The Wife He Thought He Buried

CHAPTER 1

THE LAST THING SHE SAW

A bent smile hovered on Grey's lips.

The last thing Chloe saw.

Heat and cold swarmed in her veins as blurred shapes beyond the windshield tumbled across her vision: an inky sky, crumpled steel, the relentless shuffle of passing headlights. Blood trickled from a huge gash above her eyebrow, following the curve of her face until it flooded the world in a dull, shimmering red.

She lifted a trembling hand to wipe it away, but her arm barely moved. It quivered against the twisted seat frame, as though the metal had welded it in place.

Then agony ripped through her ribs.

A breath tore from her lungs, sharp enough to make her vision flash white. Her legs were pinned beneath the dashboard, the metal biting deep into her flesh. She could no longer tell where the wreckage ended and her body began. Every heartbeat sent another bolt of pain through her spine, so she lay still, afraid that even the smallest movement might make whatever was crushing her dig deeper.

Her mouth tasted of blood and death.

She tried to swallow, only to choke on the blood gathering at the back of her throat. A wet cough escaped her, followed by another shallow breath that barely made it past her chest.

Outside, an engine purred past. Tires hissed over the rain-beaten asphalt.

No one slowed.

No one looked back.

Chloe tried breathing through her nose, but one nostril was clogged with blood and something else: glass, perhaps. She couldn't tell. Her lungs strained for air anyway, each breath thinner than the last.

The car groaned around her.

Tiny shards of shattered glass caught the dying light, scattered across her shoulders, her hair, her forehead. One shard had embedded itself just below her temple. Warmth bloomed beneath it, slowly spreading through her hair.

Her fingers twitched against the seatbelt buckle. Nothing else obeyed.

The ringing in her ears climbed higher, swallowing the distant traffic, the rain, even the sound of her own breathing.

Then, footsteps.

At first, she thought she'd imagined them. The crunch of gravel came again, followed by the scuffed thud of shoes against wet ground. Another step. Closer.

Her pulse stumbled, then began hammering against her ribs so violently that the sound rattled in her skull. Someone was coming. She forced her eyelids apart.

A dark figure emerged through the rain, becoming clearer with every step. Tall. Broad shoulders. A familiar figure she would have recognized anywhere.

It was Grey.

For one fragile second, warmth loosened something inside her chest. He had come.

Her lips parted. She tried to say his name, but the air caught painfully in her throat. All that escaped was a broken, rough gasp.

Grey stopped beside the twisted door. Rain ran from his shoulders, slipping down the collar of his coat in silver rivulets. His face remained half-hidden by darkness, blurred by Chloe's failing vision. Then he stepped closer.

And that was when she saw his mouth.

A smile. Small. Crooked.

So faint that under any other circumstance, she might have mistaken it for a trick of the light.

The warmth in her chest shattered. It felt as though the shards of glass had pierced straight through her, into her very soul.

Three days earlier, Grey had stood in front of her and said the words she hadn't been able to stop hearing ever since: "I genuinely wish you weren't a part of my life." The memory came back with cruel clarity.

So did many others.

Mornings when the house was dark, when Chloe would slip into the kitchen before sunrise to prepare his favorite meal. She remembered the heat of the gas flame against her skin, the quiet clatter of plates, the way she'd glance toward the stairs whenever she heard his footsteps.

Waiting. Always waiting.

She remembered setting steaming food on the table and watching him walk past without so much as a glance, as though she were just another piece of furniture in the house.

She remembered the dresses she'd bought because she'd once heard him mention liking a particular color. The little things she'd changed about herself. The apologies she'd offered for mistakes she hadn't made. The moments when his anger filled the room and she learned to make herself smaller, quieter, easier to tolerate. She had kept giving away pieces of herself, and somehow she had always believed there would eventually be enough of her left for him to love.

How foolish she had been.

Her vision began to blur. The world softened, darkness creeping slowly inward until Grey was little more than a shadow surrounded by rain.

She stared at that smile on his face. Maybe it wasn't a smile. Maybe her eyes were failing her. But it didn't matter anymore. Because after everything, after all the trying, the loneliness, the hurt, one thing had finally become painfully clear.

He had meant it.

Grey really had wished she wasn't in his life.

Her eyes slipped shut.

The last thing she saw was that crooked smile.

Then the darkness took her.

The man in the rain

By the time Chloe slipped out of the art building, the sky had turned a dull, stormy gray.

A cold breeze rattled the glass windows behind her. She halted beneath the narrow concrete overhang, shifting the stack of things in her arms.

Her textbooks were pressed against her chest, their pages already curling from the damp air. Her sketchbook perched precariously on top, its spiral spine digging into her palm. A handful of loose charcoal studies and watercolor washes were wedged between her elbow and ribs. Her schoolbag hung limply from one shoulder.

The faded olive bag had been patched so many times that Chloe had stopped noticing the stitches. If she tried to stuff all her books inside, the seams would probably surrender and fall apart. So she carried everything herself.

The stack wobbled dangerously as she adjusted her grip, leaving her arms aching beneath the weight.

She barely noticed.