PART 1

For seven years, I believed I knew everything about the man I had married.

Ethan and I had the kind of marriage people envied.

Every Sunday morning, he brought me coffee in bed. He remembered birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, and even tiny milestones I had forgotten myself.

Sometimes I woke to handwritten notes stuck to the bathroom mirror.

“You looked beautiful sleeping.”

“Don’t forget your lunch.”

“Always proud of you.”

Our friends joked that if Ethan and I ever divorced, they would stop believing in love altogether.

I laughed along because I believed exactly the same thing.

Ethan wasn’t only my husband.

He was my best friend.

My safest person.

At least, that was what I thought.

One evening, we were getting ready for a formal dinner party hosted by my boss, Marion.

I was standing at the bedroom mirror fastening a gold earring when Ethan called from downstairs.

“Clarissa, are you almost ready? I’m bringing the car around.”

“Two minutes!”

“You said that ten minutes ago!”

“That’s because I meant it ten minutes ago!”

I heard him laugh before the front door closed.

Smiling, I turned back toward the mirror.

Then my earring slipped from my fingers.

It hit the floor and rolled underneath our heavy wooden bed.

“Seriously?”

I dropped to my knees.

The earring had disappeared into the narrow gap beneath the frame.

Normally, I might have left it there.

But it was my favorite pair.

So I grabbed my phone, switched on the flashlight, lifted one side of the mattress, and looked beneath the bed.

That was when I saw it.

Not the earring.

Something else.

A dark plastic package had been taped tightly underneath Ethan’s side of the bed frame.

My smile vanished.

For several seconds, I simply stared.

And suddenly, all the strange little things I had ignored over the last few months came rushing back.

Ethan had started taking his phone into the bathroom.

He sometimes seemed nervous when the mail arrived.

He had specifically told our cleaning lady never to move anything around his side of the bedroom.

Then there were his monthly “business trips.”

Always Thursday through Sunday.

Always to the same small town several hours away.

Whenever I asked about his father—a man Ethan almost never discussed—he always gave me the same answer.