"Carl?" Bella asked again through the phone speaker. "Are you coming over?"
Carl kept his eyes locked on the massive pool of my blood staining the factory floor. The police radios crackled around him.
"No," Carl said.
His voice sounded like gravel grinding together.
"What?" Bella whined, dropping her sweet tone for sheer annoyance. "But the power is out. I'm sitting here in the dark."
"My wife is missing, Bella."
"She probably just rolled her chair out the door to get attention," Bella scoffed. "You said yourself she does this."
"There is a pool of her blood on the concrete," Carl snapped. He gripped the phone tight enough to crack the casing. "Do not call me again tonight."
He ended the call, shoving the device back into his pocket.
Agent Miller approached, shining his flashlight toward the loading dock. "Mr. Fort, we need to process this scene. You should go home. We'll contact you the second we have a lead."
Carl didn't argue. He turned and walked out into the rain.
I drifted behind him, entirely unbothered by the downpour.
The drive back to the estate passed in a blur of flashing streetlights. Carl left the car parked at an angle in the driveway and pushed through the front doors.
The foyer was dead quiet. The staff had clearly retreated to their quarters.
Carl walked straight into the living room. He stopped in front of the glass coffee table.
Three amber pill bottles sat perfectly lined up next to a half-empty glass of water. My pain medication. My muscle relaxers. My heart pills.
Carl collapsed onto the leather sofa. He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.
I floated down, resting my translucent knees on the edge of the glass table. I stared at his hunched shoulders.
"You promised to build me a dance studio," I whispered into the empty room.
He didn't move. He couldn't hear me.
"Do you remember the Juilliard scout?" I asked, tilting my head. "Ten years ago. I was eighteen. The scout told my instructor I would own the stage. I was going to be the lead in the winter showcase."
Carl dragged his palms down his cheeks, staring blankly at the pill bottles.
"Then the truck ran the red light," I continued, tracing a ghost-like finger over the label of my pain meds. "The shattered glass. The sirens. My spine snapping in half."
He reached out and picked up the bottle. His thumb brushed over my printed name.
"You sat by my hospital bed for a week," I reminded him. "I cried because I would never walk again. I would never dance. And you held my paralyzed hands."
*I'll love you forever, Pen,* he had sworn, tears streaming down his young face. *In sickness and in health. I'm not going anywhere.*
I believed him.
"When did it change, Carl?" I asked, floating closer to his face. "Was it exactly a year ago? When Bella walked into your firm?"
He set the bottle down with a sharp clack.
I remembered the arguments. The late nights. The unfamiliar perfume clinging to his lapels.
"Stop acting crazy, Penny," Carl had shouted in this exact room last winter. "Bella is an employee. You sit in that chair all day inventing problems to suffocate me!"
"You called me paranoid," I said, a bitter smile curving my lips. "You made me feel insane for asking why she texted you at midnight."
Carl leaned back against the sofa cushions. His eyes were already rimmed with red.
For the next three days, my husband did not leave the mansion.
He locked the front doors. He refused to go to the office. He ignored the frantic emails from his board of directors.
Jenkins tried to intervene on the second afternoon.
The butler knocked softly on the living room door, carrying a silver tray. "Mr. Fort. Please. You must eat something."
"Take it away, Jenkins," Carl ordered from his spot on the rug.
"Sir, a sandwich. A glass of juice."
"I said get out!" Carl roared, hurling a crystal tumbler across the room.
It shattered against the wall, raining glass over the hardwood floor. Jenkins flinched, bowed his head, and backed out of the room.
I laughed.
The sound echoed through the high ceilings, hollow and cold.
"Look at you," I mocked, hovering directly above him. "The grieving widower. The tragic husband."
Carl pulled his knees to his chest. His dress shirt was wrinkled and stained. Dark purple circles bruised the skin under his eyes. He looked completely shattered.
"Why are you crying now, Carl?" I asked. "You couldn't stand the sight of me in that chair. You fucked her on your mahogany desk while I choked on my own blood. Keep your guilt. I don't want it."
He buried his hands in his dark hair, pulling at the strands.
"Penny," he rasped, his voice cracking. "Please. Just come home."
"I am home," I replied. "I've been watching you starve yourself for three days. It's pathetic."
He wouldn't eat. He barely drank the tap water from the kitchen sink. He just sat on the floor, staring at the front door, waiting for it to open.
On the morning of the third day, the silence finally broke.
Carl's cell phone vibrated violently against the glass coffee table.
He lunged for it, knocking over the glass of water. He swiped the screen with trembling fingers and pressed it to his ear.
"Carl Fort," he answered frantically.
"Mr. Fort. This is Agent Miller. FBI."
Carl scrambled to his feet. "Did you find who took her? Do you have a location?"
"Sir," Miller started, his tone heavy and professional. "We received an anonymous tip this morning regarding a shallow grave near the county line."
Carl froze. The color instantly drained from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse himself.
"What are you saying?" Carl whispered.
"We found her, Mr. Fort."
"Is she..." Carl choked on the words. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Is she alive?"
The line went completely silent for two seconds.
"I need you to come down to the county morgue," Miller instructed quietly. "We need you to identify the body."
