The Man Who Never Looked Away novel Chapter 1

[My husband's Birthday Countdown: 7 Days]

Lavinia Joplin’s phone screen lit up with a push notification.

She was holding a large cardboard box, searching the entire apartment for a place to hide it.

It was a custom birthday gift she had ordered two months in advance, hoping to give Garnett Harper a surprise.

She lay on her stomach, peeking under the master bed. Tucked in the corner was a tiny white capsule.

Reaching out, she scooped it into her palm. It was smaller than a standard cold pill, completely smooth, without a single printed letter.

Pulling out her phone, she snapped a picture of the capsule and ran it through an image search.

When the results popped up, she froze.

"Female contraceptive insert, contains spermicide, alternative to condoms."

Lavinia stared at those lines of text, her mind going completely blank. She had never bought anything like this. Married for two years, they didn't even sleep together. Garnett was always either working or away on business. When he did come home, he acted exhausted and never laid a finger on her.

Clutching the capsule, Lavinia spaced out for a long time, lost in her own chaotic thoughts.

Her phone suddenly blared, yanking her back to reality.

Her uncle’s wife, Mandy, was crying on the other end of the line. "Lavinia! Get to the hospital, quickly! Your uncle collapsed! The doctors say he needs emergency resuscitation!"

...

Outside the operating room at St. Agnes Hospital, a facility owned by the Harper Group.

"Family of Latham Joplin! Is the family of Latham Joplin here?"

A nurse's voice echoed from the end of the hallway, sharp and urgent.

Lavinia ran over. "Here. I'm here."

"The patient has pancreatic cancer. His condition is critical and requires immediate surgery." The nurse handed her a document. "This is the surgical consent form. Please sign it."

A sharp ringing pierced Lavinia's brain. As a medical student, she knew all too well: pancreatic cancer was the king of cancers. It had no obvious warning signs, and eighty percent of patients were already in the middle-to-late stages by the time symptoms appeared.

When she was twelve, her parents had died in an accident. That, too, had come down to a single piece of paper. She was too young back then, barely even able to write her own name.

That day, her uncle had signed the paper for her. After signing it, he had picked her up and said, "Don't be scared, Lavinia. I'm here."

Lavinia stood in the hallway, gripping her phone.

Someone had turned on the television in the nearby waiting area, and the news was playing.

"...The centennial fireworks display is currently taking place over the Grand Harbor Front in Marina City..."

She looked up. On the TV screen, the night sky over the Grand Harbor Front was illuminated by fireworks. The camera panned across the observation deck, showing a dense crowd.

Then, it zoomed in. A man and a woman were standing by the railing, fireworks blooming directly above them.

The man was wearing a dark grey overcoat, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a woman who had a beautiful silhouette. They were both looking up at the sky.

That man was Garnett Harper. Her husband. And the woman beside him was Sigrid Sloan, his first love.

His "business trip" was accompanying Sigrid to Marina City to watch the fireworks?

Lavinia stared at the screen, unmoving. He was holding another woman under the fireworks, right in front of the whole world.

"Family! Sign here!" the nurse urged, stepping out again.

Lavinia looked down at the consent form, her hands still trembling.