I Did Not Kill My Husband

Chapter 1

ONE

CARA CAMPBELL

Can’t wait for the Housebitches of Chowchilla!

Feeling as dull and dirty as the stucco sprawl of the Los Angeles she’d left behind forever, Cara Campbell stared through wire mesh and tinted glass as the van rolled past fields of strawberries and avocados, and hillsides covered with orange groves she’d never see again.

She was handcuffed and shackled. The chain around her waist, which bound her wrists to her ankles, clanked against her metal bench seat with every bump and swerve.

She willed herself not to cry. If she started, she’d never stop.

“This drive is taking forever,” said LaDonna from in front of her. “I feel like I’m in the longest line to get on the worst roller coaster ever.”

One of two other transportees in the grubby, dated, ten-passenger California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation van, LaDonna was round-faced, plus-sized, and appeared to be in her early thirties.

Cara had to look at least fifty. A lifetime had passed in the two-and-a-half weeks since she’d been led out of the packed courtroom in handcuffs, strip-searched, and delivered to the California Institute for Women for processing.

This morning she was issued a scratchy orange jumpsuit and matching fake Crocs that reeked of the previous owner’s feet.

Their yeasty cheese odor was nothing compared to the ungodly stench of the crowded holding cell where she awaited transport to the Central California Women’s Facility.

To a fate sealed by the jury forewoman’s single, devastating word: Guilty.

As the CDCR officers piloted the van out of the northeast San Fernando Valley and onto I-5, LaDonna and the other front-row occupant, Eve—Latina and pretty despite the shooting star tattooed across her forehead—chatted about the highlights of the state prison menu (strawberry Pop-Tarts on special days and a surprisingly generous selection of hot sauce) and took turns trying to figure out who Cara was.

I definitely seen you around.

You ever do time in Orange County?

Seriously, you look familiar.

Cara shrugged and wished they’d move on to any other subject. If she’d learned anything during her horrifying odyssey, it was that she intended to live out the rest of her life without possibility of parole attracting as little attention as possible.

If only she could sink through the floor and let the prison van’s wheels roll over her. Cara suppressed a sob by coughing hard but fooled no one.

“Girlfriend’s got a bad case of the first-timer terrors,” LaDonna observed.

“I was in County with that actress who paid for her kid to get into college or whatever it was,” Eve said. “She was one scared little rabbit, even with all the special treatment she got.”

“Can’t imagine that went over well with gen pop.”

“She got all kinds of special treatment. We even did a thing where we all coughed and scratched whenever she was around. Actress Karen got so freaked out, thinking she picked up TB and scabies, that she got herself sent to medical and talked her way into an early release.”

“Figures,” LaDonna said, eyeing Cara’s hair, which she’d only been allowed to wash twice at Chino and hadn’t bothered to brush. “I’m sure they’ll bend rules for you, too. Maybe even let you keep them blond extensions for a while.”

“Already too janky,” Eve said with a grimace.

LaDonna shrugged. “Nothing a little body lotion mixed with a melted Jolly Rancher and warm water can’t fix.”

“Really?” Cara asked, despite herself. Her on-the-go makeup tutorial—“Five Minutes to Look Like a Million Bucks”—had been removed from all platforms as soon as she was arrested.

“Can’t get much in the way of real makeup from commissary, and what there is, is crazy expensive,” said LaDonna. “Crushed colored pencil and baby powder works almost as well as drugstore eye shadow.”

“So does a little bit of coffee mixed with face cream for foundation,” added Eve. “Although you’re pretty white. No offense.”

Prison cosmetics would suit Cara just fine.

In the year since Karl’s death, she hadn’t cared enough about her appearance to bother touching up her Botox or fillers, even in her rapidly deflating lips.

The only reason she’d fixed up her hair and had her nails manicured was her lawyer’s insistence that she look presentable in court.

It hadn’t made a difference.

As far as the jury of her “peers” was concerned, she was guilty as charged from the moment they saw her. Living her truth had only made everyone believe she was a liar.

The corrections officer in the passenger seat turned around. Cara glimpsed his name badge through the security grate but could only make out the first three letters. Voz-something.

“Bet neither of you woke up today thinking you’d be teaching Chowchilla’s newest celeb all the tricks of the inmate trade,” he said with a grin.

LaDonna whooped. “I knew it was you! Gold-digger Karen, right? I’ll bet you’re gonna be the first-ever, real-life influencer in the state pen. I think we should nickname you Goldie. Kinda of like Gold Is the New Black.”

At least it wasn’t Grave-Digger Karen.

“You ever watch that prison show?” Eve asked.

“Nah,” said LaDonna. “Figure I’ve been there. Going there again.”

“Don’t do the crime and you won’t do the time,” Corrections Officer Poff lectured from behind the wheel.

The two women rolled their eyes, but Cara didn’t bother.

There was no point in proclaiming her innocence to anyone on the inside—even in the van on the way.

Given how she’d been treated as Public Enemy Number One during her trial, Cara was a little bit surprised that the van carrying her to prison looked and sounded decades old.

Not that she expected a private car . . . or maybe she did?

A support beneath LaDonna’s metal bench seat squeaked as she shifted from one butt cheek to the other. “Seriously, Goldie, you should score us a reality show.”

“It’ll never get canceled—I mean, you are a lifer,” Eve added. “We can do season after season after season.”

LaDonna and Eve proceeded to spitball the best ever prison reality show, starring Cara, who would commit newbie no-nos like asking fellow inmates what they were doing time for and sitting on other women’s bunks without asking.

Entertaining hijinks would include Cara getting her first prison tattoo and contracting amputation-grade foot fungus after showering barefoot.

“You’ve got connections to make the show happen, right, Goldie?” asked Eve.

There was indeed a time when Cara’s status as a top-tier influencer enabled her to casually pitch an idea to the movie producer who lived at the end of her cul-de-sac.

As the wife of a prominent plastic surgeon, she could also have discreetly circumvented HIPAA laws to approach any of the celebrities her husband, Karl, had nipped or tucked.

She even had a friend whose sister had married a highly placed TV executive.

She doubted any of her contacts would accept a collect call from the state penitentiary.

Certainly not one from her.

“I’ll have to think on that,” she said.

Energized by their big idea, LaDonna and Eve began listing people they knew—or were related to, or were friends of friends—who were famous.

My second cousin’s kid was on a football team Snoop Dogg coached . . .

I know someone who went to high school with Kendrick Lamar . . .

This girl on The Bachelor was born in Inglewood and knows my sister . . .

Met Doja Cat once . . .

Oscar De La Hoya was at this picnic I was at . . .

While they played Six Degrees of Separation, Cara leaned her head against the side of the van and dozed until she was awakened by the crackle of the van’s radio. They were now traveling along a divided highway between railroad tracks and palm trees, in the city limits of Who Cares.

CalFire activity just north of Fresno. Be aware of a detour ahead.

“Great, just what we need,” muttered Poff.

“We’re stopping in Fresno for food, right?” LaDonna asked.

“I’m so thirsty,” said Eve.

“We need a bathroom break, too.”

Their liquids had been limited for the drive, and Cara was thirsty and hungry, too—her body was, anyway. Personally, she didn’t care if she ever ate, drank, or went to the bathroom again.

In the aftermath of Karl’s murder, Cara had begun to stress eat.

Sugar, carbs, dairy, In-N-Out—anything and everything she’d denied herself since she finally shed that thirty pounds of “baby fat” in her early twenties.

She couldn’t stop overeating during the trial, either, and her growing roundness had been noted in increasingly hurtful posts headlined Gluttonous for Punishment, Prisonly Plump, and worse.

A wellness spa had even reached out, asking her to participate in and promote their thirty-day detox program if and when she was acquitted of all charges.

And then she was convicted.

“Excuse me, Mr. Corrections Officer, I really need to go to the bathroom,” LaDonna insisted. “And it’s not just number one!”

“That explains the nasty-ass smell back here,” Eve said.

“Squeeze your cheeks together, ladies,” said Poff. “We’re making a scheduled stop, and we’re almost there.”

Ten minutes later, they pulled up to a small sheriff substation, where they were unloaded from the van at gunpoint so they could shuffle into a restroom on the side of the building.

Poff watched them closely as Vozenilek—which Cara could now read on his name tag—took the keys from his belt, unlocked each woman’s right wrist, and quickly locked them into a windowless bathroom with a single toilet and an eye-watering smell of ammonia.

“Transport bathroom breaks are the worst,” Eve said resignedly.

“Dibs,” LaDonna said.

As Eve provided a free hand to help with the buttons on LaDonna’s jumpsuit, Cara turned away to give them privacy.

“Don’t worry, Goldie, you’ll get used to it,” LaDonna said.