Chapter 2 - The Grave Nobody Was Supposed to Know About
Marcus had never told Sasha the entire story.
He had told her that his first wife, Vanessa, died in a terrible accident.
He had told her the police investigated.
He had told her that some memories were too painful to discuss.
Every statement contained enough truth to conceal the lie underneath.
But he had never mentioned a grave.
Not once.
“Sasha,” he said, keeping his voice low, “answer my question.”
She sat on the sofa with her knees drawn against her chest.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You said I buried her.”
“I was scared.”
“You didn't say she died. You said I buried her.”
Sasha looked toward the front door.
“Can we please call the police?”
Marcus glanced at his phone.
No notifications. No camera footage.
He opened the security application.
Every camera showed the same message.
CONNECTION LOST.
His mouth went dry.
The porch light was still on. He could see its glow beneath the door.
But the woman had stopped speaking.
Marcus called 911.
He reported someone trespassing on their property and possibly attempting to force entry. He gave the dispatcher his address and remained on the line while officers were sent.
He did not mention Vanessa.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
As they waited, Sasha refused to sit near the entrance. She kept watching the hallway mirror, as though expecting another figure to appear behind them.
Marcus brought her water.
She didn't touch it.
“You need to tell me where you saw her.”
“At the grocery store.”
“What?”
“I was putting bags in the car. Someone called my name.”
“Then?”
“I turned around. She was standing beside the shopping carts.”
“What did she look like?”
Sasha swallowed.
“Long black hair. Gray coat. A scar above her eyebrow.”
Marcus's fingers tightened around the glass.
Vanessa had gotten that scar when she was nineteen, after falling from a bicycle.
It was small, almost invisible beneath makeup.
He had never described it to Sasha.
“Did she speak?”
Sasha nodded.
“She asked whether I was happy living in her house.”
Marcus looked around the room.
Their house.
The white walls. The dark wood staircase. The fireplace Sasha decorated every Christmas.
He had bought the property four years earlier.
Vanessa had never lived there.
But she had once dreamed of owning a house just like it.
Marcus remembered her sitting on the floor of their old apartment, flipping through home-design magazines.
“One day,” she had said, “we'll have a place where nobody can tell us what to do.”
He had smiled.
Back then, he still believed he loved her.
The memory made his stomach turn.
Police lights finally washed across the living room windows.
Two officers searched the property.
They found nobody.
No footprints on the paved porch. No damaged lock. No stranger hiding behind the house.
But one officer discovered something beneath the welcome mat.
A small silver key.
Attached to it was a faded blue ribbon.
Marcus recognized it immediately.
Vanessa had worn that ribbon around her wrist on their wedding day.
She called it her lucky charm.
The officer held it up.
“Does this belong to you, sir?”
Marcus couldn't answer.
Sasha rose from the sofa.
When she saw the ribbon, she made a strange choking sound.
The officer noticed.
“Ma'am? Are you all right?”
Sasha nodded too quickly.
Marcus stared at her.
He remembered another detail from six years earlier.
On the night Vanessa disappeared, Sasha had been the last person to see her alive.
At least, that was what Sasha had told the police.
Now Marcus understood something he had refused to consider.
His wife wasn't frightened because she had seen a stranger.
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She was frightened because she knew exactly who that stranger was.
And the little silver key meant Vanessa had come back for something.
