Chapter 4
I went home.
Not to our apartment in the city.
To our weekend house in upstate New York.
The one Ethan said he’d bought for us three years ago.
The one with the attic he always kept locked.
“Just old junk,” he’d say whenever I asked about it. “Nothing worth seeing.”
I drove the two hours north in a daze.
My mind kept replaying Marge’s words.
Emily was pregnant.
He’ll kill me if I tell anyone.
I know he did.
The house was empty when I arrived.
Ethan was at work.
He wouldn’t be up here until Saturday.
That gave me forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours to find the truth.
I went straight to the attic door.
Locked, of course.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a screwdriver from the junk drawer.
It took me ten minutes of prying.
The lock finally gave with a loud snap.
The attic was dark.
Dusty.
The smell of old wood and neglect.
I flipped the light switch.
A single bare bulb flickered to life.
Stacks of boxes everywhere.
Furniture covered with white sheets.
And in the far corner, a metal filing cabinet.
Locked.
Of course.
I went through the boxes first.
Old tax returns.
Photographs from Ethan’s childhood.
Yearbooks.
Nothing that looked incriminating.
Until I found the shoebox.
Tucked behind a stack of old National Geographics.
It was plain.
Black.
No writing on the outside.
I sat down on the floor and opened it.
Letters.
Dozens of them.
All addressed to Emily.
All in Ethan’s handwriting.
I picked up the first one.
Dated two weeks before she disappeared.
My Dearest Emily,
I know you’re scared. I know you think I’m a monster. But you have to understand. What my father did… that was his business. Not mine. I’m nothing like him. You have to believe me.
We can leave this place. Start over. California. Europe. Anywhere you want. Just you and me. And the baby.
My hands froze on the page.
The baby.
He knew.
Ethan had known Emily was pregnant.
He had lied to the police.
He had lied to me.
I read the next letter.
Dated three days before she vanished.
Emily,
Don’t do this. Don’t go to the police. You don’t know what my family is capable of. They’ll hurt you. They’ll hurt the baby. I’m trying to protect you. Why won’t you let me?
If you leave me, I swear to God, I will find you. There is nowhere on this earth you can go where I won’t track you down. You are mine. That baby is mine. And no one takes what belongs to Ethan Carter.
Mine.
The word sent chills through me.
I read them all.
Each one more desperate.
More angry.
More threatening.
The last one was dated October 14th.
The day Emily disappeared.
Written in handwriting so shaky it was almost illegible.
You’ve forced my hand.
I gave you every chance.
You chose this.
See you tonight.
E.
That was it.
No signature.
No love.
Just a threat.
And a promise.
I sat there on the dusty floor, surrounded by the ghosts of a woman I’d never met.
A woman Ethan had loved.
And then destroyed.
I heard a car pull into the driveway.
My blood turned to ice.
Ethan wasn’t supposed to be here until Saturday.
I checked my phone.
No messages.
No calls.
The front door opened.
“Sarah?”
His voice.
Upstairs.
Getting closer.
I stuffed the letters back into the shoebox.
Shoved it under the stack of National Geographics.
“Sarah, are you up here?”
His footsteps on the attic stairs.
I stood up.
Brushed the dust off my jeans.
Tried to look normal.
He appeared in the doorway.
“Hey,” I said, my voice too high. “What are you doing here?”
“Left work early,” he said, looking past me at the broken lock. “Thought I’d surprise you. What happened to the door?”
“Jammed,” I said. “I was trying to get it open. It finally just… gave.”
He stepped into the attic.
His eyes scanned the room.
Landed on the boxes I’d opened.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
“Christmas decorations,” I said. “For the office party. I thought we might have stored some up here.”
He walked toward me.
Slow.
Too slow.
“Find anything?” he said.
“Just old magazines,” I said, forcing a laugh. “Very exciting.”
He stopped inches from me.
I could smell his cologne.
The same one he’d worn on our wedding day.
“You’re lying,” he said.
My heart stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a terrible liar, Sarah,” he said. “You always have been. Your voice goes up an octave. You can’t look me in the eye. And you laugh at things that aren’t funny.”
He reached past me.
To the stack of National Geographics.
Pulled them aside.
The shoebox was gone.
Wait.
I had pushed it further under the shelf.
He couldn’t see it.
He looked at me.
“Who have you been talking to?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Marge,” he said. “Emily’s mother. She was at that coffee shop yesterday. And you were there with her. Don’t deny it. My brother saw you.”
His brother.
Marcus.
I’d only met him a handful of times.
He lived in the city.
Ran the family’s construction business.
Always made my skin crawl.
“Ethan, I—”
“What did she tell you?” he demanded. “That I killed her daughter? That I’m some kind of monster?”
He was shouting now.
I’d never seen him like this.
Never.
“Ethan, you’re scaring me,” I said, backing away.
He followed.
“Answer me!”
“Yes!” I screamed. “She told me! She told me about Emily! About the necklace! About the letters! About the baby!”
The words were out before I could stop them.
Ethan froze.
His face went pale.
Then red.
Then something worse.
Empty.
“You read the letters,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
He took a step toward me.
I took one back.
Hit the wall.
Nowhere to go.
“Sarah,” he said, his voice suddenly calm. Too calm. “You have to understand. None of that was real. I was young. Angry. I wrote things I didn’t mean. When someone you love says they’re leaving you… you say stupid things. Threats you’d never carry out.”
“Emily was pregnant,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “And I was thrilled. I wanted that baby more than anything. That’s why I wrote those letters. I was desperate. Desperate to keep my family together. But I never hurt her, Sarah. Never. I swear to you. On my life. On our life together. I did not hurt Emily.”
“Then where is she?”
He looked down.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve spent eleven years wondering the same thing.”
He reached for my hand.
This time, I pulled away.
“Sarah,” he said. “Marge is a grieving mother. She needs someone to blame. And I’m the easiest target. But her mind… it’s not right. She’s spent so long living in this fantasy that I killed her daughter, she can’t see the truth anymore.”
“The truth?” I said. “What truth?”
“That Emily left,” he said. “That she got scared. About the wedding. About the baby. About my family’s money and the pressure that comes with it. So she ran. She started over somewhere else. And she never looked back.”
“Without her wallet? Without her passport? Without calling her mother?”
“People do crazy things when they’re scared,” he said.
I looked into his eyes.
For ten years, I’d been able to read every emotion in those eyes.
Happiness.
Sadness.
Desire.
Now?
I saw nothing.
A blank wall.
“Sarah,” he said, softly now. “I love you. More than anything. You are my whole world. Nothing from my past can change that. Not Emily. Not Marge. Not anything. Please. Tell me you believe me.”
He took my hand again.
This time, I didn’t pull away.
Because I didn’t know what else to do.
If I said I didn’t believe him… what then?
What would he do?
The man I’d married would never hurt me.
But was that man even real?
Or had he been a performance for ten years?
“I need time,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “Take all the time you need. But please… don’t go to Marge again. She’s not well. And she’ll only fill your head with more lies.”
I nodded.
He pulled me into his arms.
Held me tight.
I rested my head on his chest.
Listened to his heart beat.
Steady.
Strong.
Normal.
But behind my back, I felt his hand move.
He reached under the shelf.
Pulled out the shoebox.
I stiffened.
“Where did you find this?” he asked, his voice neutral.
“Under the magazines,” I said.
He opened it.
Looked at the letters.
And then he did the last thing I expected.
He handed them to me.
“Keep them,” he said. “Read them again. Every word. And then ask yourself: does this sound like a man who was planning to murder the woman he loved? Or does it sound like a man who was terrified of losing everything?”
He walked toward the attic door.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he said. “Making dinner. Take your time.”
He left.
May you like
I stood there alone, holding the letters.
Wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.
