The morning did not break with the usual soft transition of light. For Ethan, it arrived like a cold blade.
He had heard the back door click shut at 3:00 AM. He had heard Lena’s frantic breathing in the hallway. He had heard the silence that followed—a silence that felt more like an admission of guilt than a moment of peace.
"What exactly is wrong with this woman?" he says.
He waited until he heard the shower running—the steady drone of water providing him a window of opportunity he hated himself for taking. He walked into the master bedroom, the space they were supposed to share, and looked at the bedside table.
Ethan wasn't a man given to snooping. He believed in privacy, in the sanctity of a partner’s thoughts. But the man who believed in those things was dying, replaced by a desper
