I couldn’t reach my wife for over a week. All she left behind was her wedding ring on the bathroom sink and a shaky note on a grocery receipt that said, “Don’t look for me.” I was barely holding it together when her sister called and finally told me why Jenna walked away. I woke one day to find my wife’s side of the bed empty.
Jenna sometimes got up early for work, so I didn’t think much of it until I spotted her wedding ring on the bathroom sink. A heavy ache bloomed in my chest as I picked up her wedding band. She’d left it on a folded grocery receipt.
I unfolded the paper. There was just one line: “Don’t look for me.”
It was Jenna’s handwriting, but the words were shaky, and the page was water-stained, like she’d cried while writing. Jenna was responsible, grounded, steady as a rock.
After 12 years together, we still loved each other deeply. She’d never leave her family, not unless someone forced her to. I curled my fingers around her ring and rushed to my phone.
I knew in my gut that Jenna was in danger. I tried her phone first, but it went straight to voicemail. The fear turned to panic.
Could someone have forced her to write that note?
That seemed the most likely answer, but who would abduct my wife, and why?
I called her sister next. “Carly, have you talked to Jenna today?”
A pause. “She’s gone.
She left a note. I don’t know where she is.”
Carly’s response was muted, like she’d turned her head away from the phone. “What did the note say?”
I read it to her, the paper creasing under my grip.
The pause that followed stretched too long. “Maybe she just needs some time, Jake. Her job’s been rough lately…”
Why did it sound like she was lying?
“She wouldn’t vanish like this, Carly.
Are you sure she never said anything to you?”
“Just… give her space. I’m sure she’ll reach out.”
I hung up. The call left a bad taste in my mouth.
I was certain Carly knew more than she was saying. But I couldn’t do anything based on suspicion alone, not when Jenna might be in danger. I called her coworkers next, but nobody at the hospital had seen or heard from her since she finished her shift the previous day.
“Did she say anything strange at work yesterday?” I pressed her colleague, Lisa. “She was quiet, but… did she tell you about the boy who coded last week?”
Lisa sighed. “We couldn’t bring him back.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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