PART 2 — THE HUSBAND WHO NEVER LEFT TOWN
The police tried calling Daniel repeatedly.
He never answered.
Detective Kellan contacted his company while officers searched the house.
When he ended the call, his face was grim.
“Daniel was never sent on a business trip.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“No flight was booked. The hotel reservation was false. His company hasn’t seen him for four days.”
Four days earlier, Daniel had kissed my forehead, picked up his suitcase, and told me he would call from Chicago.
Now I had no idea where he was.
Or why he had lied.
That evening, police searched every room while I sat downstairs wrapped in a blanket. I listened to drawers opening, footsteps crossing the ceiling, and officers speaking quietly behind closed doors.
Eventually, Kellan returned carrying a small metal box from Daniel’s office.
Inside were old newspaper articles.
Dozens of them.
Every clipping concerned the three women who had disappeared twenty-two years earlier.
Photographs of the victims.
Reports about the yellow roses.
Investigators’ theories.
There were handwritten notes along the margins.
Daniel’s handwriting.
My chest tightened as I remembered the man I had loved for eighteen years—the man who cooked terrible pancakes every Sunday, who remembered my favourite coffee creamer, and who held me through my father’s funeral.
Had he been studying the murders?
Or had he been involved in them?
By midnight, Daniel was considered a prime suspect.
I did not sleep.
The following morning, Detective Kellan returned with forensic results from the florist order.
“The fingerprints are not Daniel’s,” he said.
Relief and confusion collided inside me.
“Then whose are they?”
Kellan hesitated.
“They belong to Amos.”
I did not recognise the name.
“He was a detective,” Kellan continued. “He worked the original case with your father.”
My father’s former partner.
Kellan sat across from me and lowered his voice.
“Your father suspected Amos before he died, but he never found enough evidence to arrest him.”
“Why would Amos send flowers to me?”
“We don’t believe they were intended as a threat against you.”
“Then what were they?”
“Bait.”
Kellan explained that Daniel had somehow obtained my father’s old investigation notes. He must have been secretly examining the case and getting close to proving Amos was responsible.
The false business trip had likely been Daniel’s attempt to investigate without placing me in danger.
Amos had discovered what he was doing.
The bouquet was designed to frighten me, confuse the police, and make Daniel appear connected to the original crimes.
The newspaper clippings had not been trophies.
They were evidence Daniel had been studying.
I covered my face.
I had spent an entire night wondering whether my husband was a murderer.
In reality, he might have disappeared because he was trying to expose one.
Police traced Amos to an abandoned hunting cabin outside the city.
I was taken to the station and told to remain there while officers searched the property.
Every minute felt endless.
I sat beneath the fluorescent lights holding Daniel’s wedding ring. He had left it on the dresser before leaving, probably because he feared it might identify him if Amos caught him.
Hours later, Detective Kellan entered the room.
His eyes were wet.
“He’s alive.”
I jumped to my feet.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
The sound that left me was part sob and part prayer.
Daniel returned home two days later with bruises across his face and a bandage around one wrist.
The moment he stepped through the doorway, I ran into his arms.
“I thought you were dead.”
He held me tightly.
“I’m sorry, Amber.”
He explained that he had discovered my father’s notes while clearing boxes from the attic. The documents suggested Amos had manipulated evidence during the original investigation.
Daniel believed he could quietly gather proof before anyone realised what he was doing.
“You should have told me,” I said.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid he would come after you.”
The roses had proved that fear was justified.
