Tender Kill

My husband's therapy office never took evening sessions.

But that rule went out the window the moment Serena moved in.

She was Julian's brother's widow. Less than two years into the marriage, her husband had died in a car accident, leaving her alone.

Julian said she'd just been diagnosed with severe depression the week before.

"It's heartbreaking," he said, eyes brimming with sympathy. "Let her stay with us for a while. A change of scenery might help."

The day she moved in, her eyes were swollen from crying and she looked utterly drained. "Ivy, I'm so sorry to impose like this… I won't stay long."

I shook my head and told her it was fine.

Julian listened to my answer and smiled, satisfied. "See? Ivy's a sweetheart. You two will get along beautifully."

Then he winked at me.

Everything Julian said was impeccable on the surface.

I knew that in Julian's world, he was always right.

He was a psychiatrist. He gilded every decision he made with the unassailable veneer of "professional judgment."

When Serena first moved in, she was so quiet she might as well have been invisible. She kept to the guest room, only slipping out now and then for a glass of water, always tiptoeing, always murmuring "sorry" when she passed me.

But slowly, everything started to shift.

I began to notice lipstick stains on my husband's white dress shirts—shades that weren't mine. Some nights, when I came home late from a shoot, I'd catch her slipping out of his therapy office with her hair in disarray.

Julian, of course, swore up and down that he'd only been listening to her talk through her feelings.

"As her family and as a licensed psychiatrist, this kind of thing is perfectly normal," he said. "Don't overthink it."

Normal? Don't overthink it?

Ten days after Serena moved in, I found a pair of black lace underwear in my husband's closet that didn't belong to me.

There were only two women in this house. If they weren't mine, they could only be hers.

I stared at them for a long time. Then I put them back exactly as I'd found them.

When the script takes an unexpected turn, the stupidest thing you can do is lose control on the spot. I needed to stay calm first.

I closed the drawer and walked to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. That's when the doorbell rang.

A man in a dark gray suit stood outside, an ID badge clipped to his chest. He gave me a polite nod. "Ms. Ivy Harper?"

"That's me."

"Good afternoon. I'm an underwriting officer with Federal Life. We need to conduct a routine in-person verification regarding a policy under your name."

I froze. "What policy?"

He opened a folder and held it out to me—

Policyholder: Ivy Harper. The coverage amount was staggering.

There was only one name in the beneficiary field: Julian Cross.

"This policy went into effect three months ago," he said, pointing to the date. "Per our standard procedure, we need to confirm the policyholder's health status and personal intent. Could you—"

"I never purchased this policy." I cut him off.

His expression shifted. "Ma'am, we have your signature right here…"

It was indeed my handwriting. But I knew with absolute certainty that I would never have signed this many insurance documents while fully conscious.

Unless… I hadn't been fully conscious when I signed.

My pulse quickened. I looked at the man and produced a polished smile.

"I'm sorry—I must have mixed it up with something else. Would you mind leaving me a copy of these documents? I'd like to review them."

He hesitated, then pulled out a photocopy and handed it to me.

"If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us."

I watched him leave and closed the door.

Something in this house was rotting. And I had been standing at the center of it all along, completely unaware.

That evening, Julian said he needed to go to the clinic to handle an urgent case and wouldn't be back until around eleven. Before he left, he kissed my forehead—tenderness without a single crack in the facade.

After he was gone, I retrieved a small box from the back of the closet. Inside was a miniature camera—a gift from the prop master on my last film. It was barely the size of my palm: magnetic mount, with a live feed to my phone.

I dragged a chair over, climbed up, and wedged the camera into the gap between two hardcover books on the top shelf of the headboard bookcase. The lens faced the entire bedroom. The angle was perfect.

I opened my phone and connected the signal.

Our bedroom appeared on the screen.

Our bed. Our pillows. Our life, seemingly intact.

In the upper right corner of the feed, a small green dot blinked on, steady and quiet.

I stared at that tiny light, and my heartbeat gradually settled.

Good.

Then I'd keep playing the part.

I wanted to see exactly what kind of show this room put on once I closed my eyes.