When Marissa opens the door expecting her husband, she is welcomed with someone who looks precisely like him, but something feels off. What starts out as a terrifying imposter encounter quickly turns into a family secret neither she nor her husband expected. What follows is a tense reckoning that no one is prepared for.

The knock came at 2:07 p.m.

I recall scrubbing the kitchen backsplash, elbow-deep in lemon-scented foam, and wondering if Hayden would remember to pick some oat milk on the way home. He typically did, and he also brought home croissants.

But he wasn’t expected to arrive home for another three hours.

I dried my still damp hands and padded to the door. When I opened it, he stood there. Hayden is dressed in a gray hoodie, his work lanyard still dangling around his neck.

“Why are you home so early?” I inquired, my stomach quivering with astonishment. “Is everything okay?”

My hubby did not kiss me. He simply went inside, his eyes darting around me as if he was attempting to locate the space.

“I wasn’t feeling well, my boss let me go.”

I slowly shut the door behind him. Something shifted in my chest. Not exactly an alarm, but… off. But he had not kissed me hello. He hadn’t called me “sweetheart” or “moonpie” or any of the other names he regularly used.

He just moved down the hallway like someone seeing it for the first time.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

I followed him to our bedroom.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

He paused like he’d only just remembered I was there.

“Something for work.”

“That specific?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, just… give me a sec, babe.”

My hubby had never called me that before. not “babe.”

Hayden called me “Mar,” or sometimes “Mouse” when he was feeling nice. Never, babe.

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