Chapter 2 - The Dead Man Wearing My Husband’s Ring
“Who sent that?”
Sébastien immediately locked his phone.
“No one.”
I stared at him.
“I saw it.”
“Lucie—”
“DNA won’t save you.”
His jaw tightened.
Neither of us moved.
Morning sunlight poured through the windows behind us, turning the apartment gold.
It should have felt safe.
Instead it felt like every wall had begun hiding something.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
That single word hurt more than I expected.
We had been married six years.
We knew each other’s passwords.
We used each other’s phones without asking.
Or at least I thought we did.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“You just got a message threatening you after a dead man was found carrying your identity.”
“I know how it looks.”
“How does it look, Sébastien?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Like somebody is trying to destroy my life.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
That reaction confirmed it.
Not everything.
But enough.
“You know something.”
He walked toward the kitchen.
I followed.
“Sébastien.”
“Lucie, I haven’t slept.”
“Neither has the dead man.”
He stopped.
I regretted saying it immediately.
His shoulders stiffened.
Then he slowly turned.
“You think I killed him?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Someone died wearing our wedding ring!”
“Our?”
“You know what I mean.”
He looked away.
For several seconds, we said nothing.
Then his phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Declined the call.
“Who was it?”
“Work.”
“At six in the morning?”
“My company operates internationally.”
Again, the answer was logical.
Again, I didn’t believe him.
I went into the bedroom to change.
That was when I noticed his jewelry dish.
Sébastien always placed three things there at night.
His watch.
His ring.
His cuff links if he had been wearing a suit.
The dish was empty.
I stared at it.
Then looked toward the doorway.
“Sébastien?”
He appeared.
“Where’s your wedding ring?”
His expression didn’t change.
“It was stolen.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“You never mentioned that.”
“I didn’t notice until late.”
“And your watch?”
“Same thing.”
“Wallet?”
He said nothing.
I looked at him.
“All stolen yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Phone too?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“And your car.”
“Yes.”
I felt dizzy.
“So everything on that body disappeared from you yesterday.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“Why wait?”
He looked frustrated.
“I thought I’d misplaced some things at first.”
“Your SUV?”
“That was in the garage when I came home.”
I blinked.
“The SUV was here?”
“I thought it was.”
“You thought?”
“The garage has valet service. I didn’t personally check.”
Every answer created another question.
I got dressed.
Jeans.
Sweater.
Flat shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Going back to the hospital.”
“For what?”
“To see the body.”
Sébastien’s face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“No.”
“Why?”
“It’s unnecessary.”
“The police called me to identify my husband.”
“And I’m standing here.”
“Then you shouldn’t be worried.”
He came closer.
“Lucie, that body is badly damaged. You don’t need to see that.”
There was tenderness in his voice.
Or manipulation.
I could no longer distinguish between them.
“I’m going.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t know who to trust.”
The words landed between us.
Pain appeared in his expression.
Real pain, I thought.
Or perhaps I wanted it to be real.
I left.
At the hospital, Detective Marc Delon—the older officer from our apartment—met me outside the morgue.
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband?”
“At home.”
Delon studied me.
“You’re not convinced he’s your husband.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
We sat in a small office.
He placed a file on the desk.
“The preliminary dental comparison doesn’t match Mr. Reyes’s records.”
Relief rushed through me.
“So the dead man isn’t Sébastien.”
“Probably not.”
“Probably?”
“The records may be outdated. We need DNA.”
I nodded.
Then Delon leaned forward.
“But we found something else.”
He slid a clear evidence bag toward me.
Inside was a small brass key.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“It was sewn into the lining of the victim’s jacket.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
He showed me a photograph.
The key had tiny numbers engraved along the side.
317.
My chest tightened.
“Three seventeen.”
“The time we called you.”
“Yes.”
Delon nodded.
“Coincidence, maybe.”
I didn’t believe that.
Neither did he.
“Can I see the body?”
He hesitated.
Then agreed.
The medical examiner warned me again.
I insisted.
The morgue was colder than I expected.
Not dramatic movie cold.
Clinical cold.
Air-conditioned silence.
The body lay beneath a sheet.
The examiner pulled it back only enough to reveal the upper torso.
I looked away at first.
Then forced myself to look.
The face was almost impossible to recognize.
But the body—
Same build.
Same broad shoulders.
Same dark hair.
Same appendectomy scar.
I stepped closer.
Something seemed wrong.
“Can I see his left shoulder?”
The examiner glanced at Delon.
Delon nodded.
The sheet moved.
I stared.
There was no scar on the shoulder.
My breathing changed.
“What is it?” Delon asked.
“Sébastien has a scar there.”
“From what?”
“Motorcycle accident. Before we met.”
Delon wrote it down.
“Your husband this morning?”
“I didn’t check.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
“Hundreds of times.”
That should have settled everything.
The dead man was not my husband.
Yet when I looked at the hand beneath the sheet, something caught my attention.
A small faded burn mark on the index finger.
My heart sank.
Sébastien had one exactly like it.
He had once told me he got it touching a hot pan as a teenager.
Same finger.
Same location.
Same shape.
“Detective?”
“Yes?”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“What are the chances two unrelated men have the same height, blood type, surgery scar and burn mark?”
Delon didn’t answer immediately.
“Low.”
“How low?”
“Low enough that I’d start looking for family.”
Family.
The word followed me all the way home.
Sébastien had almost no family.
His mother died when he was twenty.
His father had disappeared from his life much earlier.
No siblings.
At least, that was what I had always been told.
I went through old boxes while he was supposedly at work.
College photographs.
Wedding albums.
Tax documents.
Letters.
Nothing.
Then, at the bottom of a box from his mother’s apartment, I found an envelope.
No stamp.
No address.
Just Sébastien’s name handwritten across the front.
Inside was a photograph.
Two boys stood beside a lake.
They looked perhaps nine years old.
Same dark hair.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Identical.
On the back, someone had written:
Sébastien and Gabriel. Summer 2003. Before everything changed.
My hands began shaking.
There was a second note beneath it.
One sentence.
Never tell Sébastien his brother survived.
The apartment door opened.
I nearly dropped the photograph.
Footsteps entered the hallway.
“Sébastien?”
No answer.
I slipped the photograph behind my back.
Then a man appeared in the bedroom doorway.
He looked exactly like my husband.
But he was wearing a dark coat.
And Sébastien had left that morning wearing gray.
The man stared at me.
Then at the photograph hidden badly behind my hip.
He smiled.
“Lucie,” he said quietly.
May you like
“You found us.”
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