The Track
Chapter 1 The Track
The underground garage reeks of stale rubber and damp concrete. Fluorescent tubes hum overhead like dying insects.
I crouch in the corner, back pressed against a cold concrete pillar. The GPS tracker sits hard in my palm. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, rhythmic drumbeat.
It isn’t cold down here. Winter underground is warmer than the street.
My body trembles . The body always knows before the mind catches up-it screams to turn back, to flee, to erase the risk. But the internal voice cuts through the panic . You have to be here. You have to see this through.
How long does a chemical reaction last?
Three months. Six. A year?
Just long enough for a devoted boyfriend to dissolve into a missing-person poster.
I’m twenty. A Second-year university student. Nine months ago, I sat in the front row of the lecture hall, diligently scribbling notes while the professor lectured on the biochemistry of romance—dopamine, phenylethylamine, norepinephrine.
I thought it was romantic .
Now it just sounds like a joke.
Footsteps suddenly shatter the quiet from the ramp above. Leather soles striking concrete. Crisp, deliberate, utterly devoid of hesitation.
I know that rhythm.
Forty-something. Successful. Custom suit. The walk of a man who thinks the world will move for him.
He used to walk into my life with that exact rhythm. Back thenI mistook it for maturity, stability, security.
Now I smell something else, the smell of lies.
I take a breath , bend low, and slap the tracker under the chassis. The magnet bites into the metal with a soft click that echoes in my skull.
I roll back into the shadow behind the pillar. Clean. Silent. The same way I used to love him.
He draws closer.
My spine presses against the pillar concrete. The chill invades my thin clothes.
Less than three meters. One pillar between us. If he turns his head he’ll see me in the shadow.
But he doesn’t.
K walks straight to the BMW, opens the door, slides in. The engine growls. Its roar swells inside the enclosed garage. Red taillights drag two bloody streaks up the ramp and vanish.
I wait until the garage goes dead quiet.
Ten minutes. Enough time to decide to confront him?
No.
But enough time to decide to find out the truth.
I open my phone. The screen lights up: 21:00.
The GPS is a loyal hound, teeth locked on the tail. On the tracking screen, the red dot moves. I watch it crawl through the city, through streets I know, through the woods outside town, then stop.
I memorise the address.
Rain falls as if the sky is vomiting.
This city never snows in winter. It just rains.
Half an hour later I stand under the porch of a villa called The Hideaway. Shoes soaked. Hair stuck to my forehead, dripping.
I reach for the handle, my hand trembling.
The door is unlocked. Unexpected. Just ajar.
This isn’t like his cautious nature. More like someone’s carelessness. Or maybe tonight is an exception; maybe he left in such a hurrythat he forgot to close it .
A child’s voice floats through the crack.
“Mary had a little lamb… little lamb… little lamb…”
Clear. Young. A hint of coaxing.
A girl!
A Lolita! In the living room. Cooing at him. Romping with him.
He’s been avoiding me. He has another girl.
Rain runs down my sleeve and hits the wooden floor of the entryway.
I breathe in. Push the door open. My hand shakes.
The living room is warm. Ordinary. Nothing like what I’d imagined.
Yellow light. Wool rug. Lego scattered everywhere. The sweet smell of baked biscuits mingles with lemon scent of fabric softener.
A pretty little boy sits in the middle of the carpet. Ten years old, maybe. Dinosaur pajamas. He looks up at me.
His eyes are K’s eyes. Same pale blue.
Same soft blond curls. Genetics are the most honest informant. They confess.
A boy. Unexpectedly.
K sits next to the boy, wearing playful loungewear.
This man. Forty-something. International law firm partner. Never backs down at the negotiation table. He’s wearing a cartoon T-shirt with SUPER DAD printed across the chest.
That shirt is sharper than any knife. Straight into my heart. And twists.
His son?
The moment he sees me. The look on his face. I will never forget it.
Panic. Shame. Fear. Three expressions mixed together. Twisting that handsome practiced face into wreckage. His face goes red. Pink spreads from his neck to ears and forehead.
“How… how did you find this place?”
His voice is shaking. His voice. Actually shakes.
I ignore him. Steady myself. Bend down untilI’m level with the boy’s eyes.
“Is he your dad?”
My voice doesn’t belong to me. It comes out of my throat, heavy as a lead ball.
The boy nods obediently. Confused.
I turn to the man. My voice is Cold with scorn.
“You… have a family?!”
Pause.
“No wonder you disappeared suddenly. ”
My teeth chatter.
“You’re married?!”
I can’t believe those last two words come out of my mouth. Broken. Sharp.
The boy sits in the collapsed Lego castle and looks at me. Blue eyes reflect my image—
A soaked woman. Wild hair. Red eyes. White lips. Something that doesn’t belong in his world.
“Daddy, who’s this lady?”
Innocent. Clear. Sweet.
The cruelest sound in the world. A child’s voice asking the deadliest question.
K lowers his head. His throat moves. Swallowing what? An explanation? Excuse? Another “I love you”?
Fake.
All of it.
My eyes go past them to the wall. Family photo. Four smiling faces.
I walk closer.
K. A polished woman. The boy. A teenage girl. Braces. Smiling.
Names under the picture: K, B, AD, R.
Gold letters in the corner: FAMILY FOREVER.
FOREVER。
So neat. So perfect. My sudden presence breaks its harmony. That thought cuts me.
I glance at K on the floor. Head down. Face burning. Nailed in place.
I laugh. Cold. Start walking through the room. This is another woman’s territory. I don’t care.
Wet footprints on the pale wool. Rain drips from my cuffs onto the pale pattern.
A schedule on the wall. Coloured magnets on a whiteboard. Monday piano. Tuesday French tutoring. Thursday football practice. Not his handwriting. His wife’s. Neat. Organised.
A full life of ordinary married days.
But he told me he lived alone. Never brought me home. Told me about his zombie nanny. Said he had a zombie nanny. Cleaned. Cooked. Then turned back into a zombie. I laughed. I appreciated his humor.
I had suspected. But I respected his age, his career, him. Just never respected my own feelings.
Funny now. Eight months ago we met in a library. He talked. Low steady voice. Said I was smart. Beautiful. Said we were meant to be.
Meant to be.
what a joke.
I draw my thoughts back to the present.
Fridge door. Kids’ drawings under magnets. Blue crayon dinosaur. Crooked letters: TO THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD.
Best dad.
I peel it off, look, then stick it back. The magnet clicks loud in the quiet room.
K still sits on the rug. Head down. Redder. Staring at the floor. Not moving.
The boy looks at him, then at me. Lips pressed tight.
Down the hall the master bedroom door stands half open. I glance inside. Huge bed. Green floral duvet. Something stabs in my chest. I don’t go in. I don’t need to. I’v seen everything I need to see.
I turn and find myself looking straight into the nanny’s eyes.
I hadn’t heard her come in. she is in her fifties. Asian. Dark blue housecoat. Shopping bags in her hands.
The “zombie nanny.” Probably her.
She isn’t a zombie. She’s the only one in this house who sees me clearly at a glance.
Her eyes are more honest than K’s.
She stands in the entry, looks at me, then K, then the boy.
Her expression changes three times in three seconds.
Ad if she has played this scene before. The bystander.
I understand in that moment.
The nanny walks toward the kitchen as if nothing has happened. As she passes me. She speaks in a voice only I can hear.
“He makes twenty-three thousand dollars a month.”
Her eyes slide to me. Meaningful. Her voice is flat. Like she’s reporting the weather.
Her words surprise me.
Twenty-three thousand dollars.
What does she mean by telling me this?
Then I understand.
I laugh. Not at him. Not at her. At myself. At the past eight months of pure love.
Pure love. The word springs into my mind, like bitting into a piece of rotten fruit.
I never wanted his gifts. Never asked for romance. Never asked for anything. I just wanted to be with him. Marry him. Be happy.
I asked for nothing, so he gave me nothing.
Fair trade.
His calculation detonates in my chest.
I walk back to the boy. K seems to say something to him, then stops when he sees me. He looks at the floor again.
I crouch beside the boy.
The boy’s eyes meet mine. A little wariness now.
Long lashes. Blinking.
I reach out. Touch his soft hair. He flinches.
“Where’s your Mum? Not home?”
My voice goes soft.
He looks at me but , doesn’t answer.
The recorder slides out of my sleeve. Cold metal against the inside of my wrist.
It has been recording everything since I stepped through the door.
It slips into the pocket of the boy’s dinosaur pyjamas. He doesn’t notice. K stares at the floor. He doesn’t notice either .
I stand. Stare at K.
He finally raises his eyes to look at me . For One second.
Just one glance.
A ten-year-old boy and a ruined Lego castle between us.
In that second I read everything in his face—fear, shame, pleading, and that sick little hope that I might still forgive him.
What is he asking for? For me to leave? To spare him some dignity in front of his son?
I look down at the boy and force a smile. It probably looks terrible.
“Tell your Mum…”
I say it slowly.
“…your dad says he’s working late again tonight. He won’t be home.”
The boy blinks. He doesn’t understand. But he will remember.
I strike toward the door.
I slam the door. Crack. Like a gunshot.
The rain is still falling. I run into it, face up. I can’t tell what is rain and what isn’t.
In my pocket, the phone screen glows. GPS red dot still sits where I left it.
My chest aches. Slow. Heavy.
The recorder’s battery will last seventy-two hours
Seventy-two hours.
Is that enough for his wife to find out the truth?
