Chapter 2: The Ghost of Greg

Three weeks had passed since that night in the basement, and Jake had become a master of pretense. He smiled at breakfast, kissed Ella goodbye each morning, and discussed dinner plans as if Sarah Jennings wasn't decomposing in their freezer twenty feet below the kitchen table.

The hardest part wasn't the nightmares or the constant nausea—it was maintaining the illusion of normalcy when every fiber of his being screamed that nothing would ever be normal again.

"You seem distracted lately, darling," Ella observed over her morning coffee, her tone carrying that particular note that made Jake's spine stiffen. "Is everything alright at work?"

Jake forced his hand steady as he buttered his toast. "Just busy season. You know how Peterson gets about quarterly reviews."

It was a lie, of course. Work had become his only refuge, the one place where he could almost forget what waited for him at home. But even there, Sarah's empty desk served as a constant reminder. Her replacement, a middle-aged man named Carl, had already filled her cubicle with pictures of his grandchildren.

"I was thinking," Ella continued, her voice light and conversational, "maybe we should take a vacation soon. Somewhere tropical. Just the two of us."

The way she said 'just the two of us' made Jake's blood run cold. He wondered if she was already planning their next 'threat elimination,' as she'd so casually called Sarah's murder.

"That sounds wonderful," he managed, the words tasting like ash.

After Ella's goodbye kiss—which now felt like a brand against his lips—Jake sat in his car for a full ten minutes before starting the engine. He couldn't keep living like this, trapped in a marriage that had revealed itself to be a beautifully decorated prison cell.

But what choice did he have? Go to the police? With what evidence? Sarah's body was gone—he'd watched Ella methodically dispose of the pieces over several nights, humming softly as she worked. And who would believe that the sweet, charming Ella Miller was capable of murder?

The answer came to him during lunch break, sitting in his car in the office parking lot. Greg. Ella's first husband.

Jake had always known about Greg in the abstract way one knows about a spouse's past relationships. Ella had been married before, briefly, in her early twenties. Greg had died in an accident—a hiking fall, Ella had said with appropriate sadness whenever the subject came up. They'd been married less than two years.

But now, with his new understanding of who Ella really was, Jake found himself wondering about the timing. About the circumstances. About whether Greg had discovered something he shouldn't have, just like Sarah.

That evening, Jake waited until Ella was absorbed in her evening routine—a precise ritual of skincare and hair care that took exactly forty-seven minutes—before slipping up to the attic.

Their house was a 1950s colonial with a spacious attic that Ella used for storage. Jake had only been up there a handful of times, usually to retrieve Christmas decorations or store seasonal items. But now, armed with a flashlight and desperate for answers, he began searching through the carefully labeled boxes.

Most contained exactly what their labels promised: holiday decorations, winter clothes, old textbooks from Ella's college years. But in the far corner, behind a stack of boxes marked "Kitchen - Extra," Jake found something that made his heart race.

A medium-sized cardboard box, unlabeled and covered in dust. Unlike everything else in Ella's meticulously organized attic, this box looked forgotten, hidden.

Inside, Jake's hands trembling in the flashlight beam, were the remnants of a life. Greg's life.

A wallet with an expired driver's license showed a man in his mid-twenties with kind eyes and a genuine smile. There were photographs—Greg with friends, Greg at what looked like a college graduation, Greg and Ella on their wedding day. In the wedding photo, Ella looked radiant as always, but there was something in Greg's expression, a subtle tension around his eyes, as if he was already sensing something wrong.

But it was the notebooks that made Jake's hands shake.

Three composition books, the kind students use in school, filled with Greg's handwriting. The first entries were mundane—grocery lists, work notes, reminders to call his mother. But as Jake read deeper, flipping through pages by flashlight, the tone began to shift.

March 15th - Ella seemed upset that I had lunch with Tom from work. I explained it was just business, but she got that look. The one that makes me feel like I've committed some terrible crime. Maybe I should be more considerate of her feelings.

April 2nd - She knew about the phone call with Mom before I told her. When I asked how, she just smiled and said wives always know. But Mom called my work line, not home. How could she know?

April 18th - Found Ella going through my desk drawers. She said she was looking for stamps, but I keep those in the kitchen. When I mentioned this, she got that cold look again. The one that makes my skin crawl.

Jake's heart pounded as he turned page after page, watching Greg's growing paranoia unfold in increasingly frantic handwriting.

May 5th - I think she's following me. Saw her car in the parking lot at the gym, but when I went to find her, she was gone. When I got home, she was in the kitchen making dinner like she'd been there all afternoon. Am I going crazy?

May 20th - She knows things she shouldn't know. About conversations I've had, places I've been, people I've talked to. I confronted her about it tonight, and she just smiled that perfect smile and asked if I was feeling alright. Maybe I'm not. Maybe this is all in my head.

June 3rd - It's not in my head. I hired a private investigator—secretly, paid in cash. He confirmed it. She's been having me followed for months. Professional surveillance. The kind that costs serious money. Where is she getting this money? Her job at the boutique can't pay for this level of... what do I even call it? Stalking? But she's my wife.

Jake had to stop reading for a moment, his hands shaking too badly to hold the notebook steady. This was his life now—the paranoia, the constant watching, the feeling that every conversation was somehow being monitored and catalogued.

He forced himself to continue.

June 15th - Found cameras. Tiny ones, hidden in the bedroom, bathroom, even my home office. Confronted her. She didn't deny it. Said it was for "our protection" and that married couples shouldn't have secrets. The way she said it... there was something in her voice. Something that made me want to run.

June 28th - Tried to leave today. Packed a bag while she was at work. But she was waiting when I got to the door. How did she know? She was supposed to be at the boutique until six. She cried, begged me not to leave her, said she couldn't live without me. For a moment, I almost believed her. Almost stayed. But then I saw her eyes. Even while crying, her eyes were calculating. Planning.

July 10th - I can't leave. Tried again yesterday, made it two blocks before my car broke down. When the tow truck brought it back, Ella was there with fresh lemonade and that understanding smile. The mechanic said it looked like someone had tampered with the brake lines, but Ella was so concerned, so loving, so perfect in her worry for my safety. Everyone thinks I'm lucky to have such a devoted wife.

The final entry was dated just a week before Greg's reported death.

July 18th - She's planning something. I can feel it. The way she looks at me when she thinks I'm not paying attention. The way she hums while cooking, like she's anticipating something wonderful. She suggested a hiking trip this weekend. Just the two of us, she said. Somewhere quiet and remote where we can "reconnect."

I don't want to go. Every instinct I have is screaming not to go. But what choice do I have? She's made it clear that leaving isn't an option. And if I refuse this trip, if I disappoint her again...

I keep thinking about that look in her eyes. The one I saw when she found the cameras I'd discovered. It wasn't anger or hurt. It was something else. Something predatory.

If something happens to me, if I don't come back from this trip, I want someone to know. This isn't an accident. This isn't bad luck or poor judgment.

This is Ella.

The notebook ended there, the final page torn, as if Greg had been interrupted mid-thought.

Jake closed the notebook with shaking hands, his mind reeling. Greg had died on a hiking trip, just as he'd feared. A tragic accident, the police report had concluded. A slip on loose rocks, a long fall, a young man's life cut short.

But it hadn't been an accident. It had been an execution, planned and carried out by the woman Jake had worshipped for over five years.

A soft sound from downstairs made Jake freeze—the bathroom door closing. Ella's routine was finished. She would be looking for him soon, wondering where her devoted husband had wandered off to.

With careful, silent movements, Jake returned everything to Greg's box exactly as he'd found it. As he prepared to climb back down to face his wife, one final item caught his eye—a small envelope at the very bottom of the box, underneath everything else.

Inside was a single photograph: Ella, much younger, maybe sixteen, standing next to a boy with sandy hair and freckles. They were both smiling, but there was something possessive in the way Ella's arm wrapped around the boy's waist, something too intense in her gaze as she looked at him instead of the camera.

On the back, in Ella's familiar handwriting: "Leo and me, sophomore year. My first soulmate."

Jake's blood turned to ice. First soulmate. Not Greg. Not him. Someone else entirely, someone who had come before both of them.

"Jake?" Ella's voice drifted up from the bedroom below, sweet and questioning. "Darling, where are you?"

"Just checking something in the attic," Jake called back, shoving the photograph into his pocket. "I'll be right down."

As he descended the ladder and closed the attic door, Jake's mind raced. How many soulmates had Ella had? How many men had she loved, controlled, and eventually eliminated when they threatened to leave her perfect world?

And most terrifying of all—what had happened to Leo, the fresh-faced boy in the photograph who had been unlucky enough to become Ella's first obsession?

"There you are," Ella said as Jake entered their bedroom, her smile radiant and loving. "I was starting to worry. What were you looking for up there?"

Jake forced his expression into what he hoped looked like sheepish embarrassment. "Christmas decorations. I know it's early, but I wanted to surprise you. Maybe put up some lights early this year."

The lie came surprisingly easily, and Jake realized with a chill that he was getting good at deception. Living with Ella was teaching him skills he'd never wanted to learn.

"Oh, darling," Ella's eyes lit up with genuine pleasure. "That's so thoughtful. But Christmas decorations are in the boxes marked 'Holiday - Living Room' and 'Holiday - Kitchen.' You must have been looking in the wrong section."

Of course she knew exactly where everything was. Ella knew everything.

"I'll find them tomorrow," Jake said, climbing into bed beside his wife, trying not to think about Greg's journals or the photograph burning in his pocket.

As Ella curled against him, her head on his chest and her arm possessively across his waist—exactly like in the photograph with Leo—Jake stared at the ceiling and wondered how many other men had lain in this same position, feeling the same growing dread, the same trapped desperation.

"Sweet dreams, my soulmate," Ella whispered against his chest.

But Jake knew there would be no sweet dreams tonight. Only questions about a boy named Leo, and the growing certainty that he was living in a house built on a foundation of perfectly planned murders.

In his pocket, Leo's young face smiled up from the photograph, frozen forever at sixteen, never knowing that his "first soulmate" would spend the next decade perfecting the art of keeping her loved ones close.

Even if it killed them.