Two months after Marcus died, the first thing that felt wrong wasn’t the phone call—it was how my body reacted to it.

I was at my kitchen table in Oak Park, staring at a half-finished crossword I couldn’t remember starting, when my hand began to shake hard enough that the pencil rolled off the page. I watched it spin, heard it tap the floor, and thought, That’s new.

The phone rang again—sharp, insistent—and when I picked up, a woman’s voice said my name like she’d already decided the conversation was going to matter.

“Thomas Greer?”

“Yes.”

“This is Evelyn Hart. I’m Marcus Bennett’s attorney.”

The air went thin. Marcus’s name still lived in my throat like a splinter.

“I… I’m sorry,” I managed, because that’s what you say when you don’t know what else to do.

“I know,” she replied, but her tone wasn’t condolence. It was careful. Professional in the way a nurse is professional when she’s about to tell you your test results are not what you hoped.

“I have something Marcus left for you,” she said. “A USB drive. He included one request.”

I let out a small breath. “He always did like leaving people with tasks.”

“Mr. Greer,” she said, and my stomach tightened at the way she clipped the words, “he wrote it clearly. Watch it alone. And don’t tell your wife, Vanessa.”

I actually laughed. A short, stupid sound. “Is this… is this one of his jokes? Because if so, that’s—”

“It’s not a joke,” she interrupted, and the flatness in her voice snapped the humor right out of the room. “Can you come downtown today? I’d rather not send this through the mail.”

Downtown Chicago in late fall has a particular kind of gray that feels personal. The Loop rattled with trains overhead. Rain turned LaSalle into a long mirrored corridor, and every pedestrian looked like they were sprinting away from their own thoughts.

Evelyn Hart met me in a building that smelled like copier toner and lemon cleaner. She didn’t offer coffee. She didn’t offer condolences. She ushered me into a small conference room, closed the door, and pulled the blinds like we were about to discuss a crime instead of a dead friend.

She slid a thin, silver USB drive across the table. It looked ordinary, like something a college kid would use to bring a paper to class.

“Watch it now,” she said.

“I can take it home—”

“No,” she said, sharper now. “You’ll watch it here. Alone. And you won’t carry it home like a souvenir.”

I stared at the drive. “What is this, Evelyn?”

Her eyes didn’t soften. “Something Marcus recorded close to the end. He told me, ‘If Thomas argues, tell him I didn’t have time to argue.’”

That sounded like him. Marcus Bennett had been a private investigator for decades—the kind of man who noticed when the waitress wore her wedding ring on the wrong hand, the kind who could tell you which neighbor was lying just by watching their shoes.

He was also my best friend for fifty years. Sundays and scotch. Golf and bad jokes. The kind of friendship you don’t replace because your life is too full of shared history to make room for a duplicate.

Two months ago, cancer took him like it takes everyone: slowly, and then all at once.

Evelyn set a laptop on the table and turned it toward me. “I’ll step out,” she said. “When it’s done, call me.”

“Wait,” I said, because some part of me wanted an adult in the room, someone to say this was all a misunderstanding. “If this is about Vanessa—”

“Call me when it’s done,” she repeated, and walked out.

The door clicked shut.

I sat there for a long moment listening to my own breathing, to the murmur of office life beyond the blinds. I plugged in the drive.

A folder opened automatically. One file. THOMAS—WATCH ALONE.

My finger hovered on the trackpad like it was about to set off an alarm.

Then I clicked.

Marcus’s face filled the screen, and I forgot how to inhale.

He was thinner than I remembered, cheeks hollow, skin sallow under hospital lighting. Tubes ran beneath his collarbone. But his eyes—God, his eyes were still the same. Sharp enough to cut glass. Alive in a way that made the rest of him feel unfairly temporary.

He didn’t smile.

“Tom,” he said, and my chest clenched like someone had reached inside and twisted something vital.

“If you’re watching this, it means I’m gone. Don’t do the thing you do, where you sit there and tell yourself it’s probably fine. It’s not probably fine.”

He paused, like he was choosing words with the last of his strength. Then he leaned closer to the camera, and his voice dropped into the tone he used when he was still working a case.

“I’m going to tell you some things you haven’t told anybody.”

My mouth went dry.

“This morning,” Marcus said, “you walked out to the mailbox and you stood on the porch one second longer than usual because you got dizzy. You told yourself it was the weather. You gripped the railing with your left hand, because your right hand is shaking more lately and you don’t want Vanessa to notice.”

I stiffened so hard my joints ached.

“You’ve been nauseous in the mornings,” he continued, “especially when you smell coffee. You’ve lost weight you didn’t try to lose. Your handwriting has started to look like you’re signing your name on a boat.”

My throat made a small, involuntary sound. I looked at my hands like they belonged to someone else.

Marcus’s gaze stayed fixed on the camera, unwavering. “Tom, those aren’t random. Those are patterns.”

He let the word hang there, heavy.

“You and I have seen patterns,” he said. “Patterns don’t show up by accident.”

My pulse hammered in my ears.

“Now listen to me,” Marcus said, and there was an exhaustion in his face that made his next words feel like a final lift of something too heavy. “I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want my last gift to you to be fear. But I’d rather you hate me alive than love me dead.”

He swallowed, winced, and continued anyway.

“Vanessa is going to offer you something tonight,” he said. “Something small. Ordinary. Comforting. She’ll say you look tired. She’ll put on that sweet voice. She’ll hold the cup like she’s handing you peace. And if you drink it the way you’ve been drinking it… you won’t wake up tomorrow.”

The room felt like it shrank around me. The air pressed into my ribs.

Marcus raised a hand, trembling slightly. “Don’t panic. Panic makes you sloppy, and sloppy gets you killed. You’re going to do exactly what I tell you. I wrote it down too, in case you’re watching this and your brain turns to mush, which it will, because you’re stubborn and you think you’re invincible.”

He drew a breath and steadied himself.

“First,” he said, “do not confront her. Not yet. Not until you have a witness. Not until you have proof. Because you’ll do that righteous thing where you try to talk your way through a nightmare, and she’ll cry, and you’ll back down, and then she’ll finish the job.”

My skin went cold.

“Second,” Marcus continued, “check your life insurance policy. Check the beneficiary. Check the changes. There’s a file in the USB with scans. There are signatures that aren’t yours.”

I blinked, confused.

“Third,” he said, “the neighbor across the street? The one with the wind chimes? Mrs. Donnelly? She’s been noticing things. Vanessa has been taking trash out late. Meeting someone in a black sedan. Don’t dismiss her because she’s old and lonely. She’s old and lonely and she watches everything.”

He coughed, hard enough that the tubes tugged. When he recovered, his eyes looked like they’d sharpened into something almost angry.

“And Tom,” he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

That did it. My vision blurred. I reached up without thinking and wiped my face like I was embarrassed to cry in front of a laptop.

“I should’ve told you sooner,” Marcus said, voice rough. “I started looking into her after the second ‘accidental’ change to your accounts. I didn’t want to insult you. I didn’t want to admit you might’ve been fooled. But you don’t hire a con artist by marrying her. You hire her by being lonely.”

My throat tightened with something like shame.

“You love her,” Marcus said. “Or you love who you think she is. But she’s not who you think. She’s done this before.”

His eyes held mine through the screen like he was still sitting across a bar table from me.

“You’re going to survive this, Tom,” he said. “And you’re going to be angry. That anger is useful. Use it to stay alive.”

He paused again, and for the first time, his expression softened into something that looked like grief—his own.

“I wish I had more time,” he whispered. “I wish my last days weren’t spent trying to save you from your own house.”

Then his jaw set.

“But here we are,” he said. “So do what I’m telling you. Because if you don’t… you’ll join me sooner than you should.”

The video ended.

The screen went black, and I sat there frozen, my hands locked around the edges of the laptop like it was the only solid thing in the room.

The door opened a crack.

Evelyn’s voice drifted in. “Thomas?”

I couldn’t speak. My mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

She came in carefully, like she could see the shock hanging in the air.

“You believe him,” she said quietly.

I stared at her. “Why… why didn’t he tell the police?”

Evelyn’s lips pressed together. “He did. In his way. There are records. But Marcus didn’t trust timing. He didn’t trust that anyone would move fast enough. And he didn’t trust that you wouldn’t protect your wife out of habit.”

My stomach dropped again.

“There’s more on the drive,” she said, tapping the metal. “Documents. Photos. Notes. Marcus built a case. Not enough to guarantee an arrest without your cooperation, but enough to make a detective pay attention.”

She hesitated. “Do you want me to call someone?”

I thought about Vanessa’s face—how she smiled at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. How she touched my shoulder in public like she was marking property. How she always insisted on making my evening tea since my “sleep got worse.”

“No,” I whispered, surprised by the steadiness of my own voice. “Not yet. Not without a plan.”

Evelyn studied me, and then nodded once. “Okay. Then you’ll take a copy of everything except the video. The video stays with me. Marcus wanted you protected from yourself.”

A humorless laugh escaped me. “He knew me too well.”

She printed a small packet of instructions Marcus had apparently typed up—short, blunt, and terrifyingly practical—and handed it over like it was a prescription.

At the bottom, in Marcus’s handwriting, was one final note:

Don’t die being polite.

Chicago kept moving when I walked out. Wipers swished. Buses hissed. People hurried under umbrellas like the world had never ended in a conference room on the fifteenth floor.

I drove home feeling like I was returning to a place I no longer recognized.

My neighborhood looked the same—bare trees, wet sidewalks, porch lights glowing against the early dark. My own house sat there calmly, a two-story brick thing that had held decades of my life. I’d raised a son in that house. Buried a first wife from that house. I’d believed it couldn’t become unfamiliar simply because someone new moved in.

The porch light was on when I pulled into the driveway, spilling a soft glow onto wet stone.

The house smelled like lavender and polished wood when I opened the door.

And from the living room, Vanessa called my name the way she always did—sweet as sugar.

“Tom? Is that you?”

Her voice was warm. Familiar. The voice that told me I wasn’t alone at seventy, that I still mattered to someone.

But Marcus’s words echoed so loudly in my head they felt like their own sound: Tonight, she’ll offer you something small. Ordinary. Comforting.

Vanessa stepped into view holding a porcelain cup with both hands like it was fragile. Steam curled up between us like a quiet question.

“There you are,” she said with a bright smile. “You were gone longer than I thought.”

“I had… errands,” I said. My voice sounded normal. That terrified me. I’d expected it to crack. To expose me.

“You look pale.” She took two steps closer. “I made you chamomile. With honey. It’ll settle your stomach.”

There it was. The small, ordinary comfort. The kind of thing a wife does.

She lifted the cup toward me. Her nails were perfect. Her wedding ring flashed. Her eyes looked at my face with a practiced softness.

“Drink,” she said gently. “Please. I hate seeing you so tired.”

My fingers tightened inside my coat pocket around the crumpled paper Marcus had left me, as if I could hold onto his voice by holding onto ink.

I forced a smile that felt like forcing a door shut against a storm. “You’re an angel.”

She laughed lightly. “Someone has to take care of you.”

I reached out, took the cup, and felt the warmth through the porcelain.

Then I did the hardest thing I’d done in years.

I lied smoothly.

“Actually,” I said, turning slightly as if distracted, “I need to wash my hands first. Downtown is filthy.”

Vanessa’s smile stayed in place, but I saw the micro-moment—barely a flicker—where her eyes sharpened. Not angry. Not scared. Assessing.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

I walked toward the kitchen with the cup in my hand, heart hammering so hard it made my vision pulse.

The sink faucet ran. Water splashed. I stared at my reflection in the window over the sink—an old man with graying hair and a face that suddenly looked more fragile than I’d ever allowed myself to admit.

I set the cup down on the counter.

My hands shook.

Don’t panic. Panic makes you sloppy.

I took a breath, then another. I remembered Marcus saying: Don’t die being polite.

In the drawer beside the sink, we kept a box of herbal tea packets and, because Vanessa liked “natural living,” little droppers of vitamins and supplements she insisted I take.

I opened the drawer slowly.

Then I heard her heels click into the kitchen.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

I turned, forcing my expression into mild annoyance. “You know me. Old hands. Always fumbling.”

She came closer, her perfume clean and floral. Her gaze flicked to the cup on the counter.

“You didn’t drink,” she said.

“I will,” I replied, too quickly.

Her eyes met mine. “Tom.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a pin.

I lifted the cup and raised it halfway, like I was about to satisfy her.

Her shoulders eased by a fraction.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I’d set it to vibrate earlier—Evelyn had insisted I keep it on, and she’d texted me one simple line: If you feel unsafe, call 911 and say “medical emergency.” No explanations.

I pulled the phone out and glanced at the screen as if distracted by a spam call.

Vanessa leaned in. “Who is that?”

“Unknown number,” I said. “Probably robocall.”

“Ignore it,” she said, but her voice tightened. “Drink your tea.”

I held the cup.

The steam curled into my face.

My body screamed at me to do what I’d always done—keep the peace, avoid a scene, take the comfort offered.

I took a small sip.

It tasted slightly bitter under the honey. Nothing dramatic. Nothing obvious. Just… wrong.

Vanessa watched my throat move.

“That’s it,” she murmured, smiling again. “Good.”

I forced myself to swallow without coughing.

Then I set the cup down and said, as casually as I could, “I forgot—I promised Mr. Donnelly I’d call him back about his fence. I’ll do that and then I’ll finish this.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Right now?”

“Just a minute.”

She held my gaze a moment longer, and something passed between us that I’d never seen before. Not love. Not tenderness. Something clinical.

“Of course,” she said finally. “Take your time.”

She walked out of the kitchen like nothing was wrong.

The second she was gone, I moved.

I didn’t dump the tea in the sink—that would splash, leave scent, leave evidence. Instead I poured it carefully into a clean glass jar we kept for leftovers, screwed the lid on tight, and shoved it behind the flour canister.

My hands were so cold they didn’t feel attached to me.

Then I did what Marcus told me: I found a witness.

I crossed to the front window and looked out at the house across the street. Mrs. Donnelly’s curtains shifted.

She was watching. Just like Marcus said.

I stepped onto the porch and waved.

Her front door opened almost immediately, like she’d been waiting all day for permission.

“Thomas?” she called, voice warbling with age. “It’s raining.”

“I know,” I said, moving down the steps with my heart in my throat. “Can I… can I come over for a minute?”

She stared at me, then at my house behind me.

“Oh,” she said softly, like she understood something without being told. “Of course you can.”

Inside her living room smelled like cinnamon and old books. A game show played quietly on the television, ignored.

Mrs. Donnelly shuffled to her couch and patted the cushion beside her.

“You’re shaking,” she observed. “Are you sick?”

“I might be,” I said, and my voice broke on the last word. I hated that it did. Hated how small it made me feel.

She leaned closer. “Is it your heart?”

“It might be…” I swallowed. “It might be my wife.”

Mrs. Donnelly went very still. Her eyes sharpened in a way that reminded me, suddenly, that old doesn’t mean unaware. Old just means people underestimate you.

“I’ve seen her,” Mrs. Donnelly said quietly. “At night.”

My stomach flipped. “What?”

“Out by the trash,” she whispered. “Not taking it out. Waiting. A car comes. She leans in the window. They talk. Once, she handed him something small. Like a pill bottle.”

My skin crawled.

I heard the front door of my house open. A slice of light spilled out.

Vanessa’s voice carried faintly across the rain: “Tom?”

Mrs. Donnelly gripped my arm. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Thomas, what is—”

I forced calm into my face. “Mrs. Donnelly, I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“If I call 911,” I said, “will you tell them I came here because I felt dizzy after drinking tea my wife gave me?”

Her eyes widened. “Tea?”

“Please.”

Mrs. Donnelly didn’t hesitate. She grabbed her phone with hands that shook less than mine.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll tell them.”

The irony hit me like a slap: I’d lived seventy years thinking I had to handle things alone, and now the person saving me might be my neighbor with wind chimes.

My phone buzzed again. This time it was a call.

Evelyn.

I answered in a whisper. “Evelyn.”

“Thomas,” she said, clipped. “Are you safe?”

“No,” I said simply. “She gave me the tea.”

A pause. Then: “Call 911. Now.”

I didn’t argue.

I called. My voice sounded like someone else’s as I said, “I need an ambulance. I’m having… a medical emergency.”

The dispatcher’s questions came quick. Where are you. What symptoms. Are you conscious. Are you alone.

I answered, and while I did, Vanessa appeared across the street under her umbrella, her face pulled tight with irritation disguised as concern.

She saw me in Mrs. Donnelly’s window.

Our eyes met.

And in that look, her sweetness vanished.

She smiled anyway and waved.

I waved back.

The ambulance arrived fast—sirens slicing the rain. Two EMTs rushed in, and behind them, a police officer who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else until he saw my age, my shaking hands, my pallor.

“What happened?” one EMT asked.

I opened my mouth, and Mrs. Donnelly spoke before I could.

“He drank tea his wife gave him,” she said, voice trembling but determined. “And he got dizzy. He’s been getting worse for weeks.”

Vanessa stepped into the room as if she belonged in every part of my life, umbrella dripping on the rug.

“Oh my God,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Tom! What are you doing over here? I was looking everywhere for you.”

Her eyes flicked to the EMTs, to the officer, to Mrs. Donnelly.

Then she put on the voice again—soft, wounded, devoted. “He’s been stressed since Marcus died. He forgets things. He panics. He’s old, you know?”

The officer’s brow furrowed. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

“Vanessa Greer,” she said, the name slipping out smoothly, like she’d practiced it in a mirror.

The EMT took my blood pressure and frowned.

The other asked, “What did you drink?”

“Chamomile,” Vanessa offered quickly. “With honey. That’s all.”

The officer looked at me. “Sir?”

I met his gaze, and I heard Marcus’s voice in my head again, steady and blunt.

Proof. Witness. Don’t confront her without a net.

“My friend left me something,” I said quietly. “A warning.”

Vanessa’s eyes sharpened. “Tom—”

I lifted a hand, not to stop her, but to show the officer I wasn’t confused.

“My wife has been handling my medications,” I said. “My accounts. My insurance. And I think… I think she’s been making changes that aren’t mine.”

Vanessa laughed—too bright, too fast. “This is insane. He’s grieving. He’s paranoid.”

The officer’s posture changed slightly. Not aggressive. Just… alert.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to step outside with another officer while we assess your husband.”

Another officer had arrived behind him, and now there were two uniforms in the small living room.

Vanessa’s smile tightened at the corners. “I’m not leaving him.”

“You can stand right outside the door,” the officer said. “But I need space.”

Vanessa looked at me.

Her eyes were cold now. Not angry. Not pleading. Just calculating, like someone reading a situation and looking for the fastest exit.

“Tom,” she said softly, “what are you doing?”

I surprised myself by speaking with something like steel. “Staying alive.”

For a heartbeat, her mask slipped. Not fully. Just enough that I saw something underneath that made my stomach turn—not hatred, not rage.

Indifference.

Then she turned and stepped outside.

The EMTs lifted me onto a stretcher. As they wheeled me out, I caught sight of Vanessa by the porch, speaking to the officer with her hands fluttering in practiced distress.

And I caught sight of another figure down the sidewalk—a man in a dark coat, holding a phone up as if he’d been filming.

A black sedan sat idling at the curb.

Mrs. Donnelly’s voice whispered behind me: “That’s the car.”

In the ambulance, as the siren wailed and the city blurred into streaks of wet light, my head swam. The nausea rose hard, and fear tried to claw its way back into my throat.

But then my phone buzzed again. A text this time, from Evelyn:

Police are contacting a detective Marcus worked with. Don’t say anything else until they arrive. You did the right thing.

At the hospital, everything moved fast and slow at the same time—bright lights, clipped questions, needles, monitors. A young doctor with tired eyes introduced herself as Dr. Kwan and asked what I’d consumed, what meds I took, when symptoms started.

“I thought it was grief,” I admitted, voice hoarse. “I thought it was age.”

Dr. Kwan nodded like she’d heard that sentence a hundred times. “Sometimes it’s neither.”

A detective arrived before midnight.

Detective Salazar. Broad shoulders, rain-dark hair, eyes that didn’t waste energy pretending this was routine.

He pulled a chair close to my bed and said, “Thomas Greer?”

“Yes.”

“I knew Marcus Bennett,” he said, and his voice softened for the briefest moment. “He sent me a sealed packet a week before he died. Said if anything happened to you, I’d know why.”

My throat tightened. “He really thought of everything.”

Salazar’s gaze held mine. “He thought of you. Now I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer carefully.”

Vanessa wasn’t allowed in the room at first. Not while they questioned me. She was in the waiting area, apparently insisting this was all a misunderstanding, insisting I was confused, insisting the police were harassing a grieving wife.

Salazar slid a folder onto my bed tray.

Inside were copies of documents I hadn’t seen in years.

My life insurance policy. A change of beneficiary form. My signature—shaky, uneven, wrong.

A bank authorization I never signed.

A printout of emails from my account I didn’t write.

And photos—grainy but clear enough—of Vanessa in the rain beside that black sedan, leaning into the window, exchanging something small.

I stared until the words blurred.

“She… she’s been doing it for weeks,” I whispered, more to myself than to Salazar.

“Months,” Salazar corrected. “Possibly longer.”

A nurse came in with a small evidence bag.

Inside was the glass jar I’d hidden behind the flour canister—Mrs. Donnelly had let the officers into my kitchen while I was gone.

Dr. Kwan’s face tightened as she read the preliminary lab results.

“There’s something in this that doesn’t belong in tea,” she said carefully.

I swallowed hard. “Can you tell what?”

She hesitated, then said, “We’ll let the toxicology panel confirm specifics. But yes, there’s an adulterant. And it’s consistent with your symptoms.”

Salazar leaned forward. “Thomas,” he said quietly, “did Vanessa have access to your medications? Supplements? Anything you consumed regularly?”

I laughed once, bitter. “She insisted on it.”

Salazar nodded. “Then we treat this as attempted homicide.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. Attempted homicide. In my life, in my bed, in my marriage. Not a story on the news. Not something that happens to other people.

I turned my head toward the window, toward the rain-streaked glass, and all I could think was: Marcus saved me from my own home.

By the time dawn rolled in, pale and cold, Vanessa’s performance cracked.

Detective Salazar came back into my room, jaw set.

“We found the man in the sedan,” he said. “He ran when patrol approached. Left the car behind. We have his phone, which is… informative.”

He let the pause hang.

“And Vanessa?” I asked, heart thudding.

Salazar exhaled. “She tried to leave the hospital an hour ago. Said she needed to ‘feed the cat.’”

We didn’t have a cat.

“She’s in custody,” he said. “We’re executing a warrant on your house.”

My chest rose and fell like I’d been underwater too long.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment, all I saw was Vanessa standing in my kitchen, holding a cup like she was handing me comfort.

Then I saw Marcus’s face on that screen, eyes sharp, voice steady, refusing to comfort me because comfort would’ve killed me.

That afternoon, Evelyn Hart sat beside my hospital bed with her hands folded in her lap. For the first time, she looked tired—like the adrenaline had worn off and left only the weight.

“We’re going to need your statement,” she said. “And Marcus’s video will be entered into evidence if needed.”

I stared at the ceiling. “He told you to keep the video.”

“He told me to keep you alive,” she corrected gently.

A silence stretched.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” I admitted. “Even after… even after he said it.”

Evelyn’s eyes softened. “That’s why Marcus didn’t try to scare you with a monster story. He gave you a map. He knew fear wouldn’t work on you. Pride would.”

I let out a shaky breath that might’ve been a laugh if my throat hadn’t been so tight.

Later that evening, Detective Salazar returned with one more folder.

He placed it on my bed tray and opened it to a photograph.

It was Vanessa—years younger than she looked now—standing beside an older man, smiling sweetly. The man’s obituary was clipped beside the photo.

Cause of death: sudden heart failure.

Another photo. Another man. Another obituary.

And under them, in Marcus’s neat writing, a line that made my stomach twist:

She doesn’t fall in love. She targets.

“I’m sorry,” Salazar said, and this time, it sounded like he meant it.

I stared at the photos until my eyes burned.

“I’m seventy,” I whispered, voice hollow. “I thought… I thought at seventy, you’re safe from this kind of thing.”

Salazar shook his head slowly. “At seventy, you’re just more likely to excuse the warning signs.”

That night, after the hospital quieted, after nurses checked my vitals and the hallway lights dimmed, I lay awake listening to the beep of the monitor and thinking of Marcus.

I pictured him in those last days—thin, tired, in pain—choosing to spend whatever strength he had left building a case to save me.

I imagined him typing those notes, scanning those documents, calling Evelyn, calling Salazar, knowing he might not live long enough to see whether it worked.

And I realized something that landed in my chest like a stone:

Marcus didn’t get to rest at the end.

He stayed on the case until his last breath.

The next morning, my son flew in from Denver, eyes red from worry and anger. He stood by my bed and gripped my hand like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.

“Dad,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me things were… off?”

I looked at him—at the grown man who still had a trace of the boy I’d raised—and I felt the old instinct to protect everyone from ugly truths.

Then I remembered Marcus’s note.

Don’t die being polite.

So I told him the truth.

“I didn’t want to believe I could be fooled,” I said. “And I didn’t want to believe the person I let into our house could… hate me.”

My son swallowed hard. “Did she hate you?”

I stared at the ceiling again, remembering Vanessa’s eyes when she thought no one was watching.

“No,” I said quietly. “That’s the worst part. I don’t think she felt anything at all.”

Weeks later, when the house no longer smelled like lavender but like evidence bags and emptied closets, I stood in my kitchen holding a different cup of tea—one I made myself with hands still a little shaky, but steady enough to remind me I was alive.

Mrs. Donnelly rang my doorbell that afternoon, clutching a small plate wrapped in foil.

“I made lemon bars,” she announced, chin lifted with stubborn pride. “Because you look like a man who forgot what sugar tastes like.”

I laughed—an actual laugh this time, surprised by it.

“Come in,” I said. “Please.”

She shuffled inside, looked around at the stripped shelves, the bare countertops.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “About… everything.”

I nodded. “Me too.”

Then she peered up at me, eyes sharp behind her glasses. “Your friend Marcus,” she said. “He must’ve loved you a great deal.”

My throat tightened again, but it didn’t break me the way it had in that conference room.

“He did,” I said. “In the way that counts.”

That night, I sat at my table and opened a small box Evelyn had delivered earlier that day. Inside was the silver USB drive—returned to me now that it was part of the case, now that it couldn’t disappear.

A note sat on top in Evelyn’s handwriting:

Marcus told me to give this back to you when it was safe. He said, “Thomas will need to hear my voice again someday. He’ll pretend he doesn’t. But he will.”

I held the drive in my palm, cold and light, and I thought about how close I’d come to dying in my own kitchen because I’d confused comfort with safety.

I plugged it into my laptop and stared at the file again.

My finger hovered.

And before I clicked, I whispered into the empty room, voice thick:

“Alright, Marcus. I’m here.”

The video started, and his face filled the screen again—tired, sharp-eyed, stubborn to the end.

And this time, instead of freezing, instead of drowning in fear, I listened like a man who’d been given his life back.

Because he had.

And outside, the wind chimes across the street rang softly in the dark, steady as a heartbeat, like a reminder from the world itself:

You’re still here.