wanted someone to find him. I wanted to wait until that moment, but she just pulled down the curtain and told me to rest and not worry about it... Could he really not be dead?"
"The longer you watch, the easier it is to give yourself away."
Chuck nodded. "Did you smell any unusual odor? If you really killed him and left his body in the water all night, there's no way there wouldn't be some smell of decomposition. Believe me, that smell would definitely have caught your attention."
"No."
Mia tried hard to recall, then shook her head with a look of sudden realization. "That's it! Even if I was too scared to think or smell anything at the time and can't remember, I remember the next day when we put him in the trunk and moved him out of the hotel, the hotel manager and his wife came to help us carry it because it was so heavy. I was almost scared to death.
But we didn't seal it. It was just an ordinary steamer trunk. If there was any strange smell, the manager and his wife would have smelled it too.
Also, on our way back to school, we were stopped by the police because of the rain and a traffic jam. They looked in the trunk then, but nobody smelled anything strange.
So Guy really isn't dead..."
"And if he wasn't dead then, why would he pretend to be dead?"
Chuck looked at her.
"He's trying to scare me to death!"
Mia clutched her chest. "He's tried twice already. After the pool was drained, I didn't find his body, which should have been there, and I fainted on the poolside.
When everyone and Nicole revived me and helped me back to my room, I found his suit hanging on the bathroom door!
The suit he was wearing when he died!
I was so scared I almost had another heart attack.
Even worse, there was a roll of film with the suit. When we got it developed, we discovered someone was monitoring our every move.
Nobody knew about this plan except Nicole and me!
And the reason I went to the police station to identify the body was because I had a newspaper slipped under my door reporting that a body had been found that day.
Oh, God!"
"Looks like your heart is much stronger than I thought."
Chuck said thoughtfully.
"Is there a problem?"
Mia, already suspicious of everything Chuck had said, looked at him with a mixture of fear and uncertainty.
"No problem."
Chuck said calmly. "It's good news for you, but not for some people."
Mia clutched her chest, remaining silent.
Clearly, if her heart hadn't been far stronger than anyone imagined, she would have been scared to death by this series of shocks.
The autopsy would have simply concluded she died of a heart attack, with no suspicion whatsoever against her husband.
Chuck knew what she was thinking and didn't explain his double meaning—that "some people" referred not only to her husband but also to Dr. Wilson.
After all, it was a double entendre, meant to be understood.
Otherwise, trying to explain the punchline like those who kill jokes would lose its essence.
"What should I do now?"
Mia clutched the cross on her chest with one hand and reached for Chuck's hand with the other, her eyes blurry with tears as she looked at him.
"It's simple."
Chuck looked at her. "Since we know he's not dead, we don't need to worry about him. While he's hiding in the shadows, we'll take over the school. He'll naturally come out eventually."
"And then?"
Mia asked anxiously. "We can pretend none of this happened? He might be able to, but I can't. I want to get rid of him, and he wants to kill me completely! I can't live like this for another second!"
"Don't worry."
Chuck said calmly. "I'll go with you and help you audit the books. You don't think someone who cheats on you, is an alcoholic and abusive, and is so audacious as to plot the murder of his wife is a good man, do you? A man like that needs money—a lot of money. He's definitely embezzled from the school. Let him go to prison."
"But what if he uses the fact that I plotted to murder him to blackmail me?"
Mia asked worriedly.
"Once he confesses, he too will be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and repeatedly at that, making his crimes far more serious than yours."
Chuck analyzed. "As long as you're not afraid of him, he most likely won't dare to bring it up himself. And even if he does, you'll be the one who was manipulated and deceived, which is somewhat understandable. With a good lawyer, it's incredibly easy to persuade the jury to acquit you or find you guilty of a lesser charge."
"What about when he gets out?"
Mia remained deeply worried. It was clear she was terrified of her husband, especially after learning he had conspired with his mistress to kill her. Even the thought of the possible future was unbearable.
"Don't worry, there will be a way."
Chuck said, offering no unsolicited advice.
Mia was far stronger than her frail appearance suggested.
Yes.
Her heart was proof!
Mia completely confessed everything to Chuck, revealing all she knew, before getting into the car and following him to St. Anselm's School.
It was an old Gothic building,
the kind used in Hogwarts-style films.
No wonder Mia's husband was so determined to inherit it completely.
As Chuck's car pulled in and stopped at the gate, a thin figure rushed over, accompanied by a heart-wrenching cry. "Chuck! Oh no, why did you take so long?! Help me out!"
There stood little Howard, his face contorted in despair, sliding down Chuck's leg, his eyes filled with desperate hope, crying his heart out.
Chuck glanced at him, then looked away, focusing on a group of boys not far away, all dressed in the uniforms of St. Anselm's Boys' School.
The boy in the center stood there with his arms crossed, his gaze toward Chuck filled with mockery and amusement, occasionally glancing at Mia beside Chuck with an indescribable expression.
(End of Chapter)
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