PART 3
The woman on the phone stopped whispering.
For several seconds, I heard nothing except her breathing.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Someone who knows what happened on **April 14**.”
My fingers tightened around the silver key.
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You called me.”
“I called because you deserve the chance to find out before Callum stops you.”
My stomach turned.
Behind the hotel-room door, my husband—the man I had married less than twelve hours earlier—was still asleep.
Or at least I thought he was.
“Where does the key go?”
A pause.
Then the woman said, **“Central Station. Lower level. Locker B-17.”**
The call ended.
I immediately tried calling back.
The number was unavailable.
For a moment, I simply stood there beneath the hallway’s warm lights, wearing yesterday’s happiness like something that suddenly belonged to somebody else.
**April 14.**
The date meant nothing to me.
And somehow that frightened me more.
I went back inside.
Callum had rolled onto his side. His face looked peaceful, familiar. I had traced that jaw with my fingertips a thousand times. I knew the tiny scar beside his eyebrow. I knew he hated olives, slept with one foot outside the blanket, and cried whenever he watched videos of soldiers coming home to their dogs.
I knew everything about him.
**Or I had believed I did.**
I opened my phone and searched our old messages.
April 14.
Four years earlier.
My breath caught.
That was **six days before I first met Callum.**
I remembered that period clearly.
I had been working at Hartwell & Pierce, an insurance company downtown. On April 14, I had stayed late helping archive old client files after our records department suffered what management called a “technical failure.”
Six days later, I met Callum at a coffee shop.
He had accidentally spilled coffee over my notebook.
At least, that was the story we had told at our wedding.
The cute accident.
The beginning of everything.
Suddenly it didn’t feel cute.
It felt calculated.
I looked at him.
Callum stirred.
I shoved the key into my pocket.
His eyes opened.
“Morning, wife.”
That smile almost destroyed me.
“Morning.”
He reached for me. “Come back to bed.”
“I was just organizing everything.”
He glanced toward his tuxedo.
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