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put her winter boots, jacket, and gloves on. Then she headed out
the front door to explore.
    Tammy
closed the door behind her. She went into the master bedroom and took a
separate prepaid phone from inside her suitcase. Then she called Stephen’s
attorney, Tom Murphy. “Tom, it’s me! Can you hear me?”
    “Tammy,
yes. Is everything finished as we had planned?”
    Tammy
took a deep breath to calm her trembling voice before responding to Tom on the
private cell phone. “No, there have been some problems. I called the police
department. The accident went right as we’d planned it. But when they found the
car, Stephen wasn’t inside it! Can you friggin’ believe that? I mean the car
crashed at the base of the mountain, just the way it was supposed to, and he is
nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, the heat in the cabin went out and it’s
freezing up here. So I lit a fire in the fireplace only to have the damper
close shut on me and nearly smoke the whole dang place out…”
    “Ok
Tammy, calm down. Let’s talk this through.” Tom spoke in a comforting tone. “So
you are telling me that the car went over the cliff and crashed at the bottom?
Stephen was the only one that left driving it?”
    “Of
course!”
    “Well
then where else could he be? Could he have been thrown from the car while it
went over the mountainside? Either way, surely he must have been killed.”
    “I
don’t friggin’ know. I told the police that it’s urgent that we find him. I
thought you had somebody out here who rigged the roadway and guard rail and
tampered with the car. Didn’t he see what happened?”
    “I
don’t know, Tammy. I sent out the best man hunter that money can buy and I
trust in his work. I haven’t heard anything from him, so I’ll have to give him
a call. What did the police tell you?”
    “They
said they can’t do nothin’ until the snow stops coming down. They’re gonna find
out more and then let me know.”
    “Ok,
so then there is no reason to panic. What I want you to do is sit tight and
don’t worry too much about it. Let’s wait to find out more when we can. Stephen
must be dead, otherwise he would’ve come back to the cabin. I’ll check with the
guy that I hired. Call me when you know something else unless I call you back
first.” Tom ended the phone call and Tammy put the prepaid phone back in her suitcase.
    ***
    She had known about attorney
Tom Murphy from the time that she and Stephen got married. Stephen said that he
was a local guy who had taken good care of his grandfather’s estate. Then,
after the marriage to Tammy, Tom also became Stephen’s best friend. But after
doing some investigating, Tammy found that just a few years before Tom had been
guilty of a private practice violation of the ethical code. She knew that
receiving a twelve-month suspension had been really damaging to Tom’s
reputation. Tammy figured that once he was reinstated, he would be really hurting
for business, and was the perfect person to seek out to help with her plan to
get rid of Stephen.
    Through
private phone calls and emails, she cunningly manipulated Tom, and probed him
for information. She convinced him that his career was in a shambles beyond
repair, and that he needed to be selfish to get ahead in life. She was sure
that she was only doing what every other young and beautiful woman dreamed of –
trying to live a lavish life while being free from any man to tie her down.
Even after being treated so well and loved so deeply, she had not the least bit
of remorse about murdering her husband. He should have known that a woman like
her would never want him for any reason other than his money, she thought. Her
mental health problems, diagnosed anxiety disorder, and childhood behavioral
issues didn’t mean a thing now. She firmly believed that if you want to get
ahead in this world, you have to watch out for number one, and that meant doing
whatever is necessary. Tammy would be the first person from the Caldwell family