When I entered the apartment, the quietness of the space felt hostile. I went straight to the small home office Ryan used. My hands searched through his desk drawers, looking for anything—a GPS log, a receipt, a second phone. Nothing. He was too smart to leave obvious clues around.
Suddenly, the front door clicked open.
“Alice? Honey, are you home?” Ryan’s voice echoed down the hallway.
I quickly shut the drawer, stepped away from the desk, and grabbed a tissue from a box on the side table, rubbing my eyes to make them look red from crying. “In here, Ryan,” I called out, trying to stabilize my voice.
He walked into the office, his face a perfect mask of concern and tenderness. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. A week ago, this embrace would have brought me comfort. Now, it felt like being held by a snake. I had to force myself not to stiffen or pull away.
“How are you holding up?” he asked softly, kissing the top of my head. “You weren’t here when I called earlier.”
“I needed to get some fresh air,” I lied, keeping my eyes cast downward. “I went for a drive. I just can’t stop thinking about Claire. It feels like there are so many unanswered questions.”
Ryan’s grip tightened imperceptibly on my shoulders before he let go. “I know, sweetheart. But the police were very clear. It was a terrible tragedy caused by the storm. You have to stop torturing yourself. For your own health, we need to try and move forward. In fact, the lawyer called about your grandfather’s trust logistics. He said we should finalize the administrative signatures this Friday so we don’t have to worry about it later.”
There it was. The trap was closing.
“Of course,” I said, managing a weak smile. “Whatever you think is best. I’m just so tired.”
“Go rest, love. I’ll make dinner,” he said smoothly.
That night, while Ryan slept soundly beside me, I lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling. I knew I couldn’t fight him alone, and I couldn’t trust the local authorities without undeniable proof. I remembered Claire’s personal laptop, which she always kept at her own apartment. The police had given my parents her keys, which were currently sitting in a bowl by our front door.
The next morning, after Ryan left for his supposed corporate meetings, I took Claire’s keys and drove to her apartment. Walking into her space felt like stepping into a ghost town. Her jacket was still draped over the chair, and a coffee mug sat half-empty on the counter. I swallowed back my tears and went straight to her bedroom desk.
Her laptop was there. I opened it, praying I could guess the password. I tried her birthday, our mother’s name, the name of her childhood pet. None of them worked. On my last attempt, I thought about the last words she said to me at the bachelorette party. I typed in the date of my wedding.
The screen unlocked.
Claire had created a folder labeled simply R. Inside were scanned documents of Ryan’s true financial status, tax evasion records, and a series of saved location data from a tracking application. Claire had managed to place a small GPS tile underneath Ryan’s luxury car weeks ago.
I opened the log for the day of our wedding. My eyes scanned the timestamps. At 1:30 PM, while I was getting into my wedding dress at the church, Ryan claimed he was running a last-minute errand to pick up his extra suit cufflinks from his apartment. But the GPS log showed a completely different story.
His car had traveled twenty miles north, deep into the mountain pass. The exact route Claire had taken to avoid the main highway traffic. The tracker showed his car idling at a scenic overlook high above the river bend between 2:15 PM and 2:45 PM—the precise window of time the police estimated Claire’s car went off the road.
He hadn’t just followed her. He had ambushed her.
My phone suddenly buzzed in my hand, making me jump. It was a text message from an unknown number. I opened it, expecting a spam message, but instead, it was an image.
The photo was taken from a distance, showing me sitting inside Claire’s apartment, visible through the living room window. Below the photo, a line of text appeared:
You should have signed the papers, Alice. You’re just as stubborn as your sister.
My blood ran completely cold. He knew. He had been tracking me too.
