The older detective shook his head sadly. “I was at your wedding, Mark. You were so happy then. What happened to you two?”
I couldn’t help but remember that first dinner after our wedding, when he took me to meet Emma.
I had worn my best dress, nervous about meeting Mark’s old friend. I didn’t know then that she was his first love.
The restaurant was expensive, all crystal and candlelight. Emma sat there like a queen, perfect in her designer dress.
Her eyes had swept over me, lips curving in a mock-innocent smile. “Mark, darling, who is this… aunt?”
I was only twenty-three, five years younger than her. But she made me feel ancient and shabby.
Mark’s face darkened instantly.
I could see the embarrassment and anger in his eyes – not at Emma’s cruelty, but at me for embarrassing him in front of his precious first love.
“Alice,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “go home and change. You look like you’re going to a market, not a fine dining restaurant.”
My cheeks burned with shame. The dress had cost me a month’s salary, but next to Emma’s elegant outfit, it might as well have been a potato sack.
“I… I’m sorry,” I whispered, fighting back tears.
“Just go,” he snapped, not even looking at me. “Emma and I will order first. Try to come back looking presentable.”
That was the first crack in my perfect marriage.
“Sir,” a young officer approached with case records. “I’ve checked the reports – no missing persons filed in the last few days.”
“A missing wife and the family didn’t even notice?” another officer wondered aloud. “What kind of relationship did they have?”
“What kind of husband doesn’t care when his wife disappears?” Mark muttered.
Their words wrapped around my ghost like chains, heavy with truth.
Mark would worry about a stranger’s corpse but never spared a thought for his missing wife.
When Emma had first returned to town, he had dropped everything to help her settle in.
But now he suspected my disappearance was just another trick to get his attention.
Perhaps I should never have married him.
This was Emma’s place in his heart, not mine.
The love that should have been mine had already been given to her years ago.
Mark handed the degraded paper from my stomach to the forensics team.
His colleague hesitated before speaking. “Do you think… do you think something might have really happened to Alice? Maybe I should look into it…”
“Oh, come on,” Mark interrupted. “You know how she is. She’s probably just hiding, waiting for me to come begging. She’ll call tomorrow, crying and apologizing like always.”
What he didn’t know was that there would be no call tomorrow.
No more apologies.
No more begging for the love I’d never had.
My corpse lay on their table, and still, he couldn’t see me.
I was just a replacement, a stand-in for the woman Mark had always loved.
And now, like a prop no longer needed, I had been discarded.
The only difference was that this time, the disposal was permanent.
