Chapter 2
I spent the night at a hotel near the hospital.
Not because I had nowhere to go.
Because I did not want Derek to guess where I was.
My cheek throbbed beneath the ointment.
My neck burned every time I turned my head.
The mirror above the bathroom sink showed a woman I almost did not recognize.
Red skin.
Swollen eyes.
A split place in her expression where fear had been removed and something harder had taken its place.
My phone buzzed at 11:46 p.m.
Derek.
Then Suzanne.
Then Patricia, his mother.
I did not answer.
The police had told me not to.
My attorney, Olivia Grant, had told me not to.
My own body told me not to.
At midnight, a notification appeared from the tiny motion camera I had hidden on the bookshelf two weeks earlier.
I opened the live feed.
Derek had come home.
Suzanne was with him.
Patricia too.
They stood in my dining room around the ring and medical report.
Suzanne laughed first.
“She actually went to the police?”
Derek picked up the report.
His face went flat.
Patricia hissed, “Ungrateful woman. After everything my son gave her.”
I whispered to the empty hotel room, “He gave me burns.”
Derek looked around.
“She took documents.”
Suzanne opened drawers.
Patricia went into the bedroom.
Then I remembered.
The shoebox.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
I watched Patricia drag it from the closet.
Derek snatched it from her and opened it.
The first thing he saw was the photograph.
His face changed so violently I stopped breathing.
Suzanne leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
Derek did not answer.
Patricia saw the sealed letter and went pale.
“Derek,” she whispered. “Why does Skylar have that?”
He lifted the flash drive.
His hand shook.
For the first time since I had known him, Derek looked afraid.
Real fear.
Not anger.
Not wounded pride.
Fear.
Suzanne backed away.
“Derek?”
He tore open the letter.
I could not read it from the camera, but I knew the first line.
My name is Natalie Shaw, and if you are reading this, Derek lied about how I disappeared.
Derek crushed the paper in his fist.
Then he looked straight toward the hidden camera.
Had he seen it?
His eyes narrowed.
May you like
My phone screen went black.
The feed died.
