Hunting Down My Mysterious Doctor Wife

Eleanora sat in the last row of the classroom, her spine pressed hard against the rigid plastic of the chair.

The air in the Manhattan elite prep school felt heavy, thick with the scent of expensive cologne and entitlement.

She kept her head down. A thick layer of black gothic eyeshadow weighed down her eyelids, and dark, matte lipstick coated her mouth. The makeup felt like a physical mask, tight and suffocating against her skin.

At the front of the room, Mr. Mortimer Pinsky paced in front of the whiteboard.

Eleanora raised her hand. Her arm muscles tightened, holding the posture steady.

Pinsky's eyes swept over the back of the room. His gaze hit Eleanora, slid off her like water off oil, and landed on a blonde girl in the front row.

"Yes, Chloe?" Pinsky smiled, revealing coffee-stained teeth.

Eleanora lowered her arm. Her knuckles brushed the edge of her desk.

A crumpled ball of lined notebook paper flew from the left side of the room. It hit Eleanora's desk with a soft thud, rolling to a stop against her knuckles.

She didn't flinch. She didn't open it. She just stared at the jagged edges of the paper.

The shrill scream of the dismissal bell pierced the air.

Eleanora grabbed her frayed black canvas bag. She shoved her worn notebook inside, the metal spiral scraping against the fabric.

She pushed her chair back. The metal legs screeched against the linoleum floor.

She walked toward the back door.

Out in the hallway, the crowd of students parted. They stepped back, pressing their shoulders against the lockers as if she carried a contagious disease.

A group of boys leaning against a water fountain let out a sharp, mocking whistle.

Eleanora kept her face completely blank. She reached into the pocket of her oversized black hoodie. Her fingers found the familiar plastic wrapper of a strawberry lollipop.

She unwrapped it with one hand and popped it into her mouth. The artificial sweetness hit her tongue, a small, grounding sensation in the middle of the noise.

She pushed open the heavy, carved oak doors of the school.

The autumn air outside was sharp and cold. It bit into the exposed skin of her neck.

Inside her pocket, her cheap prepaid phone began to vibrate. It buzzed violently against her thigh.

She pulled it out. The cracked screen glowed with a caller ID: New York City Police Department.

Eleanora swiped the screen to answer. She lifted the phone to her ear. Her boots stopped moving on the concrete steps.

"Hello?" she said.

The officer on the other end spoke quickly. The words "Philip Sanders," "severe car crash," and "suburbs" pushed through the speaker.

Eleanora's jaw went slack.

The strawberry lollipop slipped from her mouth. It hit the concrete stairs and shattered into sticky red shards.

Her stomach dropped, a violent plunge that left her breathless. Her fingers clamped down on the plastic phone case so hard the edges dug into her palm.

She didn't hang