I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the pulsating red dot. It was directly beneath the subtle diamond patterned tiles of our newly renovated kitchen.<\/p>\n
My heart pounded in my throat. Greg had kissed me goodbye at 8:00 AM, briefcase in hand, driving off in his new BMW. But if the tracker was right, he hadn\u2019t gone downtown to a high-rise accounting firm. He had circled right back.<\/p>\n
I crept into the kitchen, the silence of the house suddenly feeling oppressive. I walked slowly across the floor, tracing the blinking dot on the screen. It led me to the walk-in pantry. I pushed the door open. The shelves were neatly lined with the expensive groceries we could finally afford. Nothing looked out of place.<\/p>\n
But as I stepped inside, the burner phone buzzed violently in my hand. Proximity Alert: 0.0 ft. I was standing right on top of him.<\/p>\n
I dropped to my knees, pressing my hands against the floorboards under the bottom shelf. I felt a faint, rhythmic vibration. A cooling fan? I pushed a heavy crate of sparkling water aside and felt a draft of cold air. There, disguised seamlessly into the floor trim, was a biometric scanner. Next to it was a recessed metal handle.<\/p>\n
I grabbed the handle and pulled with all my might. The heavy floor panel swung upward on silent hydraulics, revealing a steel staircase illuminated by harsh, fluorescent light.<\/p>\n
I descended, my breath catching in my throat. The space below our home had been completely hollowed out, lined with concrete and thick soundproofing foam. It wasn\u2019t an accounting office. It was a high-tech command center. Banks of monitors glowed in the dim light, displaying streams of encrypted code, offshore bank transfers, and\u2026 live surveillance footage.<\/p>\n
My blood ran cold. The screens weren\u2019t just showing random locations. They showed the inside of our house. Our bedroom. My car. The dry cleaners I had just visited.<\/p>\n
On a large corkboard against the wall was a web of photographs and documents. In the center was a freshly printed life insurance policy. Ten million dollars. The sole beneficiary was Greg. The insured was me. Pinned beneath it was a daily schedule, meticulously tracking my meals, my routines, and a timeline ending on my upcoming birthday\u2014just three days away.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, the subtle rose wallpaper you picked out for the hallway upstairs?\u201d a voice echoed from the shadows of the bunker. \u201cIt\u2019s really going to add a nice, tragic touch for the detectives when they investigate the \u2018home invasion\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
I spun around. Greg stepped out from behind a rack of servers, the warm, loving smile he always wore replaced by a cold, calculated smirk. He held a syringe filled with a clear liquid.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou weren\u2019t supposed to find this until Friday, darling,\u201d he sighed, stepping between me and the staircase, cutting off my only exit. \u201cBut I suppose we can always accelerate the timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
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