Chapter 4

On Thursday, Julian announced he had to travel out of town to inspect an acoustics laboratory and would be staying overnight.

I waited until 11:00 PM, then pulled out a master key I had secretly kept from our house renovations and slid it into the lock of the guest room.

For five years, this was the first time I had slipped into my husband's room in the middle of the night like a thief.

The room was disgustingly neat. There were no smashed pieces of furniture, no protective foam padding on the sharp edges, and the bedding was a sterile, hotel-style charcoal grey.

The metal ring bolted to the floorboards under the bed, meant to hold his "restraint chain," was pristine and shiny, without a single scratch or scuff mark from friction.

He couldn't even be bothered to make his lie look convincing.

I knelt down and searched the bottom drawer of his wardrobe. Hidden beneath his winter clothes, I found a digital lockbox.

I tried his birthday. Incorrect. I tried our anniversary. Incorrect.

Finally, I punched in the date of Marcus's death.

With a soft click, the lock popped open.

There were no medications, no medical reports inside. Instead, everything was arranged with obsessive neatness, like a prized museum exhibit.

There was a pair of high-end, studio-grade noise-canceling headphones, the leather on the ear cups worn smooth and shiny.

There was a fresh metal tin of Elena's favorite imported peppermint throat lozenges, half-empty.

And at the very back, a worn, slightly pilled men's scarf.

It was a charcoal grey cashmere scarf, its edges slightly singed by fire, carrying a very faint scent of Elena’s signature citrus perfume.

I recognized that scarf.

Three years ago, I had spent half my monthly paycheck to buy it for his birthday. He told me he had accidentally lost it in a taxi, and I had mourned the loss for weeks.

It wasn't lost. It had been handed over to another woman as a comforting blanket, held in her arms night after night.

He would prepare top-tier professional gear and soothing lozenges for another woman's claustrophobia, even sacrificing a precious gift from his wife to comfort her.

Meanwhile, because of my high-stress job in the foley studio, I had developed severe somatic tinnitus. For months, my ears rang constantly, sounding like a roaring train engine kept me awake night after night.

All Julian had offered me was a careless, "Drink some warm tea and wear some earplugs."

During those six months, I lost twelve pounds.

I had to distinguish microscopic audio decibels in the studio by day, and endure the excruciating ringing in my ears by night. I was on the verge of clinical depression.

I had begged him once, "Julian, please, can you come with me to see a specialist?"

His muffled voice had drifted through the soundproof door: "I have an early meeting with the board tomorrow, Chloe. I can't make it."

In the end, I went to the hospital alone, taking heavy nerve blockers that threw my hormones completely out of whack just to suppress the noise.

It turned out that while I was suffering, someone in this house was constantly sucking on throat lozenges.

Someone was wearing professional studio headphones in the dead of night, carefully choosing every single word to lull another woman to sleep.

I placed the three items back exactly as they were, adjusting them to the precise angles I had found them in, ensuring even the direction of the lozenge tin didn't shift by a millimeter.

As I closed the lockbox, my hands were as steady as ice.

Smoother and steadier than when I slid the faders on my mixing console.

The next day, I went to the city’s top ENT specialist clinic for a follow-up.

The senior specialist reviewing my brainstem auditory test frowned deeply.

"Chloe, your auditory nerves are under extreme, chronic tension. If this continues, you risk irreversible hearing damage."

I forced a small smile. "I've just been under a lot of stress at work lately."

He didn't buy it. He scribbled a few lines on his pad, his pen pressing so hard it tore the paper.

"Remove yourself from high-stress environments immediately. Avoid severe emotional triggers. Seek psychological counseling if necessary."

I folded the medical report and tucked it into my bag, right next to the timeline document I had started keeping on my phone.

On my way home, I created an encrypted folder on my laptop. I began listing every single suspicious incident over the last five years, day by day.

The nights he forced me out of the living room under the guise of "imminent night terrors"; the exact times he would go off the grid; the dates Elena posted about "falling into darkness" on her Instagram.

By the time I reached the forty-second entry, I stopped. I opened Snapchat and sent Julian a message.

"Next Friday is our fifth anniversary. I booked a table at that rooftop revolving restaurant. I want to have a proper dinner with you."

He replied instantly.

"Perfect. Whatever you want." He attached a red rose emoji.

I stared at that bright red rose for a full minute, then flipped my phone face down on the table.

Even a prisoner on death row gets a decent final meal.