Chapter 1: Under the Bed text
The idea started as an innocent joke—one of those silly things a couple laughs about for years and never expects to matter.
That night I had just married Alex Morgan at Willow Creek, an old estate filled with lights, gardens, and music. The ceremony had gone the way we planned: vows under the oak, my father’s hand steady when he gave me away, Nathan Pierce standing beside Alex with the ring and a smile that looked, at the time, like loyalty. By midnight the last guests were drifting toward cars. The bridal suite on the second floor waited with white flowers, an open window, and a bed dressed in linens I had chosen myself.
Alex went downstairs to settle a final detail with the estate manager. I stayed behind, heart light, and decided to finish the joke we had made during engagement weekend. One day I’ll hide under the bed and scare you. He had laughed and said I would never fit in a gown. The gown was already hanging in the closet. In a slip and bare feet I slid into the space between the bed frame and the floor, dust and all, and waited for his footsteps so I could grab an ankle and listen to him shout my name.
Footsteps came.
I almost laughed.
Then the door closed with a care that was not Alex’s, and the lock turned.
Nathan Pierce sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped above my face. His shoes were the same ones he had worn to the altar. He took out his phone, and his voice—when he spoke—had none of the warmth he had used in the toast.
“I’m in the room. No one is here. Tomorrow morning Alex will be dead. The dose is ready. I’ll put it in his glass when he comes up. It will look like a heart attack. And his new wife will be the perfect suspect.”
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I could not move. I could not breathe without risking the dust. Nathan listened to whoever was on the other end, answered with short confirmations about timing and about Morgan Technologies voting shares, and ended the call. He stood, checked the bathroom, checked the closet, and left, locking the door again from the outside with a key I did not know he had.
I crawled out shaking, gray with dust, and called the police on a voice that did not sound like my own. Then I texted Alex: Come up alone. Don’t drink anything. Don’t trust Nathan.
