Chapter 2 - The Question He Avoided
Sarah waited until Mark had settled Leo in the bathtub before she went downstairs. She found them surrounded by soap bubbles and plastic boats. Mark was kneeling beside the tub, sleeves rolled to his elbows, smiling as Leo made a wave crash into a rubber duck.“You’re home early,” Sarah said.Mark looked up. “I left as soon as I could.”“From the office?”“Mostly.”The answer was soft, almost casual. Sarah leaned against the doorframe. “Where were you last Tuesday?”The rubber duck tipped sideways.Mark’s hand stopped moving through the water. “I told you. At work.”“All day?”“Sarah.”“I’m asking because Leo remembers you telling someone not to watch a woman open our bedroom wall.”Color drained from Mark’s face so quickly that Sarah almost apologized. Then he blinked, and the expression vanished.“He’s five,” Mark said. “He probably saw a repair person or one of your friends and mixed up the details.”“He said she played the piano.”“The music box?”Sarah caught the word. “You know which one I mean?”Mark looked toward the hallway. “The little piano your mother gave us. It’s been in the attic for years.”“No. It’s in the bedroom.”For several seconds, the only sound was water tapping against porcelain.“I must have moved it,” Mark said.“You don’t remember?”“I’ve had a long day.”He lifted Leo from the tub and wrapped him in a towel. The movement was gentle, practiced, and familiar. Sarah watched her husband carry their son past her without meeting her eyes.At bedtime, Mark read Leo two pages of a dinosaur book and kissed his forehead. Sarah stood in the doorway while he switched off the lamp.“Daddy,” Leo murmured, “is the gray-eyed lady coming back?”Mark’s shoulders tightened.“There is no gray-eyed lady,” he said.Sarah heard the careful warning beneath his voice.When Mark came downstairs, she was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open. She had not called the police. She had not called him a thief or a liar. Instead, she had written every fact she could remember while it was still clear: the necklace, the scar, the license plate, the muddy water, and Leo’s exact words.Mark poured himself water.“I’m going to ask again,” Sarah said. “Where were you last Tuesday evening?”“At the office.”“Who can confirm that?”“My supervisor.”“Name?”He set the glass down. “Why are you interrogating me?”“Because a stranger wore my necklace.”Mark stared at her.“The sapphire,” Sarah continued. “The one you gave me. The one locked behind the dresser. She had it.”His mouth opened, but no sound came out.“You knew where it was,” Sarah said. “You knew about the music box. You knew enough about the house to know what Leo was talking about.”“I didn’t take it.”It was the first answer he gave without hesitation.Sarah felt a chill move through her. “I didn’t ask whether you took it.”Mark looked away.She closed the laptop. “I’m taking Leo to my sister’s tomorrow.”“You don’t have a sister.”“Then I’ll take him to Priya’s.”“Priya doesn’t know anything about this.”“She knows enough to keep him safe.”“Safe from me?”Sarah studied his face. She still recognized the tired lines around his eyes, the small scar on his chin from a bicycle accident, the man who had held her hand during Leo’s birth. But recognition was no longer the same as trust.“I don’t know,” she said.Mark’s phone vibrated on the counter. He glanced at it, and fear crossed his face before he turned the screen downward.Sarah noticed the message preview anyway.She saw me.Mark snatched up the phone.“Who was that?”“A work problem.”“At nine-thirty at night?”“I need to make a call.”He walked toward the back porch. Sarah remained still until the door closed behind him. Then she opened the drawer beneath the coffee maker and took out the spare house key.She did not follow Mark outside. She went upstairs instead.Behind the dresser, the muddy mark had dried at its edges. In the center, a narrow crescent of dark grit remained. Sarah scraped it into a medicine bottle from the bathroom cabinet and labeled it with the date.On the floor beneath the dresser, she found a single thread of green wool.Her phone buzzed.Priya’s name appeared on the screen.Sarah answered in a whisper. “I need your help.”“What happened?”“I think my husband has been lying to me.”Outside, Mark’s voice lowered as he spoke to someone. Sarah could not make out the words, but she heard one sentence clearly.“She has the boy.”Sarah closed her hand around the bottle of mud.Mark was still facing away from her.
