Edge Of Innocence

Chapter 3 (Shadows Of The Past)

Lucas stood frozen in his room, his mind clouded with panic and uncertainty. The lifeless body lay only a few feet away, an unnerving reminder of the mess he was now caught in. He knew he couldn’t call anyone—his past had taught him that much.

Flickers of an old case, long buried and forgotten by others, clawed their way back into his thoughts. The same creeping dread, the same feeling of helplessness—it was all too familiar.

For a brief moment, as Lucas stood in the quiet, his mind drifted back to a time he thought he'd locked away. There was a time when he had once been married—a time when he believed he’d found his own version of happiness. They were content, or at least, that’s what it seemed on the surface. But as with so many things in Lucas’s life, a shadow soon crept over them.

Their arguments had started small, just everyday misunderstandings at first, but they grew louder, sharper. Neighbors had become aware, voices carrying through thin walls, fueling a sense of tension that he couldn’t shake.

Suddenly, those arguments ceased, replaced by an unsettling silence. Neighbors, who had once overheard their conflicts, began to notice something was off. They stopped hearing her voice altogether. It was as if she had evaporated into thin air, leaving behind only whispers of concern. Lucas tried to dismiss it, feigning surprise when questions arose, but deep down, he felt the weight of their scrutiny.

In a moment of clarity amidst the chaos, Lucas knew he had to act—he had to present himself as the caring husband, genuinely worried about his wife’s sudden disappearance. He practiced the lines in his head, rehearsing a facade of panic and concern. “Where could she be?” he would exclaim, as if he hadn’t spent countless hours replaying the moments leading up to her vanishing act.

When the neighbors approached him, he donned a mask of anguish, his voice trembling as he recounted their last moments together. “I don’t know what happened,” he would say, eyes wide, mimicking the horror that should have been there. And then, propelled by a surge of urgency, he made his way to the police station, heart pounding. As he walked, he clutched the folder of documents that detailed their life together, a flimsy shield against the encroaching shadows of doubt.

“Please, she’s my wife,” he insisted, words tumbling out in a rush, desperately trying to convince them—and himself—that he was just a frightened husband, lost without the love of his life. Yet, deep within him, an insidious thought gnawed: was he acting to protect her, or was he merely performing to save himself?

The case had fallen into the hands of Sergeant Samuel, a seasoned officer with a reputation for solving even the trickiest investigations. When Samuel arrived at the scene, he took in every detail with a calm, measured gaze. The neighbors’ stories were full of whispers about arguments and sudden silences, but Samuel was already searching for more. He knew that appearances often hid the truth.

As he observed Lucas standing uneasily before him, Samuel's instinct kicked in. The man’s story seemed straightforward, yet something felt off. There was a subtle tension in Lucas’s words, a lingering hesitation, as if he were holding back. Samuel didn’t ask many questions yet, letting Lucas's account settle in the air, while he silently sized him up, noting every flicker of expression and shift of stance.

With a quiet intensity, Samuel began his work, gathering statements from neighbors and piecing together the fractured timeline of the wife’s disappearance. For him, this wasn’t just a case—it was a puzzle, and he intended to uncover every piece.

Samuel’s investigation led him down a winding path of missing clues and whispered suspicions. His search for Lucas’s wife seemed to reach a dead end—until he spoke to a local shopkeeper who claimed to have seen her on the last day anyone did. She’d been on a quiet, desolate street at the edge of the city, just a stone’s throw from the shadowy woods that loomed beyond.