Chapter 1 - THE ALARM I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO PRESS
At 5:42 p.m., I found my husband in our backyard pool with the neighbor who borrowed sugar every Tuesday.
Caleb’s hands left Vanessa Reed’s waist the second he saw me through the glass doors. Vanessa lowered herself into the water until only her wet dark hair and red mouth remained visible.
“Marissa,” Caleb said.
My name sounded like a problem he had expected to solve later.
I stood barefoot beside the pool in the red house dress he once said made me look happy. A grocery bag sagged from one hand. An avocado rolled across the patio and tapped against the outdoor sink.
Vanessa’s black bikini top hung over a lounge chair. Her sundress, sandals, phone, and wedding ring rested beside Caleb’s linen pants.
“Don’t make a scene,” he whispered.
That sentence killed whatever part of me still wanted an explanation.
I placed the groceries on the counter and gathered their clothes. I folded each piece across my arm as calmly as if I were putting away laundry.
Vanessa covered her chest.
“Marissa, please. This isn’t what it looks like.”
I glanced at the wet footprints leading from my kitchen to the pool.
“It looks thoroughly explained.”
Caleb gripped the tile edge.
“You’re upset. Put the clothes down before you do something stupid.”
He was already preparing the language he would use later.
Upset.
Dramatic.
Unstable.
The security panel beside the kitchen door had cost me twenty-seven hundred dollars. Caleb called it paranoid overkill when I installed it after a string of break-ins around Ridge Hollow.
Its red emergency button activated the exterior siren, notified patrol, and uploaded live recordings from every outdoor camera.
Caleb’s face went pale when my thumb moved toward it.
“Marissa. No.”
I pressed the button.
The siren ripped through the subdivision.
Dogs barked. Curtains shifted. Garage doors opened. Mrs. Palmer appeared at the fence wearing gardening gloves, and two teenagers stopped their bicycles in the street.
Caleb shouted over the alarm.
“Turn it off!”
“Why? You brought this five feet from my kitchen.”
Vanessa stared toward the side gate as neighbors gathered outside it.
Her phone lit up on the lounge chair.
DANIEL CALLING.
Her husband.
I reached into Caleb’s pants and removed the key fob to his new truck.
“This,” I said, holding it above the water, “is the last thing of yours going into my pool.”
I dropped it.
The keys disappeared into the deep end.
Caleb lunged helplessly through the water.
A black SUV stopped outside the gate.
Daniel Reed stepped out.
May you like
Vanessa whispered, “Oh, God.”
The siren kept screaming while I stood beside the control panel, holding their clothes and wearing the wedding ring Caleb had already made meaningless.
