Everyone said I was born a jinx.
On the day I was born, my family went bankrupt, and my father walked out on us.
That was why my relatives always looked down on me.
But everything changed when I met Evan.
When I lost my baby in a horrible car crash three years ago, Evan stayed by my hospital bed for days, holding my hand and weeping.
He built a tech company from scratch just to give me the perfect life, warning anyone who dared to mock my background that they would pay the price.
He bought me diamond necklaces, kissed my forehead every morning, and never missed a single anniversary.
I had never been treated so well before, and I fell completely for him.
I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.
Until he mysteriously disappeared for three days.
I rushed to the police station, frantic, to file a missing person report.
The officer asked for my husband's name, and just as I spoke, a woman next to me holding a toddler answered in unison.
"Evan Carter," we both said.
The woman sneered, slamming a wedding photo onto the desk.
"What a joke. He just celebrated our five-year anniversary in our house," she said.
"That's my husband," I gritted out. "We've been married for seven years."
"Really?" she smirked, stepping closer. "Then why did he tell me you died in a car crash three years ago?"
***
The cheap blue pen cracked between my trembling fingers, splattering ink across the missing-person report.
I stared at the dark stain blooming across the paper. It looked too much like the wreckage my life had become over the last seventy-two hours. My perfect, predictable existence had vanished the moment Evan walked out the door.
"Name of the missing person?" the desk sergeant asked. He didn't look up from his monitor. His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"Evan Carter," I replied. My throat felt lined with broken glass. "He's been gone for three days. His phone goes straight to voicemail. None of his coworkers have seen him, and his car isn't at his office."
"Relation to the missing person?"
"Husband." I pressed both palms to the cold counter, trying to stop the tremor in my hands. "We've been married for seven years."
"Fill out the physical description section," the officer instructed, tapping a stack of forms. "Height, weight, identifying marks."
I reached for a tissue to wipe ink from my fingers just as the woman at the next counter said the name that froze my blood.
"I need to report my husband missing," the blonde woman said. She shifted a toddler higher on her hip and hitched a pink diaper bag over her shoulder. "His name is Evan Carter."
My head snapped toward her. "What did you just say?"
She blinked, clutching the little girl closer. The little girl looked about three, bundled in a pink jacket and gnawing on a plastic toy block.
"I'm talking to the officer," she muttered, turning her back to me.
I left my place at the counter and closed the distance between us. "You just said Evan Carter. Born August twelfth, scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood bike accident, works in software sales?"
The woman bristled, her eyes narrowing. "How do you know his birthday?"
"Because he isn't your husband." I shoved a hand into my purse, my pulse battering my ribs. I yanked out the folded, stamped document I'd brought to prove who I was. I slapped the marriage certificate onto the scratched wooden counter between us. "I'm his wife. We've been legally married for seven years."
The desk sergeant finally looked up, his jaw going slack. He glanced between us but stayed silent, leaning back in his chair.
Nina stared at the paper. A harsh, metallic laugh scraped out of her throat. "Are you insane? Evan and I got married four years ago."
"You're lying," I said, my voice lowering to a dangerous whisper. "I know where he was four years ago. We were living in a cramped studio apartment. I sold my mother's antique ruby necklace to hand him fifty thousand dollars for his startup. I scrubbed the floors so he could buy servers. I helped build his life from the ground up."
"Oh, you built his life?" She shifted the toddler to her other side. The little girl whined, rubbing her eyes. Nina ignored her, pulling a smartphone from her back pocket. Her thumb swiped rapidly across the screen. "Look at this, you lunatic."
She shoved the glowing screen toward my face.
A video played. Evan stood on a sunlit beach, wearing a linen suit, smiling down at this exact woman in a white lace dress. He slipped a plain gold band onto her finger. The date stamp at the bottom read four years ago.
"I take thee, Nina, to be my lawfully wedded wife," Evan's voice echoed from the tiny speaker.
My stomach lurched at the sound of his voice. I shoved her hand away, knocking the phone back toward her chest. "That's fake. A prop. A joke."
"Is this a joke too?" She swiped again. A banking app appeared. A joint account. Evan Carter and Nina Lewis. The balance was over eighty thousand dollars.
