Chapter 3: The Locked Briefcase
One of the patrol officers asked me to silence the alarm.
I walked to the panel and pressed the reset code.
The blaring stopped.
The neighborhood didn't.
Mrs.
Whitmore was still at her fence.
Mr.
Henderson had moved closer to the sidewalk.
Four more neighbors had appeared.
The community app was already lighting up — I could see it pulsing on Brooke's phone, which was still lying on the patio chair where she'd left it.
The officers asked everyone to step away from the pool area.
Ethan finally hauled himself out of the water.
He stood dripping on the concrete, wearing nothing but his swim shorts, his arms crossed over his chest like that might give him back some dignity.
"This is a private matter," he said to the officers.
"There's nothing criminal here."
"We received an emergency dispatch," the first officer said.
"We're required to follow up."
"My wife overreacted.
That's all."
I looked at him.
"Your wife pressed the button she installed on her own property.
That's all."
He turned to me with that expression I knew — the one that meant he was calculating, not angry.
Ethan was never purely angry.
He was always working an angle.
"Lauren, let's go inside and talk about this like adults."
"I'm not going inside with you, Ethan."
"You're making a spectacle of yourself."
"You made the spectacle," I said.
"I just turned on the lights."
Daniel had moved to the far edge of the patio.
Brooke had wrapped herself in her sundress — I'd let her take it, though I couldn't have told you why.
She was standing three feet away from her husband, and those three feet looked like a canyon.
"Daniel," she said.
"Please look at me."
He didn't.
I felt my phone in my hand.
The anonymous text was still on the screen.
*Check his briefcase.
The one he keeps locked in the garage.*
I'd had a garage for eleven years.
I knew every corner of it.
There was a workbench Ethan never used, a shelf of paint cans from the bedroom renovation, my bicycle, his golf clubs.
And yes — now that I thought about it — a black leather briefcase that sat on the top shelf, pushed toward the back.
The kind with a combination lock on each clasp.
I had asked about it once, maybe two years ago.
"Just work documents," he'd said.
"Contracts.
Nothing interesting."
I hadn't asked again.
The second officer was speaking quietly to Daniel.
The first was taking down my name and address for the report.
Ethan watched me the way a person watches a door they're not sure is locked.
"Whatever you're thinking," he said, lowering his voice, "don't."
"I'm not thinking anything, Ethan.
I'm listening."
"Lauren—"
"You should probably call a lawyer." I turned to the officer beside me.
"Can I go into my garage?
It's attached to the house."
"It's your property, ma'am."
I walked through the kitchen.
I heard Ethan behind me — "Lauren, stop — Lauren—" — and then the officer's voice telling him to remain in the yard.
The garage was dim and smelled like motor oil and old cardboard.
I pulled the cord on the overhead light.
The briefcase was exactly where I remembered it.
Black leather, worn at the corners, two brass combination locks.
I lifted it down from the shelf.
It was heavier than I expected.
I set it on the workbench.
I tried Ethan's birthday.
Nothing.
I tried our anniversary.
Nothing.
I tried the year we bought the house.
Both clasps snapped open.
I stood there for a moment with my hand on the lid.
Then I heard Ethan's voice from the kitchen doorway — he'd gotten past the officer somehow, or the officer had followed him in.
"Put that down." His voice had changed.
The calculation was gone.
"Lauren.
May you like
Put it down right now."
I opened the briefcase.
