The scratching stopped for a moment.
There was complete silence.
Then I heard the soft click of the front door opening.
I grabbed a kitchen knife from the counter, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped it.
Through the kitchen window, I could see Agent Martinez’s house across the street, but there was no sign of movement.
Where were they?
“Edwin?”
Jolene’s voice, calling softly from the front hallway.
“We know you’re here. We just want to talk.”
I stayed silent, pressed against the kitchen wall where I couldn’t be seen from the hallway.
“This doesn’t have to end badly,” she continued. And I could hear her footsteps moving slowly through my house. “We can work something out. We can all walk away from this.”
More footsteps, heavier ones.
Marcus was with her, moving through my living room. I could hear him checking the closets, looking under the couch, searching for me systematically.
“Edwin.”
This time it was Marcus’s voice, and he was closer. Much closer.
“We found your panic button on the coffee table. Very thoughtful of you to leave it where we could see it.”
My heart sank. I’d been so careful to keep the panic button with me, but in my fear, I must have set it down when I went to get the knife.
They knew I’d called for help.
“The police aren’t coming,” Jolene said. And now she sounded almost sad. “We intercepted their communications, told them you’d changed your mind, that you wanted to handle this privately. They’re not monitoring your house anymore.”
That couldn’t be true, could it? Detective Chen had promised that they’d be watching, that they were ready to move the moment Marcus and Jolene showed up, but I hadn’t heard any sirens, hadn’t seen any movement from the surveillance team.
“You’re lying,” I called out, hoping my voice sounded more confident than I felt.
“Am I?”
Marcus was in the kitchen doorway now, and I could see his shadow on the wall. He looked exactly like me, but there was something wrong with his eyes, something cold and predatory that had never been in any mirror reflection I’d seen.
“Check your phone, Edwin. See if you have any missed calls from your police friends.”
Against my better judgment, I glanced at my phone.
No missed calls. No text messages. Nothing.
Either they were telling the truth, or the federal agents were playing this very carefully, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“Why don’t you come out where we can see you?” Jolene said. “We really do just want to talk.”
I stepped out of the kitchen, the knife still in my hand, and faced the two people who had stolen 5 years of my life.
Seeing Marcus in person was like looking into a funhouse mirror. He was my height, my build, with surgery-altered features that made him look like my twin brother. But where I saw doubt and fear in my own reflection, Marcus radiated confidence and barely controlled violence.
And Jolene looked exactly like the woman I’d fallen in love with, except for her eyes. Those green eyes that had once looked at me with what I’d thought was love were now flat and calculating, like a predator sizing up prey.
“There he is,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach those cold eyes.
“My husband.”
“Ex-husband,” I corrected, surprised by how steady my voice sounded.
“Technically, yes, since you were so eager to divorce me. But Edwin, we never finished our conversation from this afternoon.”
Marcus moved to my right, positioning himself between me and the back door.
“You’ve caused us a lot of problems, Edwin. Do you know how much money we’ve lost because of your interference?”
“About the same amount you stole from me, I’d guess.”
He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound.
“We didn’t steal anything. We earned it. Do you know how hard it is to live with someone for 5 years, pretending to love them, catering to their every need, playing the perfect wife?”
“It was quite a performance,” I said, looking at Jolene.
“Very convincing.”
“Thank you.”
She actually looked pleased by the compliment.
“I’ve gotten very good at it over the years. Each husband teaches me something new about what men want to hear.”
“How many have there been?”
“You were number seven,” Marcus said. “And the most challenging. Most men are so desperate for love that they believe anything. But you were cautious, observant. We had to work much harder to gain your trust.”
“Why me? What made you choose me?”
Jolene tilted her head, considering the question.
“You had money, but not too much. A stable job, but no family to ask awkward questions. And you were lonely, Edwin. So lonely that you’d fall in love with the first woman who paid attention to you.”
The words stung because they were true. I had been lonely when I met her. Isolated and desperate for connection.
And she’d given me exactly what I needed, exactly what she’d studied and planned to give me.
“Plus, you had that beautiful life insurance policy,” Marcus added. “$250,000 with double indemnity for accidental death. That hunting trip you had planned would have set us up very nicely.”
“But then you had to go and ruin everything,” Jolene said.
And for the first time, I heard real anger in her voice.
“You couldn’t just accept the story about my sick mother. You had to start investigating, asking questions, making phone calls.”
“Sorry to inconvenience your murder plans.”
“Murder is such an ugly word,” Marcus said. “We prefer to think of it as accelerated inheritance.”
He was moving closer now, and I gripped the kitchen knife tighter. But I knew that a knife wasn’t going to save me against two trained killers who had done this at least six times before.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jolene said, her voice taking on the tone she’d used when we were married and she wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. “You’re going to come with us, and we’re going to stage a very convincing suicide. Depression over the divorce, financial stress, the shame of being deceived by your wife. It’s a very believable story.”
“And if I refuse?”
Marcus pulled a gun from his jacket, a small silver revolver that looked almost delicate in his hands.
“Then we’ll stage it anyway, but it’ll be messier, more painful for you.”