PART 9 – I Could No Longer Pretend the Woman Was a Stranger, Because Everything She Wanted Seemed to Lead Back to Arthur

I barely slept that night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the deadbolt turning.

Then came the footsteps.

The water in the kitchen.

The glass touching the counter.

Finally, the man's voice.

I kept hearing the question about the insurance endorsement.

It was the one detail I couldn't explain away.

I had spent two years believing that Arthur's affairs had ended with his death.

Apparently, someone disagreed.

By morning, I had made up my mind to stop treating the woman's visit as an isolated incident.

She had entered my house with a key.

She had searched through my husband's documents.

She had spoken to a man who sounded like Arthur.

Those things belonged together, whether I understood the connection or not.

I went downstairs and found the folder where I had left it.

My notes were inside.

So were the papers I had examined the day before.

I read my account of the visit once more.

I had written everything I could remember, including the color of the handbag and the sound of the woman's heels on the stairs.

The details seemed small.

But they were the only things I had that could not be dismissed as a feeling.

I took the folder into the kitchen.

Arthur's mug was still beside the sink.

I had considered putting it away again.

Instead, I left it where it was.

I wanted to remember that someone had disturbed my home before I knew what was happening.

I also wanted to remember that I had noticed.

For the first time since the accident, I felt that looking away might be more dangerous than looking closely.

I returned to the papers.

I examined the insurance-related documents again, searching for the word the woman had used.

I found references to coverage and routine records, but nothing that gave me an immediate explanation.

The endorsement she wanted was not obvious among the pages.

I could not tell whether I had overlooked it or whether Arthur had kept it somewhere else.

That uncertainty left me with no clear next step.

I thought about the woman.

She had searched with purpose, but she had left without finding what she wanted.

If the document mattered enough for her to enter my house, she might come back.

I didn't want to be beneath the bed when she did.

I had been lucky the first time.

She had not noticed me, and I had been able to hear part of the call.

I couldn't count on the same luck twice.

I began thinking about the front door.

The key had turned easily.

There had been no struggle with the lock, no pause, no attempt to force it.

Whoever had entered knew that the key would work.

I checked the lock again, even though I knew it wouldn't tell me anything about the person who had used it.

The deadbolt was solid.

The handle worked normally.

The problem wasn't the lock.

The problem was that somebody had access.

I stood in the entryway for a long time.

Then I went next door.

Mrs. Gable answered after a short delay.

She looked less angry than she had the first time, but she still seemed wary of me.

“I need to ask you something about what you heard.”

She stepped onto her porch.

“What about it?”

I told her I had taken her complaint seriously.

I didn't tell her about hiding beneath the bed.

I didn't mention the phone call.

I wasn't ready to explain those things to anyone.

Instead, I asked whether she had seen anyone around my house during the afternoons.

She thought about it.

“I've heard the shouting,” she said. “I haven't watched your house all day.”

“Did you see anyone coming or going?”

“Not clearly.”

Her answer disappointed me, though I had no reason to expect more.

She had heard something unusual.

She hadn't promised to solve it.

I thanked her.

Before I left, she spoke again.

“I wasn't trying to upset you, Clara.”

“I know.”

“I just thought you ought to know.”

That was the truth.

Whatever else Mrs. Gable had done, she had given me the warning that made me investigate.

Without her, I might never have discovered that someone had a key to my home.

I returned to my house.

The front door was still locked.

The rooms were still quiet.

I had no new evidence, but I felt less willing to dismiss what had happened.

The woman was real.

The search was real.

The call was real.

I had heard a man ask for an insurance endorsement.

And I had recognized his voice.

I couldn't yet prove that the voice belonged to Arthur.

I couldn't prove that he was alive.

But I could no longer treat the possibility as something too painful to consider.

I took my folder upstairs and placed it on the dresser.

Then I sat on the edge of the bed.

I looked at the space beneath it.

The dust was still there.

So was the small mark on the carpet where I had pressed my hand against the floor.

I had crawled into that space expecting to catch a stranger.

Instead, I had heard the voice of the man I thought I had lost.

I knew I could not keep living as though nothing had changed.

I needed an answer that went beyond my own memory.

I needed to understand what had happened on Interstate 55.

And I needed to know why someone was still searching my home for something connected to Arthur.

That was the first time I allowed myself to say the question plainly.

What if my husband had never died?

The thought frightened me.

But I no longer pushed it away.

Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The More I Examined the Accident in My Memory, the Harder It Became to Accept That I Had Been Given the Whole Story