I Hid Under the Bed to Catch a Burglar—Then I Heard Him Say My Husband’s Name and Realized I Was Never Supposed to Survive the Night. / Chapter 7 / 20

Chapter 7 - The Other WomanHer name was Rachel.

Not the kind of Rachel I had imagined when I used to picture Nathan’s possible mistress during insecure moments. Not younger, glittering, careless. She was thirty-nine, a nurse from Des Moines with a soft voice and a son in middle school.

And she was terrified.

We met at the police station three hours later.

Rachel sat across from me in an interview room, twisting a tissue until it shredded in her hands.

“I thought he was a widower,” she said. “He told me you died two years ago.”

I stared at her.

Her eyes were red. No makeup. No wedding ring. No cruelty in her face.

“He said he stayed in the house because of Ava,” she continued. “He said he couldn’t bear to erase you completely. I thought it was tragic. I thought he was devoted.”

Devoted.

The word nearly made me sick.

“How long?” I asked.

“Eighteen months.”

I looked at the detective beside me.

Detective Harris, a square-shouldered man with tired eyes, wrote it down.

Rachel reached into her purse and removed a stack of printed emails.

“I saved everything after last week.”

“Why last week?” Detective Harris asked.

Rachel’s lips trembled.

“Because he asked if I could love Ava like my own.”

The room went silent.

“He said there might be a custody fight with your parents,” Rachel said, looking at me with shame. “That your death had caused complications. I didn’t understand. I told him of course I could love a child who needed a mother.”

I closed my eyes.

Nathan had built a second life using my grave as the foundation.

Rachel slid a photograph across the table.

It showed Nathan standing beside her at a lake house, smiling with his arm around her shoulders.

Ava was in the picture too.

Not really.

A printed photo of Ava sat tucked in Rachel’s kitchen frame behind them.

My daughter’s school portrait.

The one I had ordered in October.

“How did he explain Ava never visiting?” I asked.

Rachel covered her mouth.

“He said she had trauma. That she wasn’t ready to meet anyone.”

Detective Harris leaned forward.

“Rachel, why did you call Mrs. Whitaker today?”

Rachel pulled out her phone.

“Because Nathan texted me at 5:12 this morning.”

She handed it over.

Detective Harris read aloud.

“Change of plans. C and A are gone tonight. Be ready by Sunday. We’ll start over sooner than expected.”

C and A.

Not Claire and Ava.

Just initials.

Disposable letters.

Rachel broke down.

“I thought he meant you had already been moved somewhere. I thought maybe he was grieving badly, or unstable. Then I saw the news online. Your street. The police cars. I realized he lied about everything.”

I should have hated her.

Part of me wanted to.

But Rachel was not the knife.

She was another hand Nathan had cut.

“What was supposed to happen Sunday?” I asked.

Rachel looked at Detective Harris.

“He bought plane tickets.”

“To where?”

“Costa Rica,” she whispered. “For three people.”

“Names?”

Rachel’s face crumpled.

“Nathan Reeves. Rachel Reeves.”