The tiny lens inside the smoke detector was invisible, even from a foot away. I adjusted the angle on my phone app until the master bedroom came into sharp focus. My hands shook, not from fear, but from a cold, hard rage.
For months, Elena had been “too tired” for dates, “too drained” to talk, and constantly nursing headaches. I was a high-earner; she stayed home. The math didn’t add up, and my suspicion had finally boiled over into action.
I told her I was going on a three-day business trip to Portland. In reality, I checked into a motel ten minutes away. I sat on the lumpy bed, staring at the glowing screen of my tablet, waiting for *him* to show up.
The motion sensor pinged at 9:15 AM. My heart hammered against my ribs as the livestream loaded. Elena walked into the frame, but she wasn’t wearing the lingerie I expected.
She was wearing my old, stained college t-shirt and sweatpants with holes in the knees. She didn’t look like a woman preparing for a lover; she looked like a soldier preparing for war. She tied her hair back and vanished into the hallway.
I switched to the kitchen camera. She was dragging the heavy oak dining table across the floor by herself. I winced; that table weighed two hundred pounds, and I had promised to fix the wobbling leg six months ago.
She didn’t stop to rest. For the next three hours, I watched her scrub grout lines with a toothbrush. She climbed ladders to dust ceiling fans I hadn’t looked at in years. It was frantic, obsessive, almost violent cleaning.
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