“Helen?” My voice sounded too loud in the stillness. “Chester?”

Nothing.

I moved through the living room, one hand trailing along the wall for balance. The architect in me noticed details without trying: curtains drawn tight at two in the afternoon, mail piled on the hall table, a faint staleness in the air.

“Helen, honey, I’m home.”

The bedroom door stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and the smell hit me first—stale sweat and something else, something human and wrong. She lay in our bed, sheets twisted around her legs, head turned toward the window where afternoon light tried to penetrate heavy drapes. The water pitcher on the nightstand was bone dry, tipped on its side.