Speaker 1: Calarogu Shark Media, Hello and Welcome to Ghost. This episode
is titled Winter Escape, Part one. Distance.
Speaker 2: It started with the coffee, but I should have noticed
something was wrong long before that. David and I had routines,
the kind you develop over fifteen years of marriage. Every morning,
Him up at six to run, shower at six, forty,
dressed by seven, me writing at my desk, listening to
the familiar rhythm of his movements. Then his precise coffee ritual.
Three scoops of dark roast, twelve ounces of water, four
minutes to brew black, no sugar, A routine so unchanging
I could set my watch by it. I'm a detail person.
It's what makes me good at my job writing psychological
profiles for criminal cases. I notice patterns, behaviors, inconsistencies. But
sometimes you can know someone so well that changes become invisible,
or maybe you just don't want to see them. The
first real sign came three weeks ago. I was working late,
finishing a profile for a serial arson case. David called
around eight. Don't wait up, he said. Meeting ran long,
simple enough, but David hated phone calls. Always had fifteen
years of marriage, and he'd only ever texted when he
was running late. I almost mentioned it, but he sounded tired,
and things at his firm had been tense lately. David
ran the research division at Meridian Pharmaceuticals, developing new psychiatric medications.
Brilliant work, important work, the kind of work that attracted attention.
Three days later, someone broke into his office. Nothing taken,
he told me that night, But his hands wouldn't stop moving,
adjusting his watch, straightening papers, rearranging desk items. They accessed
some files. Police say it looks like corporate espionage. The
police asked me questions too standard procedure. Did I notice
any changes in his behavior, any unusual meetings late nights?
I said no to everything, But later, trying to sleep,
I started thinking the phone call instead of text, the
way he'd stopped wearing his favorite blue tie, the one
he claimed was lucky, Small things, nothing really. Then came
the coffee. I was writing at my usual spot, half
listening for the familiar sounds of his morning routine. The
coffee grinder ran longer than usual when he came into
my office. The smell was wrong, too sweet. Since when
do you take sugar? He looked at me, cut halfway
to his lips for a moment, just a fraction of
a second. His expression seemed carefully composed. Then he smiled,
trying something new. Doctor said I should watch my blood pressure.
I almost asked when he'd seen a doctor, Almost mentioned
that sugar has nothing to do with blood pressure. Almost
noted that he'd been running later than usual the past week,
his morning routine off by twelve minutes. Instead, I asked
about the investigation. They're calling it random, he said, but
he wasn't. Meeting my eyes. Just corporate theft gone wrong.
What kind of files did they access? Patient trial data?
Mostly nothing sensitive. His hand went to his watch, the
silver one I gave him for our tenth anniversary. He'd
started adjusting it constantly, like it didn't quite fit anymore.
That night, he suggested, getting away. We both need a break,
he said. Laptop open to rental listings, somewhere quiet, just
until things settled down. The lake house looked perfect in
the photos, remote enough to feel peaceful, close enough to
civilization to feel safe. Available immediately through April, an odd
rental period that David called lucky. Everything fell into place
too easily, immediate rental approval, sudden job flexibility, even the
weather cooperating. I found him packing gear i'd never seen before,
new winter clothes, survival equipment, all still in packages. Always
meant to get into winter sports, he said when I asked,
But David hated the cold, always had. We spent our
honeymoon in Hawaii because he refused to go skiing. The
drive up was quiet, five hours north into deepening winter.
David drove one hand on the wheel, the other tapping
rhythms I didn't recognize. He used to only listen to
classical music on long drives. Now the radio played modern pop,
and he knew the words. The lake house rose from
the snow like a modernist dream, two stories of glass
and cedar, overlooking gray water, no visible neighbors, cell service
that came and went with the weather. Perfect for escaping,
perfect for other things too, but I'm not ready to
think about that yet. We unpacked methodically, or rather David
unpacked methodically. Everything in its place, but not the places
he would have chosen before. The coffee maker on the
wrong counter, his clothes in the guest room closet because
the light's better for dressing. I caught him watching me
when he thought I wasn't looking not the way he
used to watch me. It's more evaluating, like he's gauging reactions,
testing boundaries. That first night, I woke to find his
side of the bed empty. Found him in the kitchen,
standing in the dark, staring out at the frozen lake.
Couldn't sleep, he said, But his voice was wrong. Everything
was wrong. The changes accelerated once we were settled. He
stopped wearing his anniversary watch, started sleeping on his left
side instead of his right, hummed songs. I'd never heard
him hum before. If it was just behavior, I could
blame stress. People change habits under pressure. But it's more
than that. His scar is missing, the small crescent on
his palm from a childhood accident. He has stories about
that scar, detailed memories about falling from a tree house
at seven, the way his mother cried at the hospital,
how his father taught him to climb again. But now
his hand is unmarked, like the memories belonged to someone else.
I test him carefully, mention past events, with small details changed.
He corrects some, but accepts others he shouldn't like. Fifteen
years of shared history is a database with corrupted files.
At night, I watch him sleep, his breathing is different, shallower, arrhythmic.
Sometimes he stops breathing entirely for long seconds, like he's forgotten.
How the snow falls thicker, the lake freezes, the world
shrinks to just us and the growing wrongness. I found
his phone today, forgotten on the kitchen counter. His password
didn't work. The new one was his mother's maiden name,
but not the name I remember. When I asked about it,
he said, I'm be confused, said I've never met his mother.
Said she died before we met. I have photos of
her at our wedding, had photos. They're not on my
phone anymore. The lake house creaks in the winter wind.
David makes coffee four scoops now, sixteen ounces of water,
five minutes to brew, sweet enough to taste it. Across
the room. He catches me watching and smiles. Almost right,
almost perfect, Almost David, Everything okay, he asks. His voice
hits all the right notes, but the melody is wrong.
Just thinking about your mom, I say, carefully, about the wedding.
Something flickers behind his eyes, recalculation, adjustment. You know, I
don't like talking about her, But the old David loved
talking about her, kept her memory alive. Through stories, stories
that now feel like fiction. I smile back, agree, Pretend
I don't notice him watching me, Pretend the snow erases
everything now, tire tracks, footprints, the distance between here and safety,
between who David was and who he is now. I
check my work email cases I should be profiling. One
catches my attention. A man who replaced his brother so
perfectly that the brother's wife didn't notice for months, found
only when someone dug up the real brother's body. I
close the laptop, look out at the frozen lake, think
about how easily we accepted this escape, how perfectly it
all worked out. I should be scared, should run, But
underneath the fear is a growing certainty. This isn't about
David changing. This is about me changing too, I just
don't know into what yet. The coffee grows cold outside,
the sun sets at four point thirty. David watches me,
watch him, and somewhere under the ice, something waits for
us both to become something new. I just hope I
figure out what that is before he figures out that.
I'm starting to understand. The lake house creaks again. Perfect
for escaping, perfect for transformation, perfect for whatever is actually happening.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: I just have to survive long enough to discover what
that is. And I have to decide what terrifies me
more the possibility that my husband has been replaced or
the possibility that he hasn't been replaced at all. That
everything I'm noticing is exactly what's supposed to happen, That
I'm playing my part perfectly in some way one else's game.
The question isn't who David has become. The question is
who am I becoming? And why do I feel like
I'm finally waking up to something that started long before
the coffee changed. Ghost is a Calaroga Shark Media production,
written and hosted by Alexander Ian McIntyre, produced by Mark Francis.
Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott. Portions of this
podcast may have been created with the assistance of AI.
This show, along with hundreds of others from Calaroga Shark Media,
is available commercial free on any player hassel Free. Just
look for the link in the episode or show notes.
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