His pulse hammered relentlessly in his ears. He needed answers, needed some kind of trail to follow. If Clara had erased all her digital footprints and stopped answering every call and text, something very serious was happening. The more he searched, the more certain he became that something was deeply, dangerously wrong.
The doorbell ringing the next morning jolted him out of his restless thoughts. A courier stood outside holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in plain brown paper, addressed to Clara in neat, tidy handwriting. He stared down at the bouquet, his confusion quickly twisting into sharp suspicion. There was no special occasion—not her birthday, not their anniversary, nothing.
