Chapter 2A Grave Beneath The Floorboards

I didn't sleep that night.

I lay in the dark, the neon light from the street filtering through my blinds, replaying every second of that dinner. The way she’d recoiled from the chili. The way she’d laughed.

I sat up, grabbed my phone, and started scrolling through our chat history.

Last week: a selfie of her at her desk with the caption "Drowning in spreadsheets. Send help."

Before that: a link to a TikTok of a cat falling off a fridge. I’d replied with a string of laughing emojis.

Then, two weeks ago:

"Jo! The Reno is finally done! You have to come over this weekend. First dinner in the new place is mandatory!"

I remember that dinner. Her family had been there. Her mom kept praising her cooking; her dad and her brother, Tyler, were so proud of her for buying a place on her own without help.

Bella had been glowing that night.

But shortly after that, she sent me a voice note that felt... off.

"Hey Jo, just wanted to let you know I might be heading out of town for a bit. Some work stuff, maybe overseas. Not sure where yet."

At the time, I figured it was a sudden promotion. I’d asked where she was going, but she’d been vague. "I'll let you know when it's settled. I’m gonna miss you, though. We might not see each other for a while."

I’d thought it was sudden, but I didn't push.

Looking at it now, the hair on my arms stood up.

Two weeks ago, she was throwing a housewarming party, ecstatic about her new life. Why would she suddenly disappear for "work stuff"?

Then I remembered something Bella said the night she signed the closing papers. We were sitting on the floor of her old apartment, drinking cheap Prosecco.

She’d hugged her knees, tipsy and sentimental, and whispered, "Jo, I’m never leaving this city. I finally have a place that’s mine. As long as you’re here, I’m here."

A horrifying thought took root. What if the Bella who told me she was leaving was the same "Bella" who couldn't eat spicy food?

What about her family? Did they know she’d been replaced?

As soon as the sun came up, I didn't hesitate. I drove straight to her new condo.

I knocked. No answer. I called. Straight to voicemail.

But Bella had given me her door code. She’d made me enter it myself the day she moved in—a six-digit string of numbers that was her birthday.

"This place is yours as much as mine," she’d told me.

I punched in the numbers. The lock clicked open.

The moment I stepped inside, my heart sank.

It was too clean.

Bella was a lived-in person. She left coats on the sofa; there was always a half-finished bag of pretzels on the coffee table. But this place looked like a staged model home.

The air didn't smell like her vanilla candles. It smelled like bleach.

I walked toward the balcony.

The row of succulents she loved—the ones she treated like her children—were all dead. The leaves were shriveled and yellow, the soil cracked.

Bella would never let them die. Not unless she was gone.

I took a shaky breath and walked into the master bedroom. I pulled open the closet.

Empty. Every single piece of clothing was gone.

I sank to my knees, reaching toward the back corner of the closet floorboard.

Bella and I had a tradition. On move-in day, we’d taken a key and carved our initials into the wood, just like we used to do on our school desks in the fifth grade.

"Our secret base," she’d called it, her eyes crinkling.

My fingertips found the grooves.

The initials were there: B + J.

But next to them, someone had scratched a series of numbers—not a date, not a phone number.

302-2-401.