Your husband is losing his mind, Genevieve, and if he doesn't resign from the zoning board today, I'll have him committed, my father-in-law told my wife across the dinner table.
The front door of our house closed behind me with a soft click, plunging me into a silence even heavier than the one at Arthur’s estate. The scent of Genevieve’s lilac air freshener hung in the entryway, an ironic contrast to the chill that had settled deep within me. I walked straight to my home office, my sanctuary, a place filled with my maps and survey equipment.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I flicked on the light.
The space was neatly arranged, almost too neat. My desktop computer was gone. The tower, the monitor, the keyboard—all vanished. A cold dread seeped through me.
I checked the hidden compartment beneath the desk where I kept my encrypted work hard drive. It was empty. The small, silver rectangle, containing months of my meticulous records, my suspicions, my proof, was simply not there.
A creak from the hallway. Genevieve stood in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Her eyes avoided mine.
“Where is it, Genevieve?” I asked, my voice flat, devoid of emotion.
She flinched. “Where’s what, Ethan?”
“My computer. My hard drive.” I pointed to the empty space on the desk.
Her gaze finally met mine, filled with a mixture of fear and something I couldn’t quite decipher. Relief?
“I… I gave them to Dad’s legal team,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper.
The words landed like physical blows.
“You what?” I whispered back. The air felt thin.
“It was for your own protection, Ethan,” she insisted, stepping further into the room. “They said… they said you were keeping dangerous files. Things that could implicate you. That it was part of your ‘delusions.’”
My chest felt hollowed out. This wasn’t just my work. It was my trust. My marriage.
“They needed to secure it,” she hurried on, clearly trying to convince herself as much as me. “Dad said they would make sure everything was handled properly.”
Properly. Arthur’s version of proper.
“You gave them everything,” I said, a bitter taste in my mouth.
“He’s your father, Ethan! He cares about you!” she cried, her voice cracking. “He just wants you to be well. To not ruin everything we’ve built.”
I looked around the office, at the bare desk, the empty space where my proof had been. The weight of her betrayal was immense. She hadn’t just turned a blind eye; she had actively participated.
My eyes fell on a worn leather-bound book on a shelf—my physical field notebook. It contained handwritten notes, preliminary sketches, the locations of the missing markers, the early observations of the sinkhole. It wasn’t encrypted. It wasn’t digital. It was still there.
I walked over, picked it up, and tucked it into my jacket pocket. It was all I had left.
“Ethan, where are you going?” Genevieve asked, a rising panic in her tone.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust her with the truth of where I was going, or what I was about to do. I didn’t trust her at all anymore. I walked out of the office, past her, and out of the house, not knowing if I would ever truly come back.
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