Chapter One
Andi
Something is wrong.
The second I walk into my house, I know it. I feel it in my gut, somewhere down deep. Bone level. Cellular.
My body radiates from the sensation, as if I’m suddenly an animal in the wild, innately aware of danger.
It’s dark and silent in the house, first of all, despite my husband’s gray Mazda sitting in the driveway. But that’s not why I feel this way.
There’s something off with the air.
Something suffocating.
As if I can inhale the stress and the tension, detect them with my lungs.
“Spence?” I call into the still, silent house, flipping on a lamp as I pass through the living room on my way to the kitchen. It’s lighter in here, the afternoon sun shining through the bay window, but I still can’t shake the feeling that something is very wrong.
Where is he?
I cross the room, place my purse on the long granite top of the island and peer out into the backyard.
Nothing.
“Spencer? You here?”
Back at the island, I reach for my phone, checking to see that he still hasn’t responded to my texts or calls. When I received a notification from our location-sharing app that he’d arrived home in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, I’d initially sent him a text joking about him slacking off.
After an hour had passed with no response, I started to worry.
What if something was wrong?
What if he was doing something wrong?
Images of finding him in our bedroom with a stranger—clothing strewn about, naked bodies melding together—filled my mind.
I’m not an especially jealous person. You can’t be when your husband works in the entertainment industry and is constantly spending time with people who spend more on their appearance in a month than I make in a year. Models, actresses, singers… Beautiful women just looking for their break. Though my husband isn’t an agent yet, being an agent’s assistant still means he’s exposed to and constantly around exhaustingly gorgeous people.
Not that he’s ever given me any reason not to trust him. Spencer and I have been together for a decade, and we have a beautiful life and perfect children. Our sex life isn’t lacking. We’re happy. As much as two people who spend every available moment with each other can be happy, we are. Still, it’s not like him to arrive home early without letting me know what’s going on. It’s rare he beats me home at all, frankly. He knows I can see his location, so it would be a major error in judgment to come here without some sort of excuse, but why isn’t he answering?
A new wave of panic washes over me.
The image in my mind changes—the woman is gone now, the clothing back on his body, and his chest is soaked in blood. There’s blood splattered across our walls, our bedsheets, and the lamps that almost perfectly match our taupe curtains.
I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking the image from my head.
Maybe he’s just sick. Maybe he came home not feeling well and passed out. It’s not unreasonable. Though he would usually give me a heads-up, if he was terribly ill, maybe he couldn’t.
I step around the island and glance down the hallway. At the end of the long hall, our bedroom door is shut; the only light in the dimly lit space comes from the kids’ bathroom door that’s been left cracked open. With quiet, cautious steps, I move toward our bedroom. The carpet conceals the sound of my footsteps, and I listen closely, preparing myself for whatever I might hear—throes of passion, the whimpers of a dying man, or the violent sounds of his sickness.
When I hear none of the above, I suck in a sharp breath and push the bedroom door open.
My eyes scan the empty room—our black-and-white floral comforter is still neatly spread across our bed, the white, double closet doors are shut, and there are still fresh lines in our gray carpet from where our robot vacuum ran last night.
There is no blood. No vomit. No dying husband. No naked woman.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or more concerned. “Spencer?”
On his nightstand, I spot the first positive sign that he’s actually been here. His wallet, phone, and car keys are resting next to his wireless phone charger. I walk toward the bed and pick up his phone, tapping the screen. There are three text messages and two missed calls—all from me.
I check the bathroom next, but it’s just as empty, just as silent. If Spencer is sick, it doesn’t look or smell like he’s been in here. And he’s not in bed. Nor is he in the living room, kitchen, or backyard.
Where does that leave?
I check the rest of the room warily, my heart pounding throughout my body as I pull open closet doors and check under beds.
Is he planning to scare me as some sort of prank? I wouldn’t put it past him, though he’s not particularly playful. Still, I hope for it to happen. For him to jump out of a hiding place I’ve yet to check and yell boo, to tell me everything’s fine, that he’s fine, and he just came home early because he didn’t have anything else to do for the day.
As I check more places, still not locating him, I can’t shake the feeling I had when I first walked into the house, and even before that when he didn’t text me back. It’s growing worse—more urgent, more certain—by the minute.
Something is very wrong.
I exit the bedroom and cross the hall, pushing open Ava’s and James’s bedroom doors, though I don’t actually expect him to be in either room. The guest room and hall bathroom are also empty.
Back in the kitchen, panic ravages me. I try to slow my racing heart, to find a way to think rationally, but I’ve lost all sense of reason.
The worst possibilities swim through my mind: Is he leaving me? Did someone pick him up from the house and take him somewhere? Is he missing? Is he dead? Was he fired?
Where is he?
Where is he?
Where is he?
His clothes are still in the closet. Where would he go without his clothes, phone, or wallet? Or car, for that matter?
Unless he didn’t go willingly.
What if someone forced him to come home, forced him to open the safe and give them everything inside it—our gun, emergency cash, wills, and birth certificates?
What if—
CRACK.
I jolt as a sound from behind me interrupts my thoughts.
Spinning around, my eyes land on the door to the basement. Is that where the sound came from?
I swallow, my throat suddenly parched. My heart hammers in my chest as I ease toward it.
“Spencer? Is that you?”
Briefly, I consider calling 911, but dismiss the thought. It’s irrational.
Still, I’ve never liked going down to the basement. When we moved into the house, our first order of business was to have the laundry brought from the basement to the main floor. It’s dark and damp down there, the stairs are rickety, and the spaces between each step, combined with the fact that the handrail barely qualifies as a safety measure, freaks me out. It’s mostly used for storage at this point, though anything down there has to be kept in plastic storage bins rather than boxes because it floods on occasions when we get a fair bit of rain.
Spencer would have no reason to be down there, but I know what I heard.
Or…I know I heard something, more like. A sort of sharp, cracking sound, like a ruler over a desk.
Just once. Like someone knocked something over.
I puff out a long breath, reaching for the doorknob. The last owner painted the entire door black, though he didn’t manage to prime it properly, so it’s clumpy and chipping in several places. It also has one of those old skeleton key holes, though whatever key may have worked at one time no longer exists.
I’ll just push open the door, flip on the light, and call down. It’s probably nothi—
“Don’t go down there.”
I jump with a shriek and check over my shoulder to see my husband standing in the hallway.
“Jesus!” I turn around, resting my head against the door, and releasing a loud sigh. “Don’t do that! You scared me.” I clutch a hand to my chest, trying to slow my breathing. Underneath my palm, my heart pounds as if it’s caged in and wants out.
Sweat gleams on Spencer’s forehead, the wetness slicking his dark hair down at his temples. His shirt is rumpled and dirty; the knees of his slacks are covered in grime. In his hands, he’s holding a small tea towel.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know you were home,” he says.
“Where did you come from?” I peer around him.
“I…was in the garage.” He points over his shoulder, his face wrinkling with confusion like it’s the most obvious answer. I should’ve thought to check there, but like our basement, our one-car garage is used solely for storage and the tools Spencer owns that are too big to fit under the kitchen sink. “What are you doing home? I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I was looking for you. I called your name several times. You didn’t hear me?”
He shakes his head.
With the adrenaline dying down, it’s replaced by a strange combination of relief and anger. He’s not sick, dead, or cheating, but he is oblivious to the stress he’s put me through. “Why are you home early? And why haven’t you checked your phone? I’ve been worried sick.”
He pats his pocket as his eyes dart down the hall. “I’m sorry. I don’t have my phone.”
It’s not an answer or explanation. I shake my head. “Sorry for what? What’s going on? Why can’t I go into the basement?” Taking in his appearance again, fear creeps in. Why does he look so dirty? “Is something wrong?”
Has a pipe burst? Is the wall of our basement collapsing? Do we have some sort of leak? I run through all the possibilities in my head for why he’d be home and filthy in the middle of the day.
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, drying his hands on the towel. He can’t seem to meet my eyes.
“Come on, Spencer. Out with it. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
Placing the towel down on the island, his shoulders slump. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.” A lump forms in my throat like a ball of wet dough. I can’t swallow it down. Can’t force it to go away.
Something splinters in my chest, a warning of what’s to come. A confirmation that I’ve been right.
Something has happened.
Something bad.
My suspicions, my fears, were warranted. This wasn’t just my anxiety talking, making me overthink and overreact.
“Let’s go sit down.” He points toward the living room before heading that way, but I can’t move. It’s as if my feet have been swallowed up by the floor. If I try to take a step, I’m certain my knees will give out.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on. Why are you home early? Why do you look like that?” I suspiciously eye the basement door I was just forbidden to open, then turn my face back to him. “What does any of that have to do with the basement?”
Stopping in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, he drops his head into his palms. His next words are muffled, though I hear them all the same, and their weight is enough that I have to grip the doorknob again so I don’t stagger.
“I’ve fucked up.”
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