Chapter 4

The car finally stopped in front of a villa on the city outskirts.

Hester scrambled out in a rush. Anyone could see how well she knew this place.

She knew it far too well.

Sure enough, the moment the front door opened, I saw a whole house's worth of lived-in traces.

Not only Hester's.

Jason's too.

In the center of the living room hung a huge photo of the two of them together.

Jason had his arm wrapped tight around Hester.

Their eyes met in the frame, brimming with tenderness and longing.

Matching couple's slippers by the door.

And even the pajamas Hester was handing Jason right now were a matching set.

Five years and seventy-eight days.

To pay Hester's hospital bills,

I sold my little one-bedroom apartment,

and could only afford a basement room in the cheapest spot near the hospital.

It was damp and it stank, and every night roaches crawled into the blankets.

On rainy days, rats would climb up onto the table where I ate.

With the money I saved, I put Hester in a private room at the hospital,

hoping she could at least be comfortable.

But never once did it cross my mind

that in those five years and seventy-eight days,

the girl I had nearly died to care for had been living here with my fiancé in this luxurious villa,

playing house like husband and wife, a charmed life.

Did they lie in bed at night,

laughing as they talked about how much blood I'd given her that day,

about how her color was looking a little better?

Humiliation and fury surged up from the bottom of my heart like a crashing tide.

"That's enough, Fiona. Go on in and rest."

Jason's voice pulled me back.

He pointed at the staircase at the far end of the living room and said, flat and easy,

"Hester has the room upstairs. Make do in the basement for tonight, and I'll arrange something for you tomorrow…"

That rage rising in my chest

finally, after Jason said those words, came pouring out and swallowed everything.

I shoved Jason away hard,

and fled that suffocating place like a woman gone mad.

On my way out, I threw everything I had into slamming the door behind me.

Once outside, I dropped all three of the pills the doctor had given me straight into the trash,

then pulled up the number that had no name saved to it but that I knew by heart, and made the call.

"I want Jason and that bitch to get exactly what they deserve."

Watching that familiar figure vanish in a hurry from sight,

Jason felt a strange, enormous unease flash through him.

It was worse than the unease of the scheme he'd set in motion five years ago.

"Jason…"

A pair of soft, boneless hands caught his forearm.

Before Jason could come back to himself, Hester's soft body had already sunk into his arms.

"That deadweight is finally gone. When she's here, even the air in the house smells foul to me…"

"But it's all better now. You promised you'd cook for me yourself today. What are you standing around for? Go on to the kitchen…"

Five years. In this house he'd shared countless tender moments like this with Hester.

But today, for some reason, he felt uneasy about it.

Almost without thinking, he slowly pushed the woman out of his arms.

All he could think of, all that filled his mind, was that thin figure swimming inside a hospital gown.

He saw no reason to hide it.

So he picked up his phone and called the assistant directly.

"Go bring my wife back."

The assistant froze for a beat, then asked carefully,

"Your wife? Isn't Miss Hester right there with you?"

"Have you forgotten who my wife is? I mean Fiona!"

The assistant hung up in a fluster.

The living room, always so lively, dropped into dead silence.

But there was nothing in Jason's chest except agitation.

Minute by minute the time passed, and when the sky had gone fully dark,

the assistant burst through the villa's front door in a panic.

His chest heaved, his face was bloodless, and he stared hard at Jason, his voice shaking.

"Sir, your wife is gone…"

"On the river bridge, the one where the two of you fell in love. Years of blood loss caught up with her. She lost her footing and fell. She died on the spot…"