Page 33 of Devil Inside

Where was she? The house felt eerily quiet. Usually by now Kim would be getting ready for bed, taking her face off, but she wasn’t in their bathroom. Their bed was empty.

“Kim?” he called down the hall. To the house. Did he expect her to answer?

Is she hiding? Where in the hell is she?

Voices drifted out from the living room. Canned laughter. Greg headed back downstairs to see what the commotion was all about. Is she watching TV? At this hour?

Kim never watched television. She was always on his case about staying up late, watching the news.Come to bed, she’d say, practically begging.Give your brain a break.

There was a second, just a blip in his brain, where Greg couldn’t help but hear the laughter and think the studio audience was laughing at him, along with Kim. Pointing. Guffawing. He was the butt of some joke that he hadn’t heard the setup for, utterly lost.

Kim was laughing. Laughing at him.

So Rich is Greg’s friend. They’ve been buds since their early investment days. Caroline has always been a bit of a heavy lift, sure. Kim and Greg have always joked about his pal’s green card marriage—at home, in private—but never, you know, to them. At them.

What the hell was Kim thinking?

This dinner had been on the calendar for weeks.Weeks.IfKim hadn’t wanted to go, she should’ve just said something. Not sulked through the fucking meal and then...

And...

Where did those words even come from? Is that what she thought about? On her own? How could she say those things in front of his friends? How could she have laughed

and laughed and laughed

like that?

The living room was empty. Leno was on, chortling through his opening monologue for the night. Greg had no idea what he was poking fun at. The president, maybe.

Greg powered down the TV with the remote. Silence returned to the house. A particular stillness suspended itself over the room. The halls.Not a creature is stirring...

“Kim?”

There was a commotion in the kitchen, so abrupt, Rich couldn’t help but give a start. The rattle of utensils. A drawer opened, followed by the thinnest rumble of metal.

Was Kim cooking? At this hour? A midnight snack?

Greg couldn’t recall if she’d eaten anything at Rich’s house. Caroline’s cooking was...well. It was what it was. Edible, at best. Had Kim even touched her food?

More rattling. A drawer slammed shut.What the hell’s gotten into her?Kim would wake the kids if she wasn’t careful. Francesca, definitely. Christ—Ben, too, if she kept at it.

Let her. Fuck it. She could try to get the kids back to sleep, if she wanted to disrupt their slumber. Greg was beyond giving a shit. Not after the way she’d been acting all night.

Not her. Not Kim at all. It was like she’s some—

thing

—one else. A totally different person. This had been going on for days now. Whatever had gotten into Kim, crawling up her toned ass, it had been nonstop all week. Not cooking dinner. Her utter lack of decorum. Self-care. She had been drifting through life without a single fucking care in the world—not forherself, the kids, her husband. Greg had just about had enough of it. This wasn’t like her. This wasn’t like her at all.

Who the fuck is this? I want my wife back now, please, thank you very fucking much.

“Kim?”

The rattling in the kitchen halted. Just stopped on a dime. No answer, though.

She was listening. Waiting.

Greg tried talking to her about it. Just the other day. Asking her if she was okay. If she was sick. If she was unhappy. Was there something wrong that she wanted to tell him?