Dererick noticed the changes before Anna could complete her next move.
His questions became precise. Where had she been? Why was Clare calling more often? Had Mr. Peterson mentioned anything unusual?
Anna answered casually whenever possible.
Then one morning Dererick stood in the bedroom doorway holding coffee and asked when she had last gone through his belongings.
The directness almost exposed her.
Anna denied searching anything.
Dererick smiled, but his eyes remained fixed on her long enough to make the lie feel visible between them.
Afterward, objects around the house began moving. A pen appeared in a different place. A drawer Anna had searched was left slightly open. Books changed positions.
Anna realized Dererick was setting traps designed to reveal whether someone touched his possessions.
She stopped searching the study.
Several days later, while sorting boxes in the attic under the harmless pretext of donating old decorations, she found something he had apparently forgotten to guard.
A folder was wedged beneath Christmas ornaments.
Inside were old newspaper clippings concerning unexplained disappearances in nearby towns, printed emails written under a pseudonym, receipts, and several instant photographs.
The people in the photographs were strangers.
The locations were not.
One matched an address Jonah had connected to the numerical code in the notebook.
Anna photographed everything.
The pseudonym in the correspondence also appeared in files she had already copied from Dererick’s computer.
The connection was no longer speculative.
Clare examined the documents at the hospital and noticed that the language in several emails sounded transactional. People were discussed in terms of status, availability, and usefulness.
The words made Anna’s skin crawl.
Dererick had not merely documented private experiments. The records suggested an organized exchange of information.
Copies went immediately to Detective Morales, Malik, Jonah, and the legal clinic.
Anna expected the discovery to strengthen her position.
Instead, it accelerated Dererick’s suspicion.
That night he lay beside her without sleeping.
After several minutes he asked whether she had been collecting information about him.
Anna chose a partial truth. She admitted finding strange material in the attic and showing some of it to Clare.
Dererick sat up.
He asked why she trusted her sister more than her husband.
Then, with unnerving calm, he removed an old silver compass from a drawer. He had given it to Anna years earlier during a trip they had once remembered fondly.
He turned it between his fingers while speaking about trust, loyalty, and everything they could lose.
The sentimental object was not an apology. It was leverage.
Anna understood that clearly now.
Before turning away, Dererick told her that if her suspicions created trouble, both of their lives could be destroyed.
He emphasized the word both.
Anna waited until his breathing settled before allowing herself to move.
The confrontation had answered an important question. Dererick was afraid of what she knew.
That meant the evidence mattered.
The next morning, Anna found an unmarked envelope pushed beneath the door.
Inside was a photograph of Dererick standing outside the unfamiliar building from the coded records.
Beneath the photograph was his pseudonym.
Someone had sent Anna confirmation.
Whether the sender intended to help her or lure her into another trap remained impossible to tell.
