Chapter 1 - The Man Beside Me
At 3:17 in the morning, my phone rang.
There are sounds you remember because they belong to important moments—wedding music, a baby's first cry, the voice of someone saying goodbye.
And then there are sounds you remember because they divide your life into before and after.
For me, it was the vibration of my phone against the wooden nightstand.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
I opened my eyes.
For several seconds, I didn't know where I was. The bedroom was dark except for the warm amber glow of the lamp Christopher had insisted we leave on because I'd been having trouble sleeping.
His leg was draped across mine.
His breathing was slow.
Peaceful.
Normal.
I reached for the phone.
Unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Penelope Bennett?”
The man's voice was professional but cautious.
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Daniel Mercer with Highway Patrol. I'm sorry to call you at this hour.”
Something inside me tightened.
“We need you to come to St. Matthew's Hospital to identify your husband, Christopher Bennett.”
I stared into the darkness.
“I don't understand.”
“There was an accident on Interstate 95. His pickup truck left the road at approximately two forty-eight this morning.”
I turned my head.
Christopher was sleeping fifteen inches away from me.
Dark hair messy against the pillow.
One hand tucked beneath his cheek.
Gray pajama pants visible under the blanket.
“Officer,” I whispered, “my husband is here.”
Silence.
Not static.
Not confusion.
Silence.
Then the officer's tone changed completely.
“Ma'am, is the man beside you awake?”
My heart began pounding.
“No.”
“Do not wake him.”
I sat perfectly still.
“The driver's wallet contained identification belonging to Christopher Bennett,” he continued. “The vehicle is registered to him. His phone, wedding ring, watch, and additional personal property were recovered from the crash.”
My mouth went dry.
Beside me, Christopher shifted.
I almost screamed.
“Mrs. Bennett,” Officer Mercer said, “leave the room if you can do so safely.”
And then Christopher spoke.
“Babe?”
My entire body locked.
His eyes were open.
He looked at me sleepily.
“Who are you talking to about me being dead?”
I don't know how I smiled.
But somehow, I did.
“Some scammer.”
Christopher blinked.
“What?”
“They said you'd been in an accident.”
He gave a sleepy laugh.
“That's a new one.”
I ended the call.
Christopher rolled onto his back.
“They'll try anything now.”
“Yeah.”
I slid out from beneath the blanket.
“Where are you going?”
His hand closed around my wrist.
Not violently.
Not tightly.
But enough that I stopped.
“To the bathroom.”
For half a second, he simply stared at me.
Then he released me.
“Don't stay up. You finally got some sleep.”
That sentence bothered me.
I didn't understand why yet.
I walked into the bathroom, locked the door and called 911.
It wasn't a scam.
At 2:48 a.m., Christopher's black pickup truck had struck the concrete barrier near an exit ramp.
The driver hadn't survived.
Twenty minutes later, two police officers stood inside our apartment.
Christopher answered every question calmly.
He showed them his driver's license.
His employee badge.
Photos on his phone.
He even joked.
“So somebody stole my truck, wallet, watch, phone and wedding ring?”
Officer Mercer didn't laugh.
Christopher's expression hardened.
“I'm clearly alive.”
Nobody argued with that.
But nobody explained the dead man either.
We went to the hospital.
The man's belongings were placed on a metal table.
My knees nearly buckled.
Christopher's brown leather wallet.
The watch I'd given him on our fifth anniversary.
The small scratch across its clasp from when he'd dropped it while repairing our kitchen sink.
His wedding ring.
Inside it, engraved in tiny letters:
C + P
I touched the edge of the table.
“They could have been stolen,” Christopher said.
The medical examiner nodded carefully.
“Yes.”
Then came the physical description.
Male.
Approximately thirty-two.
Six feet tall.
A positive blood type.
Appendectomy scar on the right side.
Christopher was thirty-two.
Six feet.
A positive.
And five years earlier, he'd undergone emergency surgery for appendicitis.
Christopher lifted his shirt.
The scar was there.
My legs felt weak.
The body had suffered severe trauma, making immediate facial identification unreliable.
Dental records would take time.
DNA would take longer.
Christopher put his arm around me.
“Pen.”
I looked at him.
“It's me.”
He knew the nickname.
Of course he did.
In the elevator, he reminded me of our first kiss behind the chapel at Hawthorne College.
I had eaten garlic bread.
I'd been terrified my breath smelled terrible.
He had laughed when I'd tried to pull away.
Nobody else knew that.
At least, I thought nobody did.
We returned home after sunrise.
Christopher showered.
He dressed.
Before leaving for work, he kissed my forehead.
“Try sleeping.”
I nodded.
He walked toward the elevator.
Then something strange happened.
He pressed the button with his left hand.
It was tiny.
Ridiculous.
Almost meaningless.
But Christopher was aggressively right-handed.
He wrote right-handed.
Ate right-handed.
Brushed his teeth right-handed.
Opened doors right-handed.
When we'd painted our first apartment, he'd complained that his left hand was “basically decorative.”
I told myself grief and exhaustion were making me paranoid.
Then the police called again.
The building's garage camera showed Christopher's pickup leaving at 10:22 the previous night.
The driver wore a baseball cap.
His face was obscured.
But there was another problem.
Our smart lock showed no record of Christopher leaving our apartment.
According to the system, he'd entered at 7:43 p.m.
And never left.
I slowly lowered the phone.
That's when I remembered the milk.
Around ten, Christopher had brought me a glass.
“You've barely slept all week,” he'd said.
He had watched me take my prescribed insomnia medication.
Normally it took forty minutes to affect me.
That night, I barely remembered putting the glass down.
One moment I'd been reading.
The next, nothing.
And something else.
When we'd gone to bed, Christopher had been wearing black pajama pants.
When the police called, they were gray.
I opened our smart-lock application.
Two fingerprints should have been registered.
Mine.
Christopher's.
There were three.
The third had no name.
My hands started shaking.
I opened its history.
Forty-seven entries.
Almost all after dark.
11:06 p.m.
1:12 a.m.
12:41 a.m.
2:03 a.m.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I checked the dates.
On several of those nights, Christopher had been home.
I remembered watching television with him.
Eating dinner.
Sleeping beside him.
Someone else had entered my home anyway.
I sat there staring at the number.
Forty-seven.
Then a notification appeared.
FRONT DOOR UNLOCKED.
I froze.
Christopher had left twenty minutes earlier.
I looked toward the hallway.
No footsteps.
No voices.
Nothing.
Then I heard something.
A faint click.
The bedroom doorknob slowly began to turn.
May you like
And whoever was outside didn't knock.
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