Twice.

Voice memos.

Record.

I did not know if it had worked.

I could not check.

I could only lie there, still and silent and apparently dead, and hope that the small device on my wrist was doing what I could no longer do for myself: bearing witness.

And a moment later, believing me dead, my husband spoke the words that would, in time, put him in prison for the rest of his life.

“She’s gone,” Julian said, his voice hollow with a satisfaction that chilled me even through my fading consciousness.