The renovation no longer had anything to do with contractors. Something darker was behind it. She put the country-house keys into the inside pocket of her clothes, returned the folder and the little key to their places, locked the drawer, locked the study, and hung the house key back where it had been. No sign of her intrusion.
Standing in the living room with the cold key ring hidden in her pocket, she felt the fear leave her. What remained was resolve. She gave herself one hour to prepare. She couldn’t take chances. If Andrew called and heard something off in her voice, he might get suspicious. She needed to sound normal.
She showered, prayed with forced concentration while thinking the whole time about the keys hidden against her chest, then packed. She didn’t take a suitcase—that would be too obvious. She took an old backpack and put in two dresses, underthings, a sweater, and most important, all the cash she had, both from her wallet and from the small stash she kept tucked away. She had no intention of using credit cards. Any charge could be traced.
She picked up her phone, hesitated, and decided that turning it off would only make Andrew suspicious and possibly send him back sooner. She left it on silent. If he called, she simply wouldn’t answer, and later she could text something ordinary: “In the shower” or “Fell asleep.” That would be enough.
She ordered a rideshare to the bus station, not the train station. Train depots had more cameras, more records. The bus station, with all its noise and traffic, was a better place to disappear into the crowd. The ride there felt unreal. Sitting in the back seat, she watched the town wake up. People heading to work. Kids with backpacks. Shop owners unlocking doors. Marina felt herself separating from her own life, as if she had gone from quiet homemaker to fugitive. But she wasn’t running from the law. She was running from a lie.
At the station she bought a ticket to the county seat near Bright Hollow—not to the town itself. She didn’t want any record showing her exact destination. She paid cash and took a window seat. The bus quickly filled with the smells of people, food, and diesel. Marina barely noticed.
When the bus pulled away from town, leaving the familiar streets behind, she felt a strange sense of relief. For the first time in a long while, she was out of Andrew’s immediate reach and away from his poisoned explanations. The trip took about five hours. For five hours she watched the landscape change. Buildings gave way to fields. Smog to cleaner air. City pavement to country roads lined with trees.
In her mind, the pieces kept trying to fit together. Andrew said the house was falling apart, under major renovation. But according to the receipts, all the materials stayed in town. The note mentioned medicine. The lawyer said Eleanor had died in the hospital from kidney problems. Was that even true, or had she been dying at home? Who was the woman who wrote the note, and who were the medicines really for?
When the bus reached the county seat, Marina got off and headed toward the area where the local shuttles waited. She asked a driver where she could catch a ride to Bright Hollow. The man looked at her and said:
— Bright Hollow? Sure, shuttle goes from here. Nice little town. Everybody knows it.
He pointed her toward the van. Marina was surprised. This didn’t sound like the forgotten backwater Andrew always described. She got in. The shuttle was full of women returning from the market with bags of produce. One of them, a kind-faced woman, sat beside her. After a while Marina worked up the nerve to ask:
— Excuse me, would you happen to know where Eleanor Sullivan’s house is? Andrew’s mother?
The woman looked at her at once with a mix of curiosity and sympathy.
— Oh, honey, who are you to her? She was buried over a month ago.
Marina felt a lump rise in her throat and lied:
— A distant relative.
She was ashamed to admit she was the daughter-in-law who had not even shown up at the funeral.
— Well then, get off by the town office, go straight, then turn down the lane by the little store. House is at the end—the white one with the pretty flower beds. That was hers, — the woman explained carefully.
“Pretty flower beds. White house,” Marina repeated to herself.
— Thank you, — she whispered.
She got off at the stop and the country air hit her full in the face. Clean. Quiet. Nothing like the isolated, rough place Andrew had always described. She followed the directions, passed the store, turned down the lane, and walked along a neat road lined with tidy homes.
At the end of the lane, she saw it. The house. And her feet stopped cold.
This was not a house in ruins. Not a construction site littered with cement bags and dust. It was beautiful. More beautiful, in fact, than the home she and Andrew lived in back in town. Modern but warm. Flawless ivory-colored siding. Large windows with well-kept wooden trim. In front, nearly perfect landscaping. Lawn like a carpet. Roses, peonies, and jasmine in bloom. No piles of sand. No stacked bricks. No workers. Not even a trace of dust.
Marina felt sick. Seven years of stories about leaking roofs and sinking foundations, and here stood something out of a magazine. Andrew had not hidden a wreck out of shame. He had hidden a perfect house. Why had he not wanted her to see it? And if the receipts were fake, where had all that money really gone?
With trembling hands, Marina reached into her inside pocket and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal of the large key. She pushed open the gate—it wasn’t even locked—and walked up the front steps. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might be audible inside the house. She slid the key into the front door lock. It turned smoothly, as if it had been oiled recently. The lock clicked almost politely.
The door was open, but she couldn’t make herself push it. Her legs felt heavy. She was standing on the edge of a new life—or a nightmare. What would she find? An empty house? Signs of illness? Or something much worse? Just then, a voice made her jump.
— You looking for somebody, honey?
The voice came from the side. Marina turned sharply. Behind the hedge separating this house from the next stood a middle-aged woman in a flowered house dress and a simple headscarf, holding pruning shears. Marina swallowed. There was no point pretending now.
— Yes, — she managed. — I’m looking for Eleanor Sullivan’s house.
The woman frowned with sympathy.
— Oh, poor thing, this was her house. She’s been gone over a month now. And you are?
Marina hesitated for a second, wondering whether to repeat the same lie she had used on the shuttle, but realized it would get her nowhere.
— I’m Marina. Andrew’s wife.
The woman’s jaw practically dropped. She nearly let the shears slip from her hand.
— Andrew’s wife? — she repeated, her voice jumping in pitch.
— Yes. Why?
