Page 88 of Rich Little Liars

So I exploited it.

Not quickly. That would have been suspicious. Slowly. Gradually. A lingering glance here, an accidental touch there. I made myself present in their home, in their routines, in the spaces between them that Kelly was too distracted to fill. I cooked meals she should have been cooking. I listened to stories she should have been hearing. I became the wife she’d stopped being, and neither of them even noticed it happening.

By the time Daniel kissed me – in their bedroom, on their bed, while Kelly was supposed to be at a meeting – he thought it was his idea. They always did. Men like Daniel, who’d spent their whole lives being told they were special, they couldn’t imagine being manipulated. Couldn’t conceive of a world where they weren’t the ones in control.

That’s what made them so easy.

Kelly walked in, of course. That was part of the plan – not that specific moment, but something like it. I needed her to see. Needed the discovery to happen in a way that would shatter whatever fragile trust remained between them. Because broken marriages were useful. Broken marriages created chaos, and chaos created opportunity.

What I didn’t expect was how she’d react.

I thought she’d scream. Throw things. Demand explanations. That’s what most women did when they caught their husbands with someone else – they erupted. Raged. Made scenes that burned hot and fast and left everyone exhausted.

Kelly just… froze.

She stood there in the doorway with this look on her face like she was watching something happen to someone else. Like she’d already known, somewhere deep down, and seeing it confirmed was almost a relief. The fight went out of her before it even started. She told Daniel to leave, told me to leave, and then she just… crumpled.

It was pathetic, really.

But also useful.

I let a few weeks pass. Let the dust settle while the marriage fractured along the lines I’d already drawn. Daniel stayed at a hotel, then came crawling back, and I watched from a distance as they tried to piece things together. As he gaslit her into believing she was the problem – too suspicious, too paranoid, too difficult. As she started to doubt her own perceptions, her own memories. Even her own sanity.

I’d planted those seeds months ago.

All Daniel did was water them.

When I showed up at the house that final night, Kelly actually let me in. Can you believe it? After everything – after catching me with her husband – she still opened the door when I knocked. Still stood aside and let me walk back into her home like I had any right to be there.

Because she was soft.

Because she was exactly the kind of woman who deserved what happened to her.

The fire was actually an accident. I’d planned something cleaner – something that would look like a break-in gone wrong, or a tragic fall, or any of the dozen scenarios I’d mapped out in the weeks leading up to that night. But then Kelly and Daniel started arguing, and the dishcloth caught, and suddenly there was smoke and flame and chaos, and I realised I didn’t need to do anything at all.

I just needed to watch.

Kelly was between me and Daniel, who was at the back of the kitchen trying to wrestle an extinguisher free of its bracket – a bracket I’d tightened weeks ago, just in case. The fire spread fast, racing across surfaces, climbing walls, filling the room with smoke so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face.

And Kelly just stood there.

Frozen. Paralysed. Watching her husband burn with this expression on her face that I’ll never forget. Not horror, not grief… but satisfaction. In that moment, I understood her better than I ever had before.

She wanted him dead too.

She just didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.

The ceiling started to crack. Beams groaned overhead, and I knew I had seconds to act. Daniel was on the floor now, overcome by smoke, his body a dark shape barely visible through the flames. Kelly still hadn’t moved, screamed, or even run. None of the things a normal person would do when their world was literally burning down around them.

I made my choice.

I moved through the smoke – it wasn’t as thick near the floor, and I’d been holding my breath, and I knew this house better than they realised. I’d walked through it a hundred times when they weren’t home, memorising layouts, testing doors, planning exits. I reached the kitchen in seconds, scanning for what I needed.

That’s when I saw it. Kelly’s wedding ring, sitting on the windowsill above the sink. She must have taken it off to wash dishes earlier, the way she always did. Gold. Simple. Engraved on the inside with initials I knew by heart. I needed it.

I lunged for it.

But the fire was faster. A beam crashed down between me and the sink, showering sparks, sending flames roaring up towards the ceiling. The heat drove me backwards, singeing my eyebrows, stealing the breath from my lungs. Through the wall of orange and red, I could just make out the glint of gold on the windowsill. So close, so necessary.