In a couple of days, he would find his wife’s body in the woods, feign grief, and receive condolences. And then—long-awaited freedom and money. He didn’t even suspect that Kira was alive. That she was in safe hands. And that he would soon have to answer for everything he had done.
Kira opened her eyes and didn’t immediately understand where she was. A white ceiling, the smell of antiseptic, the quiet beeping of medical equipment. She tried to move and felt the IV needle pulling in her arm. Memory returned with a sharp, painful blow. Restaurant, Pavel, poison, forest belt, black SUV. Gordey.
“Don’t move suddenly,” a calm female voice spoke. Anfisa Savitskaya sat in a chair by the window with a medical chart in her hands. “You are still weak. Two days have passed since the poisoning.”
“Two days?” Kira struggled to raise herself on her elbows. “I… I’m alive?”
“Alive. And will live. The poison has been removed from the body, but your body needs time to recover.”
The ward door opened, and Gordey entered with a tray on which stood a cup of tea and a plate of light soup.
“Good morning,” he said, placing the tray on the bedside table. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a person who was attempted to be murdered?” Kira tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “Thank you. If it weren’t for you…”
“No need,” Gordey sat on the chair next to the bed. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But now we need to talk. Are you ready?”
Kira nodded. Anfisa approached, helped her sit more comfortably, and placed pillows behind her back.
“Tell us everything from the beginning,” Gordey asked. “I need to understand what happened.”
Kira took a deep breath and began to tell the story. About how Pavel invited her to the restaurant, how she felt sick, how he drove her ostensibly to the hospital but turned into the forest belt instead. How he confessed that he had poisoned her and threw her out of the car to die. Her voice trembled, tears flowed down her cheeks, but she told the story without stopping.
“He said he was tired of being an appendage to my life,” she finished. “That I gave him everything except the right to manage it. I didn’t understand that he hated me so much.”
Gordey listened silently, his face becoming gloomier. When Kira fell silent, he took out his phone and showed her a photo of a young girl with dark hair and big eyes.
“Do you know this woman?”
Kira peered at the screen and shook her head.
“Never seen her. Who is it?”
“Olga Cherkasova, 22 years old. Works as a sales assistant in a shopping center. And, judging by the information I managed to get, she has been your husband’s mistress for the last three months.”
Kira froze. Mistress. Of course. Everything fell into place. Pavel didn’t just want to get rid of her; he wanted to start a new life with another woman. Young, naive, who wouldn’t control his every step.
“I have their correspondence,” Gordey continued. “My man got access to his cloud storage. Pavel promised Olga an apartment, her own business—a coffee shop, to be exact, and a life together as soon as he resolves the issue with his wife. In the last message sent yesterday evening, he wrote: ‘Soon everything will be decided. We will start a new life.'”
Kira covered her face with her hands. The pain of betrayal was almost physical, sharper than the pain of the poison.
“There’s something else,” Gordey took out a folder with documents. “Pavel is up to his ears in debt. Microloans totaling 520,000. Sports betting. Collectors call him ten times a day. He is bankrupt, Kira. And the only way for him to get out of this hole is to receive your inheritance.”
“The will,” whispered Kira. “I drew it up a year ago. Pavel is the sole heir. God, I signed my own death warrant.”
“No,” Gordey said firmly. “You trusted the person you married. That’s normal. And he turned out to be a scumbag. But we have a chance to bring him to justice. If you are ready.”
Kira raised her head and looked him in the eyes.
“I am ready. What needs to be done?”
“First, break all ties with him. Divorce. Immediately. Second, go to an investigator. I have an acquaintance in the Investigative Committee, Daria Saltykova. She specializes in such cases. Honest, principled. She can be trusted.”
“But if we go to the investigator, Pavel will find out I’m alive,” Kira frowned. “He might flee.”
“That’s why we will act carefully, step by step. First, we gather all the evidence, and then we strike. Unexpectedly and precisely, so he won’t have time to do anything.”
Anfisa approached them.
“I saved all of Kira’s blood tests. The fact of poisoning with a thiophosphate compound is recorded. This is irrefutable evidence. Plus my conclusion as a toxicologist with forty years of experience.”
“Excellent,” Gordey made notes in a notebook. “Next. We need to pull the surveillance camera footage from the restaurant. It’s possible the moment Pavel put the poison in your glass was recorded there…”
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