Coffee grounds scattered across the counter like dark sand. Mara swept them into her palm, watching Daniel through the kitchen window as he pruned the rosebushes—methodical, careful, the way he approached everything. The way he'd approached her when they first met, like she might break if handled wrong.
"Clara."
She dropped the name into the morning quiet, testing its weight.
Daniel's pruning shears paused mid-cut. "What?"
"Clara Nguyen. The girl they found at Dogleg Curve." Mara kept her voice casual, conversational. "Terrible thing."
The shears trembled in his grip. One of the rose stems snapped clean through—not where he'd intended to cut, but inches below, ruining the shape he'd been crafting.
"I don't—" He set the shears down carefully on the garden bench, wiping his palms on his jeans. "Did we know her?"
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘦𝘳. Not 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘦𝘳. We.
"I don't think so." Mara poured coffee into two mugs, adding cream to his the way he liked it. "She was a student at the community college. Jogging major."
Daniel's laugh came out wrong—too sharp, too quick. "Is that a thing? Jogging major?"
"Exercise science." She handed him the coffee through the kitchen window. "She was training for the Portland Marathon."
His fingers brushed hers as he took the mug. They were ice-cold despite the October warmth.
"Poor girl," he murmured, staring into the coffee like it might hold answers. "Her parents must be—"
"Devastated." Mara sipped her coffee, watching his face. "They interviewed her mother on Channel 7. Said Clara never went jogging after dark. Said she was terrified of the cliffs."
Daniel's hand jerked. Coffee slopped over the rim, staining his fingers brown.
"Shit." He set the mug down hard. "Sorry. I'm—my hands are shaking."
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just tired." But his voice cracked on the word 𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥, and he turned away from her, back to the rosebushes. "Didn't sleep well."
Mara had felt him beside her all night—warm, solid, breathing steadily. But she'd learned not to trust her own perceptions anymore. The journal had shattered that luxury.
"Bad dreams?"
"Something like that." He picked up the pruning shears again, but his hands weren't steady enough for delicate work. Another stem snapped. "Christ."
"Daniel."
"I'm fine." He said it too forcefully, the way people do when they're trying to convince themselves. "Just need more coffee."
But he didn't reach for the mug. He stood frozen among the roses, staring at the broken stems like they'd personally betrayed him.
That evening, Mara lay in bed pretending to read while Daniel showered. The sound of running water couldn't mask the silence underneath—the absence of humming, whistling, any sign of the man who usually sang off-key snippets of classic rock while shampooing his hair.
He emerged from the bathroom pale and hollow-eyed, towel wrapped around his waist. The scar above his eyebrow seemed more prominent tonight, a white exclamation point in the lamplight.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Just tired," he repeated, sliding into bed beside her. "Really tired."
He turned away from her, curling into himself like a question mark. Within minutes, his breathing deepened into sleep.
Mara closed her book and settled into the darkness, every nerve ending tuned to the man beside her. Waiting.
At 2:17 AM, Daniel sat up.
His movements were fluid, deliberate—none of the groggy confusion of normal waking. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, shoulders straight, head tilted like he was listening to something she couldn't hear.
"Daniel?" she whispered.
He didn't respond. Didn't even twitch.
She watched him walk to the bedroom door, bare feet silent on the hardwood. His hand found the doorknob without fumbling, turned it without the usual squeak. He'd done this before.
Mara slipped from bed and followed, keeping to the shadows. Daniel moved through the house like he owned the darkness—down the stairs, through the kitchen, out the back door. The October air raised goosebumps on her arms, but he seemed unaffected, walking steadily across the yard in nothing but boxer shorts.
He stopped at the garden gate, fingers wrapping around the latch. For a moment, he stood perfectly still, head cocked toward the forest path that led to the cliffs.
Then he spoke.
"Not yet." His voice was different—flatter, stripped of warmth. "Not until she understands."
Mara's blood turned to ice water. He was talking to someone. But the yard was empty except for shadows and the distant sound of waves against rock.
"Soon," he said to the darkness. "When she's ready."
He turned and walked back toward the house, passing within inches of where she crouched behind the rhododendron bush. His eyes were open but empty, reflecting moonlight like a cat's.
Mara pressed her back against the house's siding, counting her heartbeats until she heard the bedroom door close upstairs. Then she crept inside, locked the back door, and checked the lock twice more.
When she returned to bed, Daniel was curled on his side, breathing deeply. Peaceful. Innocent.
She lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling and trying to rationalize what she'd witnessed. Sleepwalking. Stress. Grief over a patient, maybe—he'd mentioned losing someone recently, though he'd been vague about the details.
But rational explanations crumbled against the memory of his voice in the dark: 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴.
Understands what?
And why did she have the sinking feeling that 𝘴𝘩𝘦 was the one who needed to understand?
As morning light crept through the curtains, Mara made a decision. She needed proof—something concrete to anchor her spinning thoughts. Something that would either confirm her worst fears or put them to rest.
She needed to develop the film from last week's photo shoot. The roll she'd forgotten about, the one still sitting in her camera from the night they'd driven to the overlook to watch the sunset.
The night Clara Nguyen died.
Because if Daniel had been with her that entire evening, if she had photographic evidence of his whereabouts, then the journal was just the product of a troubled mind. A therapist's vicarious trauma, nothing more.
But if the photos showed something else—gaps in time, inconsistencies in his story—then she'd have to face the possibility that the man she'd married was capable of things she'd never imagined.
The darkroom would give her answers. She just wasn't sure she wanted to know what they were.