Close enough to watch him fall

CHAPTER THREE

The shower was running when I slipped out of bed. Conrad's voice echoed through the bathroom, singing some pop song off-key.

I grabbed his car keys from the kitchen counter and headed to the parking garage. My hands shook as I unlocked his BMW, and the interior still smelled like his cologne mixed with something floral, a woman's perfume.

I dropped to my knees and reached under the passenger seat. My fingers hit something small and cold, and I pulled it out. A jewelry box.

I opened it slowly and saw a gold bracelet inside, delicate and familiar. My stomach dropped because the bracelet was made from my grandmother's locket, melted down and reformed. I could see fragments of the original design, the tiny rose pattern that used to wrap around the locket's edge.

A small white card sat beneath it. "To Claire, Happy Anniversary. All my love, Jason."

I sat there on the garage floor, staring at the last piece of my grandmother I had left. He'd stolen it, destroyed it, and given it to his wife.

I put the box back exactly where I found it and returned to the apartment. Conrad was still in the shower, and I made coffee with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.

Two hours later, I sat in a corner booth at Harrison's Coffee House, staring at my untouched latte. I needed to get out of the apartment and think.

"Raven?"

I looked up and saw a woman standing beside my table. She was in her mid-thirties with blonde hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, beautiful in that effortless way some women are.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"No, but I know you." She gestured to the empty seat. "Can I sit? You're going to want to hear this."

I nodded, confused.

She sat down and pulled out her phone. "My name is Natasha. I've been seeing your husband for the past eighteen months."

The coffee shop noise faded into static.

"I know him as David," she continued. "David Chen, investment banker. We met at a hotel bar during a business conference."

She turned her phone toward me, and photos filled the screen. Conrad—David—with his arm around Natasha at a fancy restaurant. Conrad kissing her cheek at a beach resort. Conrad holding her hand across a candlelit table.

"I thought you were just a friend," Natasha said. "Until I saw you two kiss outside your apartment building last month. That's when I started following him."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I confronted him yesterday, and he told me you were crazy, that you were stalking him and he was trying to let you down easy." She leaned forward. "But then I did more digging and found out about Claire too, the wife he's been married to for five years. That's when I realized we're all being played."

"You sent me that text about checking his car."

She nodded. "I wanted you to see who he really is and what he's capable of."

I stared at the photos. "Eighteen months?"

"I'm sorry." Her voice was gentle. "I thought I was the only one. I thought we were in love."

After Natasha left, I sat there for another hour with my mind racing. Three women, three separate lives, all connected by one man.

When I got home, I immediately checked our bank account on my laptop. The savings account, the one with my grandmother's inheritance, showed a balance of twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars. It had been fifty-two thousand dollars last month.

I tried to transfer money and see the transaction history, but a red error message popped up saying "Access Denied. Contact Account Administrator."

I called the bank.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Hayes," the representative said. "According to our records, you were removed as an account holder two weeks ago. Mr. Conrad Cross is now the sole owner."

"That's impossible. I never signed anything."

"We have your signature on file, ma'am. If you believe there's been fraud, you'll need to file a police report."

I hung up and stared at the screen. Fifty thousand dollars, gone.

That evening, I cooked Conrad's favorite meal—pot roast with roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes, the same recipe I'd made dozens of times. I needed to act normal and buy myself more time to plan.

Conrad came home at eight, loosening his tie as he walked through the door. "Something smells good," he said, kissing my forehead.

We sat down to eat, and I watched him cut into the roast and take a bite. He immediately pushed the plate away.

"This tastes terrible," he said, his face twisted in disgust. "Did you even try? Or are you trying to poison me now?"

"What? It's the same recipe I always use."

"Well, you must have messed it up." He stood and grabbed his plate, walking to the trash can where he dumped the entire meal into it. "There. Problem solved."

"Conrad, that's…"

"Stop being so sensitive." He turned to face me. "I'm just being honest. You used to be able to take criticism. Now everything is a personal attack with you."

I sat there, staring at my own plate and the food that had taken me two hours to prepare, now sitting in the garbage.

"I'm going to order pizza," he said, pulling out his phone. "At least I know that won't kill me."

After dinner, after Conrad ate an entire large pizza by himself while I sat in silence, I went to the bedroom to check my phone. The screen was black, and when I pressed the power button and it turned on, everything was gone.

All my apps had been deleted. My photos, two years of memories, completely erased. Even my contacts were missing.

I found Conrad in the living room, watching TV. "Something's wrong with my phone. Everything's been deleted."

He didn't look away from the screen. "You probably reset it by accident."

"I didn't touch it. All my photos are gone."

"Raven, you're always fumbling with that thing. You must have pressed something wrong." He finally glanced at me. "This is why I tell you to back things up. How many times have I said that?"

"But I didn't…"

"Stop blaming me for your mistakes." His voice was sharp. "I'm tired of being responsible for everything you mess up."

I went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, holding my blank phone. Every photo of us, every message, every proof that we'd been together was gone.

My phone buzzed with a text. Claire's name appeared on the screen, one of the few contacts that had somehow survived.

"Can you believe Jason surprised me today? He gave me this beautiful bracelet with MY initials on it! He said he had it custom-made. I'm the luckiest wife alive!"

Below the message was a photo of my grandmother's locket, transformed into a bracelet. The tiny rose pattern I'd recognized in his car was now wrapped around Claire's wrist.

She sent another text. "He's finally showing me how much he cares. I think our marriage is going to be okay after all!"

I turned off my phone and lay down in the dark, staring at the ceiling.

Around midnight, I heard Conrad's voice coming from his office down the hall. He must have thought I was asleep.

I crept out of bed and stood outside his office door.

"Don't worry, she suspects nothing," he said, laughing. "She's too pathetic to figure it out. By the time she does, everything will be gone and she'll have no proof of anything."

Silence as whoever he was talking to responded.

"Trust me, if she tries to tell anyone, she'll look crazy. I've made sure of that." Another laugh. "The phone was genius, right? No photos, no messages, nothing. It's like our relationship never existed on paper."

More silence.

"Yeah, the money's already moved. She can't touch it. And once the lease is up next month, I'm gone. She'll come home to an empty apartment and a note saying I needed space. Classic."

My heart pounded so loud I was sure he could hear it through the door.

"Look, I gotta go. Just keep everything ready on your end. This is almost over."

I heard his chair scrape against the floor and ran back to the bedroom, jumping under the covers and pretending to sleep.

A few minutes later, Conrad climbed into bed beside me. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close.

"I love you," he whispered into my hair.

I lay there in the dark, listening to his breathing even out as he fell asleep, and I started planning. For two years, I'd made excuses for him, believed his lies, let him convince me I was the problem. But hearing him laugh about erasing me, about making me look crazy; something inside me finally broke. Or maybe it finally healed.