I should have known he couldn’t keep that promise.
My world revolved around his career. Going wherever his tour took us. Making sure he never disappointed his fans. Keeping him off drugs and away from damaging publicity.
He’d been careful; I’d give him that. He hadn’t gotten caught by the paparazzi. But that didn’t change a thing.
I refused to bethatwoman. I wasn’t going to give him another day of my life when he refused to treat me with the most basic level of respect, and had been lying to me for who knows how long.
I’ll still never forget his face when I told him it was over and I was filing for divorce.
Absolutely stunned shock.
Then came the rage. His screams that I would never humiliate him like that.
I stayed stoic. Refused to back down.
That’s when he turned cruel.
I can still hear his words ringing in my head.“I don’t know why you care now. I’ve been fucking around for ten years. I never loved you. I needed you. There’s a difference.”
Then I played my trump card. I told him he’d give me a quick and quiet divorce, or I’d tell the truth and everyone would know what a fraud he’d always been.
His temper detonated and he charged me. I ran for the safe room and locked him out. He pounded on it for an hour, threatening to kill me if I ever told.
When he gave up, he destroyed everything in his path on the way out—furniture, mirrors, art, walls, doors.
Crying, I called Cricket. She wanted to call the police, but I refused. Instead, I waited hours before coming out—until I saw pictures people posted, tagging him at a hotel and saying he was throwing a massive party.
I packed as fast as I could and got the hell out of the house before he could come back. I was holed up in a hotel in San Diego the next day when I got the call from the police. They needed me to identify his body.
I roll over on the futon and close my eyes, picturing the videos of hordes of angry fans screaming outside our front gate as soon as the news broke. Their signs. Their messages. The death threats.
All because they said I’d killed a legend in the making.
No one cared that Ricky’s own hand held the needle that carried the fatal dose of heroin and fentanyl.
No one cared that I wasn’t there when it happened.
No one cared about anything but Ricky Rangoand the story he spun for them before he died. The story where I was the evil cheating whore of a wife who was out to destroy him and his music.
My shoulders begin to shake as the memories threaten to break me.
No.Not today. Not ever again.
I throw off the quilt and bolt out of bed.I gave him everything for ten years of my life, and I will not give him a single second more.
I have a new life to get in order, and not one single part of it will have anything to do with Ricky Rango beyond the stack of cash shoved in my purse. That was all I took when I left, besides my clothes, and I was lucky that I had squirreled away some household petty cash in the event of a rainy day. Ricky’s financial manager met with me before the funeral to inform me that there was no money left due to Ricky’s outrageous spending habits.
I reach for my purse and count out the bills.
Four thousand six hundred and nineteen dollars. It’s not going to last me long, even though Gable is cheaper than LA.
I need to find a way to pay my own way. I’m thirty-one, infamously widowed, and have no marketable job skills for a town like Gable besides being a half-decent cleaning lady a decade ago.
Flopping back on the bed, I squeeze my eyes shut and think about what the hell someone here might pay me to do.
Working for the Riscoffs is out of the question. My pride won’t let me ... at least, not unless I’m starving.
Lead wilderness hikes with Cricket? I’d get lost five minutes into the woods.