Chapter 3

I looked up from the police report and let out a small, bitter laugh. The sound was stark in the quiet room.

"Pretending?" I said, my voice dripping with a sarcasm I didn't try to hide. "Oh, Detective. You have no idea."

Johnson leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Enlighten me."

And so I did. The dam I had built around my memories for fifteen years finally broke. Not all of it. Just enough to give him a taste.

"You want to know what happened after your officers left that night?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper. "David waited until their car was gone. He came into the guest room where I was hiding. He didn't yell. He was smiling."

The memory was so vivid it felt like it was happening all over again.

Flashback.

David stood in the doorway, that charming, handsome smile plastered on his face. The smile everyone else saw.

"You see, Sarah?" he said, his voice soft and reasonable. "No one will ever believe you. You're my wife. You're emotional. You're unstable."

He walked towards me slowly. I scrambled backwards on the bed until my back hit the headboard. There was nowhere else to go.

"You embarrassed me," he continued, still smiling. "You called strangers into our home. We don't do that. We handle our problems privately."

He reached the bed and sat down next to me. He gently took my hand. His touch felt like ice.

"So now," he said, his thumb stroking the back of my hand, "I have to teach you a lesson. So you don't make the same mistake again."

The first punch landed on my ribs, knocking the wind out of me. I gasped, doubling over. He hit me again. And again. He was careful, precise. Never the face. No one could ever see the marks.

His mother, Susan, heard the noise. She came to the door. She didn't look shocked or horrified. She looked annoyed.

"David, for heaven's sake, keep it down," she said, her voice sharp. "The neighbors will hear."

She closed the door, leaving me alone with him. She had always been his biggest enabler. She saw his cruelty and called it strength. She saw my pain and called it weakness.

"See?" David whispered in my ear, his breath hot and foul. "Even my mother knows you deserve this."

My own parents were no better. The few times I had tried to tell them, my mother would get a pained look on her face.

"Marriage is hard, Sarah," she'd say. "You have to try to make it work. Think of the family's reputation. And think of Emily."

Emily. My daughter. My sweet, beautiful daughter. For years, she was the reason I stayed. The reason I endured it. I couldn't tear her away from her father, from this life of privilege.

But as she got older, something changed. She started to look at me with the same disdain as her father and grandmother. She would roll her eyes when I cried. She would tell her father everything I said, every secret plan I tried to make. She became their little soldier, another guard in my prison.

The final straw was the escape attempt. The one time I thought I had made it. But that was a story for later.

End Flashback.

"He broke three of my ribs that night," I told Johnson, my voice flat and devoid of emotion. "I told the doctor I fell down the stairs. Everyone believed it. They always believed it."

Johnson was silent for a long time. I could see a flicker of something in his eyes. Maybe not sympathy, but understanding.

"Why didn't you leave, Sarah?" he finally asked, his voice softer than before. "Why didn't you just walk away?"

"Walk away?" I laughed again, a harsh, broken sound. "With what? He controlled all the money. My own parents told me to go back to him. The one time I hired a lawyer, David had him disbarred on trumped-up ethics charges. Every door I tried to open was slammed in my face. So I stopped trying to open doors. I learned to live in the house. I learned to be the perfect wife. The perfect mother. I learned to smile. And I learned to wait."

The air in the room was thick with unspoken truths. Johnson stared at me, his mind clearly working, piecing things together.

He believed me. I could see it. He believed I was a victim.

And that's when he decided to drop the bomb.

He leaned forward, his face grim. "Sarah, you told me you were at your sister-in-law's house tonight."

"Yes," I said. "Alice. David's sister. She hates him as much as I do."

"We'll get to her later," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "But while you were there, and while your husband was being murdered... something else happened."

A cold dread, real and unfeigned this time, crept up my spine.

"What are you talking about?"

Johnson looked me straight in the eye. His expression was a mixture of pity and accusation.

"Your daughter, Sarah. Emily."

"What about Emily?" I asked, my heart starting to pound. "She's at a sleepover at her friend's house."

"No," Johnson said, his voice heavy. "She wasn't. She came home early. We found her in her bedroom. She was stabbed, Sarah. Just like your husband. She's dead."