By the time the shower ran pink and the house went quiet, I’d already heard enough: Amelia’s hushed “He suspects nothing,” the softness in her voice when she said Dominic’s name, like it belonged in her mouth. I didn’t rage. I cataloged. The nod in the diner. The deputy’s smirk on the roadside. The way this town bowed to a bully with a badge. In the garage, I unlatched the black case I’d sworn never to open again. Cameras. Bugs. A burner. The old trident wrapped in cloth like a folded flag from another life. While Amelia “bought milk” for forty-seven minutes, I wired our home into a confession booth. Two days later, I sat in the dark listening to my wife and the sheriff discuss how to break me, how to make me snap so the town would swallow whatever story they planted. “He needs to do something violent first,” Dominic said. They wanted a monster. Instead, they’d built a miscal… Continues…
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