For weeks, Dererick had brought Anna chamomile before bed. He always prepared it himself, carried it upstairs on the same little saucer, and waited until she took the first sip before settling into his own nighttime routine. Once, she had considered the gesture tender. Lately, something about it had begun to make her uneasy.
The change was difficult to name. The tea occasionally carried a faint medicinal bitterness beneath the flowers, and Anna had started waking with a heaviness that ordinary sleep did not explain. Some mornings she struggled to remember turning off the lamp. Other mornings she found the blankets arranged differently from the way she remembered leaving them.
She told herself fatigue could account for all of it. Dererick was attentive, respected by their neighbors, and so practiced at appearing considerate that suspicion felt almost indecent. Yet the uneasiness persisted, quiet and stubborn, until one evening she decided she would rather feel foolish than continue ignoring it.
When Dererick left the bedroom to brush his teeth, Anna carried the cup to the bathroom and emptied it silently into the sink. She rinsed the porcelain, returned it to the bedside table, then slipped beneath the covers and closed her eyes.
She expected nothing to happen. That was the outcome she wanted. She hoped to lie awake until morning, embarrassed by her own imagination, and eventually confess to herself that she had turned a harmless cup of tea into evidence of something sinister.
Instead, shortly after two in the morning, the bedroom door opened.
Anna kept her breathing slow. Through the narrow gap between her lashes, she saw Dererick enter without switching on the overhead light. He moved carefully enough to avoid the loose floorboard beside the wardrobe. That detail frightened her immediately. This was not a man wandering through his own house half asleep. He knew exactly where to place his feet.
Then she saw his hands. He was wearing pale latex gloves.
A compact black bag hung from one wrist. Dererick placed it beside the bed and opened the zipper so gradually that Anna could hear individual metal teeth separating. He removed a small camera and fixed it to a clamp on the nightstand.
He checked the angle twice. The lens pointed directly toward the bed.
Anna’s first instinct was to sit up and demand an explanation. Instinct gave way to terror when Dererick reached into the bag again and removed several tiny vials arranged inside a padded case.
He handled them with practiced care. There was no hesitation, no curiosity, no sign that he was improvising. He selected one vial, examined its label, and placed it beside a syringe.
Anna felt her heartbeat against the mattress and became certain he must be able to hear it. She concentrated on keeping her fingers loose beneath the blanket. One involuntary movement could tell him she was awake.
Dererick leaned toward the camera and spoke quietly. Anna could not catch every word, but she heard references to timing, dosage, breathing, and response. His voice had the flat precision of someone documenting a procedure.
That frightened her more than anger would have. Anger might have meant impulse. This was organization.
He adjusted the camera again, then looked down at Anna. For one terrible second, she thought their eyes had met. Instead he reached toward her pillow and gently moved a strand of hair away from her cheek.
It was the same affectionate gesture he had performed countless times during their marriage. Now Anna had to stop herself from recoiling from it.
Dererick whispered for her to sleep well, but tenderness had vanished from the words. They sounded rehearsed, part of whatever private ritual he had constructed around her unconsciousness.
Anna’s foot twitched beneath the sheet.
Dererick froze.
He watched her for several seconds. Anna remained motionless despite the burning pressure in her lungs. Finally he turned back toward his equipment.
That was when she understood something worse than the immediate danger. The ease with which he worked suggested repetition. Whatever she was witnessing had not begun tonight.
Memories reorganized themselves with brutal speed: mornings she could barely wake, headaches she had blamed on stress, Dererick insisting on preparing her tea, nights that seemed to disappear between one moment and the next.
Perhaps she had not simply slept through those nights.
Perhaps he had made certain she could not wake.
Dererick eventually packed the equipment and left the room as silently as he had entered. Anna did not move. She listened until his footsteps disappeared and the house returned to its ordinary collection of plumbing noises, distant traffic, and refrigerator hum.
Nothing about those sounds felt ordinary anymore.
She remained awake until dawn, reconstructing everything she had seen: gloves, camera, vials, syringe, labels, whispered observations. She repeated the details mentally because she feared panic might later distort them.
By sunrise, Anna had reached one conclusion she trusted completely. She could not confront Dererick yet. A man who had prepared this carefully would also have prepared explanations, safeguards, and perhaps ways of silencing anyone who discovered him.
She would have to pretend that nothing had changed.
When Dererick appeared in the kitchen that morning, Anna accepted his kiss, asked whether he wanted breakfast, and forced herself not to stare at his hands.
But while he spoke casually about his day, one question followed her through every ordinary sentence: if Dererick had done this before, was she the only person he had done it to?
