Chapter 2 - The Burner Phone
Derek released my jaw and stepped back.
My legs shook, but I stayed standing.
He smiled then.
The public smile.
The one he used at charity dinners and investor lunches and building board meetings.
“We’ll give you time to think.”
Margaret rose gracefully.
Suzanne adjusted her handbag strap.
The three of them walked toward the front door like people leaving a tense brunch, not a crime scene.
Derek turned in the doorway.
“Two hours, Skylar.”
Then he closed the door.
The electronic deadbolt beeped.
Once.
Twice.
Then the apartment sealed itself from the outside.
I stood in the kitchen with coffee cooling in my hair and my shattered phone at my feet.
For thirty seconds, I did not move.
Pain makes time strange.
Fear makes objects too clear.
The broken mug.
The smear of brown across white marble.
The transfer folder Suzanne had forgotten one page from.
The locked balcony door.
The skyline too beautiful beyond the glass.
The silence after people leave you alone with what they did.
Then I breathed.
One breath.
Then another.
I washed my face with cold water at the sink, biting the inside of my cheek to stay quiet. The irritated mark along my cheek and shoulder looked worse under the bathroom lights, but not bad enough to make anyone believe me without proof.
That was the thing Derek counted on.
No blood.
No witnesses who would admit what they saw.
No working phone.
A rich husband.
A beautiful apartment.
A wife he had spent months describing as unstable.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
Wet blonde hair.
Pale face.
Burning cheek.
Cream robe stained with coffee.
I did not look like a woman about to win.
Good.
Predators relax when they think you are still trying to understand the cage.
I walked to the front door first.
The interior release panel blinked red.
Derek had installed the upgraded security system himself two months earlier, claiming the city was getting dangerous.
“It’s for you,” he had said, kissing my forehead.
Now the door would not open.
The balcony door had a second lock.
The kind Derek said prevented break-ins.
Fourteenth floor.
No fire escape.
No phone.
No neighbors close enough to hear if I screamed.
I turned toward Derek’s private office.
He kept it locked most days.
But in the panic of staging my “reflection time,” he had forgotten the small brass key was still inside the desk drawer where Suzanne had thrown the mail last night.
I found it under an unpaid boutique invoice addressed to her.
Of course.
The office smelled like Derek’s cologne, printer ink, and cedar polish.
Dark desk.
Leather chair.
City view.
Wall of framed certificates.
A room designed to tell visitors he was organized, disciplined, trustworthy.
I searched for a phone first.
Desk drawers.
Cabinet.
Charging station.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the drawer behind the desk panel.
It did not align perfectly with the wood grain.
Derek was meticulous.
Too meticulous for a mistake like that.
I pulled.
Nothing.
I slid my fingers beneath the edge and pushed upward.
A hidden latch clicked.
The panel opened.
Inside were three things that ended my marriage more completely than any divorce decree ever could.
Forged property-transfer documents.
A fake power of attorney with my signature copied badly enough to insult me.
And a black burner phone.
A strip of tape beneath the phone held a handwritten six-digit code.
Derek’s handwriting.
My hands were shaking as I typed it in.
The phone unlocked.
The most recent message thread opened immediately.
Derek.
Suzanne.
Margaret.
And a fourth name.
May you like
Leonard Pike.
My breath caught.
