Fool Me Once

By Mary Burton King

This nail-biting murder mystery revolves around a married couple, Rebecca and Marcus, who after twenty years of marriage realize that they despise each other. Marcus is a prominent criminal defense attorney with a law firm in Atlanta, Georgia, who has accumulated millions but refuses to share his wealth with his wife, Rebecca. Since the couple's two children are preparing to leave the nest for college, both Rebecca and Marcus decide it is time to make a radical change in their lives. Rebecca, forced by Marcus to be a stay-at-home mom, has been mentally and verbally abused by Marcus for the last sixteen years and can't stand her life as it is any longer. She desires nothing more than to be free from the clutches of her abusive, controlling, dominating, adulterous, tightwad husband and sees her opportunity for freedom after Marcus's two failed attempts to kill her. Marcus's greed ultimately leads to his horrific demise. Rebecca serves him the dish he never expectedrevenge served cold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456830847

Mary Burton King

Mary Burton King is a former NCIS Special Agent with over twenty years of law enforcement experience. She is also the author of NO POT, NO WINDOW or How I Changed My Life from Sour Lemons to Sweet Lemonade and is currently writing her third murder mystery, the final sequel to FOOL ME ONCE…. Ms. King lives in Pataskala, Ohio.

Book preview

Fool Me Once . . .

A Rebecca Novel

Mary Burton King

Copyright © 2010 by Mary Burton King.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010918241

ISBN: Hardcover    978-1-4568-3083-0

ISBN: Softcover     978-1-4568-3082-3

ISBN: Ebook         978-1-4568-3084-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction to Rebecca and Marcus

Chapter 2: The Early Years of Their Relationship

Chapter 3: The Cleaver Years

Chapter 4: Marcus’s Betrayal

Chapter 5: Rebecca’s Disappearance and Rebirth

Chapter 6: Amsterdam—Let the Sex Games Begin

Chapter 7: Revenge Served Cold

Chapter 8: Reuniting with Christine and Marcus Jr.

Chapter 9: The Criminal Investigation

Chapter 10: The Aftermath

Epilogue

DEDICATION

This novel is dedicated to all the lonely housewives, particularly those with husbands who do not respect or appreciate them. Welcome to your fantasy island!

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to

Rebecca and Marcus

Rebecca

IT IS NINE o’clock in the morning, and Rebecca is standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror at her naked body. This is something she does quite a bit lately ever since she found out her husband Marcus has been having yet another affair for the last year; this one’s name is Sandi. Rebecca is not happy with the image reflected back at her. After twenty years of marriage, the birth of two children, and years of neglect, she looks fifty-two instead of forty-two years old. Time has not been kind to her. Her face is weathered and wrinkled, she has jowls and a large gooseneck, her once-firm and perky breasts are now large and sagging and resemble large neck yellow squash, she has love handles around her once-trim waist, she has a potbelly, and her butt has grown two sizes and shakes when she walks.

What happened to the vibrant, young, trim, sexy, alluring woman she used to be? Rebecca took note that her only true physical assets these days were her shiny blonde hair, bright green eyes, and pearly white teeth. No wonder Marcus was having an affair with a twenty-eight-year-old, cute-as-a-button, office assistant by the name of Sandi. Rebecca, who is a stay-at-home mom, has asked Marcus numerous times over the last five or six years to pay for her to have cosmetic surgery, but he always said she was pretty just like she was and no need to waste the money. What a cheap, penny-pinching, adulterous, lying rat bastard. The real truth is that not spending the money on her cosmetic surgery meant more money for him to spend on his lavish lifestyle and mistresses. They hadn’t had sex in over five years nor do they share the same bedroom anymore. All that ended when Marcus told her she was a fat, repulsive old dog.

Rebecca knew that this little tart Sandi wasn’t his first mistress. As a matter of fact, Marcus has had a new mistress every year for the last six or seven years. Rebecca now resents dropping out of college in her junior year to work as a waitress to pay for Marcus’s law school. He had promised her she could go back to college and finish her degree when he passed his bar exam, but of course that never happened. Marcus had lied to her, fooled her, and she hated him for it. Once he passed his bar exam sixteen years ago, he became mentally and verbally abusive, as well as a womanizing, controlling, dominating, hateful tightwad who locked down all the money and only gave Rebecca a household allowance of $1,000 a month.

Rebecca knew that Marcus’s current income as a prominent criminal defense attorney was well over half a million dollars a year, but she didn’t have access to any of his bank accounts. Additionally, the deed to the mansion they currently live in was only in Marcus’s name as well as all the vehicles. Rebecca only stayed married to Marcus because of their two teenage children, Christine, sixteen, and Marcus Jr., eighteen, or at least that is what she tells herself.

Truthfully, Rebecca has no self-esteem, nowhere to go, no real friends or family, no money or access to it, and no professional work experience. Her children are almost grown now and will be going away to college soon, leaving her in this large mansion Marcus calls his castle all alone. Rebecca feels trapped like a rat and wonders where the years went and how she had allowed herself to become this weak, pathetic sight she now saw in the mirror. Rebecca despises Marcus and wants a new life, but after years of abuse, she doesn’t have the courage or self-confidence to leave him. There has to be an answer to this dilemma. What to do, what to do?

Marcus

It is nine o’clock in the morning, and Marcus is driving his new shiny black Mercedes with custom license plates which read SO GOOD to his mistress’s house for a quick cup of coffee and a quick piece of ass before going to the office. Marcus is a prominent criminal defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta, Georgia. His first client isn’t scheduled until ten thirty, so there is plenty of time. Besides, as an associate partner with numerous affluent clients, he pretty much writes his own ticket at the law firm these days and generally doesn’t care if he is on time for his clients.

Marcus’s current mistress, Sandi, is also his legal assistant, and he usually picks her up for work every morning. This is really just an excuse for a quickie before work, and everyone at the firm knows it but simply ignores the elephant in the room. Sandi, who is only twenty-eight and smoking hot and sexy, makes Marcus feel young again. He is forty-three years old, balding and slightly pudgy, but he knows that when you are as rich as he is, no one really cares what you look like. Marcus learned many years ago that money is power and power is everything. This is why he only doles out $1,000 a month for household expenses to his wife Rebecca (whom he calls the fat, repulsive old dog), denies her access to his bank accounts, and refused to list her on the deed to their mansion or their vehicles.

With Marcus, life is all about power and control. He actually has three bank accounts, two of which are offshore accounts where he has been hiding money from Rebecca and the IRS for over ten years. Marcus’s current net worth is slightly over four million dollars, and he isn’t sharing it with anyone, not even his mistresses or his two children. He has his retirement nest egg and to hell with everyone else, especially the old dog Rebecca. Actually, for the last year, Marcus has been trying the figure out a way to kick the old dog to the curb just as soon as both the kids are out of the house and in college in about a year. His son, Marcus Jr., who just turned eighteen, will be leaving for Harvard in the fall, and Christine, who is about a year younger, will be joining him the following year. The reason both children are attending Harvard is because that is the only college Marcus agreed to pay for since it is his alma mater. Lately, Marcus spends a lot of time trying to decide how to get rid of Rebecca, his clinging, fat, ugly, whining, haggy wife of twenty years without paying her a dime. This is Marcus’s dilemma. What to do, what to do?

CHAPTER 2

The Early Years of Their Relationship

REBECCA MET MARCUS when they were both undergraduates attending the University of Mississippi. Rebecca had a dual major, sociology and criminal justice, and planned to be a social worker or probation officer because she had always liked helping people. She started volunteering at shelters in her hometown of Memphis when she was sixteen, usually helping in the kitchen during holidays. Seeing all those poor, hungry, homeless people, including veterans, made Rebecca sad but thankful for what little she had in life. She always wondered what their story was—how did they wind up with nothing living in a shelter?

Rebecca soon found out that the loss of a job, a divorce, a serious illness, or in many instances alcohol and/or drug abuse could lead to homelessness. She also saw how the rest of society treated or rather mistreated them by simply ignoring them, pretending they didn’t exist and sometimes even assaulting them. Rebecca knew that there were a lot of good people in shelters that needed help, and she planned to graduate from college, obtain her license as a social worker, or work as a probation officer and help as many of them that she could. Alcohol and/or drug abuse usually lead to theft, a criminal conviction, and probation. Rebecca knew that if these abusers could maintain sobriety, they could be productive citizens. Marcus used to laugh at her and tell her that those people deserved the life they had and that there was no money in either of those career fields. Rebecca didn’t care what Marcus or anyone else said because that was her dream.

Well, unfortunately dreams don’t always come true. During her junior year of college, Marcus asked Rebecca to marry him. They had been dating for over a year, and when the proposal came, Rebecca said yes without hesitation with the stipulation that she graduate from college as scheduled the following year. After their wedding, Marcus dropped a bombshell on Rebecca. He was a senior graduating from the university that year and had been accepted to the Harvard Law School (HLS) in Massachusetts. Marcus insisted Rebecca drop out of college temporarily, make the move with him, and work part time to help pay for his law school. He promised that when he passed his bar exam, Rebecca could return to college and complete her degree.

So Rebecca’s dream got deferred—forever. She moved up north with Marcus, they found a small apartment not far from HLS, and she started working as a waitress at a small diner not far from their apartment. Since Marcus’s parents weren’t wealthy, they could only afford to pay for his undergraduate degree. Therefore, his law degree had to be paid out of pocket and through grants which meant Rebecca was waiting tables and Marcus was attending law school. This was Rebecca’s life for three long years. Marcus kept telling her he would make it up to her soon, and she believed him.

Back then, Rebecca loved Marcus and believed everything he told her. Besides, what option did she have? Marcus was really the only family she had. Rebecca was an only child, and her parents were killed in an automobile accident when she was fifteen years old. After their funeral, she went to live with her maternal grandmother, Little Nannie, in West Memphis, Arkansas, for three years and subsequently