Chapter 4
There was a bookshelf, three shelves packed with tech books, some so well-used their pages were dog-eared. In the corner sat an old photo frame: Edward and Claire together.
Edward was grinning, flashing his gold tooth, and Claire stood beside him, her expression soft, actually smiling for once.
I took that photo in secret at Edward's funeral.
It was right as she looked up after crying, sunlight cutting through the window of the funeral hall and landing on her face.
I flipped the frame face down on the desk.
I opened the closet; there wasn't much in there. Just a few white shirts, two pairs of jeans, and a black puffer jacket for winter, no suits. Claire always said there was no need for me at company stuff.
I folded up the clothes and packed them into my suitcase.
Inside the drawer was a metal box. I opened it up; there were some odds and ends.
There was an expired movie ticket. The first year we were married, I invited her to a movie. She never showed, so I ended up watching it alone and kept the ticket as a reminder.
There was a rubber band. She was in the living room, tying her hair, when the band snapped and landed on the floor. I picked it up, but she'd already grabbed a new one and never glanced my way.
There was also a dried-up ballpoint pen. She grabbed it off my desk to sign some contract, then put it back; her fingerprint lingered on the cap.
I sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the metal box, and looked over each item, one after another.
Then I opened the window and tossed them all out.
The metal box hit the stone path in the yard with a sharp clang.
I closed the window.
I folded the blanket, wiped down the desk, and mopped the floor.
Twenty minutes later, the place was spotless, like a hotel room nobody had ever stayed in.
There was no smell, no trace, not even a hint that Ethan ever spent ten years here.
System: [Countdown: 24:00:00]
It was the final day.
On the third morning, the Symons Group was thrown into chaos.
Derek showed up at the meeting with the USB drive. The tech director from the other side spent twenty minutes going through the files, then fired off three questions.
"How was the weight matrix for this fusion algorithm designed?
"What data augmentation strategies did you use for the training set?
"Is the pruning logic for the decision tree something you guys built yourselves, or is it just tweaked from an open-source framework?"
Derek was completely stumped.
His face flushed as he fiddled with his tie. "Let me check on that and get back to you."
Back at the office, he tried to open up the files, only to realize the core modules were buried under six layers of nested encryption.
The password only got him through the first layer; every sub-module needed its own unique key.
He tried calling me, but my phone was off.
He pinged me on WhatsApp, but I left him on read.
He checked the lab, but nobody was there.
When Derek burst into Claire's office, his forehead was slick with sweat.
"Claire, Ethan's phone is off. The code won't open. The partner is breathing down my neck for answers," Derek blurted out.
Claire's brow furrowed.
"Where is he?" Claire demanded.
"How should I know? When you told him to hand over the code, he should've told me how to unlock everything," Derek snapped.
Claire picked up her phone and called Ethan.
"The number you dialed is currently unavailable."
She dialed again.
"The number you dialed is currently unavailable."
She set her phone down and drummed her fingers twice on the desk.
Her secretary pushed the door open and stepped in.
"Ms. Symons, Louise from R&D just said the auto-maintenance on the core server didn't kick in today. They checked the logs and saw the admin account got shut down last night," the secretary reported.
"What does that mean?" Claire asked.
"Ethan's the one with that admin account. Once he shut it down, the whole maintenance system went offline. Louise said if we don't get it back up, the server's got maybe three days before it starts crashing," the secretary explained.
Claire stood up.
Her hand pressed down on the desk, her knuckles turning white.
Claire ordered, "Find out where Ethan went today and who he met."
The secretary nodded and left.
Derek stood off to the side, his face grim.
"Claire, maybe we should call in an outside tech team, see if they can break in..." Derek suggested.
"You should go," Claire said.
"But what about our partners..." Derek protested.
"I told you, go back," Claire repeated.
Her voice was soft, but Derek fell silent.
As he walked out, his lips pressed into a thin line, gripping the USB drive so hard his hand shook.
At seven in the evening, Claire pulled her car into the villa's courtyard.
She didn't get out right away after turning off the engine. She just sat there, zoning out, eyes fixed on the steering wheel.
The secretary had sent over the investigation results that afternoon: Yesterday, Ethan revoked all his account access at the Symons Group.
This morning, he used his company access card one last time to enter the building, packed up everything from his desk including a cardboard box and an old laptop, and left his access card at the front desk.
She pushed open the car door, her heels clicking against the stone path.
As she reached the door and bent down to change her shoes, she paused.
The gray sneakers, always tucked away on the bottom shelf of the shoe cabinet, were missing.
She opened the shoe cabinet and looked through it from top to bottom. Her shoes filled two and a half shelves, and the last half-shelf was where Ethan kept his three pairs of shoes.
It was empty now.
She walked into the living room.
The kitchen lights were off. There was no pot on the stove, no dishes, no soup warming up.
She opened the fridge. There were still two cartons of her usual low-fat milk, and the fruits and veggies were neatly arranged. But the shelf where Ethan kept his frozen dumplings was empty.
She went upstairs.
The guest room at the end of the hall, door barely cracked open.
She pushed the door open.
The lights were off. Curtains half drawn. Streetlight leaked in, painting the wooden floor with a cold glow.
The bed was made so neatly, corners sharp as if sliced with a blade. The pillow was in the center, not a single dent seen.
Bookshelf and closet were empty, and there was nothing on the desk.
The whole room was so clean, it felt dead like a morgue.
She stood in the doorway, her chest suddenly tightening, like a noose had cinched around her heart.
She crouched down and slid open the drawer under the bed. It was empty.
She opened the nightstand drawer, which was empty.
She practically sprinted into the study, heart pounding.
The door was locked. She searched everywhere for the spare keys, finally found the right set, and with shaky hands, turned the lock.
The study was empty.
Nothing was lefty, not the computer, not the files, not the battered copy of "Embedded System Design," not even the folding cot in the corner.
She stood in the middle of the study, turning in a slow circle.
Her foot stepped on something.
She looked down. There was a white envelope tucked into the corner, nearly overlooked.
She picked it up. The word "Lily" was written on the front.
She opened it.
Inside was a wad of cash and a note.
[Lily, keep this money for yourself. Thanks for taking care of me these past ten years. I took the house slippers with me. I've worn them for six years and just couldn't let them go. Ethan.]
Her hands started to shake.
It wasn't the cold. Her fingers spasmed uncontrollably, refusing to obey her.
She flipped the note over and saw a small line of handwriting on the back.
[P.S. There's a receipt for Evergreen Cemetery, Section C, Plot 23. You can check with the front desk.]
She turned the note over, reading it three times in total.
The words cemetery and receipt made her knees buckle, and she grabbed the wall to steady herself.