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Lottie walked out of the attorney’s office and onto the bustling sidewalk, gripping a small black notebook and a check for twenty thousand dollars. Of course Doug would pull something like this. Even after five years of marriage, Lottie had learned little about him. He claimed that his secretive nature was the key to his success, but she suspected that he just enjoyed keeping her in the dark. She barely knew what his work entailed. She had no idea how much he was actually worth. He used to spend hours every evening filling out these small black notebooks, never letting her see them or even telling her what he was writing about. The most profound thing she had known about him was that he enjoyed collecting beautiful objects, meant to be displayed and never touched. Most of the time she had felt like another art piece in his collection.

A taxi in front of her honked, the cabbie leaning out the window to ask if she wanted a ride or not. Lottie hadn't realized her hand was up to hail a cab home. She nodded and slid into the backseat, still firmly gripping the notebook, her palm beginning to sweat over the faded black leather cover. Once she confirmed that the cabbie was focused on the road in front of him, she opened it.

If she had hoped to gain some insight into why Doug left her only part of his estate and an old notebook, she was disappointed. The notebook was only half-filled, and the pages that were used contained equations she didn’t understand and ideas for algorithms that meant nothing to her. Why would he leave this to her? Frustrated, she flipped forward to the last pages that had been used and found a short paragraph, dated a week before he died.

“I can’t ignore how different Lottie has become. She isn’t asking me every ten minutes to take her to dinner or to go on a trip. I should be grateful she’s finally leaving me alone, but I suspect there’s something going on. She seems happier than usual but colder to me than I remember. I’m guessing those dinners with friends aren’t actually with friends at all.”

Lottie burst into the apartment to find Michael sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table as he typed away on his computer.

“He knew. He fucking knew,” she said, waving the notebook in front of her.

Michael glanced up from his computer before setting it on the couch next to him.

“What did he know? About us or about what I did?”

“Just about us. I think. I don’t know. He withheld the full inheritance from me for six months. The lawyer handed me a check for twenty thousand dollars and this notebook. A week before he died, Doug wrote that he thought I was having an affair. What if he knew everything?”

Michael crossed over to her and took the notebook out of her hand before embracing her. Even in her terror, Lottie felt better just being in his arms.

“If he had known everything, he would still be here. So what if he knew about us? He never treated you right anyways, he couldn’t have been surprised.”

Lottie relaxed a little. He was right, of course. The journal suggested that Doug had only the slightest suspicion of an affair, and no knowledge at all of his impending fate.

“You’re sure, you’re absolutely positive no one saw you that day?” she asked.

Michael pulled his head back to look at her. “Positive. The police closed the case as an accidental drowning a month ago. We’re in the clear.”

Lottie’s shoulders dropped. The tension that had been building since she opened the notebook in the cab was gone.

“He prepaid the rent here but otherwise twenty grand is all we have to go on for the next six months. Are you going to be okay with that?”

Michael laughed and pulled her closer. “Babe, I don’t think I made twenty thousand all of last year. We could live in a cardboard box and I’d be happy if I was with you.”

Lottie grinned and pressed her face into his chest.

Lottie gazed at the park below, watching the trees jerk violently back and forth in the wind. Unable to sleep, a thunderclap had caused her to leap out of bed in a panic, and she was still too anxious to lie back down. She glanced back over at Michael, who was snoring quietly, his arms stretched out across the bed. She met him at a black tie benefit to support local writers that Doug had wanted to attend. Michael had shown up in jeans and offered to buy her a drink as she sat at the bar, unaware that Doug had already left. Michael had been so cheerful and warm, showering her with compliments right away, making her feel wanted again for the first time in years. She went home with him that night. Doug hadn’t noticed she was gone.

She walked back over to the nightstand to pick up the journal. Michael had told her to just toss it but she couldn’t do it. Killing Doug had seemed like the only way to give her and Michael a true shot at happiness. Doug's running route was the same every morning, a two hour loop at dawn down to the river and back. Michael had met him on the trail and nudged him over the barricade. The police assumed Doug slipped on ice left from a storm the night before.

Lottie opened the notebook again, flipping through until she reached the last page Doug had written on. Except it wasn’t the last page. Opposite his last paragraph was a new entry, written in ink so dark it was bleeding through.

“I know what you did.”

Lottie froze.

“Michael. Michael,”. Michael rustled, rubbed his eyes, and turned to her.

“Everything okay babe? You’re white as a ghost.”

Lottie showed him the open notebook. “There’s a new entry that wasn’t there before.”

Michael raised his eyebrows, squinted at the page, and shrugged.

“Are you sure it wasn’t there before? ”

Lottie shook her head. It hadn’t been there before. Had it? Did she miss it? No, impossible. The text took up nearly the entire page. And the ink still looked wet.

Michael took the notebook from her, tore out the page, and crumpled it up before tossing it across the room. He closed the notebook, placing it in the drawer of the bedside table.

“I’m sorry, babe. You look absolutely terrified, come here. Doug isn’t haunting you, trust me. That just happens in the terrible stories I write. Come here, come back to bed. It’s fine, everything is fine.”

Lottie settled next to him, her heart still racing as his slow breathing turned to snores again. She must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing she knew it was morning. She took a deep breath. It was fine. Everything was fine.

She picked up the crumpled piece of paper from where it had landed when Michael threw it. It was blank.

Lottie didn’t look at the notebook again, willing herself to forget it. In her new bliss with Michael, she did forget it until she opened the bedside table drawer a week later, looking for an earring she misplaced. She stood and looked at the notebook for a while, deciding whether or not to open it again. What was the harm? It would be exactly how they left it, with Doug’s last entry and a ripped page right next to it. Seeing a blank page would put her mind at ease.

“How could you do this to me?”

She screamed and threw the notebook away from her. Michael came rushing in, but paused when he saw the notebook on the floor.

“There’s a new message in it!” she screamed, starting to cry.

Michael flipped through the notebook before looking at her. She couldn’t read his expression. Why wasn’t he terrified?

“Babe...the last thing in here is that journal entry.”

Lottie shook her head. “Right next to it, right next to it there’s a new message.”

Michael walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “Lottie. There’s nothing there. I didn’t want to tell you this, but there was nothing there last time either. I ripped out a blank page. I figured you were just tired or your eyes were playing tricks on you, but this is really concerning. Maybe you should talk to one of your friends, or see a professional about this.”

Lottie continued shaking her head. “I swear, I saw it. I can’t...I can’t talk to anyone. I’d have to explain what we did.”

Michael embraced her. “Would that make you feel better? I hate to see you like this.”

“No. Just a few more months and we can build such a beautiful life together. I can’t do that to you. To us.”

Michael nodded. “I’m going to throw this away, at least,” he said of the notebook.

Lottie pulled away. “No. What if they ask to see it when they come to give us the money? We can’t take the chance. I just won’t look at it anymore, I swear.” She took it from him and placed it back in the drawer.

Lottie became obsessed with the notebook, checking it at least once a day. Every time she opened it there was a new message, accusing her of cheating, of marrying for money, of killing Doug. She tried showing it to Michael one more time.

“Lottie, I’m sorry, I still don’t see anything new there.”

Lottie shook the ink-stained page in his face. “How can you not see it? It’s right there. Are you doing this? Are you trying to make me feel like I’m going insane?”

She regretted the words as soon as she saw his face. Michael looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“I can’t believe you’d accuse me of that. Lottie, you’re the one who wanted him dead.”

Lottie shook her head. Had she? Hadn’t he suggested it, asked her when Doug would be alone? She didn’t know. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Look,” Michael said, exasperated. Lottie felt panic bubble up in her chest. Maybe she was making this all up. A guilt-induced hallucination. But she couldn’t lose Michael over it, and even before her accusation she had felt him pulling away.

“If you won’t talk to someone, is there something I can do? Something to make you happy?” he said. “Let’s just get married. Would that make you feel better?”

Lottie sighed in relief. Maybe it would.

Lottie and Michael had a small courthouse wedding a week before the six months were up, with the promise of a grander affair once they received the money. That night, for the first time since her argument with Michael, Lottie opened the notebook to find a new message. “Are you happy now?” had been scrawled repeatedly over the page in that same dark ink.

Lottie was still crying when the attorney showed up a week later to finalize the transfer of Doug’s full estate. She didn’t even know he had come by until she found Michael sitting at his desk later that night.

“Lottie,” he started, opening the desk drawer to put an envelope away. “I’m really worried about you. This obsession with the notebook is driving you crazy. I told Doug’s attorney about it and we agreed that I should have control over the rest of the estate, for your own good. I don’t think you’re in any state to handle that much money right now.”

Lottie, broken and exhausted, just nodded. She noticed a crumpled page, stained with ink, sitting in the open drawer.