The woman’s heels remained inches from my face as Mark’s command came through the speaker.
“Then find her.”
She lowered herself slowly, one hand resting on the mattress.
The bed frame groaned above me.
I pressed SEND.
The recording left my phone and went to Mrs.
Gable with the message we had agreed on: Call the police now.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then three hard knocks struck the front door.
The woman froze.
“Police,” a voice called from outside.
“Open the door.”
Mark heard it through the speaker.
“What was that?” he demanded.
The woman stood so quickly that her knee hit the bed frame.
“Someone’s at the door.”
“Don’t answer it.
Find Laura.”
His voice was sharper now.
It was the voice he used when a restaurant lost our reservation or when I asked why he had come home at two in the morning smelling like perfume he claimed belonged to a client.
The voice of a man who believed every room belonged to him.
I slid out from beneath the bed before she could bend down again.
She stumbled backward and struck the chair.
Her red handbag fell to the floor.
For a moment, we stared at each other.
She was in her early forties, perfectly dressed, with smooth dark hair and a face I almost recognized.
Then I remembered seeing her at Mark’s funeral.
She had stood near the back beside the white lilies, crying into a folded handkerchief.
She had hugged me afterward.
She had told me Mark once spoke warmly about me.
Now all the color drained from her face.
I held my phone up between us.
The recording was still running.
“Say his name again,” I said.
The phone in her hand went silent.
Mark had ended the call.
The woman recovered quickly.
Her expression softened into false concern.
“Laura, you shouldn’t be here.
You’re confused.”
“You used a key to enter my house.”
“Mark gave it to me years ago.”
She realized what she had said and stopped breathing.
The pounding at the front door came again.
“Open the door now.”
She lunged for my phone.
I stepped behind the bed and lifted it out of reach.
“Don’t make this worse,” she hissed.
“You played screams in my house.
You drank from my glasses.
You washed my dead husband’s mug.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then explain why he just called you.”
Her eyes shifted toward the bedroom window.
It was locked.
The drop to the patio roof was possible, but not in those heels.
