The Untraceable Wife

Morning Light in Paris

The mornings on the Left Bank of Paris smell of coffee and freshly baked bread.

I stood at the window of the small apartment in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, watching the streets below gradually warm with the light of dawn. It’s been three years, and nothing has changed here: the creaky floorboards, the wrought-iron balcony, and the faded Monet "Water Lilies" poster on the wall.

My phone vibrated on the table. The old phone had already sunk to the bottom of the Seine. Elliott bought me a brand-new encrypted phone yesterday.

"Getting used to it?" his voice came through.

"More easily than getting used to a penthouse in Manhattan," I said, absentmindedly brushing my fingers across the dust on the windowsill. This apartment hadn’t been lived in for three years.

Elliott was silent for a few seconds. "There’s been movement in New York. Your husband’s hired a private security firm and two international missing persons agencies. He’s looking for you."

"Let him look," I said, turning toward the room. The suitcase lay open, with only the simplest clothes inside: jeans, a white shirt, flats. Not a single item from my "Mrs. Sterling" wardrobe. The custom gowns, jewelry, designer bags—all left behind in the closet on Long Island.

"We need to move quickly," Elliott said. "The Sterling Foundation has an auction next month in Zurich. Among the lots are three 'rediscovered' 17th-century Dutch paintings. Our informants suspect that at least two of them were looted from Jewish families during World War II."

My heart sank. Art looting, money laundering, fake provenance—these were things Liam had contemptuously referred to as the "gray areas" of the industry. How many times had I authenticated paintings for him, legitimizing his dirty deals with my expertise?

"I need the details," I said. "The auction catalog, preview records, and the Foundation’s transaction files for the last decade."

"They’ve been sent to your inbox. Encrypted files. The password is your mother’s birthday."

I paused. "How did you know…"

"Scarlett, I’ve been investigating you for three months," he said, a note of regret in his voice. "Since you anonymously tipped us off about the Rubens painting. I know your father passed away ten years ago, your mother’s in a nursing home, and you accepted Sterling’s proposal to pay for her medical bills."

My reflection appeared on the window glass—pale and hollow. So, my tragedy was so transparent that even strangers could see right through it.

"What’s on the agenda today?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Meeting a restorer at noon. Her name’s Sophie. She’s one of our people, very well-respected in the field. She’ll introduce you to the Paris art scene and give you a new identity," Elliott paused. "Also... are you sure you don’t want to contact your mother?"

I gripped the phone tightly. My mother was in a nursing home in Florida, suffering from mid-stage Alzheimer’s. The last time she was lucid, she grabbed my hand and said, "Don’t be like me, Scarlett. Don’t forget who you are for the sake of responsibility."

And I told her, "I’m fine, Mom. Liam loves me."

Lies. Endless lies.

"I can’t right now," I said, my voice strained. "I’ll call her when there’s more progress."

After hanging up, I opened my inbox. The encrypted files contained the full archive of the Sterling Foundation—a lot thicker than I expected.

I opened the minutes from the most recent board meeting. Date: two weeks ago. Agenda: Accelerate the disposal of "non-core assets." Liam’s notes were clearly visible:

"Liquidate quickly. Scarlett’s authentication reports have provided enough credibility for some lots. Complete the transactions before she changes her mind."

Change my mind? He thought I’d change my mind? Continue to be his obedient wife, lending my academic expertise to his family’s dirty dealings?

I kept scrolling. One insurance document caught my attention: insurance for a set of "upcoming traveling" Impressionist paintings, with a value of $80 million. The policy was taken out a week before my miscarriage.

And these paintings, based on an internal memo from the Foundation that I had seen before, didn’t even have a real exhibition plan. They were stored in a freeport in Geneva—those tax-free warehouses called "the tombs of art," where paintings can sleep for decades, simply to avoid taxes and regulations.

Insurance fraud. Classic Liam-style operations: using fake projects to collect high premiums and then manufacturing "accidental losses."

My stomach twisted. It wasn’t physical nausea, but a deep, soul-wrenching revulsion.

My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from an unknown number:

"You’ve forgotten something."

No signature. But I knew immediately who it was. Only Liam would use that certain, unquestionable tone.

I stared at the screen, my finger hovering over the keyboard. Logic told me to delete the message, block the number, and treat it like poison. But the Scarlett who had spent three years trying to please him, afraid of disappointing him, still whispered deep in my bones.

I replied, "I didn’t forget anything. I left everything that needed to be left behind."

A few seconds later, a photo arrived.

It was my sketchbook. The open page showed the first Christmas we spent after our wedding: he was asleep by the fireplace, still holding half a glass of whiskey, the firelight dancing across his face. In the corner of the page, I had written in small letters: "May this moment last forever."

Below the photo, his message:

"You’re lying. You took what I wanted most."

I looked at the words and suddenly burst out laughing. The sound echoed in the empty apartment.

What did he want most? My obedience? Or my silence?

I typed, each letter striking the screen like I was trying to pierce through it:

"You never owned it. You just rented it for three years. And now the lease is up."

Send. Block the number.

The action was swift, like cutting out a tumor.

Then, I opened my laptop and started working. Sophie’s details, the Foundation’s files, the auction records... my expertise, once used to frame lies, would now become the knife to expose them.

At noon, I walked into a well-known gallery on the Left Bank. Sophie Leclerc was already waiting for me: in her sixties, silver hair neatly pinned back, wearing antique glasses, and fingers stained yellow from years of handling chemical reagents.

"Scarlett Anderson," she shook my hand, her grip firm. "Elliott says you have great talent."

"Used to," I said.

"Talent doesn’t disappear. It only sleeps," she replied, leading me into the back studio. The air smelled of turpentine and varnish—pure art.

On the workbench lay a small portrait in the process of restoration. 17th-century style, but...

"Forgery," I said without thinking.

Sophie smiled. "Tell me why."

I leaned in to examine it closely. "The paint layers are too even. Real 17th-century works have slight cracks in the paint from age, like the skin of an old person. But this..." I took out a magnifying glass. "The cracks are painted on. Very skillfully done, but too regular."

"And?"

"The frame. The wood is oak, but the cut marks show it was sawed with an electric saw—at least a 20th-century technique." I straightened up. "This is a high-quality fake, no older than fifty years."

Sophie took off her glasses and slowly wiped them with a cloth. "The Sterling Foundation auctioned a nearly identical piece three years ago. Sold for $1.2 million."

My blood ran cold. "That painting..."

"Is the one you’re looking at now," Sophie said, putting her glasses back on. "The buyer was a Japanese collector, who discovered the issue when he asked us to do some maintenance last year. He chose to stay silent, because the cost of a lawsuit was too high. But there are at least seven similar works in the Sterling Foundation’s archives."

Seven pieces. Each worth over a million. Add in the insurance fraud, the looted artwork laundering...

Liam hadn’t built a business empire; he had constructed a criminal network disguised as art.

And I had been his most useful accomplice.

"You need a new identity," Sophie handed me a file. "Anna Leroux, Canadian restorer, specializing in Renaissance paintings. We’ve already prepared your background, it will stand up to basic scrutiny."

I opened the passport. The photo was mine, but the hair color and makeup had been adjusted to make me look a few years older. Name, birthplace, education—every detail was flawless.

"Are you sure about this?" Sophie asked, her gaze steady. "Once we start, there’s no turning back. The Sterling family won’t let you off the hook."

I looked out the window. The sky over Paris was pale gray, pigeons circling above the rooftops. Three years ago, I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows in Long Island, looking at the same sky, but the world had felt as small as a prison.

"I have no way back," I said. "From the day I married him, there was only one road left—either die in his world, or be reborn in mine."

Sophie nodded and took an old pocket watch from the drawer. "This is your first assignment. The collector says there’s a strange noise in the case, suspects the movement has been tampered

with."

I took the pocket watch. The brass case, enamel dial, and the back engraved with cursive letters "E.L." When I opened the back, my breath caught.

Next to the mechanism was a small rolled-up piece of paper.

I carefully took it out and unfolded it. The paper was thin, almost transparent, covered with tiny letters and numbers—a code.

At the bottom, there was one line in French that I could understand:

"To the one who uncovers the truth: some locks, the key lies in the past."

The date was stamped at the bottom: March 15, 1942.

World War II. Nazi-occupied Paris.

And the original owner of this watch, "E.L.," according to Sophie’s records, was a Jewish gallery owner, sent to a concentration camp in 1943, never to return.

"Where did the watch come from?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"It was part of the Sterling Foundation’s auction three years ago," Sophie replied calmly. "Sold for $80,000. The buyer was one of our people."

I gripped the pocket watch, its metal casing pressing against my palm.

Liam. You’re not just selling paintings.

You’re selling looted lives, erased histories, and blood-stained legacies.

And today, these ghosts have found their translator.

"I need all the information on this watch," I said. "The original owner’s family history, wartime records, and its path before it entered the Sterling Foundation."

Sophie smiled. There was sadness, but also determination in her smile.

"Welcome aboard, Anna Leroux. Welcome to the battlefield of truth."

As I left the gallery, it started to drizzle in Paris. I opened my umbrella and walked across the wet cobblestones.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Elliott.

"He found your apartment," he said. "Not this one in Paris, but your old address from college. He’s sent someone to watch it."

My heart skipped a beat. Liam was tracing my past, like a hound tracking a scent.

"Let him search," I said, listening to the soft pitter-patter of rain on the umbrella. "Let him comb through every corner of my life. He’ll find that every place has evidence I left behind—proof that he never truly knew me."

"Be careful, Scarlett. Obsessive men are the most dangerous."

"I know," I looked at the reflection of a stranger’s shadow in a café window across the street: short hair, dark coat, steady gaze. "I married an obsessive man. And now, I’m going to use everything he taught me to destroy him."

After hanging up, I didn’t head straight back to the apartment. I walked toward the Seine, stopping in the middle of the Pont des Arts.

Three years ago, Liam proposed to me here. At night, under the lights, kneeling with a Tiffany blue box in his hand. When I said yes, I thought it was the beginning of happiness.

Now I know, it was the moment the prisoner signed her confession.

I took out the wedding ring from my pocket—I’ve kept it, not out of sentiment, but as a reminder. I studied the engraving on the inside: "L.S. + S.A. 2018-∞."

Infinity. Such an arrogant assumption.

I raised my hand, the ring arcing through the air in a silver streak, landing in the dark green waters of the Seine.

No splash. Only a ripple, quickly swallowed by the river.

Just like our marriage. Just like the version of myself he killed.

As I turned to leave, I felt an unusual lightness. It was as if I had shed the shackles of three years, like I could finally breathe freely.

The rain in Paris kept falling. But I knew, somewhere, a storm was brewing.

And this time, I would stand in the eye of the storm.

Watching as everything he built was struck down by the lightning of truth.