It stung more than it should.
To distract myself, I stood and wandered back toward Rose’s bedroom. The half-open drawers and scattered items from earlier still sat where I’d left them.
Proof she’d been living two lives.
I picked up the stack of photos again, flipping slowly through them.
Rose on a bridge at sunset. Rose in a café, chin in her hands, laughing at something off-camera. Rose standing in front of Notre-Dame, bundled in winter clothes, cheeks flushed with cold and happiness.
And always?—
Someone with her.
Never fully visible. A shoulder here. A reflection there. A blurred figure in motion.
Deliberate.
She’d kept him hidden.
From us? From Randy?
My stomach tightened.
I set the photos down and moved to the closet, sliding open the door.
More clothes. Boxes. Shoes.
And on the top shelf, slightly out of place, a small storage bin.
Curiosity tugged.
I dragged a chair over, climbed up, and pulled it down carefully, dust puffing faintly into the air.
Inside—
Papers. Old mail. Documents.
And beneath them, something softer.
Not fabric. Not photos.
A leather-bound notebook.
I frowned, lifting it out carefully. It was worn at the edges, the kind of thing that lived in purses and backpacks and got used often. A thin elastic band held it closed, slightly stretched from repeated use.
Rose’s?
It didn’t look like something she’d carry to work. Too personal. Too casual.
I climbed down from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed, turning it over in my hands. No name on the cover. No label.
Just a notebook someone hadn’t wanted easily found.
A prickle of unease slid along my spine.
Why hide this?
I hesitated, thumb resting against the elastic.
