Chapter 1 - The Call at 3:17 A.M.
At 3:17 a.m., the police called to tell me my husband had died.
The strangest part was that Sébastien Reyes was sleeping beside me.
Not metaphorically.
Not in some dreamlike state where I thought I could still feel him after losing him.
He was physically there.
Warm.
Breathing.
One heavy leg draped across mine beneath our white duvet, his left arm tucked under his pillow the way it had been every night during the six years we had been married.
For a few seconds, I honestly thought I was still dreaming.
My phone had been vibrating against the wooden nightstand, rattling softly beside a glass of water.
I reached for it without opening my eyes.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice answered.
“Mrs. Lucie Herrera?”
“Yes.”
“This is the National Police.”
I opened my eyes.
Outside the enormous bedroom windows, the city was still dark, its domes and old stone buildings glowing beneath scattered golden lights.
The officer continued.
“We need you to come and identify the body of your husband, Sébastien Reyes.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There was a serious accident on the ring road. His vehicle struck a retaining wall. The driver died at the scene.”
I stared into the darkness.
My first reaction wasn’t grief.
It was irritation.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
Because Sébastien’s leg was still touching mine.
I slowly turned my head.
There he was.
Thirty-two years old.
Dark hair messy across the pillow.
The faint shadow of stubble across his jaw.
His black T-shirt stretched over one shoulder.
His chest rose.
Then fell.
Rose.
Then fell.
Peacefully.
“Officer,” I whispered, “there must be a mistake.”
Silence.
“My husband is here.”
The silence on the other end changed.
Before, it had been professional.
Now it was cautious.
Almost frightened.
“Mrs. Herrera?”
“Yes?”
“Is the man you believe to be your husband awake?”
I swallowed.
“No.”
“Do not wake him.”
I sat upright.
“What?”
“Leave the bedroom quietly. Go somewhere you can lock the door.”
A chill moved across my skin.
“Why?”
The officer lowered his voice.
“Because the vehicle belongs to Sébastien Reyes. The phone recovered from the victim belongs to Sébastien Reyes. The wallet contains his identification. The wedding ring bears the initials you confirmed when we contacted you.”
My eyes drifted toward Sébastien’s left hand.
It was under the blanket.
I couldn’t see whether he was wearing his ring.
The officer continued.
“We also recovered his watch.”
My stomach tightened.
“What watch?”
“A silver chronograph. Dark-blue face.”
I stopped breathing.
I had given Sébastien that watch on our fifth wedding anniversary.
He almost never took it off.
“Mrs. Herrera?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Can you leave the room?”
I started moving.
Slowly.
Carefully.
I pulled Sébastien’s leg away from mine.
His breathing didn’t change.
I put my feet on the floor.
Then I heard his voice.
“Darling?”
Every muscle in my body locked.
I looked over my shoulder.
His eyes were open.
In the pale light spilling in through the windows, he watched me.
“Who are you talking to about my death?”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
The officer was still on the line.
I forced myself to smile.
“A phone scam.”
Sébastien blinked.
“What?”
“They said you’d been in an accident.”
He stared at me for perhaps two seconds.
Then he laughed.
It was low.
Sleepy.
Familiar.
“They’ll come up with anything these days.”
I ended the call.
Or pretended to.
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
“I need the bathroom.”
I stood.
Sébastien’s hand shot out.
His fingers closed around my wrist.
Hard.
I froze.
“Where are you going?”
His tone was calm.
But his grip wasn’t.
“To the bathroom.”
He looked at me.
I could hear the clock ticking on the wall.
Then his fingers opened.
“Okay.”
I walked to the bathroom without running.
That required more self-control than anything I had ever done in my life.
I closed the door.
Turned the lock.
Slid the bolt.
Then I sat on the floor and dialed 112.
The same officer answered within seconds.
“It wasn’t a scam,” he told me.
The accident had happened at 2:48 a.m.
Sébastien’s black SUV had left the road at high speed and slammed into a concrete retaining wall.
There were no visible skid marks.
The driver had died instantly.
The vehicle registration matched my husband.
So did everything found on the victim.
Wallet.
Personal phone.
Watch.
Wedding ring.
Even a key card from Sébastien’s office.
Two officers were already on their way.
“Stay behind the locked door,” the dispatcher told me.
I should have.
Instead, I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror.
My face looked ghost-white.
My hair was tangled around my shoulders.
I was wearing the pale satin nightdress Sébastien had bought me during a weekend trip two months earlier.
Everything looked normal.
Which somehow made it worse.
Someone was dead.
Someone supposedly carrying my husband’s life in his pockets.
And the man I had slept beside was twenty feet away.
There was a knock at the apartment door several minutes later.
Sébastien called from the bedroom.
“Lucie?”
I opened the bathroom door.
He was standing in the hallway now.
Black T-shirt.
Plaid pajama pants.
Bare feet.
He looked annoyed more than afraid.
“Police,” I whispered.
His expression shifted.
Only slightly.
I noticed it because I was studying everything now.
Every blink.
Every breath.
Every movement.
He opened the front door.
Two officers stood outside.
One older, one younger.
The older officer looked at Sébastien.
Then at me.
Then back at Sébastien.
“Mr. Reyes?”
“Yes.”
“May we see identification?”
Sébastien frowned.
“Of course.”
He walked to the console near the entrance and opened a drawer.
He removed an ID card.
The officer studied it.
Sébastien crossed his arms.
“So somebody stole my SUV?”
“We’re investigating.”
“And apparently stole my wallet?”
“Yes.”
“My phone?”
“Yes.”
Sébastien glanced toward me.
Then he smiled faintly.
“Well, whoever he was, he picked a terrible night to become me.”
Neither officer smiled.
“Do you have another phone?”
“This one.”
Sébastien lifted a black smartphone from the console.
My stomach dropped.
Because the police had told me they had recovered his personal phone from the wreck.
The older officer noticed my reaction.
“Mrs. Herrera?”
I shook my head.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
We went to the hospital shortly before dawn.
The drive there was silent.
Sébastien sat beside me in the back of the police car.
He occasionally touched my knee.
Each time he did, I wanted to move away.
But I didn’t.
At the hospital, we were brought into a small consultation room beside the morgue.
The medical examiner placed several objects onto a stainless-steel table.
The first was the watch.
My watch.
The anniversary gift.
Then the wallet.
Then the phone.
Then the wedding ring.
I picked it up.
My hands were trembling.
Inside were two engraved letters.
S and L.
Sébastien and Lucie.
Exactly as I remembered.
I looked at the man beside me.
His expression remained astonishingly calm.
“Someone could have stolen everything,” he said.
“All of it?” I asked.
He turned toward me.
“Yes.”
The medical examiner cleared his throat.
“The body sustained extensive facial trauma.”
I swallowed.
“So I can’t see him?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
He checked his notes.
“But we have several physical characteristics.”
He began reading.
“Male. Approximately thirty-two years old.”
Sébastien was thirty-two.
“Approximately one meter seventy-eight.”
That was Sébastien’s height.
“Blood type A-positive.”
Sébastien was A-positive.
“Previous appendectomy. Scar located on the lower right abdomen.”
My skin went cold.
Five years earlier, Sébastien had undergone emergency surgery for appendicitis.
The medical examiner looked uncomfortable.
Sébastien stared at him.
Then slowly lifted his shirt.
There it was.
A small pale scar.
Lower right abdomen.
Exactly where it had always been.
Nobody spoke.
Sébastien lowered his shirt.
“Happy?”
No one answered.
Eventually, after giving statements, we were allowed to leave.
DNA testing would take time.
Fingerprint comparisons had already become complicated because the damaged body’s hands were badly burned.
The sun was beginning to rise when we entered the elevator in our apartment building.
Sébastien stood beside me.
“Lucie.”
I kept watching the floor numbers.
“Lucie, look at me.”
I finally did.
His eyes softened.
“It really is me.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
He sighed.
“Ask me something.”
“What?”
“Something only I would know.”
I hesitated.
Then he smiled.
“Behind the university library.”
My heart skipped.
“What?”
“Our first kiss.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“You had eaten garlic bread fifteen minutes earlier and spent the entire walk complaining that you were afraid your breath smelled terrible.”
Despite everything, heat rushed into my cheeks.
“You promised never to mention that.”
“You married me anyway.”
That memory belonged to us.
No photographs.
No social media posts.
No friends had been there.
Just the two of us.
The elevator doors opened.
Sébastien stepped into the hallway.
I followed.
For the first time since the phone call, I almost felt foolish.
Almost.
Then his phone vibrated.
Sébastien pulled it from his pocket.
A message appeared across the screen.
I saw only three words before he turned it away.
DNA won’t save you.
My husband looked at the message.
May you like
And for the first time that night, Sébastien Reyes looked terrified.
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