I moved in three days later with one duffel bag and a box of kitchen stuff I didn't even want.
Ethan's place wasn't what I expected. Not the sterile bachelor pad from before. This was a house. Actual house. Two stories, brick front, hedges that someone actually trimmed. Suburbia shit. The kind of neighborhood where people walk dogs at seven in the morning and wave at each other.
He was waiting on the porch when I pulled up in my beat-to-hell Civic. White button-down, sleeves rolled. Hair still damp. He looked like he just got off a shift.
"You're late," he said.
"Traffic."
"It's Sunday."
I grabbed my bag. "You want me here or not?"
He stepped aside. Didn't offer to help. Fine. I didn't want his help anyway.
Inside smelled like coffee and something else. Clean, but not Lysol clean. More like... I don't know. Woods after rain. It made my skin prickle.
The living room had a couch, a bookshelf, a TV that looked like it had never been turned on. No photos. No personal shit anywhere. Just furniture arranged like someone staged it for a listing.
"Your room's upstairs," Ethan said. "Second door on the left."
"My room."
"You wanted separate. That's separate."
I looked at him. He was doing that thing again. Standing too still. Watching me without blinking enough.
"What about your room?" I asked.
"First door. Bathroom's between us. There's another one downstairs."
"Cozy."
He ignored that. "Kitchen's stocked. I'm not here most nights. I work graveyard. You won't see me much."
"Good."
Something flickered across his face. Not hurt. More like... calculation. Like he was filing that away.
"House rules," he said. "No guests without notice. No going through my things. The study at the end of the hall is off-limits."
I stopped halfway to the stairs. "Off-limits."
"Yes."
"This is my house too now, right? That's what the contract said. Shared residence."
"The study's private."
"What's in there?"
"Work."
"You're a doctor. What kind of work needs a locked room?"
His jaw tightened. "The kind that's none of your business."
I should've let it go. I knew I should've. But the way he said it. The way he moved half a step closer, like he was making sure I understood.
"Fine," I said. "Your creepy murder room. Got it."
"Charlotte."
"What?"
He was close now. Close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes. Close enough to smell that rain-and-woods thing coming off his skin.
"Don't push," he said quietly.
I held his stare. My pulse kicked up but I didn't move. "Or what?"
For a second I thought he was going to answer. His pupils did that thing again. Thinned out. Vertical. Just for a heartbeat.
Then he stepped back.
"I have to sleep before my shift," he said. "Try not to break anything."
He went upstairs. I heard his door close. Lock click.
I stood there in the middle of his too-clean living room with my duffel and my box and the taste of adrenaline in my mouth.
What the hell did I just marry into.
---
I spent the day unpacking. Didn't take long. I didn't own much. Clothes, couple books, the photo of me and Mara from senior year. I put it on the nightstand and then moved it to the dresser. Then back to the nightstand.
Mara grinning at the camera, arm slung over my shoulder. Me looking half-asleep because we'd been up all night studying. Two months before she vanished.
I touched the frame. "I'm looking," I whispered. "I'm still looking."
No answer. There never was.
By the time the sun set I was wired. Ethan's door hadn't opened. The house was silent except for the hum of the fridge downstairs and the occasional creak of the settling beams.
I tried to watch TV. Couldn't focus. Tried to read. Worse.
I kept thinking about the study.
Off-limits.
Why? What was in there that he didn't want me seeing? Medical files? He could've said that. Could've said patient privacy, HIPAA, whatever. But he didn't.
He said *work*.
I looked at the ceiling. Still no sound from his room.
Screw it.
I went upstairs. The hallway was dim. Just one window at the far end, moonlight coming through. Ethan's door was closed. I waited, listening.
Nothing.
The study door was at the end. Dark wood. No window. Brass handle.
I reached for it.
The floor creaked under my foot.
I froze.
Still nothing from Ethan's room.
I turned the handle. Locked.
Of course it was locked.
I crouched down, trying to see under the door. Maybe there was a light on. Maybe I could see something, anything that would tell me what he was hiding.
That's when I felt it.
Heat behind me. The kind that comes off a person standing too close.
I spun.
Ethan was right there. Barefoot. Jeans, no shirt. His eyes were fully awake and locked on me like I'd just set off every alarm in the house.
"I said don't," he said.
My back hit the door. "I was just—"
"You were just what?"
I couldn't think. He was too close and his voice was too quiet and wrong. All wrong. He didn't sound human right then.
"Looking for the bathroom," I said.
His hand came up. Braced against the door beside my head. The other side. Caging me in.
"Bathroom's the other way," he said.
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. "I forgot."
"You forgot."
"Yeah."
He leaned in. Not touching me. Just close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. See the tension in his shoulders. The veins in his forearms.
And then I heard it.
A sound like fabric tearing.
I looked past his shoulder.
There were claw marks in the doorframe. Four deep gouges. Fresh.
His hand.
I looked at his hand.
Normal. Flat palm against the wood. No claws. No blood. Just skin.
But the marks were there.
"Go to bed, Charlotte," Ethan said.
His voice was calm. Totally calm.
I shoved past him and walked fast to my room. Didn't run. Wouldn't give him that.
I locked my door. Sat on the bed. Tried to breathe normal.
What the hell was that.
What the hell is he.
I waited until I heard his door close again. Waited another twenty minutes. Then I crept back into the hallway.
The gouges were still there. I ran my fingers over them. Deep. Splintered wood. Real.
I knelt down by the study door again.
That's when I saw it.
A glint of metal. Just under the door. Pushed up against the gap like it had been kicked there or dropped.
I reached for it.
My fingers closed around cold silver chain.
I pulled it out into the moonlight.
A bracelet. Thin. Delicate. Engraved clasp.
*M.S.*
Mara Santos.
I stopped breathing.
This was Mara's bracelet. The one her mom gave her for her quinceañera. The one she never took off.
The one she was wearing the night she disappeared.
I looked at the study door.
Then at Ethan's door.
He had it. He had Mara's bracelet.
Which meant he knew.
He knew what happened to her.