Chapter 4: The First Husband
He didn't sleep.
He sat at the kitchen table with his laptop open and his phone beside it and he searched her name until the sky outside the window started to lighten.
Victoria Harland.
That was the name she'd had before she married him.
He hadn't known that either.
It took him forty minutes to find the article.
It was from a regional newspaper, seven years old, buried under layers of newer search results.
The headline was short.
*Child Hospitalized After Home Accident.
Mother's Partner Questioned.*
He read it three times.
A two-year-old girl.
Burn injuries to the arm and shoulder.
The partner — a woman named Victoria Harland — had told police the child had pulled a hot drink from the counter.
The child's father, a man named Daniel Marsh, had disputed that account.
The case had been investigated.
No charges were filed.
The child had recovered.
Daniel Marsh.
Ethan wrote the name down on a piece of paper.
Old habit.
He called the unknown number at six in the morning.
It rang four times and then a woman answered.
"I wondered when you'd call," she said.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Claire.
I'm Daniel's sister.
Victoria dated my brother for two years.
She was living with him when it happened."
"The article said no charges were filed."
"The article is accurate.
That doesn't mean nothing happened." A pause.
"My niece still has the scars.
She's nine now.
She doesn't remember Victoria.
But she remembers being afraid."
Ethan closed his eyes.
"Why didn't you come forward before the wedding?
You said you tried."
"I sent a letter to your home address three months before the wedding.
Registered mail.
Someone signed for it."
He opened his eyes.
"I never received any letter."
Silence on the line.
"Someone signed for it," Claire said again, carefully.
Ethan looked toward the staircase.
"Can you meet me today?" he said.
"I'll send you the address.
Come alone."
He closed the laptop.
Upstairs, he could hear movement — footsteps crossing the bedroom floor, the sound of a tap running.
Victoria was awake.
He folded the piece of paper with Daniel Marsh's name on it and put it in his shirt pocket.
Then he went upstairs, changed his clothes quietly while Victoria was in the bathroom, and went to check on his son.
Rose was still in the rocking chair.
She hadn't slept either.
The baby was in his crib, breathing slowly, both small fists curled beside his face.
"Sir," Rose said quietly.
"I know," he said.
"I'm going out this morning.
Stay with him."
"I won't leave this room."
He looked at his son for a long moment.
Then he leaned down and pressed one hand lightly to the baby's back — just to feel him breathing.
"Rose." He straightened up.
"The letter.
The registered letter that came to the house about three months before the wedding.
Do you remember it?"
Rose looked at him steadily.
"I remember Victoria taking it from the front table before you came home.
I assumed it was something for the wedding."
"Did she say anything about it?"
"No, sir.
She put it in her coat pocket and I never saw it again."
Ethan nodded slowly.
He didn't say anything else.
He walked out of the nursery and pulled the door shut behind him.
May you like
Downstairs, the front door opened and closed quietly.
He was already gone before Victoria came out of the bedroom.
