Chapter 3

At seven the next morning, Daniel woke up on the couch in Ethan’s photography studio.

The blackout curtains hadn’t been pulled all the way shut, and a strip of morning sunlight stretched across a long table cluttered with camera gear.

The smell of stale coffee lingered in the air.

Ethan was fast asleep at his computer, his head resting on his folded arms. A stack of printed photos sat beside him.

Daniel sat up.

There was still a dull tightness in his chest.

He pulled his medication from his coat pocket, poured himself some warm water, and took it.

Strangely, the memories of last night didn’t upset him anymore.

If anything, everything felt clearer now.

Footsteps approached outside.

One of Ethan’s assistants pushed open the door.

The second he saw Daniel sleeping there, he nearly dropped the breakfast in his hands.

“Daniel? Why are you sleeping here?”

“It got late last night, so I crashed here.”

“Wasn’t yesterday your anniversary?”

The assistant realized he had stepped on a land mine the moment the words left his mouth.

He immediately stopped talking, set the two breakfasts on the table, grabbed some equipment, and disappeared into the next room.

The noise woke Ethan.

He lifted his head, one side of his face covered in lines from his sleeve.

“What time is it?”

“Seven ten.”

“It’s only seven?”

Ethan dropped his head back onto the desk.

Two seconds later, he suddenly sat straight up.

“You didn’t sneak back home last night, did you?”

“No.”

Daniel unwrapped one of the breakfast sandwiches and pushed the other toward him.

Ethan studied him for a while.

Once he was sure Daniel wasn’t just pretending to be okay, he finally took the sandwich.

“Where’s your phone? Did Mia try to reach you?”

Daniel picked it up.

Three missed calls.

Two texts.

The first had come in at one in the morning.

“Zion’s stable now.”

The second had arrived half an hour ago.

“Be home by eight. We need to talk about what happened last night.”

She hadn’t asked where he was.

She hadn’t asked if he was okay.

Daniel read both messages, then locked his phone.

“What’d she say?”

“She wants me to go home and explain myself.”

Ethan laughed in disbelief.

“She still expects you to apologize to Zion? Don’t even answer her. Stay gone for a couple of weeks. Let her find out what it’s like when there isn’t someone at home making sure she has clean uniforms and dinner waiting for her.”

Daniel took a bite of his sandwich.

“I’m not trying to punish her.”

He swallowed.

“I’m just not taking care of her anymore.”

The smile faded from Ethan’s face.

He had known Daniel for years.

And he knew that once Daniel truly made up his mind, there was almost no changing it.

For the past five years, Daniel had poured everything into his marriage.

Whenever his friends told him Mia didn’t deserve what he did for her, Daniel always defended her.

Marriage took work.

Mia was just reserved.

She showed love differently.

He had always found some excuse for her.

Not anymore.

Halfway through breakfast, Ethan got a call from a client and had to run downstairs with a set of photo proofs.

Daniel stayed behind.

He walked to the window and opened the blinds.

The street below was already coming to life.

There was a line outside a breakfast spot, and buses were pulling in and out of the stop.

Daniel let his gaze wander over the crowd.

Then he spotted someone across the street.

Mia.

She was standing outside a coffee shop.

She was already in uniform, her long hair pulled back neatly.

She stood straight and composed, looking every bit like the cool, professional detective her coworkers knew.

Zion was beside her.

He was still wearing the scarf she had wrapped around him the night before.

A barista handed Mia two hot drinks.

She took them and immediately passed one to Zion.

Then she leaned over and said something to him.

Daniel couldn’t hear a word from across the street.

But he could see her patiently buttoning Zion’s coat for him.

And he could see something else.

There wasn’t a trace of the impatience she always seemed to have with Daniel.

In five years of marriage, Mia had never once brought him a cup of coffee.

When they first got married, Daniel had casually told her that it would be nice if she picked up a latte for him sometime when she passed a coffee shop on her way home.

He still remembered exactly what she had said.

Those little gestures were pointless.

There was no reason to waste time on meaningless things.

Daniel never asked again.

Instead, whenever Mia worked a night shift, he made her hot tea and brought it to the precinct.

If she was too busy to come out, he left the thermos at the front desk and went home without even seeing her.

Now he finally understood.

It wasn’t that little gestures meant nothing to her.

They only mattered when she wanted to do them for someone.

As if he could feel Daniel watching, Zion suddenly looked up at the studio window.

Daniel didn’t look away.

A few seconds later, Zion stepped closer to Mia and held out his phone.

Their shoulders nearly touched as they looked at the screen together.

To anyone walking by, they looked far too close to be just family.

Daniel pulled out his phone and opened his Notes app.

Pinned at the top was a note titled “Mia.”

He tapped it.

Hundreds of entries filled the screen.

No cilantro.

Only drinks Americanos.

Avoid painkillers when her stomach acts up.

Leave a warm bedside lamp on when she can’t sleep.

Check every pocket before taking her uniforms to the dry cleaner.

Don’t ask for details when she comes home after a difficult case.

There were reminders for her annual checkups.

Dates for dinners with Daniel’s family.

Plans for every anniversary.

He had once thought remembering all those little things was proof of how deeply he loved her.

Now, looking at them, he almost wanted to laugh.

Daniel selected everything.

A confirmation box popped up.

“Delete all content?”

He tapped Delete without hesitation.

Five years of notes vanished.

The page went blank.

Then he deleted their anniversary photos.

He removed their relationship status from his social media profiles.

Finally, he removed Mia as his emergency contact.

When he was done, Daniel signed out.

By the time Daniel looked outside again, Mia and Zion were gone.

He didn’t bother looking for them.

There was a small editing room in the back of Ethan’s studio that hardly ever got used anymore. These days, it mostly served as storage for old equipment.

Daniel pushed open the door.

On a shelf in the back, he found an external hard drive covered in dust.

The label had yellowed with age.

Two words were written across it.

Dane J.

It was the pen name Daniel had used back in college.

At twenty, he had burst onto the mystery scene with his debut novel, Blind Spot.

The book stayed on the bestseller lists for seven straight months. The print edition sold more than a million copies, and production companies kept raising their offers for the screen rights.

Everyone in the industry had been convinced Dane J. was on his way to becoming one of the youngest major names in mystery fiction.

Then Daniel met Mia.

While he was trying to win her over, he canceled book signings and put his next novel on hiatus.

After they got married, he gradually disappeared from the public eye altogether.

His marriage became his entire life.

His editor called him countless times.

His readers waited year after year.

Eventually, even Daniel himself almost forgot who Dane J. had been.

He carried the hard drive back into the main studio and plugged it into a computer.

A notification chimed as the drive loaded.

Dozens of folders appeared on the screen.

Old manuscripts.

Character notes.

Discarded plotlines.

And one unfinished novel that stopped at around a hundred thousand words.

The Thirteenth Suicide Note.

Daniel rested the cursor over the title but didn’t open it right away.

He had started the book shortly before his wedding.

The main character was a criminal profiler.

Daniel had planned to finish the novel after getting married.

But Mia’s job kept her busy at all hours, and Daniel gradually took over everything at home.

His writing time became shorter and shorter.

Eventually, the manuscript stopped at Chapter Seventeen.

And stayed there.

Ethan came back after dropping off the proofs.

The moment he saw the computer screen, he stopped in his tracks.

“You found that hard drive?”

“Yeah.”

“You thinking about writing again?”

“I’m just looking.”

Ethan hurried over to the desk without even bothering to clean up breakfast.

“Looking at what? Publishers were fighting over your next book back then. Do you have any idea how many readers are still waiting for you?”

“It’s been five years.”

“So what?”

Ethan pointed at the screen.

“Your books are still selling. Blind Spot got another print run last month. Your editor even asked me if you were ever planning to come back.”

Daniel opened Chapter Seventeen and read it from the beginning.

The writing was a little rougher than he remembered.

But the pacing was still sharp.

And as he read, ideas he had buried for years began coming back to life.

Suddenly, he wanted to know how the story ended.

Ethan pulled out the chair beside him and sat down.

“Daniel, you’ve already given up enough for Mia.”

His expression turned serious.

“If you’re really getting divorced, then take your life back too.”

Daniel kept his eyes on the screen.

He said nothing.

A browser window opened automatically in the corner of the monitor.

It was his old author dashboard.

His login information was still saved.

All he had to do was verify the account.

Daniel entered his phone number.

A verification code arrived seconds later.

For the first time in five years, his old account came back to life.

There were countless unread messages and comment notifications, most of them asking when he was finally going to post a new chapter.

The newest one had been posted just three minutes ago.

“Dane J., it’s been 1,826 days. I’m still waiting for The Thirteenth Suicide Note.”

Daniel stared at the message.

Something filled the empty place inside him that had been hollow for far too long.

People still remembered him.

Not as Mia’s husband.

Not as the man who stayed home and took care of everything for her.

Just Daniel.

Just Dane J.

He opened his profile.

His last post was from five years ago.

“Taking a short break. I’ll be back soon.”

More than a hundred thousand comments sat beneath it.

At first, readers had asked when he was coming back.

Then they simply waited.

Eventually, people began leaving messages on the same date every year.

Some said they had graduated from college while waiting.

Some had gotten married and started families.

Others said they still reread his books every year.

Five years had changed a lot.

Daniel owed those readers one thing.

A return.

He dragged the file for The Thirteenth Suicide Note onto the desktop and opened a new document for Chapter Eighteen.

The cursor blinked on the blank page.

Ethan sat beside him.

For once, he didn’t say a word.

A few minutes later, Daniel typed the first sentence.

The familiar sound of the keyboard filled the studio.

At first, his fingers moved slowly.

Then faster.

The plot he had abandoned five years ago began falling back into place.

The characters came alive again.

And at last, the story moved beyond the point where he had left it.

By ten that morning, Daniel had written three thousand words.

He saved the chapter and opened the page to create a new post.

“You’re really posting?” Ethan asked.

“Just a teaser.”

Daniel typed one line.

“You’ve waited long enough. The Thirteenth Suicide Note will be back soon.”

He didn’t explain why he had disappeared five years ago.

He didn’t make any grand promises about what came next.

He simply uploaded the original cover and hit Post.

The page refreshed.

A second later, notifications started exploding across the screen.

Comments.

Shares.

Messages.

Every time the numbers refreshed, they jumped again.

Then his editor called.

Ethan stared at the numbers climbing and grinned.

“Now that word’s out that Dane J. is back, the whole mystery community is going to be buzzing all day.”

Daniel leaned back in his chair and looked at the familiar dashboard.

His phone lit up again beside him.

Another message from Mia.

She wanted to know why he still wasn’t home.

Daniel didn’t answer.

He simply turned the phone facedown on the desk.

Five years ago, he had walked away from his own world for her.

Now, he was finally walking back into it.