Chapter 2 - Beneath the Floorboards
My mother’s house smelled of cinnamon, old paper, and the stale faint odor of the menthol cigarettes she had quit ten years ago. It was a place of safety, unchanged since my childhood, but that night it felt like an isolation ward.
I sat on the edge of the guest bed, watching Chloe sleep. She lay tangled in a floral quilt, her thumb pressed firmly between her lips, her small chest rising and falling in rhythmic peace. She had no idea why we had left home in the middle of the night, why her father wasn't there to read her a story about the little engine that could, or why her mother couldn't stop shaking.
In the living room, my mother was pacing back and forth, holding a mug of chamomile tea that had long since gone cold.
"It’s a mistake, Camila," she said for the fourth time, her voice tight with denial. "It has to be a mistake. Brandon? The boy who spent three weekends building my garden shed? The boy who carried your father up the stairs when he couldn't walk anymore? It’s impossible."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Gabi’s pale face, her trembling hands, and the cold, smooth smile on Brandon’s face as he offered oranges to the police.
At 2:15 AM, my phone vibrated on the wooden nightstand. The screen lit up with Gabi’s name.
I snatched it up before the second ring, stepping out into the narrow hallway to avoid waking Chloe. "Gabi? Where are you? What's happening at the apartment?"
The background sound on the receiver was heavy with mechanical noise—the hum of diesel generators, the high-pitched whine of industrial suction equipment, and the muffled shouts of men coordinating work in a confined space.
"Camila," Gabi said. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion—the tone she used when she was delivering preliminary autopsy results to a state prosecutor. "Are you somewhere safe?"
"I'm at my mom's. Chloe is sleeping. Gabi, please, just tell me what was in that drain."
A long pause stretched over the line, filled only by the static of the connection and the rhythmic thumping of machinery in the background.
"We brought in a pipe camera," Gabi said slowly. "A high-definition fiber-optic scope with a thirty-foot cable. We fed it down through the main shower drain past the trap."
"And?" My breath caught in my throat.
"The trap was clean, Camila. Absolutely spotless. He must have flushed thousands of gallons of bleach and chemical lye down there over the years. But fifteen feet down, where the private residential branch meets the main vertical stack for the building... the pipe expands into an old, cast-iron junction box that was sealed off during the building's renovation in the nineteen-nineties."
"What was in the junction box, Gabi?" I demanded, my hands clenching into fists against my thighs.
"The camera hit an obstruction," Gabi whispered. "It wasn't hair or soap scum. It was fabric. Industrial plastic wrapping tied with heavy copper wire. And inside the wrapping... Camila, we've recovered three distinct anatomical fragments so far. Human bone. Preserved in anaerobic condition due to the chemical buildup from his cleaning agents."
The hallway seemed to spin around me. The wallpaper with its yellow floral pattern blurred into a dizzying streak of color. I slumped against the wall, sliding down until my knees hit the hardwood floor.
"Three fragments?" I gasped, my stomach churning violently. "Wh... whose bone is it? Is it... is it a woman?"
"We don't know yet," Gabi replied. "The crime lab is extracting DNA right now, but the degradation is severe because of the lye. But Camila... there’s something else. Something you need to know before the detectives come to interview you in the morning."
"What?"
"The building was constructed six years ago," Gabi said, her voice dropping into an even darker register. "You and Brandon bought the apartment five years ago, right after you got married. But Brandon was the general contractor hired by the development firm to oversee the interior plumbing installation during the initial construction six years ago."
The air left my lungs completely.
Six years ago.
A full year before he met me. A full year before he held my hand at a coffee shop on a rainy afternoon and told me he had never believed in soulmates until he saw my smile.
He hadn't chosen our apartment because of the sunlight, or the balcony view, or the proximity to the park. He had chosen it because he had built a tomb beneath the floorboards before the concrete was even dry, and he needed to buy the unit directly above it to ensure no one else would ever look down that drain.
"Camila? Are you still there?" Gabi asked, her voice laced with sudden concern.
"He built the apartment around it," I whispered, the horror blooming in my mind like ink spreading through water. "Our home... our nursery... Chloe's bedroom... it was all built on top of a body."
"Listen to me," Gabi urged, her tone turning sharp and commanding. "Detective Miller from the Homicide Division is on his way to your mother’s house right now. He’s going to ask you about Brandon’s past, his ex-girlfriends, his travel history, everything. You need to pull yourself together, Camila. You are not a suspect, but you are the primary witness to six years of his life. Every detail you remember matters."
"Where is Brandon now?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"He's at the central precinct," Gabi said. "He asked for an attorney the moment the pipe camera went down the drain. But he didn't look scared, Camila. When they put the handcuffs on him, he turned around, looked at the forensic team, and told us we were wasting county money because the plumbing in this city was full of history."
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I hung up the phone and sat in the dark hallway of my mother's home, pulling my knees up to my chest.
In my mind's eye, I saw Brandon standing over our kitchen island, smiling as he sliced apples for our daughter. I saw him putting his apron on to cook dinner. I saw his hands—those clean, meticulous hands that had washed our bathroom three times a day—carefully adjusting the drain cover, making sure that whatever lay beneath our feet remained hidden in the dark.
